Balan Wonderworld...Well, We Tried.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
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Russ and I completed Balan Wonderworld as a team. I couldn't be bothered to write a script, so we're just gonna tell you our thoughts as they came to mind.
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![Balan Wonderworld - A Second Look [Bumbles McFumbles]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wNC7lW9sQEU/mqdefault.jpg)
No, this isn’t a Johnny Vs. So, Sonic ‘06 remains king. The stingy fool.
8 years later and Sonic '06 is still the longest review? Talk about being impressed
At this point, I highly doubt that the Sonic 06 review will ever be topped.
So, we gonna wait another 8 years lol
@@LYK1003 Probably not.
Well shit 😢
The only reason you can't play as Balan is because he'd require more than one button to be controlled
they tried to copy you with the up for interpretation story davey boy lol
I find it quite amusing considering that for the most part, NiGHTS is a one-button game. (The acrobatics barely counts...)
@@CiromBreeze Keep in mind that it’s also a 2.5d game so the one button gameplay is more fitting for that game style.
@@CiromBreeze it's also not a platformer (unless you really wanna count being able to walk around and explore a bit as Elliot and Claris before shifting gears to Nights) so you only need the one button for dashing
@@revalution1965 Seriously, imagine a video game directed by David Lynch. I bet he'd get along great with Hideo Kojima.
The fact that physical copies of this game come packaged with a ticket to the Wonderworld
apparently a place where people go to when dealing with heavy emotions
is hilariously telling
Oh come on, that ticket was adorable!
I wouldn't be surprised if the back of the ticket was scratchable and would reveal a "help me" message from Yuji Naka
@@gamingawesomeness222 Adorable? Yes. Unintentionally hilarious? Also yes.
@@CaptainTitforce Accurate.
Lol
Man, the fact that people were *begging* for the game to be delayed speaks for itself.
EDIT: da fuck did I come back to
A delay wouldn't be enough, this game is flawed at the very core, you would need to outright restart development to fix it.
@@justinbowman1342 Oh for sure. I’m just saying that people were that desperate for the game to be good.
@@justinbowman1342 can I ask because I have never played nights or seen anything of it other than the comparisons to the yellow wisp. But whats wrong with Balan Wonderworld specifically? What’s the core problem. I’m typing this as I’m just a few min into the video?
@@josevazval the movement is bad. like you literally can't mess up movement in a platformer.
Delayed games aren't guaranteed to be good. Example: Cyberjunk. Last of Us 2. Final Fantasy 15 and 7 Remake are giant disappointing games that took years to make.
Yuji Naka seems to suffer from something I call the creative peak dilemma.
Everyone has at least one great idea in them. The only problem is, once you make that idea a reality and everyone praises it? You'll then spend the rest of your life trying to top it. If you peaked too early in life? Surely that has to be torture.
Naka's problem is more taking too much credit for team efforts. Sonic was conceptualized as a character by Naoto Ohshima and programmed by Yuji Naka, but the gameplay and levels were designed by Hirokazu Yasuhara. Naka grabbed more and more power at Sega and ran Yasuhara out.
@@Argorox his programming was integral to the game, not to mention he created the concept of sonic
“nights into dreams” was his “illmatic”...
I think he suffers from "He got lucky" syndrome.
He just got lucky. Sonic was created by the marketing department, not him.
@@king_big_pp That's not true, you can disprove that with 2 seconds of research
Balan could have easily been an elite beat agents type of character if you played as him going around motivating and helping others. The kids can help with assisting him on missions and maybe get some "value of teamwork" shenanigans.
Now I can't not imagine Balan dancing to Jumping Jack Flash.
That sounds like alot of fun
@@dr.velious5411 yeah yeah YEAH!
Fear not the man who ties every action to one button, but the man who ties every button to one action.
oh no. he tied all of his buttons in Streetfighter to jab. darn, he's too goodXD
Sonic Adventure 2 puts 10 moves in only 2 buttons but Balan has one move on ALL buttons
@@theminecraft2516 At least with Sonic all those moves are context and input sensitive; The LS-Dash when near rings, the spin dash when crouching, etc.
kirby air ride did a lot with a single button, sometimes to a fault but it did a lot of interesting things to the design
God THAT sounds BROKEN,
AF!!!
Lol xD
Mighty No. 9: “Welcome to the club. We got drinks, snacks and broken hopes and dreams”
At least Mighty No. 9 tried to make it at least fun to play amidst its other issues.
and join the many fail game in Matt wha happun? series
Balan wasn't crowd funded, so it's automatically the lesser of two evils
@@Zerovin But it made us cry like anime fans on prom night.
