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

Immediate comparisons don’t flatter Balan Wonderworld. Even though it comes from the creator of Sonic, it takes the clearest inspiration from many recent 3D Mario games, most evidently Super Mario Odyssey, and the comparisons are as unflattering as they are inevitable. In most instances, Wonderworld plays it straight as a 3D platformer challenging you to use the different abilities of the playable character to collect various items hidden around each level and defeat bosses to progress. The platforming isn’t as tight or precise as many modern peers of the genre, but if you can tame the often-unpredictable camera, it’s inoffensive enough on its own.

"In most instances, Balan Wonderworld plays it straight as a 3D platformer challenging you to use the different abilities of the playable character to collect various items hidden around each level and defeat bosses to progress. The platforming isn’t as tight or precise as many modern peers of the genre, but if you can tame the often-unpredictable camera, it’s inoffensive enough on its own."

Everything you do in Balan Wonderworld is contextualized with a cheerful story about overcoming inner demons. There are twelve cabaret-inspired chapters, each of which contains two stages, a boss, and a third stage unlocked after you complete everything once through. While they’re diverse in design, they all maintain the same cheerfulness, with consistently bright colors and dancing NPCs. They don’t always push the limits of the hardware, but the art style is easy enough on the eyes. The opening cutscene portrays your character getting laughed off a basketball court and taken in by a mysterious man in a big top hat, and you’re then transported into this unexplained new world. It’s nearly incomprehensible at points, with cutscenes loosely related to the worlds you’ve completed, though the most interesting aspects are the impossible-to-hate showtune-like musical numbers that come after you beat a boss. It all gives off an air of unwavering positivity that’s a breath of fresh air in a lot of ways, but it only does so much to hold up the gameplay.

The game’s primary unique offering is its abundance of costumes, which offer different abilities to the wearer to solve puzzles, and which are littered throughout to allow the player the agency to choose which costumes to wear. But while the idea behind the costumes is well enough in concept, its execution leaves a lot to be desired. You can only hold up to three costumes at a time, and it frustratingly doesn’t restrict you from holding the same costume more than once. Frequently I ran into the problem of losing a costume I was saving to solve a specific puzzle because I accidentally gathered one I already was wearing. What’s more is that to acquire a costume you have to use a key found around the world, but the game never makes an effort to utilize this concept, so keys are almost always very close to the costume pick-ups. Even in boss fights, the game showers you with keys so you have no trouble picking up the costumes when necessary, forcing the question of why the keys are in the game in the first place.

There are dozens of costumes to find overall, most of which are well-designed and cosmetically diverse to match their stage. When it comes down to it, though, there aren’t enough unique abilities to justify having this many costumes. They all only have one ability, most of which are repeated at some point somewhere else, and those that aren’t repeated are generally specific to their original stage. Because they each allow just a single ability, many costumes don’t allow the ability to jump, which forces you to hold a spot for one that can jump, as almost every segment of every stage requires it. It’s a baffling design choice, and one wonders why so many costumes were necessary if they weren’t going to be entirely unique, as they become cumbersome and overwhelming to manage, especially in later levels.

"The game’s primary unique offering is its abundance of costumes, which offer different abilities to the wearer to solve puzzles, and which are littered throughout to allow the player the agency to choose which costumes to wear. But while the idea behind the costumes is well enough in concept, its execution leaves a lot to be desired."

Balan Wonderworld certainly gives you a lot of different mechanics to conquer in order to progress, but it fumbles the attempt to make them feel related or interconnected. You can play each stage as a straightforward platformer, solving the few puzzles each gives with the costumes provided without much difficulty. There really isn’t much in the way of difficulty on the critical path of each level at all. It’s very forgiving with puzzles, and combat can be incredibly easy provided you have a costume that can perform an attack. The game features an adaptive difficulty, so better players may experience better enemies, but I never felt like I was ever challenged or like the difficulty ever changed. Even boss fights almost always follow the three-hit rule, and once you figure out a way to hit them, you’re pretty much in the clear. Admittedly, boss fights are some of the more rewarding aspects of the entire experience, as their general scale makes it all the more satisfying when you take them down.

