If you try to cut this game any slack, I have to assume you hardly played it. It's unbelievable just how terrible this game really is, it's as if the team behind it attempted to engineer the worst game imaginable. It spits in the face of game design, of fun, of anything one would expect from a 3D platformer.
There's like 80 different costumes, but a fourth of them are clones, another two-thirds are practically useless, and the remaining 4 or so are the only ones you'd ever actually use. Seriously, there's three separate costumes whose only purpose are to stand on these stages that appear in only 5 or 6 levels and play a 5 second cutscene. That is literally it, no bonuses or rewards or anything. There's THREE costumes dedicated to that. There's also only one button in this game, so if you have a costume whose main purpose is to attack, you can't jump. IN A 3D PLATFORMER YOU CAN LOSE YOUR ABILITY TO JUMP!!!!!
This game's progression is terrible; in order to unlock more stages you need to collect Balan statues. The way the Balan statues are littered throughout the game is disrespectful to the player's time, as many of them are completely inaccessible without costumes you cannot get until further in the game. This also means incessant backtracking is necessary to actually continue the game, so you're forced to play the same terrible levels over and over and over. That's just for the statues too; you also need to go back to stages to get costumes because if you get hit ONCE, you lose your costume. So it means if you want to play this game without losing your mind, you need to go back to World 8 and grind out Frost Fairy costumes so you can traverse the stages without wanting to tear your hair out.
Or, you could engage in the best part of the game: the hub world. Feed the little bird things called "Tims" these crystal drops (they're actually Balan's tears, which I am happy with. I am glad that he is sad) and do some convoluted steps to unlock the "Balan" costume that lets you fly. If you decide to play this game, unlock that costume ASAP.
I hate Balan. He looks stupid and all he does throughout the entire game is punch rocks in space during the lamest quick-time events ever created.
World 10 is awful, which is saying something considering the only level in this game I could genuinely say I thought was anything above "god-awful" was World 4. The (pretty uninteresting) character designs aren't enough to save this clunky, unfinished, impossibly boring garbage heap. I got the platinum trophy for this game because I thought it would be funny, and "there's no way it could be THAT bad!" No. It's not that bad, it's worse, it's so much worse. I am so glad Yuji Naka went to jail for this, he deserves it.