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Balan Wonderworld

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Updated Feb 21, 2022 at 08:11PM EST by Bilbo Swaggins.

Added Mar 30, 2021 at 12:32PM EDT by Adam.

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About

Balan Wonderworld is a video game created by Square Enix subsidiary Balan Company, which is headed by Yuji Naka, the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog. The talent behind the game led to considerable hype prior to its release, but it received mostly negative reviews from critics. However, suspected anti-review bombing, in which users suspected to be bots gave the game positive scores on Metacritic, caught the internet's attention.

History

Balan Wonderworld was announced on July 23rd, 2020 (trailer shown below). The game promised to be a retro 3D-style platformer. It was created by Yuji Naka of Balan Company, a Square Enix subsidiary. Naka is the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog, and Naoto Ohshima would be working as the lead artist. The game marks the pair's first collaboration since 1998's Sonic Adventure,[1] leading to considerable anticipation around Balan Wonderworld. The game released on March 26th, 2021.



Reception

Balan Wonderworld released to mostly mixed and negative reviews. As of March 30th, 2021, the game has a score of 58 on Metacritic.[2] Screenrant[3] gave the game 2/5 stars, bemoaning the game's lack of story and uninspired levels, which players will have to backtrack through in order to 100% complete the game. Noisy Pixel[4] gave the game a 5/10, writing, "Balan Wonderworld falls short on all gameplay fronts, making it a mostly unfun title with a criminal amount of missed opportunities."

Curiously, the game's Metacritic page is suspected to have been anti-review bombed, with a bevy of vaguely written positive user reviews on its Metacritic page.[2] Game Rant[5] wrote, "many of the accounts being used to write these perfect score user reviews are new and have only written a review for Balan Wonderworld and nothing else." The suspected bots were caught by @spawnwavemedia[6] on Twitter (shown below).


10 Vhygen Mar 27, 2021 A colorful, fun and essentially unique game. My compliments to the game developers, who have been able to recreate that feeling of mystery, charm, and joy like those found in Sega's classic 90s games. Games that, like this one, still manage to keep me entertained for hours. This is pretty much an old-fashioned game made for today's generation. But people today prefer to see the... Expand - 35 of 38 users found this helpful All this user's reviews 10 Menuvez Mar 27, 2021 Loved it. One of the best platform games I've played in this gen. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants experience a nice game 23 of 25 users found this helpful All this user's reviews Yvhes Mar 27, 2021 10 I've really enjoyed my time passed with this game. Sure isn't implacable, but the platform section of world 5, 7, and 9 are just AWESOME. You should try this kind of magnificent section to realize the true scope of the game. 30 of 33 users found this helpful All this user's reviews 10 Ezhyq Mar 27, 2021 Absolute funny and cutie game. It's something really interesting to playing, especially when you make a full immersion on it, and you find out that really blast of genius design that I love. Deserves all the penny spent for it, imho 9 of 9 users found this helpful All this user's reviews

Online Presence

Balan Wonderworld has not developed a significant online presence. A subreddit for the game created July 22nd, 2020 has accumulated 300 subscribers.[7] The Twitter[8] account for the game has gained 13,000 subscribers.

Search Interest

External References

[1] Game Rant – Balan Wonderworld Trailer

[2] Metacritic – Balan Wonderworld

[3] Screen Rant – Balan Wonderworld Review A Far Cry From A Wonderland

[4] Noisy Pixel – Balan Wonderworld Review – I Wonder What This World Could Have Been

[5] Game Rant – Balan Wonderworld Is Getting Review Bombed With Positive Scores

[6] Twitter – @spawnwavemedia

[7] Reddit – /r/balanwonderworld

[8] Twitter – Balan Wonderworld

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Top Comments

Monster Kid
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Monster Kid

So just to give a quick summary: You only get to use one button… for everything. That means if the costume you're using doesn't have a jump function, you can't jump anymore. You run at a snail's pace half the time, the game REQUIRES you to use a feature it doesn't tell you about where you can store costumes for later use, Balan sections are literally just QTEs and in order to get anything useful out of them you have to get all of them with perfect timing so there's absolutely no fun flying section you actually control. Like they completely missed what everyone liked about NIGHTS and focused entirely on the kid sections of the wii game that no one liked. In short, play the demo if you're so curious, it's not worth purchasing.

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