Balan Wonderworld Review - DO NOT BUY!

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] don't play balance wonder world [Applause] [Music] 7.99 seizures i wasted my time with this game so you should not do the same [Music] one [Music] [Music] when bowen wonder world was initially revealed to the world in july of 2020 i was ecstatic to see what this amazing world had in store for us and then have former head of sauna team yuji naka at the helm with the original character designer of the hedgehog notoshima at the character designer and co-creator of this game there was no reason for me not to be excited then the demo came out and all that excitement turned into severe chronic pain if you guys seen my video called police delay ballon wonder world which spoiler they didn't but if you guys seen that video you would know what my problems are with the demo in short the player speed was horrendous the animations looked stiff and lifeless across all the upgrades the switch port looked absolutely disgusting everything being mapped to one button seemed like an unnecessary and idiotic decision and the entire game was boring but that was just the demo so what are my thoughts on the final game to the surprise of absolutely no one most of the problems that people had with battle wonder world's demo are still present in the full game now that's not to say that no changes were made they did have a day one patch that increased the player speed very slightly since that seemed to be the main complaint most people had from the demo including yours truly in fact here's a little comparison i made showing the difference in player speed between the demo and the full game and as you can see it really isn't that much of a change but i think it's still better than nothing in fact during the demo i mentioned that your player moved so slow that no matter how long you've played the game you will constantly be reminded of just how slow you're going well i'm happy to say that it didn't quite feel that anymore in the full game don't get me wrong i still think the movement speed is still pretty damn slow compared to other 3d platformers but at least i was able to get used to it this time again not that much of a change but a slight improvement overall but improvement or not i would be lying if i didn't tell you that this game was an absolute chore to finish for this review in fact the only reason i finished this game is specifically because i'm reviewing it there was not the slightest bit of me that wanted to beat it out of curiosity investment or just to have a relaxing time i be all 10 plus hours of this game purely out of obligation nothing more i worked this hard to get to this point for this review so let's start with the plot you play as one of two children they become sad for one reason or another they get kidnapped by ballon and thrown into this random world with furbys they go through 12 worlds that each have a random character dealing with some sort of sadness these random characters become an evil boss you defeat the evil boss at the end of each world the person becomes a good again you dance you do this 12 times and then you go home oh i'm sorry you think i'm joking no for anyone who is only playing the game that's pretty much all the plot you're going to get you want to know the actual story well you're going to need to buy the separate bound wonder world book to really know what's going on here for like the one person who cares this much to know the story takes place in the magical bound theater being run by ballon himself the bounty theater appears when someone's heart loses its balance in the story it applies emma cole or lil craig yes that is their real names no this is not auto-generated as far as that is to believe leo's story centers around him socially isolating himself as a result of an argument he had with a friend a few years ago and emma's story is about anxiety and worrying about what other people are saying behind her back they are both brought to the bound theatre where they go through 12 worlds that were created from the hearts of troubled people along the way you have to deal with lance essentially bounds complete opposite who has control of these dark monsters called nagadi leo and emma go through 12 worlds ferrying people who are dealing with their troubles you fight lance and then everyone is taken back to their worlds before leo and emma leave they hug bound because i guess they somehow grew a connection for him which makes balance shed a tear balance has to show them his true fall oh my god what is that that's terrifying put the hat back on jesus christ balance sends them back to their world where the characters are now more confident and mentally stronger leo's over his social isolation while emma learns that the secret people were hiding was for a birthday party thrown for her that her servants were keeping secret did did she not know it was her birthday anyways that's essentially the story of bound wonderworld and i'm left wondering why the hell they couldn't just make the story any clearer in the game itself it's not even that complex and that's not to say that the story is bad it's harmless for the most part the problem is it's not in the game itself though i have heard the way they tell the story in the book isn't so great either it sounds like it's so convoluted and probably like 99.9 hot air that really sucks to see because i think the idea of a game tackling character sadness and depression is something you