Hmm, Mighty no.9 sounds like marriage.
Honestly everything regarding the game and the game itself really just depresses me altogether, especially knowing how passionate Naka and Oshima were about it and the whole “One chance” line that Naka explained with square, it really doesn’t make me mad, just heartbroken
Same...
Good programmer, not great at game design
@@skydiamsteam6005 Yup. I hope that they can bounce back from this, though.
How hope this turn out like playtonic when they made yooka kaylee and the impossible lair
Yeah. Like they said, lots of potential and you can see what they wanna do, and it hits even harder as someone who was hoping this would bring something similar to the magic of Nights to a modern/non PC audience. But shits just... really dull where it matters most. I really hope it's a victim of covid affecting development or something
Dunkey said the game felt like a competition among the devs to see who could make the shittiest powerup, and I honestly can't think of a better analogy.
Foxbox guy is sitting smugly on his winnings...
IS THIS A MARIO RIPOFF?
I can just imagine Fox Box guy putting his magnum opus in the game and explaining it to the other devs
“You turn into an immobile invincible box that slides on surfaces”
“Haha that’s pretty lame but it looks like it has fun uses, doesn’t stand up to my two foot teleport”
“You cannot control the transformation I made it random”
“... you bastard.”
@@Chaos_867 i would say it's more hat in the time rip off but Mario works as well
Among
My overwhelming feeling with Balan Wonderworld is that I've never seen a game struggle so hard against _itself._ Everything about the design and presentation is so cool and charismatic and full of life, and everything about the actual video game is lame and stupid and completely dull. It's like the game is going out of its way to build your hopes up, and then let you down, over and over and over again. It wants you to imagine all the cool things that could happen, and then it seems to almost go out of its way to actively disappoint you. So many cool aspects of its design, wrapped around a game that is struggling as hard as it can, at all moments, to be as uncool as possible.
The Ode to 2020 perhaps? lol
@@Reala27 Possibly...
Am I the only one who thinks the game looks extremely unappealing? Tbf, I also hate how Sonic characters look and usually the levels are just overly coloured mess.
Technically, Sonic 06 is still the longest "Johnny VS" video
damn you got a point
Just proves that Balan broke more than the record
It’s not
Yeah, writing a script is a key difference. Podcast/non-scripted stuff doesn't count, Sonic 06 is still this channel's white whale
I didnt even notice the bloody length until I saw this comment!
The fact that this video has possibly already got more views than Balan Wonderworld has sold copies is beyond hilarious
I thought Balan wonderland sold like 3 million copies already. Or at least I heard that on 4chan
@@jameskowanko7574 And just like that any credibility your comment had, has vanished into the aether as soon as you said 4chan lol!
@@jameskowanko7574 Square wishes it sold that much
as far as I know, it didnt get onto ANY charts across any digital storefront
you might be thinking of Monster Hunter Rise
but it just came out?
The sale figures are just sad.
I don't know, I'm starting to see kind of a trend of these oldschool famous developers selling projects on their name alone. Like you said, it wasn't just a sonic man, it was a sonic team. Games rarely are great due to the vision of one person alone, despite how people try to romanticize developers in that way. And when games are put above the shoulders of some famous developer, they tend to not go that well.
I think it's also difficult for lightning to strike twice. Like, yeah, they made a fantastic game in the past, but that doesn't mean they can do it again. I think a good example is Miyamoto. He's created some of my favorite games/series in existence, yet he still puts out crap every now and then. Usually in the form of a gimmick like with Star Fox Zero. At the end of the day, we're just human. Even the most talented among us are liable to slip up every now and then.
The funny thing is Koji Igarashi is the *ONE* exception to this. He practically made Bloodstained in quite the challenging nature to stick a shovel up Konami's ass and actually had the talent available to pull it off.
Miriam herself is showing up in more games than even fucking Shovel Knight by now and THAT guy managed to get in Smash of all things. ...Yes I say that knowing full well Shovel Knight is an actual power-up in Bloodstained.
@@UltimaKeyMaster Yeah Bloodstained turned out pretty good, although I would argue that igarashi didn't direct the game, he was only the producer. He used his name but he was smart enough to seek young talented developers to direct.
But yeah, it turned out pretty good, I wouldn't say it is excellent but it is decent. And circle of the moon is awesome.
I call this the "Butch Hartman" principle. Where a creator tries the whole "I made your childhood" to shovel out their mediocre projects when in reality their past endeavors succeeded because they had a TEAM around them who kept them in check and did a majority of the work.
