Lionel Richie
Member
It's amazing.
There was one that sadly got deleted that was "Balan has a huge dick, 10/10"
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There was one that sadly got deleted that was "Balan has a huge dick, 10/10"
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Looks like a 1995 platformer for 8 year olds.
Komatsu
Member
Um, what games were you playing in 1995? I certainly must have missed some technical marvels, busy as I was with Donkey Kong Country 2 and Comix Zone.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
PS1 3D platformers which started coming out soon after. Balan looks like a one except modernized with modern graphics.
SlimeGooGoo
Banned
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TheDrunkenMerchant
Member
$60? Un-fucking-believable. Should've been $30 AT MOST. If you all want a platformer like this game that has similar level design, buy Super Lucky's Tail. That's what they should have inspired to be.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
I don't get why people are complaining of the price, the devs and pub gotta eat. It's like the people complaining about Returnal's price; gamers are always complaining about wanting more original titles or throwbacks harkening to the golden era(s), but they don't want to put their money where their mouth is, then complain why we keep getting the same reskinned COD and sports games over and over. Why should more devs want to make those games if gamers don't want to support them over superficial reasons like "not $100 million production values" and "too short/not 50 hours of play time"?
If I had a PS5 or Series, I would probably pick this up because a couple of streamers I like to watch seem to actually quite enjoy the game. Yeah, it's not gonna win any GOTY awards and it's not revolutionizing a damn thing, but games don't need to do those things to be fun or worthy playing/buying. There seems to be a trend with a lot of people in spots just hating on the game because that's popular to do, but I doubt even 10% of them have played it, or even the demo. And if they did play the demo, well lots of otherwise good games have had bad demos in the past, that isn't a good enough metric to judge the game itself by.
I hope the game finds a healthy audience/community and can get approval for a sequel or at least expansion content; from what I've seen there's enough charm to make it endearing in a way only Japanese games seem able to pull off without being tryhard about it.
If I had a PS5 or Series, I would probably pick this up because a couple of streamers I like to watch seem to actually quite enjoy the game. Yeah, it's not gonna win any GOTY awards and it's not revolutionizing a damn thing, but games don't need to do those things to be fun or worthy playing/buying. There seems to be a trend with a lot of people in spots just hating on the game because that's popular to do, but I doubt even 10% of them have played it, or even the demo. And if they did play the demo, well lots of otherwise good games have had bad demos in the past, that isn't a good enough metric to judge the game itself by.
I hope the game finds a healthy audience/community and can get approval for a sequel or at least expansion content; from what I've seen there's enough charm to make it endearing in a way only Japanese games seem able to pull off without being tryhard about it.
S
SpongebobSquaredance
Unconfirmed Member
I see that as a compliment.
IbizaPocholo
NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
IbizaPocholo
NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
Sakura
Member
Sure devs gotta eat. But if the price is too high for the perceived value of the product, then people won't buy it.
An argument can be made that they would make more money over all from the increase in sales they'd get if the game was cheaper.
ranmafan
Member
Being the type of gamer that likes bad games / kuso games, I was really torn on buying this or not. The demo was so hard to get through and I just didn't think this would be the right game to try. But I said ah screw it, I gotta see how bad it really is. Having played it for the last few days, it really is perhaps one of the strangest games I've ever played when it comes to simple game design. The level design, the annoying costume gimmick, the show not tell story line that makes absolutely no sense, and I still don't even get the whole tower o' tims aspect. I should've given up days ago yet I'm so intrigued to see where this game goes by its end. I really would love to see someone find out what the story is behind this game's development. It really feels like every area of the game is flawed or a failure. And I really can't believe it released like this. Its so mediocre and weird, and yet I find myself fascinated by it all.
Elder Legend
Banned
Thanks to Square Enix for the review opportunity.
www.gaminginstincts.com
3.5/10
Balan Wonderworld - Final Verdict | Gaming Instincts
Balan Wonderworld is a tragic case, a reminder of why talent and experience aren't always enough to keep a project on the rails.
www.gaminginstincts.com
3.5/10
RoboEight
Member
I just finished it today and have put quite a few hours into it and I can kind of agree with this summary. There is a lot of weird design decisions and I would say the one main flaw about the game is that everything you want to do in the game has some needlessly complicated wall in front of you when the game play itself should flow nicely. I don't really have any issues with the costumes but again the problem is after you collect them you can't just switch to them and each costume has a limited number of uses before you need to do back to the respective stages to collect more and it's like why and on top of that if you get hit you lose the costume so I found many times when I wanted to experiment with something or a costume I find myself saying forget it because if I lose it I gotta go get more and couldn't be bothered. I feel like there could have been a much better game here and I think they should have gone with less costumes (almost 80 in total) but designed a stronger core platformer around a select few costumes. A lot of the costumes are useless and 30% of them can't even jump and I found myself especially in chapter 11 being stuck because I literally couldn't jump up on a ledge because I didn't have a costume that could jump forcing me to backtrack to a save point to grab another costume that can and it's very annoying, again another design choice that is baffling and adds nothing to the game other than frustration.
