Book Your Ticket to Balan Wonderworld
Publishers no longer release games in certain genres within the big-budget AAA and mid-tier AA spaces at the rate they used to, thanks to the all-around rise in development costs and fear of releasing a bomb. One of the biggest examples is 3D platformers. You’d be hard-pressed to name one that didn’t come from Nintendo in the last several years, outside crowdfunded titles like A Hat in Time and Yooka-Laylee. Even then, which ones have Nintendo released outside the Mario franchise?
It’s for this reason that the announcement of Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time a month ago from Activision was a big shock, even though it shouldn’t have been thanks to the success of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy PSOne remake collection. Sony also announced the return of the Ratchet & Clank series with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart for PlayStation 5, the first brand-new title since the PlayStation 3 days. (The PS4’s only Ratchet & Clank game was a reimagining released alongside the movie.) There’s now another one to add to the pile: Balan Wonderworld.
Not a single person would have guessed that Square Enix would announce a new 3D platformer in 2020 given the types of titles they publish these days, even if they’re taking more risks. And even if they did, they wouldn’t have guessed they were green lighting a platformer from Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima, both important video game development and production names from Sega’s golden days.
Balan Wonderworld will feature the adventures of Leo Craig and Emma Cole, who venture to a mysterious world through a similarly mysterious theatre. They’re led by the titular Balan, a maestro who needs their assistance to restore balance and happiness to the inhabitants of Wonderworld. The key gimmick will involve the characters’ abilities to equip different costumes. Those costumes, of which there will be around 80, will provide different powers needed to defeat enemies and overcome obstacles. They’ll grant powers like freezing, walking in the air, and object manipulation.
The outfits mechanic sounds great when described, but the trailer suggests that the characters won’t simply be able to switch between a multitude of outfits at a given time. Chances are there’s a good reason for that, considering how cumbersome and time-consuming that could become. This should also make life easier for the game designers; with 80 outfits containing different powers, players feeling experimental would have inevitably figured out ways to break the game in half and exploit their way through stages and their secrets. (Not to say that won’t happen regardless.) Not having the option to switch powers at will sounds limiting ostensibly, if that’s the case, but that won’t feel like a limitation if the stage design is good enough. There are a lot of “ifs” and “maybes” here, but clarification will be provided through future gameplay demonstrations.
How the costume switching works won’t be (and hasn’t been) the first thing anyone notices about this game after watching the trailer. Hell, just look at this game. It’s beautiful aesthetically, exhibiting the kind of look rarely seen in non-indie and non-Nintendo products these days. It’s enough for me to think that Square Enix must have lost their goddamned minds green lighting this, albeit in a good way. There’s a reason games like this that don’t occasionally come from Nintendo need to be crowdfunded, but it’s commendable that Square Enix is giving it a shot.
The ex-Sega talent working on Balan Wonderworld is a big deal. Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima were heavily involved with the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog and the establishment of Sonic Team. This is the first time both creators are collaborating in 20 years. Both were also involved in the development of the woefully underappreciated Nights into Dreams, and Naka himself additionally helped create the also-underappreciated Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg. (Yes, Sega has a lot of these.) Both those titles are noteworthy because this game’s art style resembles a combination of the two of them, though Ohshima only worked on Nights’ character designs and not Billy Hatcher’s. Projects that look straight out of the late 90s or early 00s with an HD sheen are popular among the olds these days, so young people aren’t the only target audience here.
The key difference here is that unlike other titles in the Sega Spiritual Successor Cinematic Universe, it doesn’t need only a low budget (like Streets of Rage 4 or Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap — this is not to imply low budgets are bad) or outside funding (Shenmue 3) to come to life. Square Enix was crazy enough to give this their own money, and as previously mentioned, that’s worth appreciation despite any mistakes they might have made over the years.
Balan Wonderworld will release in spring 2021 for a wide assortment of platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. The game will ideally turn out well, to be one among a new line of 3D platformer revivals that won’t be short-lived.
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Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
