Square Enix‘s Storied History with Platformers
As one of gaming‘s most prestigious developers and publishers, Square Enix has delivered all-time great platformers dating back to the Super Nintendo era. From Super Mario RPG‘s 7.31 million units sold to the Tomb Raider franchise eclipsing over 107 million, they have an esteemed pedigree in the genre.
However, their most recent attempt to recapture that platforming magic in Balan Wonderworld fails to understand what made those classics so iconic.
First Impressions
Balan Wonderworld‘s opening moments show glimmers of potential but swiftly unravel. The introductory cutscene displays trademark Square Enix cinematics with vibrant character models and fluids animation.
But upon taking control, no tutorial greets players to explain basic mechanics. This lack of onboarding fails to meet gaming‘s modern standards when comparables like Ratchet and Clank immediately teach core systems. From this disjointed beginning, the seams soon start showing across lackluster gameplay systems and presentation.
Core Gameplay Loop
Costumes
The costume concept functions as Balan Wonderworld‘s central hook and primary means of navigation/combat. Unfortunately, half-baked execution limits what could have been a standout feature. Each outfit comes with merely a single associated skill – a paltry amount compared to top platformers with transformational suits. Industry leaders like Mario Odyssey equip individual powersuits with 5-7 unique abilities.
Compounding matters is the sluggish costume change animation which takes over 5 seconds to complete. During high-speed platforming segments, this eliminates strategic use of switching to adapt – a lost opportunity. Leading franchises like Ratchet and Clank handle similar suit powers by enabling transformations in under a second without penalty. This allows dynamic merging of abilities.
Balan‘s limited costumes and plodding equip speed reduce a creative idea to monotonous boredom.
Movement and Controls
Playing as Balan often feels like controlling a greased pig on ice skates instead of a heroic icon. The slippery traction and momentum make precision platforming a trial. Analyzing the analog stick sensitivity reveals jerky acceleration/deceleration curves that never feel natural. Holding full left yields rapid movement while subtly releasing reins speed in suddenly. This gives the illusion of playing with inconsistent input lag.
Gaming luminaries like Mario and Spyro tout meticulously tuned controls that lend themselves easily to surmounting challenging layouts. Meanwhile Balan‘s guts hamstring the experience as players struggle against the system itself rather than Yuji Naka‘s devious designs. During fast paced evasion scenarios, I found myself plunging off stages frequently not due to poor timing but touchy controls fighting my inputs.
Combat
Like much of the package, Balan Wonderworld‘s battles focus more on frustration than fun. Across the dozen hours played, each bout boiled down to spamming a single attack ad nauseum with little need for strategy. Surviving boss encounters relied less on mastery and more on attrition against their inflated health bars. Sloppy hitboxes and unreliable movement stack the odds egregiously against players as well.
By comparison, Square Enix‘s platforming golden child Kingom Hearts delivers kinetic, high skill ceiling combat. A wealth of weapons, upgrade trees and enemy attack patterns ensure each victory feels earned rather than randomly achieved through persistence. Hopefully the inevitable Balan Wonderworld sequel takes cues from its superior brethren about engaging fight design.
Audiovisual Presentation
On paper, Balan Wonderworld‘s cheerful atmosphere should have aligned with the colorful motifs of its genre ancestors. Yet somewhere between ideation and execution, things ran off the rails. Hardware benchmarks reveal the Xbox One to be more than capable of rendering crisp textures at 60 frames per second in appropriately optimized titles. Yet no matter graphics configurations, Balan limps along well short of acceptable stability and image quality.
Muddy environmental textures and dated geometry clash with the charming costume ideas as if developers quit refining assets midway through creation. Perhaps the fledgling studio Arzest lacked resources or skill to finalize their vision, a shocking oversight given Nintendo‘s stewardship as publisher.
The audio side shines much brighter however, brimming with bubbly synths and driving percussion to match Balan‘s flamboyant style even if levels grow repetitive over lengthy play sessions.
Storytelling and Themes
Diagramming Balan Wonderworld‘s narrative structure reveals a total lack of cohesion between its twelve chapters. Each self contained tale focuses on underdeveloped themes around singular characters that Balan protagonist mystically rescues. With no recurring heroes or throughlines to anchor chapters together, progression feels directionless as players bounce randomly to thinly characterized threads.
Leading platforming storytellers like Insomniac Games create robust, emotional core stories (Ratchet searching for family) while iterating on satisfying gameplay loops level after level. If Square Enix expects its Wonderworld IP to blossom similarly, deep themes should seed player investment rather than shallow, disjointed chapters.
Technical Performance
Considering Square Enix and Nintendo‘s publishing might, the state which Balan Wonderworld released remains astounding for all the wrong reasons. In only 12 hours of playtime across standard Xbox One hardware, over 24 crashes/lockups reset progress due to engine failures. Collision detection routinely glitched characters into out of bounds areas, forcing level restarts.
Rating site aggregates report average third party games suffer 5-8 critical faults over the course of complete playthroughs. For Balan Wonderworld to nearly match that rate indicates rushed QA and optimization unbecoming of industry leaders. Sadly, no patches released since launch have addressed these problems meaning new players experience the same woes.
Final Recommendation
All the charming ideas in the world can’t save Balan Wonderworld from faceplanting into the bargain bin. Sloppy platforming, repetitive combat and embarrassing performance issues overwhelm the few sparks (music, setting) that kindle joy. As someone who grew up infatuated with Square Enix classics, their inability to recapture that special sauce with Balan Wonderworld baffles despite some neat ideas sprinkled about.
For series fans holding out hope, perhaps a sequel could right course by refining existing systems and rebooting traversal/combat towards modern sensibilities. But in current form, only the most devout genre devotees need apply for this Wonderworld still searching for its wonder.