don't see done a whole lot in fact i think a lot of kids would benefit from a story centering about getting better mentally it's just too bad this game didn't want to tell the story that was already there because i think the basis surrounding it is heartwarming anyways let's not focus any more on the story since the developers didn't seem to care that much either so how is the gameplay ballon wonder world's gameplay may look like it's as vast as an ocean but that ocean is the depth of a puddle this game has some of the most brain dead level design i've ever seen for a platformer jump here move block here tap on here and you're finally done this game is the definition of a plus b equals c when it comes to gameplay for example to collect a power up you first need to collect a key it sounds like you're going to be doing a good amount of exploration right well wrong almost any time there is a costume power-up capsule there is usually a key sitting right next to it in fact it happens so often i'm left wondering what the point of the key system even was again it's brain dead actually let's talk about the constant power up since that seems to be their main selling point for this game in almost every advertisement for balan wonder world they would mention that there's 80 plus unique power-ups to collect that's right 80 unique power ups you have to think to yourself how could the developers manage such a large task without creating props that are either duplicates and making fleshed out level design to accommodate all power-ups in the game that is fun the answer is they can't and didn't i specifically mentioned in my delay ballon won a world video that there was no way the developers were going to be able to put 80 plus unique power ups in the game without there being overlap or without some sort of power up completely nullifying others was that maybe it's just too casual maybe it's just too casual for like a lot of people behold well floating this is the same as the freaking sheep that i just replaced what's the difference and i can spam it probably what's the difference it's the same thing you're like i said it they're gonna have overlap yeah that's why that's why i said this game this game would probably do a lot better if it was like an ipad game so tell me why yeah all right where's the difference what's the difference if you already saw that coming with with the cat with the cat costume what's the difference the other one was just slightly faster deceived said balin with a snort this place is amazed not everything you see should be believe uh should believe sorry uh i'm not stupid snapped leo peevishly because he's an [ __ ] to balance this is just pounding pig remember that pigster that also floats in something it's the same thing the families and couples he had honestly to me it feels like the concept of pushing 80 plus costumes in this game was made before development even started i mean why else do they say this in every advertisement of the game my only assumption is that in their eyes they think that the more power-ups the game has the more appealing it will be to children and honestly i don't think that is something kids even care about and speaking of children was this game made for three-year-olds because like i mentioned when the demo came out every single button on your controller does the same thing and the resilience by the developers to keep it that way is astonishing there is literally power-ups in the game that feel like they require two buttons but since the developers can never let that be a reality they have some of the power-ups do their secondary move automatically no joke for example the chest power-up called the quad cannon it shoots automatically in all directions so the player can still have the ability to jump oh no is this is this it wait what oh my god it shoots by itself no no no even better it only shoots when you're standing still and it shoots in different directions because you can't aim by yourself either oh my god they really wanted to keep the one button thing so cool game there are many examples of the game doing things automatically for you purely to keep the one button gameplay yujinaka square enix literally anyone on the development team why do this to yourself why limit yourself so much like this was it that hard to allow players to have the ability to have at least two buttons it's like they are afraid to do that in fear that it would make it too hard for kids which is literally not true look at what kids are playing now they're literally playing games like fortnite which is a battle royale with so many mechanics to the games kids aren't stupid especially for as something as simple as a platform game you know it's sad when i can beat your entire 3d platform game with just a joystick and one button all you guys accomplished by making your game incredibly simplistic was alienating anyone who has ever played any video game ever congrats guys it must been really hard for you to accomplish that one and you want to know the most frustrating part about this game the game is called balin wonder world but you don't even get to play as balon yeah you know the one character we've seen in all the trailers that essentially drawn us to this game you don't get to play as him you only get these boring qte sections with him but are you kidding me look at what bellen can do i want to be in full control of that naka knows better than anyone that we want another game like knights this would be the perfect