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xyzzysqrlTo say Balan Wonderworld is "much maligned" would be a mild understatement. Balan Wonderworld regularly showed up on "Worst Game of the Year" lists and is considered something of a hilarious punchline by itself. Yuji Naka and his team at Square-Enix made the most Sega game available to them, with two-button controls ("Use Costume Power/Jump" and "Switch Costumes") and heaps of weird dreamlike gameplay, tied together with wordless cutscenes and energetic dance parties. The Internet lost its collective shit over this weird unplayable early-2000s throwback of a game.
So I threw down and started streaming it, to see how weird and unplayable and bad it was.
Predictably I loved it. I'm starting to wonder if I've got something genetically wrong with me, like how some people find bitter greens inedible while I devour them robustly.
In any event, this game was my medicine. Up until about chapter 10 I was -basking- in it, like a lizard with a heat rock. It was precisely what I needed, it felt like what Video Games were supposed to look and feel and play like. The music is beautiful. The dance scenes were fun. The core platforming loop worked for me, the stages were large enough to explore and get a little lost in but not so big you spent an irritating amount of time trudging around them... I love Balan Wonderworld, and I think it's a legitimately high-quality game.
Maybe I'm just very, very old.
Chapter 10 was a huge difficulty spike, by the way, and also when they started putting three "Balan's Bouts" in each level. "Balan's Bouts" are quick time events where if you fail (by getting a "GREAT" or "GOOD" rank at pushing a button instead of an "EXCELLENT" for having good frame-timing) you lose. The game tells you you're amazing, but you've lost, and you need to go beat the boss and come back to try again. That's a pain in the ass. (It's not particularly difficult, if you've solved the boss patterns and know how to beat them. It's just a pain in the ass.) It is the main flaw in a pristine game loop, a single jagged rock in the middle of a wide calm lake.
Then there's Lance, the main villain, and while there isn't much to spoil I will simply say that if the theme of your story is "redemption through friendship" or "supportive hearts can heal each other" you cannot tease that your antagonist is redeemable and then cram him in a goddamn storage closet and have a dance party in front of it before rolling the credits. This maneuver calls to mind Lucy and her football and I do not approve.
Then again, maybe they had plans for that in the sequel.
Shame about that. Genuine, honest, painful shame about that.
In any event, I finished the storyline on this. There is much postgame exploration to do, and I FEEL like I want to 100% this thing from where I am, but we'll have to see how that goes or if that goes at all.
So I threw down and started streaming it, to see how weird and unplayable and bad it was.
Predictably I loved it. I'm starting to wonder if I've got something genetically wrong with me, like how some people find bitter greens inedible while I devour them robustly.
In any event, this game was my medicine. Up until about chapter 10 I was -basking- in it, like a lizard with a heat rock. It was precisely what I needed, it felt like what Video Games were supposed to look and feel and play like. The music is beautiful. The dance scenes were fun. The core platforming loop worked for me, the stages were large enough to explore and get a little lost in but not so big you spent an irritating amount of time trudging around them... I love Balan Wonderworld, and I think it's a legitimately high-quality game.
Maybe I'm just very, very old.
Chapter 10 was a huge difficulty spike, by the way, and also when they started putting three "Balan's Bouts" in each level. "Balan's Bouts" are quick time events where if you fail (by getting a "GREAT" or "GOOD" rank at pushing a button instead of an "EXCELLENT" for having good frame-timing) you lose. The game tells you you're amazing, but you've lost, and you need to go beat the boss and come back to try again. That's a pain in the ass. (It's not particularly difficult, if you've solved the boss patterns and know how to beat them. It's just a pain in the ass.) It is the main flaw in a pristine game loop, a single jagged rock in the middle of a wide calm lake.
Then there's Lance, the main villain, and while there isn't much to spoil I will simply say that if the theme of your story is "redemption through friendship" or "supportive hearts can heal each other" you cannot tease that your antagonist is redeemable and then cram him in a goddamn storage closet and have a dance party in front of it before rolling the credits. This maneuver calls to mind Lucy and her football and I do not approve.
Then again, maybe they had plans for that in the sequel.
Shame about that. Genuine, honest, painful shame about that.
In any event, I finished the storyline on this. There is much postgame exploration to do, and I FEEL like I want to 100% this thing from where I am, but we'll have to see how that goes or if that goes at all.
no subject
Date: 2022-07-17 10:56 am (UTC)I did get the impression the Balan's Bouts sour a lot of completionists. Making the player redo the chapter and BOSS FIGHT to get another chance at a Bout seems like such a wild design choice, purely to make 100% as tedious and rare as possible, because I can't imagine any good reason you'd actually do that.
I'm not a 3D platformer guy tbh but I am a costume guy, and a weird aesthetic guy, this looks fun. Thank you for your service.