Balan Wonderworld - Just Bad Games

cutscenes range from " my entire family died " or " my pet dolphin tried to murder me " to " littering " and " i cant draw "

Balan's character design deserved a better game.

Kid: "I....I need an adult." Balan: "I am an adult."

Apparently, Yuji Naka is awful to work with, and only caved to the cutscenes we did get after the Square Enix developers badgered and begged him to add them. He initially intended to make a game completely devoid of any cutscenes or dialogue at all... kind of similar to NiGHTS (which worked there because the story was so bare-bones).

The worst part? The novelization of the game DOES explain every confusing or unexplained plot point of the game mentioned through the video.

This game looks like a fake game people will be playing in a cartoon

Old thumbnail: giant eldritch horror Balan creeping on two children. New Thumbnail: "THIS VESSEL HAS WITNESSED YOUR SIN, AND SEEKS VENGEANCE!"

I figured out why there are costumes with similar/the same ability. It was their solution to losing costumes. Add more costumes. Instead of reworking the costume system. Wow.

You’ve heard of White Men Can’t jump. Now get ready for Half The Costumes In This Game Can’t Jump

Imagine making someone go through a dreadfully long process to unlock a hidden costume only for them to lose it because of a 1-second error.

The Balan costume makes sense as a post-game bonus costume, to be unlocked by either beating the final boss or collecting 100% of something (or both). It doesn't need a convoluted luck-based unlock that requires players to read a guide to know it exists.

Maybe Balan Wonderworld is a good example of the old saying, "too many chefs in the kitchen, ruin the soup." As in no-one was willing to compromise on their ideas, what to leave in, what to leave out, so they just crammed all of it in there, willy nilly.

Isle of Tims “Tim Allen grunt from Home Improvement intensifies”

The development of this game can basically be summed up as "literally everyone was doing the thing they're not good at." Yuji Naka is great at designing games but here he focused a lot on the story, which has never been his expertise and he even admits as much. The development team he had were used to making story-heavy RPGs instead of platformers, so they were outside their comfort zone at having to design levels and weren't able to tell Naka 80 costumes was a bad idea (and again even he was surprised they actually did 80). The one and only person who was doing the thing they're good at was Naoto Oshima, and surprise surprise the visual style of the game was the only thing that worked.

With Yuji Naka recently being arrested for insider trading I look back at this and think "Damn."

Imagine being so bad that you’re featured on Just Bad Games less than 3 months after your release

Best thing about this game is the entire plot is contained in an unadvertised novel. Yep. A novel includes the entire plot of the game and explains who everyone is, what their problems are, and actually lets them interact with each other Also some cutscene characters are actually the same person as another person in Wonderworld! But it's only explained in the novel. Because of course it is.

23:45 My favorite use of "The Ghost of the Money We Wasted on This Game" so far.

2:40 Team Rocket’s disguises are getting better I see…

What's funny is how the Balan book which is nearly 300 pages explains every bit of detail for the story. For example, the reason Leo at the beginning suddenly got upset was because he is so good at dancing that no one can keep up with him which makes it harder for him to make friends as a result. Or something along those lines