BORN TO DIE
WONDERWORLD IS A FUCK
中裕司 Insider Trade 'Em All 2023
I am balan man
171,000,000¥ IN FINES

I can't remember the last time I fell asleep while playing a game. I'm not even trying to be funny, it happened. One second I was climbing the webs on World 3, the next second I woke up to a "The UE4-Happiness game has crashed - Fatal Error!" message on my screen, probably thanks to my face resting on top of the keyboard and screwing something up from so many inputs. (Gotta say, "Happiness Game" is a REALLY funny code name)

So, I decided to check this out as a little intermission in my Sonic marathon before moving on to Sonic Frontiers. I played NiGHTS for the marathon as well, so, y'know, I figured that Balan would have some of its DNA considering the pedigree behind it.
This game has so many things going for it. I ADORE the art direction, and the CG quality is absurd. Legit, it has one of the prettiest intro cutscenes I've ever seen, that hair tech is INSANE. The soundtrack is very bouncy and fun, exactly what I expect out of a collectathon platformer, shoutouts to Corn for Days, and the story is very interesting in concept. An adventure where you go through the mind palaces of people who are disillusioned or down on their luck and beat the shit out of their inner demons to help them get through it? It's a cool idea, and it's represented very well through its visuals. The scenery bends and twists in unexpected ways, objects and platforms float and move about, it's all very dreamlike.

But god damn, this was a BORE to play through. Yes, the art direction is very strong and the setup was intriguing, but that's where it ends bro. There is NOTHING here, 5 worlds in and I had to pass. Any other platformer can do what this game does, and much better at that.
For starters: One button for every action in the game. One fucking button. Why is this a thing? Why would you come up with a system that limits your ability to jump depending on the costume you're using, in a 3D PLATFORMING game? And it's not like it makes for any interesting decisions, there are no scenarios where the limitation is justified. You can just swap to a different costume that is able to jump whenever the situation calls for it, so why bother? Why not make it a 2-button game if you're going for simplicity? One button for jumping, a mechanic that should be universal for a game like this, and another button for costume-specific actions. That's it, job done.
But even then, why the fuck would you go for such a limited control scheme? Some of the coolest things about collectathon platformers(at least from an outside perspective, given that I haven't played many of them) are the ways you go about collecting things, the movement options you have to get to your objectives, the kind of obstacle courses the game throws at you and the freedom you have to ignore said obstacles with the aforementioned movement options. There's a reason why Super Mario 64 is still played extensively to this day especially in speedruns: That game feels amazing to control, and it gives you a ton of different ways of interacting with your environment. Mario has like, 5 different kinds of jumps depending on when and how you jump.
Balan has some differences in the way you jump, but they're not universal. Each mechanic is locked to a specific costume, and you can only carry 3 of them with you. Get hit once and you lose your costume, btw.
Going back to Mario, imagine if you could only long jump when using a specific cap. And even then, once you pick that cap up, you can ONLY long jump, nothing else.

I was going to give the game some credit for the levels, seeing as how you can jump on nearly everything and explore that way. Very few invisible walls, which made me think there would be a TON of secrets hidden around the place. There aren't.
There's this part where you're jumping towards a clock tower, and you can just barely see that the side of the tower has a spot you can stand on. Once you're there, the game teases you again by showing that you can keep going around the tower.
In ANY OTHER platformer, hell, in Sonic Unleashed, the back of that tower would have SOMETHING. ANYTHING. A 1-up, a coin, a nut. Balan gave me nothing.

And that about sums it up tbh. Great production values and a promising premise, but it gave me nothing to play.

This review is discussing Bowser's Fury specifically, not Super Mario 3D World which I did review in the past.

As a port, I think Super Mario 3D World on switch is amazing. 3D World is already one of my favorite games but the port makes it even better with minor gameplay changes that add together to truly perfect the game. So all-in-all, I would have been fine if that was all that was added but no. Nintendo developed an entire new game, albeit a very short one, in addition to the base game.

I described Super Mario 3D World as a glorious combination of New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Bowser's Fury is similarly a magical combination of Super Mario 3D World that plays like Super Mario Odyssey and it works shockingly well.

Everything great about 3D World is here but now with a new gameplay loop and loads of new mechanics including Fury Bowser, who might be genuinely the most intimidating version of Bowser in Mario's history.

Instead of a regular "avoid obstacles and reach the flagpole" style that 3D World has, BF treats itself like a single large Kingdom in Super Mario Odyssey full of many unique stages and challenges for you to attempt and it's really refreshing after finishing 3D World.

Another thing that is refreshing after 3D World is the length. Some might argue that it's too short and yes I can see why. (I was able to 100% it in a single afternoon) however that kind of made for a nice change of pace after the gauntlet that the later levels of 3D World became. If Nintendo took this style and turned it into a full game with loads of worlds and gimmicks like Fury Bowser I would absolutely not complain. Everything here works shockingly well.

I'd say even if you played 3D World on Wii U, the switch port is more than worth it for what it adds to the base game but Bowser's Fury pushes it even further to being an absolute must-play for Mario fans.

shantae games are fun, but not that fun. and i think it all comes down to the more linear aspect of the exploration. i mean, can this game really be defined as a metroidvania? the world is pretty straight foward, to the point exploration becomes boring. i think the times i had more fun with the game, were the times it seemed to experiment new things in its linearity (i.e the "stealth" section and the "running" section). also, i was gonna go for the 100%, but due to some weird bug, an item i already owned wouldn't show up in my progress, so, yeah.
also can we talk about the character design? i know it's from a classic gameboy color game but somehow they manage to make shantae and all the female characters even more sexualized than they were in previous games. i played it in 3D on my 3DS and their boobs actually were protruding through the screen ?? lol also they look exactly the same ???? there's no nuance whatsoever.

the movements and attacks were fun though! i love the scimitar jump and the cannon. it was cool to combine attacks to the movements. and, yea, i guess in the end of the day, i had some fun with it! i just wish it were something more.

(7-year-old's review, typed by her dad)

It's very deathly. But I don't like it! Because I just want everyone to drive on the road carefully. Listen to the lights! And obey the rules!

That's what I want this game to be.

Cuz I just thought it was driving on the road, being calm. I don't like it! I love driving on the ROAD.

Florence is a beautiful piece of interactive art. The lovingly crafted minigames that accompany the scenes of this story are very impactful. The game introduces some super effective design twists with the verbs at play. My only critique now that the experience is done is that the pacing feels a bit rushed. I think the plot could have stayed on each beat just a bit longer to let the scope of this story sink in more. It’s hard to talk about what Florence does well without getting into spoilers so please see it for yourself and don’t look up anything! I’ve never cried this much while playing a video game, so have the tissues close by.