Progression, though, comes in the form of Balan statues, which you can find around the world and are generally comparable to Super Mario Odyssey’s Moons. Every stage contains around eight of them, and you need a certain number of statues to unlock the next batch of stages. What the statue system falls short on, though, is balance. Since you don’t get a statue upon completing a level, it’s not uncommon to complete a level without finding a single one, and since many of them are locked behind puzzles that require costumes from a different, often future world, the game almost requires backtracking to progress.

This isn’t an inherent problem, but the levels are often not conducive to the types of backtracking and experimenting required to get every statue. Checkpoints aren’t always easily accessible, and if you haven’t stored a costume from a previous stage by completing the stage while wearing it, you have to go back to the costume’s stage, often sit through multiple long loading screens, and pick one up before coming back, hoping all along you don’t take a cheap hit or fall off the stage and lose the costume you were holding so dearly. Because of this tension, the backtracking often feels at odds with itself, wanting you to explore and try new things but not giving you the tools to easily do so, and for a game that holds your hand in so many ways, this is an out-of-place design choice that sours much of the rest of the experience.

"Balan Wonderworld certainly gives you a lot of different mechanics to conquer in order to progress, but it fumbles the attempt to make them feel related or interconnected. You can play each stage as a straightforward platformer, solving the few puzzles each gives with the costumes provided without much difficulty."

Other ways to obtain statues do exist, though they’re generally not substantial enough to put much thought into unless you’re pushing for 100%. One of the most frequent gameplay interludes is the Balan Bout, which features a series of glorified quick-time events that, if executed perfectly, rewards a statue. While interesting at first, these bouts become stale after just a few experiences of what tends to be highly similar scenes, and it’s finnicky about what constitutes a perfect execution. You can also manage the hub world, which is your home base between worlds and lets you take care of the small companions that stay by your side. In this so-called Isle of Tims, you can feed the Tims with the magical drops you collect on each stage and help them build a monument in the center, but this again didn’t offer enough reward for my time, and I found other ways to get statues. Instead of adding depth or variety to gameplay, these additional mechanics feel more tacked-on than anything. They don’t evolve the core gameplay in any way and often feel more like chores than substantial additions, and I was happier to do without them.

Balan Wonderworld’s central dichotomy lies between its ideas and its execution. What looks like a great idea on paper to employ dozens of unique costumes to solve puzzles and find collectibles in an undeniably cheerful world turns into a shallow experience filled with nightmarish backtracking and undeveloped mechanics. The art style and world are fun, but the good will it gains at the beginning is quickly lost when it starts to artificially slow you down. What I liked about the ideas Balan Wonderworld purports was quickly overshadowed by the gameplay structure and general lack of execution, making for an experience that’s often anything but wondrous.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Balan Wonderworld launches in a little over a week, but there are many who’ve already spent some time with the upcoming platformer. Square Enix and developer Balan Company released a pretty meaty demo of the game for all platforms earlier this year, but the reception to it wasn’t exactly what they would have been hoping for. Though not universally negative, the game’s demo did receive its fair share of criticism- but it seems some of that, at least, will be addressed in the final game.

In a post that was recently published on the official Square Enix website by Balan Wonderworld producer Noriyoshi Fujimoto, he explained that the game will be receiving a day one patch to address some of the feedback that the developer received from the demo. Though not all of the feedback will be incorporated, owing to the short window between the demo’s release and the game’s launch, things such as movement, camera controls, and difficulty will be tweaked and balanced based on the demo’s feedback.

“Staying true to the nature of Balan Wonderworld, I would like for us to follow in the footsteps of the enigmatic maestro, Balan, and find balance within our own heart,” Fujimoto wrote. “Especially when it comes to addressing feedback that we’ve received from our demo.

