This is one of the main reasons I’m not going to even attempt to collect all the statues. By later levels, you’ll often find three. At first, you’ll find maybe one of these per level. And the hat disappears, requiring the entire level to be restarted. By the end of the game, these have six sections. Unfortunately, if you’re even a tiny bit off, you’re awarded with Great. The kicker is this: to get the statue from these, you have to get a grade of Excellent on each section. Many of these events take multiple minutes, most of which are spent watching the same animations you’ve seen ad nauseum. Aside from a single instance of button-mashing in each, every section simply tasks players with pressing any button as Balan’s silhouette matches up with his body. But a significant amount of them require the finding of Balan hats, which lead to miserable, boring quick-time events called Balan Bouts. I don’t know what the benefit of doing any of this is, as I didn’t finish building the tower, nor does there seem to be much incentive to.īalan statues are typically acquired simply by finding and touching them in the levels. Finding eggs in the levels and feeding Tims will result in more Tims. You’ll feed these cutesy bird animals called Tims some gems that you’ve found for the purposes of building a tower. There’s not much of note to see here, save for the fact that it operates akin to the Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure. It’s straightforward, but I don’t mind that one bit.Įach of these chapters is accessed through Balan Wonderworld‘s hub area. After both sufficient numbers of statues have been collected and every chapter boss has been cleared, the final boss fight opens up. Once players have accrued the required number, more chapters open up. Just like Sonic 2! Each chapter has golden Balan statues to locate. There are 12 chapters, each divided into two acts and a boss fight. Stay gold, Ponyboyīalan Wonderworld has a structure that’s basically a combination of every post- Mario 64 3D platformer and the Sonic games. Balan has a dark doppelganger named Lance (the most fearsome of names) who keeps corrupting people and turning them into shadow monsters or something. I barely know what the plot of this game is. Each of the 12 characters you’ll help has a trio of cutscenes, all including a cringey, choreographed musical number.

There’s not really any dialogue in Balan Wonderworld, as most things are conveyed through songs. Down-on-their-luck types, such as a clown that’s scared to ask a girl out, or a guy that lost a chess match one time. But the duo presses forward to assist a dozen individuals who share sadness in their lives. Why Balan, a guy with Dragon Ball powers, needs two children to do this in his stead, I don’t have the foggiest. He invites Leo and Emma into a colorful hub connected to a dozen woeful individuals who need their help. While running from their troubles, they find themselves in Balan’s theater, a magical place or something.īalan is a guy with green hair, a hat, and a creepy smile. Leo is disenchanted due to a lost friendship, and Emma is saddened because her maids keep ignoring her and whispering to each other while she’s present. I say “find,” because they’re more minor inconveniences than anything. But this is a dated game built out of questionable design choices that make me wonder why no one stepped in with advice before it was too late.īalan Wonderworld begins with players choosing from one of two characters, both of whom are struggling with circumstances they find unfavorable. There are numerous things to like and I did find myself enthused on occasion. To be clear, what’s here is far from bad. It’s unfortunate, then, that this is the game he chose to make. He was told by the higher-ups at Square Enix that, while he could execute his vision with Balan Wonderworld, this was his one chance. Yuji Naka hadn’t directed a game since 1999’s Chu Chu Rocket, let alone a tentpole 3D platformer. But it can burn their wings off with an intense magnifying glass as well. It supplies copious winds to set properties aloft.

Balan wonderworld concept art