![]() The player can choose to play as Leo Craig or Emma Cole, a young boy and girl respectively, who each come with a choice of four skin tones and hair colors. The plot centers around Balan, a mysterious but charming showman who runs a magical theater. You can check out its official website here. An official novel titled Balan Wonderworld: Maestro of Mystery, Theatre of Wonders was also released alongside the main game, containing the game's whole story. ![]() The game was released on March 26, 2021, and a free demo was released on January 28 of the same year. The game is intended as a Creator-Driven Successor to Naka's earlier work, NiGHTS into Dreams…. I can see how that idea might be whimsical in theory, but in practice, it’s break-the-controller frustrating.- Balan introducing himself to Leo and Emmaīalan Wonderworld is a 3D platformer game directed by Yuji Naka, developed by Balan Company and Arzest, and published by Square Enix. Players have no control of when the fox turns into a box, and if you happen to be moving when the transformation happens, that box will slide right off a cliff. One of the early getups you unlock is Box Fox, which is a fox that will turn into a box. You can’t just grind a rail, you have to dress up like a train.Īnd I cannot stress enough how dumb some of these costumes are. Like, you can’t just carry a torch, you have to become a torch. Others exist simply to act as a standard element of gameplay most other titles wouldn’t require a special power-up for. Some of them just repeat the abilities of costumes you collected earlier with a minor twist. What is a real shame about Balan Wonderworld is there is a wide breadth of costumes available, 80 in fact, but their depth is shallower than a shot glass. ![]() This really isn’t an issue early on, but it quickly becomes one as stages start to implement more concepts that are centered around these costumes’ abilities. Some costumes will let Emma or Leo jump, some won’t, so it’s important to have a good mix in the three you can carry at once. Like the original Sonic the Hedgehog, Balan Wonderworld has just one action button and it changes what your character does depending on the costume they’re wearing. Each world will have a handful of costumes to collect, with three or four usually obtained organically and a few others you really have to search for. Similar to nearly every mascot platformer of the past, Balan Wonderworld has a gimmick it’s built around. These boss fights absolutely drip with confidence from the developers, but they also put a spotlight on one of the biggest issues plaguing Balan Wonderworld: its atrocious and unacceptable costume system. ![]() But if you want to master this game, you’re going to have to study them out. If you want to rush these battles, you can do that just fine. Boss battles grant three Balan statues upon completion, but only if you figure out the three different ways you can attack them. That sounds like gatekeeping, but it was mostly a non-issue for me.Įasily the best part of the whole package, the boss battles of Balan Wonderworld ask players to take a step back and see the different ways in which they can be defeated. ![]() Collecting those statues is the real goal for every level as you need to have a certain number of them in your possession to unlock more stages. And each level has several golden Balan statues to collect, with some that hide in plain sight with no clear indication on how to reach them. We’re talking about very tightly packaged, linear stages with small, off-the-beaten-path areas to explore. It’s the type of level design where a risky jump into the unknown can send you to your death or reward you with a new power-up you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to get. I think most people’s enjoyment of this game is going to depend on their appreciation for the level design concepts of early 3D platformers. For each of them, Emma or Leo will venture through two levels that are kind of themed around their personalities before heading into a boss battle the anthropomorphizes the struggle they’re having. There are a dozen people in total to help and their issues range from dealing with a dead cat to feeling invisible to one very bad dolphin. They thrust the two of them into an adventure where they’ll help other people with their problems. The game tells the story of two loners, Emma and Leo, who are pulled into a mysterious theater by the even more mysterious Balan. ![]()
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