It's just a bunch of gaming vets making outdated games. The Yookas and the Shenus and the Mighty, all these games by legendary game devs wonking out medicore to bad games (for modern standards) is just a sign of the times. I believe Miyamoto is in this camp too only difference is when his IPs people have pretty low expectation compare to other IPs
This reminds me of the mighty no9 debacle. I think what’s happening is that we’re seeing people who made great games for their time and expecting them to be able to do it in 2021 and they just aren’t capable of the new level depth we expect
I think it’s also a bit that we put too much stock into these people on their own when their chemistry with their team (and their team itself) make or break their game development abilities a lot of the time,
It seems like whoever designed the levels and gameplay mechanics hasn’t played any games made after 1996
I'm not even sure it's a new level of depth we expect. I mean hell, Nintendo figured out how to make 2 different buttons do two different things back on the NES...
If this game had just made a jump button and an action button, and maybe cut out half the duplicate costumes, it would just be resoundingly mediocre instead of downright awful.
Sakaguci and uoematsu delivered with Fantasian.
In the case of MN9, it was people idolising one man without considering the restraint his team kept him under and the endless money Capcom gave him to piss away. Cut him loose and give him a budget (of 4 fucking mill) and he can’t do shit
Knowing that Arzest was the developer for this game (aka the same developers of Yoshi's New Island and Hey! Pikmin) makes a lot of sense as to why this became such a mess
whats wrong with new island?!
@@crudalicious haven’t played it but the consensus is that it’s very mediocre. Also, the soundtrack is God-awful
I am currently playing Hey! Pikmin and the game is enjoyable... Nice little spin-off.
@@8BitFun never EVER use a kazoo for a soundtrack! Yoshi's New Island made me hate it and made me realize, Yoshi is just not much of a great series in games other than OG Yoshi's Island. Personally kazoos are the worst instrument period for a soundtrack, makes you feel like you're in a world ment for daycare babies, Sesame Street but worse!
@@8BitFun the game is *awful.* I played it a bit and it was just unbearable, not just the music. It doesn't have the charm or fun of the OG.
Yoshi's Story on the N64 isn't very good but it's creative and fun at least; Woolly World I hear is very good, but nothing else in the franchise has been worth it.
"The story is in a novel you have to buy separately"
Thats soooo Square enix. It's literally what they did with FF15
Drakengard 3 also had it's main character Zero's backstory in a novel
Nier Automata says hello with all of the stage plays and novellas.
And lemme guess, most of it isn't translated. Cause that's what happened to most of the Blazblue stuff(which sucks cause it makes Centralfiction make little sense as it's the "everyone is here for the finale" game and a good chunk of the plots that conclude in it are from untranslated novels, mangas or side materials)
@@blooperreloaded5526 at least in Nier and Drakengard's case, the story makes sense without needing the extra context, that stuff just enhances the main story.
At least in those novels are more expansion while this one has no story
"The one chance to make a platformer game for Square Enix"
That's rough, buddy.
Capcom:it was doom to fail because of our next installment of monsters haunter series.
Fingers crossed he still gets to make fishing games, Yuji Naka's true passion.
(Actually not kidding, Prope primarily made fishing games)
Yuji's game turned into the moon, and then proceeded to reenact Majora's Mask
@@joshhallam4555 now that's a game I'd wanna play: you're a ghost haunting monsters
@@nobodyinparticular9640 You're an adventurer that was killed by the world's strongest monster. After death, you refuse to give up on killing that monster, and you use ghostly influence to lead parties of new adventurers into hunting it. You strategize your interactions to best help the adventurers by influencing their tactics and positioning, giving them warnings of incoming attacks, giving them various buffs, and taking possession of them for direct control of units.
Not being able to play as Balan is the worst part, such a cool design he basically fights like a dragon ball character during those QTEs, imagine if those scenes as actual real time boss fights.
The Balan QTE is like those crappy Power Rangers games when you reach the Megazord level you either play a crappy minigame or QTE instead of actually controlling the one cool thing you were looking forward to
Balan’s design is the only part of the game I’d describe as successfully great.
You CAN technically play as Balan - or at least you can get his costume to use his abilities - but it's locked behind a tedious monster raising sidequest with lots of grinding and RNG.
Unrelated, but I appreciate your Soma Cruz pfp
Especially during the battle with Lance.
Imagine a 'Doppelganger' battle against Lance.
To think this was Yuji Naka's only shot is is kinda soul crushing
Meh. The fact that this game came out as it is is probably the last proof we needed that his design philosophy is completely outdated (and has been for a while). Let's see what a younger, more open-minded and "in touch" dev can do in his place. Cause everything that was invested in Balan Wonderworld was pretty much a waste. Yuji Naka leaving is a good thing for the industry, as cruel as it sounds.
