Square Enix’s 3D platformer Balan Wonderworld was easily one of the worst games to come out last year, which was more than a bit surprising considering the interesting premise of the game and Sonic developer Yuji Naka helming the project. While Naka confirmed that he had parted ways with Square Enix after the game’s disastrous launch, he recently took to Twitter to reveal that he was actually removed from the project a whole 6 months before the release of the game.
In a long Twitter thread written in Japanese, Naka explained that he had filed a lawsuit against Square Enix for his untimely removal from the project, and now that the proceedings are over, he is free to share additional details on the matter (he was also apparently banned by Square Enix from liking and sharing any posts on social media).
Naka says that Square Enix knew about the rocky state of the game at launch, but went ahead and released it anyway. Developer Arzest had submitted the game’s final build without fixing many of the bugs, even when Naka was pushing for additional polishing. Upon his removal from the project months before release, Naka also tried to negotiate with his business partners to allow him to fix issues until the game went public, sadly to no avail.
Naka also explained how Square Enix used rearranged music from a YouTuber for promotional purposes, instead of original tracks. He insists that an original game should feature original music since it’s an important aspect of the presentation that fans are instantly drawn towards. Furthermore, he also shared how the game’s producer continued to impose tight deadlines, to the detriment of the development team.
Naka further goes on to talk about how he is sorry for the version of the game that fans got to play, and concludes that developer Arzest and Square Enix “are companies that don’t care about games and game fans.”
Here are the translated tweets (courtesy of Twitter user @cheesemeister3k):
"I think it's wrong of Square Enix not to value games and game fans. According to court documents, I was removed as the director of Balan Wonderworld for 2 reasons. It was done by the producer, head of marketing, head of sound, managing director, and HR."https://t.co/eJhBAwNGFq
— Cheesemeister (@Cheesemeister3k) April 28, 2022
"Second, according to court documents, [Naoto] Ohshima told producer [Noriyoshi] Fujimoto that the relationship with Arzest was ruined due to comments I made wanting to improve the game in the face of Arzest submitting the game without fixing bugs."https://t.co/xSbdvcyHMK
— Cheesemeister (@Cheesemeister3k) April 28, 2022
"The staff's been down lately, but their spirits have been revived. Thank you very much. All of us on the staff will work hard.' So the schedule wasn't up to me, but the producer, yet the schedule being tight was the producer's doing. Something was off."https://t.co/59tXC4rBmK
— Cheesemeister (@Cheesemeister3k) April 28, 2022
"I believe that every effort must be put in to make games the best they can be until the very end so that game fans will enjoy what they buy. It wasn't right to, without discussion, remove and completely disassociate from the project a director saying so."https://t.co/Kbgn8j2H1o
— Cheesemeister (@Cheesemeister3k) April 28, 2022
"Myself, I'm truly sorry to the customers who bought Balan Wonderworld in an unfinished state. From this point onward, I will be able to react to posts tagging me or directed only toward me on SNS and such."https://t.co/tbzyMHAqGm
— Cheesemeister (@Cheesemeister3k) April 28, 2022
"For Sonic the Hedgehog, 2 weeks before finalizing, the spec was changed so that if you have even 1 ring, you won't die. This now well-known rule was the result of improving the game until the very end, and people world-over have enjoyed it as a result."https://t.co/PgW5YmOqmR
— Cheesemeister (@Cheesemeister3k) April 28, 2022
"I think that the resulting Balan Wonderworld and the critical reception it received have a lot to do with what happened. I'm really disappointed that a product I worked on from the start turned out this way."https://t.co/1cxNHjGoBf
— Cheesemeister (@Cheesemeister3k) April 28, 2022
"I personally regret that Balan Wonderworld was released to the world in an unfinished state. I wanted to consider all kinds of things and release it as a proper action game. I don't think that Square Enix and Arzest value games and their fans."https://t.co/gjE4fcCOyd
— Cheesemeister (@Cheesemeister3k) April 28, 2022
