Balan Wonderworld (Yuji Naka + Square Enix)

[Milo]

I mentioned this over at another forum, but the thing with the one-button philosophy in regards to the MD Sonics is that at least with those games (or at least S1 and S2), they were being made for a controller that --at the time-- only had a D-Pad and three face buttons, so you had some leeway for taking that design philosophy. Sonic 1 (and the rest of the Mega Drive Sonics) also deserve credit for having controls and mechanics that were fleshed out enough to have some underlying depth within the base gameplay for players to work with; despite the one-button philosophy (and being a 2D game).

Balan Wonderworld however feels like a literal-to-a-fault interpretation of the "less is more" design philosophy, where the director and designers went out of their way to make the core gameplay as simple as possible but without any quirks or characteristics to truly allow people to experiment and play around with what they have. Which looks especially bad when you're designing a 3D game like this with today's controllers; where with the industry standard of having four face buttons, four shoulder buttons, a D-Pad, and two control sticks; you've got plenty of buttons to work with for your control scheme.

I'm very much in agreement with @Blue Blood in how he summarizes the gameplay as heavily directed; controlling to the point of refusing players to do anything beyond the most obvious and most direct tasks. It's the high-tech equivalent of putting colored pegs in the correct holes. It's like if you took the first Sonic game's gameplay, but then split everything up piecemeal, and then segregated things even further by deciding you can't use abilities at the same time or use them for other purposes. Imagine if Sonic could only jump/roll to hit enemies and nothing else, and all of the other perks that came with those mechanics (building speed/playing with momentum, bouncing on/chaining enemies, destroying walls, etc.) were each split up into different shields. (And then imagine doing that again, but for the sequels and everything they brought to the table!)

[Soniman]

https://nintendoeverything.com/balan-wonderworld-producer-responds-to-demo-feedback-day-one-update-announced/

Good news, the overwhelmingly negative response to the he demo has caused them to issue a day one patch to fix a log of control and other issues with the game

Bad news: it's probably not gonna save it but the thought is nice!

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

While it is nice that they're fixing things like the god awful camera, anything short of a complete overhaul is not going to save this game from the thrashing it's in for.

[KoDaiko]

I check back on this game every now and then out of curiosity, but I am amused how many people are obsessed on publicly shitting on the game. Like...my impression of it was disappointing too but I just said "ok it's bad, bye" and moved on, with some occassional comment when appropriate.

I don't think it's harassment-level but there are people bombarding every official tweet (and occassionally tweet from fans) with negative comments to the point it feels pathetic. 

[Azure Blue Tori]

On 2/2/2021 at 3:48 PM, Blue Blood said:

Right? Although you can fathom it was Naka. Dude was obsessed with giving Sonic as few buttons as possible, which is why none of the Classic games used an action button and why all actions other than jumping were mapped to a single button in SA1 to '06. The whole lightdash VS bounce attack or rail switching potluck was down to him insisting upon a one- or two-button control scheme. It wasn't until Unleashed, the first 3D Sonic game that Naka was not a part of, that we finally got separate buttons for all of Sonic's actions.

Kind of a cheap shot to compare anything to Metroid: Other M, but this reminds me of how Sakamoto insisted on a Wiimote only control scheme just because that's the way the old Metroid games used to play, ignoring all the advancements and increased complexity in action games that have happened since then. It seems like we constantly hear about some deified director (not just in video games) try something without their original team, only for their stuff to flop because there were less people to shoot down their bad ideas (makes me wonder when we'll finally acknowledge as a society that these big media projects are a team effort and not solely the work of some lone genius auteur).

As for Balan Wonderworld itself, the demo gives me little reason why I should be playing this instead of the myriad other 3D collect-a-thon platformers out there. I've played cheap indie games more engaging than this.

[Soniman]

On 3/15/2021 at 11:40 AM, KoDaiko said:

I check back on this game every now and then out of curiosity, but I am amused how many people are obsessed on publicly shitting on the game. Like...my impression of it was disappointing too but I just said "ok it's bad, bye" and moved on, with some occassional comment when appropriate.

I don't think it's harassment-level but there are people bombarding every official tweet (and occassionally tweet from fans) with negative comments to the point it feels pathetic. 

Because places like Twitter is just like that, negativity is what gets attention and "clout". I don't get it either 

[Salamander]

So it seems the game launches today, apparently with a flashing light effect during the final boss which can trigger epileptic seizures and may be harmful even to those without epilepsy.  This seems sufficiently significant that I thought I had better flag it up.

Epileptic PSA: Balan Wonderworld

[Johnster4]

I was going to wait until the reviews came out but it might be best to post this now, which basically describes Yuji Naka right now: 

 

[Soniman]

2 hours ago, Salamander said:

So it seems the game launches today, apparently with a flashing light effect during the final boss which can trigger epileptic seizures and may be harmful even to those without epilepsy.  This seems sufficiently significant that I thought I had better flag it up.