@@DanoLefourbe
Hmmmmmm...
I see what you mean
@@DanoLefourbe I disagree. No design philosophy is "outdated." The "one-button" design could work as long as it's accommodated by the gameplay. Sonic 2 uses the same philosophy, but it's not "outdated" today. The problem here is more likely not enough resources put toward development, alongside some general poor decisions.
@@U.F.O Ask modern day gamers, and most will consider Sonic 2's design outdated. It doesn't feel outdated to us because we have prior experience with it. One-button design can work, true, and it's been experimented on plenty game jam projects. But it only really works on puzzle games, or only as a novelty we'd get bored of pretty fast. Honestly, a one-button platormer just doesn't work well. There is a reason why it isn't done anymore.
@@DanoLefourbe Sonic 2 still plays fantastically. Just look at Sonic Mania that came out a few years ago. The same philosohy just doesn't work in 3D, or at least in this garbage fire 🔥 of a "game."
Maaaan, it's a shame it turned out to be this bad , I genuinely wanted it to succeed.
And with the amount of costumes, I'm in awe that the title character wasn't the invincibility costume. You can't control the title character at all. And I was a little more than defeated where I declared this game porn fodder (the lowest denominator for ANY game) as I saw NSFW for the scuba diver on twitter since being Square, you'd THINK they cover body positivity in this game as that's a depressing topic in of itself when you get into subjects like sex positivity, as people still want nothing to do with gender identity and the like.
GaiaX5 Yep, a lot of missed potential.
@@Gaia_BentosZX5 bruh what
@@Gaia_BentosZX5 A balan costume is unlocked at the end of the game though
"Psychonauts is a better Balan Wonderworld"
Now *that's* a potential video title right there
I can already feel the clicks
@@sidthesquid4206 but he already did psychonauts
Persona 5 is a better Balan Wonderworld.
Most games are though
@@patrinizer346
Tbf they are different genres of games entirelly, and no i don't cound jumping around on palaces as platforming
The Wha Happun episode of Balan Wonderworld is gonna be fun
How is it that people are talking about the inevitable Wha Happun episode in every video about the game?
Essentially the hopes and dreams of many fans turned into despair and nightmares as soon as the demo came out... :/
@@MatthewCobalt
It's obvious that this game had to have some development trouble.
@@MatthewCobalt Something must've happened behind the scenes. There's just no way that the people who came up with one of gaming's most recognizable icons just make a game that's this much of a dumpster fire. Unless you're Keiji Inafune and make Mighty Number 9 😂
@@Apotheosister I betting it had to be Yuji and Square Enix hading a hard co operation
"I get one chance"
At first I was thinking, "Damn, SE's being kinda stingy,". In hindsight, it wasn't them being harsh, it was because they knew who Yuji Naka was and flat out did not trust him.
You now have NO chances. And it's probably for the better and it hurts to say that
Yeah, that subtitle sounds about right. Man...
Moral of the story: Just go play NiGHTs on steam for $8
@@theminecraft2516 nights is great stuff
@@theminecraft2516 Or get Puppeteer for the PS3, if possible, since that's basically Balan's Wonderworld: Majora's Mask as a 2D platforming meta comedy.
@@lnsflare1 Before Sony takes it down that is lol
@@theminecraft2516 SEGA needs to put the sequel on Steam. It's not as good as the original, but it's still a fun time
And just like that, the Sonic 06 video length has been officially dethroned.
To be fair, it's not scripted so it probably doesn't count.
An all it took was a game done by two of the main people who came up with the blue blur himself
It's not a vs video though
If you want to be technical, he did that already with SGB Review: Ourselves. Not to mention all the Sonic Hacking Contests.
It’s not a VS video.
The BoxFox is the perfect representation for this game as a whole
The inclusion of BoxFox cracks me up.
BoxFox would be more ok if it was used in an enclosed space when you unlock it
@@tobikat8865 it would be ok if you could CONTROL IT and it wasn’t, quote, “doing it when it feels like it”
"Confused screams"
That only furries would like it?
I wouldn't mind more videos like this. I enjoyed hearing your guys in-depth thoughts on this game
I love seeing two of my favorite youtubers overlap like this
Why do you comment on random Gaming videos, You're a commentary Channel
Abraham Nettey Because he is a human with other interests?
More unfocused than deep thoughts, would rather have a more clean cutting of the fat than this.
@@subifyouhatetiktokandreddit234 Congrats, you win dumbest comment of the day.