“There’s been a wide range of opinions and responses to the demo, and unfortunately at the current stage of development, it simply isn’t feasible to reflect every piece of feedback into the game. However, to offer you all a more balanced gameplay experience, we will be implementing a day one patch for the full game.

“Specifically, this patch will adjust movement controls, camera movement, and rebalancing of the difficulty. There’s just over a week left until launch now, so I hope you all enjoy the world of Wonderworld to your heart’s content!”

Balan Wonderworld launches on March 26 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Sonic the Hedgehog Creators Reunited

Balan Wonderworld is being developed by Arzest Group and Balan Company. It’s most notable for having Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima as the director and character designer respectively. Naka is best known for heading up Sonic Team, serving as a programmer on Sonic the Hedgehog 1 and 2, and as a producer on Sonic the Hedgehog 3, Sonic and Knuckles and Nights into Dreams. Ohshima has worked on a number of projects through the years but is best known for designing Sonic and Dr. Eggman.

Naka joined Square Enix in 2018 to create Balan Wonderworld and interestingly enough, was told by the company’s president that it was his “one chance” to make a full-scale platforming title. So while a sequel may not be coming up any time soon, at least we get a new Yuki Naka-directed platformer after all this time.

Story

The story follows Leo Craig and Emma Cole, two individuals who discover the mysterious Balan Theatre. They thus encounter the enigmatic Balan, before venturing to Wonderworld and restoring balance to their hearts. Throughout each “Story”, the duo will discover different worlds and characters whose hearts have beeb overcome by negativity, spurred on by the sinister Lance. What Lance’s purpose is, how Leo and Emma can return to their own world and Balan’s true plan are all mysteries to be uncovered.

Twelve “Stories”

As noted previously, there are a variety of different worlds to explore, each divided into Acts. Each world makes up a different Story, focused on a character whose heart has lost balance and given in to negativity. Chapter 1 “The Man Who Rages Against the Storm”, for instance, is about Jose, who saw his farm devastated by a storm. As a result, crops and farming tools can be found littered in the levels. Each world has its own unique hook and environments depending on the person whose heart has gone astray as the player ultimately confronts the Nega Boss to restore balance.

Gameplay

Much of Balan Wonderworld‘s gameplay is centered on platforming and exploration with a few bits of action and mini-games thrown in. You’ll explore stages and locate Balan statues which can be used to unlock further levels. There are also Drops to collect and costumes to find. The costumes in question can either surmount different challenges or be used to deal with enemies.

Over 80 Costumes

There are more than 80 costumes to collect in Balan Wonderworld each with their own unique abilities. These include the Tornado Wolf, which can execute a spinning jump; Jumping Jack which can jump further; Aero Acrobat for locking onto enemies in midair and kicking them; and so on. You can hold up to three costumes though getting hit causes the currently equipped costume to be lost. There are checkpoints for selecting your costumes, though losing all three meaning restarting the level.

Balan’s Bouts

As you explore the different chapters and stages, you’ll come across Golden Hats. Collect enough of these and eventually, you can enter a mini-game where Balan himself becomes playable. These sections are fairly straightforward quick time events where the player must sync Balan’s actions with the outline on-screen. Completing these will net Drops, which contribute to the Isle of Tims.

Other Mini-games

Balan’s Bouts will serve as the “primary” mini-game throughout but there are others to be discovered. For example, in Chapter 1, there’s a Free Kick challenge which sees Leo or Emma having to knock down several targets by kicking a football. Other Chapters apparently have their own sports-style mini-games so it should be interesting to see what else is in store.

Isle of Tims

When starting out, the Isle of Tims acts as a hub world where you can access all of the worlds. However, it’s also home to the Tims, small creatures which can be raised by feeding them Drops. Depending on the Drops fed, the Tims will change color and even possess different attributes. Tim eggs can also be found inside different worlds. If this is sounding a lot like Sonic Adventure’s Chao Garden, then there’s the added dimension of the Tims being able to accompany you on adventures. Bring the Red Tim and it will attack enemies while the Pink Tim can help find different items. Raising more Tims will also upgrade the Tim Tower, though what purpose it serves remains to be seen.