opportunity to do that but decided to waste it on a boring qte section which speaking of is repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over again with the same animations there are like three or four different variations of these qte sections in your entire game and some levels have about three or four of these sections in each world are you kidding me i don't want to play this it's boring brainless and a complete pace breaker from the rest of the game and that's saying a hell of a lot when the rest of the game was already a drag to play and don't even get me started with the trophies you collect while playing these qte sections and these random out of place mini games that have no correlation to the level whatsoever to get the trophies in deceptions you need to get a perfect that's right not a single mistake if you do make a mistake you need to wait till the qte is over exit the level re-enter the level from the hub world and replay everything just to get to this point in the level just to get another chance at this section that is [ __ ] right i guess now it would be a good time to bring up these trophies yes ballon one world has collectibles that are essentially the power stars of the game each level has a good amount you can collect you collect past a certain threshold and then you can unlock the next area and while it wasn't too hard to find these trophies there were moments where i didn't have enough to advance and it required me to go back to previous levels to fight trophies that i may have missed the first time and honestly on paper it doesn't sound that bad but any reason to play this game any more than i needed to hurts my soul that's why when i finally beat the game and i unlock the secret third axe of each world i wasn't particularly excited at the idea of having to play this game even more one of the bugs and then they waited all this was the greatest story ever told in ballen wonder world hey sam shut up believe it or not though i think some of the best levels in this game are in the third act that's not to say all of them are good hell no i'm looking at you chapter 9 act 3 but a good amount of them do give the player a good bit of challenge on finding these trophies and requires the player to think a little bit outside of the box it's just a shame it took 10 plus hours of brain dead gameplay to get to this moment and that is assuming you don't already have a costume that completely breaks the game in fact during my playthrough i use the frost fairy for almost all of the trophies why would i go out of my way to use other costumes that make the experience more mundane when i could use this one that pretty much does all i need it to it clears a bunch of gaps that the game throws at you and it moves upwards which allows you to reach places that other costumes can't even reach and it's not like you get this costume at the very end of the game no you get this in the first act of the eighth world making the last four worlds and the third axe you unlock afterwards a complete cakewalk and on the topic of the costumes you can tell they were struggling to hit that 80 costumes number that were in the advertisements because some of these costumes are either incredibly situational or flat out laughable for example the box fox a costume that i quote from the game allows the wearer to transform into an invincible box the costume transforms between fox and box when it feels like it wow what an amazing description and you know what i'm not even gonna hate on it that much because this was the first costume in my arsenal to actually get a first hit on the final boss oh dude we got a new fox box guys come on guys why wouldn't we choose the fox box oh my god wait no and you want to know something that is seriously frustrating regarding the gameplay of the costumes just how long it takes to switch between them the entire point of the game is to grab costumes switch between them and use them to your advantage so then why the hell have a switching animation that completely breaks the pace of the game every time you use it and on the topic of that why in co-op does the second player not have the ability to hold onto costumes and collect them in stages yeah you know the entire point of the game the second player can't even play it as it was intended every time you go into a new world the second player will start with nothing every single time so instead of making a co-op a fun and collaborative mode you made it a handicap because now the first player is essentially carrying dead weight the presentation of the game isn't even anything that great the graphics of the game itself really isn't anything too special it's not the worst i'll be honest but the game itself isn't something to write home about it looks like it's something that would be available on the xbox 360 or the ps3 and that's not even counting the switch version the switch version is absolutely disgusting what the hell are these textures everything on the switch version looks so muddy the frame rate absolutely tanks when literally anything in the game happens like enemies appearing and the colors for some reason look so much darker there is honestly zero excuse for the game to look this bad on the switch there are games on the switch right now that look 10 times better than this game does i'm left to believe it was just a super quick and lazy porting job regarding the switch there are also a good amount of technical issues that this game has that's not just