The fact the only way to understand the FULL STORY and CHARACTERS by buying a separate novel really fills me with pain.
^ Me with Final Fantasy 15's dlc situation. Im still peeved that they canceled Episode Aranea, Episode Lunafreya, and Episode Noctis.
@@jrhamari Pretty sure some of those episodes are What-if scenarios though.
@@manuelalbertoromero9528 Well... I was looking forward to Episode Noctis given that I really wanted him to have some form of a happy ending.
On the other hand it’s said the book is a better product than the game proper
@@gamingawesomeness222 Ehhhhh debatable. I enjoyed FF15 for what it was.
I want to see the documentary about how this game got made. I genuinely want to learn the thought process behind things like "Let's have every button do the exact same thing" and "Let's have costumes that let you do things any other 3D platformer protagonist can do by default, like push blocks, or jump."
Yeah games this shitty have a story to tell
I think I've heard that they assigned all actions to one button because it aould be too confusing for kids, which was supposed to be the target audience for this "Game"...
Several people have speculated that this started out as a mobile game, would explain why every button does the same thing
@@alexpotts6520 That's a very good and pretty accurate speculation for what was given.
@@apichumagician502 even though kids play Fortnite, which requires many buttons; Mario which use more than two; Zelda which uses every button; Minecraft; Crash Bandicoot; indies...
Naka sounds like a boomer.
They should’ve just let you play as balan and fly around kind of like nights, that would’ve been much better, especially since people got nights vibes from him
Seeing Balan do feats of strength and flying around like a dragon ball z character looked so amazing to play as too
You can actually unlock a "Balan" costume that let's you do just that.
It's like the final, "ultimate" costume and you can basically just jump and fly around all the crappy level design, lol
Then people would be complaining and moaning about how it's too much similar to Nights.
Shit on that to!
I've never been a fan of nights cause it's an on rails flyer. When I can fly I want the freedom and openness to experience that ability.
And here we thought Sonic Forces was the textbook definition of “wasted potential”...
This game deserved so much better.
I swear everything close to sonic is cursed
@@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz it’s sad....but true to an extent.
*_(Angry Infinite noises)_*
@@rosesongoku6980 infinite was wasted edgy potential
@@table2.0 100%. Not only was he not the final boss, his last fight was exactly the same as Metal Sonic’s, and instead of a well-written backstory, when all is said and done he just comes off as a loser.
Idea: The protagonist of Balan 2 goes to Wonderworld because he bought Balan Wonderwall for $60.
You know, in retrospect with how Yuji Naka was doing Insider Trading for two games that were 100% in development while he was working at SE...it becomes a lot harder for me to take his side when it comes to Wonderworld's development issues.
Balan wonderworld was a money laundering front, 100%
That ticket is something the retro PC gaming crowd would call a feelie. A tangible item from the game's world
It was a really cool idea.
More games should do this honestly, too bad this idea was wasted on a trash game
@@FrahdChikun Luckily, some games still do that, mainly from LRG. All copies of Scott Pilgrim VS The World for instance comes with a ticket stub for Clash at Demonhead, which is kinda rad
God Damn, Balan himself is such an interesting and we'll designed (artistically) character. His movements and actions make me think of Genie from Aladdin. Such a shame his game was trash.
But he could be in smash
Trash is incredibly harsh. In my time with the game, I'd say it is painfully average.
@@toaster4975 I'm glad you thought it was fine but I personally agree with him
@@jamiemanning4944 I fully understand and respect your opinion.
Maybe the fan fics could pick up on the story slack
I still love the fact that people are currently more excited about the inevitably Wha Happun episode of the game, rather than the game itself.
Every single video that reviewed the game has at leaat one of these comments. And yes, I'm also waiting for the episode.
There doesn't seem to be much to say for a Wha Happun other than they made a bad game.
@@elin111 no
@@elin111 Wha Happun is about telling the story of how the game became bad. It details all the misfired and issues that went wrong during development.
@@CeHee123 It's not even about bad games specifically. It more on the development history, where the clusterfuck and trials that the dev have to go through just for the end result to be good or bad.
Doom 2016 is an episode and it's a good game, but the development history is interesting, as it could have easily become a generic modern FPS games with demons.
@@MatthewCobalt Oh right. I've literally seen that one. Don't know why I forgot.
god i feel so bad for yuji naka, he was barely given any chance with this
44:50 you can play as balan, he's a secret costume you get by grinding for the Legendary Tim and going to a hidden island in the hubworld.
27:30 i thought the cat one was pretty self explanitory: a girl found a cat she liked, then it ran into traffic and she thought it was run over by a car and was traumatized by that thought
This may sound callous, but I honestly don't feel bad for him. I really don't.