The story makes no sense, I do however like how the little cutscenes are done but it's weird how you enter a new world with no story until the end which makes you wonder why am I doing all this stuff for this character I'm trying to fix the world for. That all being said I still did enjoy it for what it was, visually the game looks nice and there are some nice set pieces and the OST is really nice. I do want to 100% the game so I'm still working on the collectibles. So far I would give the game a 7/10 overall despite it's flaws I still had a decent time with it, I certainly don't regret buying it or playing it.
The Tower O' Tims thing is just a mini game that eventually will lead to unlocking the Balan costume. Basically you need to collect raindrops to feed the mother tim statue sitting in the area which when fully upgraded will ask for a king tim (little white tim with a crown),throwing the king tim at the statue that will unlock King Tim and he will fly you up to an island in the sky to get the Balan costume. The Balan costume let's you fly anywhere and have infinite jumps which makes getting the collectibles a breeze. To get a king tim you gotta feed tims until they have three badges on them and breed a large 3 badge tim with a small 3 badge tim to hopefully breed a white tim with crown but it's RNG however fully upgrading the tower o' tims will greatly increase your chance of getting a king tim. Upgrading the tower of tims is basically just getting more tims and feeding them and in turn they will ride the tower ride which will increase the counter. It auto goes up but much faster if you feed them and if you neglect to feed the tims they eventually leave and your number goes down so just throw out some yellow drops every now and then to keep them happy.
thicc_girls_are_teh_best
Member
True; Square-Enix'll have to decide on something quick because it doesn't sound like sales are good at all. These sort of games tend to do best on Nintendo systems but the Switch version is also the worst out of all of them apparently.
I can definitely see Microsoft getting some deal for this in GamePass and Sony some way of offering it to PS+ members; at this point they'll want to simply increase the player pool and IP brand exposure in order to make sure there's enough of an audience for a potential sequel. At least if it gets on GamePass they'll prob get paid a decent amount for it (I don't know how Sony handles 3P titles in PS+).
ÆMNE22A!C
NO PAIN TRANCE CONTINUE
If you feel the same about movies I recommend watching some of RedLetterMedia'a stuff on YouTube.
ranmafan
Member
Huge fan of them! Wish someone would do a video in their style talking about this game.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Making Games on Coke: The Game
Animagic
Banned
Yeah it’s ugly and repulsive art design but have you seen the games on the Amico? They set a new low bar
also it’s time for everyone to come to terms with the fact that Yuji Naka makes shit games.
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Captain Toad
Banned
Why?My copy arrived. I am glad
RoboEight
Member
Finally managed to get the King Tim and unlock the Balan costume which is crazy overpowered. Basically with the Balan costume you can float and infinite jump making traversing the environment to grab all the collectibles a breeze. The bonus third acts you unlock after you beat the game are pretty cool and much more open world like with each one having a new set of Balan statues to collect, hopefully I'll have this 100% soon.
cireza
Member
This looks actually pretty fun. I wonder how much they included these features in the level-design (secret areas etc...) and how much you can "break" the game with such a costume.Finally managed to get the King Tim and unlock the Balan costume which is crazy overpowered. Basically with the Balan costume you can float and infinite jump making traversing the environment to grab all the collectibles a breeze. The bonus third acts you unlock after you beat the game are pretty cool and much more open world like with each one having a new set of Balan statues to collect, hopefully I'll have this 100% soon.
Team Andromeda
Member
Because of old SEGA love and also because the game isn't half bad?
RoboEight
Member
The Balan costume is super OP and does break the game for sure. It's pretty cool being able to check out all areas of each map and while there isn't too many secrets to find they did put some eggs hidden out of view so you do come across them from time to time and pretty quickly. Thing is you can get the Balan costume pretty early on (although rainbow drops will take a bit of time) and with it you can basically beat any level in less than 30 seconds lol. It's great for post game if you wanna clean up statues and 100% the game, the third act that unlocks after you beat the game requires you to use a lot of costumes to solve puzzles to collect the rainbow Balan statues and is quite tricky but if you have the Balan costume you just basically skip everything.
MudoSkills
Volcano High Alumnus (Cum Laude)
After the Dunkey video I actually really want to play this. It looks so damn weird and half baked, I'm kind of amazed this got released.
nikolino840
Member
Square have removed the demo from pc and consoles..
nikolino840
Member
SlimeGooGoo
Banned
.
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