Epileptic PSA: Balan Wonderworld

Apparently with the day 1 patch it's not there which is good but I'm still surprised it even got past play testing 

[Salamander]

8 minutes ago, Soniman said:

Apparently with the day 1 patch it's not there which is good but I'm still surprised it even got past play testing 

An odd business, but at least it will be fixed.

 

[mayday2592]

So not only will you have wasted 60 bucks on this game, but you can possibly have a seizure if you don't update. This is the game that keeps on giving.

[Ellipsis-Ultima]

4 hours ago, Salamander said:

So it seems the game launches today, apparently with a flashing light effect during the final boss which can trigger epileptic seizures and may be harmful even to those without epilepsy.  This seems sufficiently significant that I thought I had better flag it up.

Epileptic PSA: Balan Wonderworld

Yeah even watching the video put in there it's literally sensitive af. This part should not have existed to begin with even if it's gonna be fixed with a patch.

[PC the Hedgehog]

Today is release day, and yet there are no reviews out.

Definitely not a good sign.

[Perkilator]

8 hours ago, Salamander said:

So it seems the game launches today, apparently with a flashing light effect during the final boss which can trigger epileptic seizures and may be harmful even to those without epilepsy.  This seems sufficiently significant that I thought I had better flag it up.

Epileptic PSA: Balan Wonderworld

Wow, now we need a Wha Happun on this game. This is basically the last nail in the coffin for this game.

[Mauro Fonseca]

The epilectic effect is in every possible indication a glitch. Everyone's latched to one gameplay video that shows it, and ignores the multiple other gameplay videos that show the same attack without the strobing effect happening.

 

Be careful to not just willingly fall for anything negative said about the game in order to indulge in "haha fun to complain about this game". The game's got enough actual issues on its own.

[KHCast]

6 hours ago, PC the Hedgehog said:

Today is release day, and yet there are no reviews out.

Definitely not a good sign.

Yeah IGN aren’t able to put out a review for a couple more days iirc? I think most of us already know where this is heading but still.

[Kuzu]

1 hour ago, KHCast said:

Yeah IGN aren’t able to put out a review for a couple more days iirc? I think most of us already know where this is heading but still.

Nobody has gotten their review copies at all, which means Square refused to send them out. And that should tell you everything.

They know the game is fucking shit and are just delaying the inevitable. 

[Natie]

This is sad. Evidence suggests Naka's only initial inspiration was "Let’s make a platformer" which can't really lead to much on it's own. Just slapping gameplay philosophies from previous stuff onto any ol game isn't a good idea either. It's not like Sonic where its all based around simply running and jumping and rolling through the world, its a slow paced methodical mario-type with puzzles based around a wide variety of function powerups. You just cannot do one-button for that and the absurd ways they try to make other functions happen make it painfully obvious. I wanna blame Square but it seems like Naka's just gotten confused. What was brilliant in Sonic and Nights is now being used out of context where it doesnt belong.

At least we can safely say Oshima's art direction hasnt lost its touch.

[Azure Blue Tori]

Seems pointless to delay official reviews in a time where gameplay videos go up on YouTube immediately and social media has already been abuzz regarding the ending.

[Scritch the Cat]

3 hours ago, Natie said:

At least we can safely say Oshima's art direction hasnt lost its touch.

We can, but honestly, there's so much flair in this game that seems to be just for flair's sake that in my opinion it borders on being obnoxious.  Balan himself seems like some weird combination between The Cat in the Hat and the Genie from Disney's Aladdin, and many would call those good acts to follow, but the lack of jokes really kills it for me.  And then there's the apparent "serious" side of this game that deals with depression.  I won't weigh in on that without knowing more, but I can say that none of what was portrayed in the demo made me feel as though it will handle that with the tact it warrants.

[JezMM]

With still nary a professional review in sight, dummy accounts that have never reviewed any other game are giving Balan 10/10 reviews on Metacritic in a flagrant attempt from Square (I'd hope not the devs themselves) to get any more sales they can in this rapidly-decreasing window of time:

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/balan-wonderworld/user-reviews

This is just getting sad now.

[KHCast]

Man, is this gonna be the new Square Enix flop up there with The Quiet Man? The way Square are going about trying to keep reviews from coming out, and doing stuff like this, makes it seem...well, pretty desperate to get last minute sales as you said 

[Blue Blood]

Hot damn. I saw those dummy reviews on Metacritic last night. I thought it was suspect that so many glowing user reviews came out all at once, but I put it down to a small subset of fans going into defense mode. I didn't consider that it might be a thinly veiled attempt by SE to make the game look better. Would they actually do that?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

3 hours ago, JezMM said:

With still nary a professional review in sight, dummy accounts that have never reviewed any other game are giving Balan 10/10 reviews on Metacritic in a fragrant attempt from Square (I'd hope not the devs themselves) to get any more sales they can in this rapidly-decreasing window of time:

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/balan-wonderworld/user-reviews

This is just getting sad now.

Definitely would not put it past Square to do something this underhanded, but has it been confirmed it was them yet?

[Soniman]

I'm actually very interested how bad sales will be at the end of the day.

I wouldn't even buy this for $30 and they're selling it at double that so this will be pretty funny to see