Yes the themes of the game are nice. It's about overcoming trauma and getting the inner strength to find happiness after a depression. Those are good themes! But a game is a lot more than just an idea. The single-button-action idea is absolutely baffling, and the design of each world flies in the face of design best practices. The costume system is overbloated and tries to incorporate backtracking but this makes no sense when costumes aren't permanent additions to your inventory. And everything about Balan's design is vastly more interesting than the characters you play as: His costume, his attitude, his movement, the player *wants* to play as him but the best we can do is a grossly repetitive QTE that may be the worst idea in any modern game.
I dont feel bad for Yuji Naka because he didn't study his art. He didn't try to improve his craft. This is like feeling bad for Doug Walker and his failed online game shows and internet series Demo Reel. Yeah he put his heart into it but... he didn't actually study the craft he claims to love so much.
@@king_big_pp i don't just mean i feel bad because his vision was muddied up by the gameplay, i mean i feel bad because he never got any real reception for his game until it was too late and he didn't seem to have any ability to delay the game at all so he could maybe overhaul and properly test everything that was wrong with it. also i wouldn't really compare this to Doug's demo reel fiasco. while both were passion projects that went to shit Balan was one that probably could've been salvaged under the right circumstances since the creator was willing to do so, demo reel doug could've taken the opportunity to rework some things (which he tried to do admittedly) but his hubris didn't really allow him to do so
27:30 that was a base plotline for an anime called paranoia agent
That first point reminds me of how in Mega Man X7 you had to rescue a certain amount of Reploids to PLAY AS X! Cause it sounds tedious for something that you should be able to do from the start or unlock A LOT EASIER!
I find it crazy that Crash Bandicoot 4 on Switch cost less than this game.
To be fair, it did originally launch at $60 on PS4/Xbox One.
Crash 4 may be the better MADe game but oh my sweet wumpa loving lord I'd Rather 100% balan ANY DAY than try to 100% Crash 4.
@@gamingawesomeness222 I used to try to 100% every single player game I played. After a while I realized that was usually dumb and not a great way to spend my time. Now I think not about how hard it is to 100%, but rather about what’s in it for me to 100% it
@@helispark the only games I try to 100% are those that I REALLY enjoy. Re2 remake, Bloodstained Ritual of the Night, Axiom Verge and Nier automata are the only ones I've gotten everything (trophies included) in the last decade I think.
@@helispark for years, I’ve set my own definitions of 100% completion.
As someone who’s platinum-ed rayman legends and is a regular viewer of the completionist.. not every game is worth a true 100% completion.
Imagine slaving all the way through Balan Wonderworld only to be rewarded with a seizure
I think this game could really benefit doing what Psychonauts did and having the level design itself tell the story. For example, what if each level you go through is the different parts of the series of events that lead the character in question down the spiral they led them to balan?
That would be great
I thought that's what Balan Wonderland was aiming to do. Have each level represent a character you're helping and have the different level designs/gimmicks reflect the story as well as the personality of each different character.
But I was sadly mistaken, it was just another generic 3D plaformer with hints of the concepts I was thinking about but that's it (also expecting fans to buy a book to explain the story of a videogame is just bad consumer practice).
Andre Stewart it honestly is such a shame that this became such a dumpster fire. I think the scariest part of this is that all it’s gonna do in the long run is strengthen the stigma against modern day 3D platformers, both in consumers eyes and in publishers.
If you want a game with this concept done right, go play Psychonauts, and/or follow the development for Psychonauts 2.
@@melofelo4484 nah, we have Mario Odyssey, 3D World, Crash Bandicoot, Hat in Time...
Israel Romero consider the fact that only 1 of those games is a new IP; of the others, one of them is 3-4 years old (and is a Mario game, which is generally a safe bet), one is a port, and one is a sequel (that still received a lot of skepticism regarding its quality before its release). As far as new 3D platformers, there’s been only 3 that come to mind: yooka-laylee, Super Lucky’s Tale, and the only one to really gather any momentum, A Hat In Time. Unfortunately, it’s gotten harder to convince people the value of 3D platformers as of late. Balan ain’t helping that.
Naka left in 2006, actually, during '06's development
Oshima left in '99 after Sonic Adventure
@KammyKat oh hello! Nice to see you!
Oshima did art for sa2 the advance and rush games....
@@Soniman001 That was Yuji Uekawa
@@saturn_wolf oh shit you're right. Wait SA1 and 2 were different artist????
