while to a certain degree I had my share of enjoyment from Balan Wonderworld the flaws are very apparent, I might as well get the things I liked about it out of the way, the music, visual art style, the character design, literally anything that isn't gameplay is actually quite good.
it reminds me of the 1996 SEGA Saturn classic NiGHTS Into Dreams and this was one of the reasons I picked it up to begin with, the style of everything actually has a lot of charm to it and I found it super lovely, but with gameplay in mind it's very bland to say the least, you go through stages and get to the end with the use of Costumes, basically power-ups for our character.
here's the first problem, most of these costumes I find the be damn near fucking useless, such as the Box Fox, which can turn you into an invincible box but only when it feels like it, which I shouldn't have to say this but that is such a SHIT idea for a power-up, and we've got ones that have super specific uses that they just shouldn't be here, in that category we've got the Rail Runner, which allows you to summon tracks in very specific spots and run along them, which I remember not using even once in the entire game.
and we've got power-ups in the copy category, I have a feeling some of these we're made just to reach 80 Costumes to have a "back of the box" feature, for example you've got Dynamic Dolphin and Jellyjolt, which from what I remember are costumes with THE SAME FUCKING ABILITY! and this is true for, The Pumpkin Puncher and The Paladin Puncher both being characters who use there fists and punching to attack, and the Sickle Slinger is just a weaker version of the Sickle Slayer! do you see why this is SO FUCKING REDUNDANT!? literally half of these are copies of each other or at the bare minimum just slightly different/stronger versions of each other! and personally this is where my main gripe with Wonderworld comes into play, most of the costumes just aren't fun to use, I mean no exaggeration when I say that I hardly enjoyed using barley any of these.
another issue I have is with the controls as in other than the move buttons every other button is used for your consume ability! yep, every button you can think of, A, B, X, Y, the triggers too! that is such shit game design! but for what it's worth anything that wasn't gameplay I enjoyed quite a lot, but overall if you want a more interesting and fun platformer go look elsewhere, NiGHTS Into Dreams is on Steam and Xbox One/Series X through backwards compatibility, hell with that being said play literally any Sonic game on Xbox! Adventure 1, 2 and Unleashed are miles better than Wonderworld, and yes even Colors Ultimate was a more fun experience,
in conclusion Balan Wonderworld, while gifted with charming music, character and visual design is a below average game that you would need to try your damndest to wring out any enjoyment like I did,
(the reason I didn't rate it any lower than a 1 star was due to the music and visuals, which in my eyes saved it from being a 1.5/5)
it reminds me of the 1996 SEGA Saturn classic NiGHTS Into Dreams and this was one of the reasons I picked it up to begin with, the style of everything actually has a lot of charm to it and I found it super lovely, but with gameplay in mind it's very bland to say the least, you go through stages and get to the end with the use of Costumes, basically power-ups for our character.
here's the first problem, most of these costumes I find the be damn near fucking useless, such as the Box Fox, which can turn you into an invincible box but only when it feels like it, which I shouldn't have to say this but that is such a SHIT idea for a power-up, and we've got ones that have super specific uses that they just shouldn't be here, in that category we've got the Rail Runner, which allows you to summon tracks in very specific spots and run along them, which I remember not using even once in the entire game.
and we've got power-ups in the copy category, I have a feeling some of these we're made just to reach 80 Costumes to have a "back of the box" feature, for example you've got Dynamic Dolphin and Jellyjolt, which from what I remember are costumes with THE SAME FUCKING ABILITY! and this is true for, The Pumpkin Puncher and The Paladin Puncher both being characters who use there fists and punching to attack, and the Sickle Slinger is just a weaker version of the Sickle Slayer! do you see why this is SO FUCKING REDUNDANT!? literally half of these are copies of each other or at the bare minimum just slightly different/stronger versions of each other! and personally this is where my main gripe with Wonderworld comes into play, most of the costumes just aren't fun to use, I mean no exaggeration when I say that I hardly enjoyed using barley any of these.
another issue I have is with the controls as in other than the move buttons every other button is used for your consume ability! yep, every button you can think of, A, B, X, Y, the triggers too! that is such shit game design! but for what it's worth anything that wasn't gameplay I enjoyed quite a lot, but overall if you want a more interesting and fun platformer go look elsewhere, NiGHTS Into Dreams is on Steam and Xbox One/Series X through backwards compatibility, hell with that being said play literally any Sonic game on Xbox! Adventure 1, 2 and Unleashed are miles better than Wonderworld, and yes even Colors Ultimate was a more fun experience,
in conclusion Balan Wonderworld, while gifted with charming music, character and visual design is a below average game that you would need to try your damndest to wring out any enjoyment like I did,
(the reason I didn't rate it any lower than a 1 star was due to the music and visuals, which in my eyes saved it from being a 1.5/5)