Balan Wonderworld Reviews
All the charm in the universe couldn't save Balan Wonderworld's half-baked platforming and ill-advised one-button design from being a complete bore.
Surreal, enigmatic and often sloppily executed, Balan Wonderworld is a 90s throwback that might be too period correct for some.
A slightly embarrassing attempt to recall the early days of 3D platforming, with a central gimmick that never really captures the imagination and clunky controls and gameplay.
Balan Wonderworld is an occasionally inspired, often unimaginative platformer lost to time.
Like I said at the top of this review, your enjoyment of Balan Wonderworld is going to depend on your tolerance for primitive 3D level design. Strip away the unnecessary costumes and their poorly implemented management system - and fire those Balan's Bouts into the sun - and you might have a nice throwback to a more experimental time of platform gaming, one that would be easier to recommend. But sadly, you can't just strip those elements away. They're here, and they're ruining what is otherwise an enjoyable rewind to the golden era of the mascot platformer.
Mixed feelings: graphics and sound offer a surreal and engaging experience, but gameplay wise, several camera hiccups and uneven level design may become frustrating. Balan is able to appeal your inner child... If that child is a patient one.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Balan Wonderworld is a passable platformer marred by a string of increasingly baffling design decisions. It has charm by the bucketload and off-the-wall concepts that land well in spite of themselves, but the experience is inconsistent at best and frustrating at worst. There is a good game in here somewhere, and it is great fun at points, but waiting for those points isn't really worth it.
The finished state of Balan Wonderworld is disappointing to say the least. For all of its style, I was really interested to see how they would expand upon the preview. The aesthetic and characters are there, the music is captivating, the level design made me want to explore and experiment where I could, and the abilities mostly gave me options to do so. However, these things are held down by a lot of contrivances and outright holes in either functionality or context. The final release of Balan Wonderworld felt like a rush job where good ideas, visuals, and sounds were forced to dance among either unfinished or unfun nonsense.
Balan Wonderworld is a dull game and a boring experience in a lackluster world.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Exploring Balan Wonderworld's levels can be fun, but ultimately its single button gameplay and technical issues hold it back.
If only Naka, staying true to form, had given the whole thing a dose of high speed; his work only holds together when it hurtles past our eyes, growing vivid with velocity.
The kindest thing I can say about the game is that it does make for an entertaining livestream. I broadcasted my play on Twitch, and my audience seemed to really enjoy watching me suffer. So I guess this is a great one for all those fans of masochism out there.
The music is as diverse, and I often found myself just sitting back, taking it all in, because the second I picked up the controller, the magic clashed with how stiff the character was. That toppled with awkward controls that often stutter or outright don't work, and Wonderworld fails in the most important part of any platformer - movement.
Painfully average in most respects, Balan Wonderworld won't draw much admiration for its contents. Still, it's a competent game that does have its charms, few as they may be.
Balan Wonderworld features a range of interesting ideas that are plagued by dated mechanics. Even after losing yourself in the absurd universe, you are quickly brought back to reality due to the rigid movement and odd control scheme that oppose expectations of the genre. Although the game has a lot of charm, it does little to stand out amongst the crowd and due to this, it can be rightfully overlooked.
Sometimes, Balan Wonderworld evokes a bygone era of platformers very well, but this is all too fleeting a feeling. All the creativity seems to have gone into the characters and music while the actual act of platforming leaves a lot to be desired. It's far from the worst modern platformer, but given the names involved, it's a thoroughly underwhelming one.
Balan Wonderworld stands out as easily one of the worst 3D platformers in the past decade. There was no good reason for Square Enix and Yuji Naka to salvage this train wreck and it's an embarrassment that this game was allowed to be released at all in its current state. When the game's only redeeming qualities are some good music and neat DualSense features, something clearly went wrong here. There is no doubt that Balan Wonderworld should've remained locked up in the game design vault it was conceived in twenty years ago.
All in all Balan Wonderworld is an archaic action-platformer with tons of shortcomings in terms of level desing and overall presentation. If you love the genre, you would probably be repulsed by this game, instead of welcoming it with open arms.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Balan Wonderworld is a game that I tried hard to love. It is not the pariah that the internet makes it out to be though. I think the game is charming and flawed. It has tons of issues, but I still finished it. I had some good times sprinkled in with the frustrations. It took me to a simpler time in platform games and there is truly nothing else out there with the same kind of presentation and whimsical ideas it delivers. That said $60 is a hard ask for a game that seems to want to frustrate players at every turn. I wanted to love Balan Wonderworld, but it did everything in its power to test my love every chance it got.