@@Soniman001 yuji uekawa did the “modern” sonic redesigns at he was the main art director for SA2
the sonic curse is having a good idea that gets no development time or budget and ends up as missed potential
At least those games are fun, balan is not
You know you’ve messed up when the original Super Mario Bros, from 1985, has more button control options (with 3) than your game (with 2).
It hurts that it turned out this bad, this game had so much hype and balan looked so charming and stylish, and looked like it had so much damn potential
Game feels like Square went to Naka and said: "Fine, you can make your 3D platformer, but you have 2 years".
Then a pandemic hits and screws up everything.
Naka: "Its not ready for release, can we have an extension".
Square: "No, just stick it together".
I dunno about putting it on Square when you have such a fundamentally flawed game like this. Having more time isn't going to fix that.
@@UltimaKeyMaster I hear ya, I played the demo and every aspect of that game feels undercooked.
Feels like they really just wanted to get any product out in any condition.
I only speculated bout Square cause Naka has years in the industry designing, especially with Sonic and Nights. There's gotta be a different issue that caused Balan to turn out like this, but who knows.
@@RoastedJustice I think it's kinda easy to blame Square because they've been REALLY up and down lately.
They were just coming of FF15 being an unprofitable mess to FF7 Remake doing immensely well and FF14 still chugging along just fine saving their asses, to the point where key staff of 14's story are now on board for FF16 to make damn sure it doesn't become a mess again.
...And then you got their publishing branch being an even more insane roller coaster, given how Avengers bombed and Outriders, while a decent game in my opinion, launched with godawful online connectivity.
@@RoastedJustice I mean, 2 years is a pretty decent time to get a game like this done, especially on AAA budget. The game just felt undercooked on many areas, like it changed focus every so often or just didn't knew what to follow. Easy to blame executives when it's most likely development team being undecisive.
@@UltimaKeyMaster is balme Yuji Naka more. The square Enid points are valid but Yuji naka has been losing his touch shortly before he quit working for SEGA and this game with the concepts, ideas level design etc. all have Yuji naka’s finger prints over it when he worked on sonic and nights into dreams
This game failed when Naka admits this game's design is more aim to get kids to play. Naka kids aren't stupid, like come on man.
Naka please
I see nothing wrong with wanting a younger audience for your game.
@@KyleEvra of course but you kinda need to make sure its actually fun and not boring.
I wish Yuji Naka would just go back to SonicTeam. Then we could actually get some good 3D controls for a 3D Sonic game
@@KyleEvra The desire to make it for kids isn't the problem. The problem is thinking kids are stupid. The game philosophy is extremely condescending to children.
@5:12 --hey, I know that one! I used to play it when I was little. The reason why its titled like that is that Ivy, the little chick in the cover/that you help guide back to her mother in the game, isn't actually a Kiwi despite looking like one due to her shell. She is a baby Phoenix!
I wonder if Yuji Naka leaving Sonic Team is somehow related to them discovering that there’s more than one button on the controller after Sonic Heroes
I don't mean to ruin the joke, but Sonic games have used more than one button since 3D Blast in 1996.
@@psychie8625 Which wasn't developed by Sonic Team.
@@MakoShiruba So? Adventure was, And that used more than one button.
@@psychie8625 Not enough.
@@MakoShiruba What does that even mean?
Yuji Naka can leave Sonic Team, but the Sonic Team cant leave Yuji Naka.
I wish Yuji Naka would just go back to SonicTeam. Then we could actually get some good 3D controls for a 3D Sonic game
@jaretco6423 He could !! Sonic games has better control when Naka was involved, especially the classic games and the Adventure games
@jaretco6423 You're right, I agree...I was hoping for a return to the "adventure formula" sometime, but yeah, there's other issues that need fixing too in recent Sonic Games
The chess player was stuck in the past, when he was on top. But then he decided to look toward the future, and the future generation of chess players. That’s the lesson.
Yuji Naka probably should have considered that lmaooo
True. I just wish the cutscene itself did a better job expressing it, because as it is in game, that element isn’t particularly clear
Remember everyone on mobile. You can skip the ads by dragging the video to the end and hitting replay.
There's a lil something called youtube vanced...
You're welcome
@@Chad_Eldridge *shrug*
The release of this game feels like if someone released a book without talking to an editor.
It feels like no one ever said “no” on the production team and just tossed whatever they wanted into this pile of nonsense just because they could.
God this game just proves the point of how big names being attached to projects does not mean you should trust that the project is gonna end up being even just ok
Didn't we already went through this before?
Mighty n°9 anyone?
Matt Muscles' What Happun for this is going to be interesting.