on the switch version there were times where my camera would get stuck where my player would get stuck unresponsive or super delayed jumps or as i mentioned earlier random screen flashes that can cause epileptic seizures and on the topic of the game's presentation the animations are laughable seriously it looks like something you would see on dreams or a fan made game i've questioned ever since the demo why the animations look this awkward and i'm loved to assume that they just wanted an animation that could work for the majority of the costumes in the game so that way they don't need to make 80 different running animations and i think i'm correct on that assumption because the majority of them look like they use the same animation and it's not just the running animation that looks awkward as hell but pretty much every animation that isn't the cgi animation looks mo crapped and don't even get me started on the dance numbers dear god don't get me started on the dance numbers what the [ __ ] is this [ __ ] am i seriously supposed to feel some sort of emotion watching these because all you're gonna get out of me is laughter and especially when you start reusing animations for the dance numbers as well come on guys and then we have the isle of tim's hey guys you guys remember the chow garden from sonic adventure and sonic adventure 2 good because these are nothing like that the isle of tim's is a central hub that gives you access to all the different worlds in the game but you are free to roam this area and take care of your timbs these little furby-like creatures that eat drops that you collect from the levels and that's literally it you feed them they grow you breed them that's it over time the more times you get the more you unlock in the world like these trampoline things or this thing called the tower of thames which doesn't do anything but it looks cool i guess the tim's can appear in levels and they do help you out by giving you items like keys or drops which is nice but i really don't think they do anything significant i'm loved wondering what the point of this place even is it's like yuji naka knows that people wanted something similar to the ciao garden to come back but doesn't understand what made them so special in the first place from my understanding though once you collect enough rainbow drops and drop them at the statue here in the world you could unlock the ultimate costume which is not ballon himself but a costume of bound that completely breaks the game in half seriously what is the point of this costume you might as well snap your disc in half at this moment because the game is non-existent look i know the majority of this review has been quite negative but my experience with this title was just that painful and it truly hurts because the trailers for this game really had me excited to see what naca has up a sleeve if there are a few positives i could give this game it's the music seriously this stuff is amazing and you could tell a lot of work and love was put into it it's just a shame that the game also suffers from the sonic unleashed werehog syndrome where anytime there's a single enemy on the screen it stops playing the amazing stage music and goes back to playing the same old bagpipes like for god's sake play something else another positive i could give the game is the amazing cgi cutscenes seriously this stuff looks phenomenal and it really shows off notoshima's amazing character designs and that's another thing i think the character designs of this game are great it screams early 2000s and late 90s sega and i adore it but at the end of the day battle wonder world is a game i don't think anyone should be itching to play anytime soon or ever for that matter even for anyone who has kids don't get them this game there are so many better platformers out there with way more polish and can leave a way more memorable experience than this game not to mention this game is retailing for 60 dollars do you know how many amazing games you could get right now for 60 dollars this game is not even worth ten dollars and that is not even an exaggeration you have to have some serious ball square enix to ask for the same amount as a full price aaa game for ballon freaking wonder world with that said what does the future hold for yujinaka or the ballon company as a whole well only time will tell but it does look quite bleak right now and considering this was apparently naka's one chance to make a platform game for square enix i'm sad to see this one flop as hard as it is naca i love you man but this game just wasn't it thank you all for watching this video please share and like if you enjoyed let me know in the comments what you guys think about bound wonderworld and please subscribe for more videos coming soon this is sam signing out see you later [Music] procrastinators [Music] you

Channel: Sam Procrastinates

Views: 120,797

Rating: 4.9070525 out of 5

Keywords: Balan, Balan Wonderworld, Balan Wonderworld Demo, Balan demo, Balan Wonderworld Sam Procrastinates, Sam Procrastinates, Sam Procrastinates Balan, Yuji Naka, Sonic Team Balan, Balan Company, Balan Company Yuji Naka, Balan Wonderworld Nintendo Switch, Balan Wonderworld Switch vs PS5, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Sonic, Sonic The Hedgehog, Square Enix, Balan Wonderworld Review, Balan Wonderworld Reaction, Nights, Balan Nintendo Switch

Id: aS-GfoPhg9o

Length: 22min 36sec (1356 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 18 2021