This game has gotten the most unreasonable amount of hate I have seen in a long time. Judging by the sales numbers, it's obvious that it's mostly people parroting Youtube videos or going off the demo as it has become a dogpile flavor of the week.
With that being said, is the game actually good? No not really, but it is far from terrible, and plays slightly better than the demo. It puzzles me how this game is tracking the hate and amount of videos that it gets, because honestly the most interesting thing about Balan is how unremarkable and uninteresting it is. It's just very stale. Probably one of the most mediocre games I have played. There is nothing that stands out about it from a good or bad perspective. Bland levels, bland soundtrack, bland platforming. The most wonderous thing about it is how it manages to hit every note in the most run-of-the-mill way possible. There are way more interesting and actually terrible games people can hate on out there.

The beauty of Super Monkey Ball 1&2 is that they're perfectly designed. When you fail in the originals, you know it was your fault and you want to keep playing to get better and learn the best routes. This game is piss-easy until about world 8. Then with a wonky game feel, bad level design, and weird physics all mixed together, you feel no accomplishment when you succeed and you never feel like it was your fault when you fail. 10-5 is one of the worst designed levels I have ever experienced. Generally, there feels like there is 0 consistency with the hazards on every level. For example, sometimes you need to use boost pads to clear the stage, other times they are there to kill you, and sometimes a level will have both and trial-and-error is the only way to find out which you should use. That's just bad design. Also the party games are complete trash and they drastically reduced the quantity from the Wii game...not that the missing ones were any good anyway. At least you can play as Sonic...so there's that I guess.

If the loading screens weren't so unbearably frequent and long, I probably would actually have played this game more since it's the closest thing to Sonic Adventure 3 we'll ever get, and as such, the game is bizarre, over-dramatic, and hilarious. Far, far, far away from being the "worst game ever". It's not even the worst Sonic game...other than the dang loading screens. Let me put it this way, people are still talking and thinking about this game 14 years later. That in itself makes it more memorable and valuable than 90% of other games that come out.