Local Co-op Support

There’s a reason for two protagonists – local co-op is supported for the campaign as the second player can control either Leo or Emma depending on the first player’s choice. This is supposed to add new dimensions to the platforming since you can combine different costume abilities together. Unfortunately, it seems that online co-op is not supported so those looking to partner up online will be out of luck.

Photo Mode

Like many titles in this day and age, Balan Wonderworld includes a Photo Mode. Players can move the camera freely, zoom in and out, and take photos from any angle while also using frames to decorate them. More complex functions like filters, effects, exposure, contrast and so on haven’t been detailed yet.

Free Demo

A free demo is available for Balan Wonderworld on all of its release platforms and provides a pretty sizable chunk of the game. Chapter 1’s first two Acts, Chapter 4 – Act 1 and Chapter 6 – Act 1 are all playable. Each contains a number of different costumes to try out along with a boss fight in Chapter 1. You can even experiment with the Isle of Tims. Local multiplayer for two players is also supported.

4K on Xbox Series X and PS5

A quick visit to the official Xbox page for the game indicates that it will run in 4K and at frame rates up to 120 frames per second. So at the very least, you can expect the same option on PlayStation 5 as well. Whether the Xbox Series S version will run in 4K or not is still unknown but judging by the recent demo, it certainly runs better than the Xbox One, PS4 and Switch versions.

DualSense Support

Among some of the more unique console-specific features is DualSense support on the PS5. Speaking to IGN last year, Naka indicated that each costume’s ability will feel distinct thanks to the controller’s adaptive triggers. While it’s debatable just how unique they’ll all end up feeling, it’s still something to look forward to on PS5.

PC Requirements

For those playing the game on PC, the requirements aren’t too bad. Minimum requirements include an Intel Core i5-4430 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200, a GeForce GTX 760 or Radeon R9 270X and 8 GB of RAM. This will enable it to run at 1080p/30 FPS at Medium quality. Recommended requirements include an Intel Core i5-6400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1400, a GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 480 and 16 GB of RAM for 1080p/60 FPS at High quality. In both cases you’ll need 20 GB of available hard drive space.

It was last year when we got the announcement of Balan Wonderworld. The 3D platformer is a big throwback to an era of the past, and it certainly does look like something you don’t see much nowadays. The game also has a demo you can check out across the various platforms it will launch on, and now Square has given us a look at some later parts of the game.

The publisher released three new videos for Wonderworld. They are from Chapter 10, 11 and 12. They include a painter with an artistic block, a firefighter with heroic intentions and then a lonely man who is ignored by the world. It’s well in line with what we’ve come to see from the earlier parts of the game. It certainly has its own style, that much you can’t deny. Check out all three below.

Balan Wonderworld will launched March 26th for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch and PC. The game’s demo is currently live and includes content from the game’s Chapter 1, Chapter 4 and Chapter 6.

Later this year, we’ll get a new and unique title from Sqaure Enix and the recent Balan Company called Balan Wonderworld. The game is an incredibly colorful title, something of a throwback to the late ’90s and early 2000s style of platformer you don’t see much anymore. They’ve already shown off a decent amount from the game, and you can try it out yourself now.

Square released a new trailer for the title telling us that True Happiness is an Adventure. It shows off the colorful look and happy tone, even with an upbeat song to go along with it. A demo for the game is also live, which we’ve been seeing some footage of through out the last few days.

Balan Wonderworld is set to release March 26th for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch and PC. The demo for the game is live as of today for all platforms.

Seeing as it’s being developed by a team led by the creators of Sonic, Square Enix’s upcoming action-platformer Balan Wonderworld is a game that’s on a lot of people’s radar. Whether or not it lives up to its billing remains to be seen, but before its launch, players are going to have the chance to get their hands on chunks of the game to see how its shaping up.

Before the demo goes live, several press outlets have been able to try it out early, which means we have plenty of gameplay footage to look at. Gematsu have uploaded a healthy amount of footage to look at, showing several acts of the game set in different locations, with the footage also showing off plenty of action, a boss fight, and more. Take a look below.

Balan Wonderworld’s demo will go live tomorrow for all platforms, and will include two acts from chapter 1 and an act each from chapters 4 and 6, as well as a glimpse at the game’s hub area.

Balan Wonderworld launches on March 26 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

We live in a rather dark and bleak world, especially right now with everything seeming to be on fire. That’s why it’s nice to have games like Balan Wonderworld to interject things with a bit more color and whatnot. We’re seen quite a lot of the opening worlds of the game, but we haven’t seen a lot of how it plays just yet. It’s still several months down the road, after all. However, the ESRB is giving us a taste and, well, it may be a bit surprising.

The ESRB has officially rated the game, and there’s mention there of how the game plays. There’s mention of using abilities such as fireballs and tornadoes, which kind of matches what we’ve seen, but maybe the surprising thing is the game apparently has mechs of some kind in it. Can’t say I saw that coming. There’s also reference to shooting in first person with certain weapons. It’ll be interesting to see what that’s about when the game does come out next year.

“This is an action platformer in which players explore a magical world while battling enemies in order overcome roadblocks. From a third-person perspective, players traverse platform environments, solve puzzles, and use various abilities/weapons (e.g., fireballs, tornadoes, blasters) to defeat fantastical creatures. Some weapons allow players to aim and shoot at enemies from a first-person perspective; robotic/mech suit costumes allow players to shoot small lasers from their chests.”

Balan Wonderworld is set to release for all major platforms March 26th, 2021. You can see both the game’s opening cinematic and boxart through here.

Next year we’ll be getting the incredibly colorful and unique looking Balan Wonderworld. The game has a striking look to it, and will see you go through a variety of different fantasy worlds. We’ve gotten to a see a little of that already, as well as the game’s opening cinematic, which gave us a taste of what to expect. Now we have a little more of the game’s opening chapters.

The official Twitter released some screenshots of the game’s second and third chapter worlds. The second chapter is an underwater world where you navigate ruins as well as have to look out for once friendly dolphins that seemed to have turned on you. We actually saw a little of this world in video form not long ago. Then we have a forest world filled with bugs and seems to hint at some trouble with spiders. The worlds are said to be born from the reflect of the heart of the characters and how they see the world. There’s a lot of games out there nowadays with a cartoon like look, but Balan feels unique all the same.

Balan Wonderworld is set to release March 26th, 2021 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch and PC.

Enjoy a beautiful world of coral and seashells amongst ancient ruins born from Fiona Demetria's heart, reflecting the beauty of the ocean as she sees it in #BalanWonderworld. pic.twitter.com/gMetxIkowm

— Balan Wonderworld (@balanwworld) November 21, 2020

Wander through a whimsical forest crawling with all kinds of bugs born from Yuri Brand's heart in #BalanWonderworld. pic.twitter.com/ih5LhPxwAP

— Balan Wonderworld (@balanwworld) November 23, 2020

Square Enix’s Balan Wonderworld, being developed by a team led by the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog, has been looking like an exciting prospect since the moment it was first shown off, and in the lead-up to its launch, we’ve been getting frequent glimpses at the game and its colourful world.

In a new trailer, which you can see below, we get a brief look at one of the several worlds we’ll be visiting in the upcoming platformer- an underwater environment, where the story will center around a young girl named Fiona, who has a love for all things aquatic. Take a look below.

Balan Wonderworld will see its story being divided into a dozen different tales to tell, each taking players to unique new locations and worlds, which will serve as a blend of the real and the fantastical.

Balan Wonderworld is due out on March 26, 2021 for the PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. You can check out some real time gameplay footage through here.