Also this game was DOA on Switch, where it would have at least gotten pity purchases, since it released the EXACT same day as Monster Hunter Rise.
The amount of wasted potential this game has hurts so much.
Imagine if, and stay with me here, instead of just using one button, they used two buttons, one for jumping, one for powers! It's brilliant and revolutionary!
@@heavylobster4339 I apologize, I read that in a Piccolo/Nail TFS voice
Balan's character design is really cool, this is the same thing that happened to Other M, where they don't trust casuals to know how to use a wii nunchuck. In this case, more than one button.
@@gu3z185 Other M was Sakamoto being a fuckwit more than patronizing.
Agreed, this game couldve been great. Balan is such a cool character aesthetically, its so exaggerated just like the old Sega artstyles like Nights. Its a shame that Yugi Naka will not get this opportunity ever again, its a one done deal. That is what hurts the most.
If you look up wasted potential in a book you’ll get a picture of Balan Wonderworld
And Mighty Number 9
I disagree. This games never had any real potential. The very idea behind it is problematic. It was always doomed to fail.
Alongside pictures of Sea Of Theives, Yooka-Laylee, Cyberpunk 2077, and the entirety of the Wii U
This game is pretty much a reality check for all Sonic fans who keep screaming "FIre Iizuka, bring back Yuji Naka", thinking he would bring the Sonic franchise back to its glory.
Sadly it isn’t cause those morons are just making excuses like “well if they gave him more time the game would have been amazing” despite the fact the very core of the game is dogshit and no amount of extra time would have saved it
Well, Izuka does need to be fired, still. Forces was also the blandest piece of shit ever released, for an ANNIVERSARY title. They need to just remove every single old fart still left in Sonic Team, and get more people like the Sonic Mania crew to make modern Sonic games, because clearly hiring on a bunch of Sonic rom hackers to make a new 2D Sonic game, and said game ended up being the single best and well received Sonic game in YEARS, I think that says a LOT about what Sonic needs right now, and that's younger blood who genuinely care about what makes Sonic games good and just spend their time creating mods and hacks for Sonic games to further their own programming skills.
@@alexmansfield3268 Fucking this. And now Square is going to take the fall for his fuck up. Square *already* went through this mess with FF15 being impossible to profit off of (and ironically FF14 being a helluva safety net), I don't think they intentionally wanted that a second time with a game nobody knew about until less than a year ago.
I get it's kinda defending a huge company here, but the worst Square had was negligence to a deadline, not malice...but that deadline wasn't gonna fix jack shit.
The only dumb thing Square did with the deadline was make it release the same day as a portable Monster Hunter game. THAT is brain-dead stupid, especially to a Japanese audience.
Ouch.....
@@vgmaster02 sonic funni
Jesus, not 5 minutes in and he's already struggling to say something nice.
"Hey the $60 game comes with a cute piece of paper!"
I've said this before but this game makes Mighty No. 9 look like a worthy successor to MegaMan.
Until i watched this video I had *no idea* this was a full-priced AAA release, that's honestly disgusting
MN9 was disappointing, but lerfectly playable. I had fun with it. All it needed was more polish, wasn't broken on conceptual level like Balan Wonderworld.
Mighty No. 9 was just mediocre at worse and didn't have the price tag of $60.
Feelies are really cool though!
@@ligtningdog6399 Mighty No. 9 is dogshit.
Nights: I have an unclear plot.
Final Fantasy 13: Ha! You need to read extra material to under my plot!
Sonic 06: My plot is clear, but I have weak platforming and glitchy mechanics!
Balan Wounderworld: Hold my beer.
there's a joke to make about a review of an underwhelming product being sponsored by raycon
“I hope he continues his endeavours at Square...”
Hoo boy.
It really felt like they were trying to mechanically follow in Billy Hatcher's footsteps by making the gameplay very simplistic but centered around the many different ways you could play with the same few buttons, but instead they made the game too barebones by removing fundamental gameplay mechanics like jumping when using certain costumes.
But the the difference is the mechanics, while limiting, basically allowed you to use those mechanics to the fullest. The egg mechanic had enough freedom to it to give the game alot of a fun factor.
Balan wonderworld has a limiting mechanic, but even then, that mechanic is limited more.
Remove the animation of changing costumes, make costume switching instant and allow abilities to be used imediately no matter where you are.
This would make the one mechanic of costume switching atleast have some experimentation.
I love Balans character design so fucking much, im so sad we may never see this character in another game again
Yeah he’s gone but maybe a fangame?
The sad part is that I wasn't even expecting this to be a great game, I was just looking for another halfway decent 3D platformer, what with them being so rare these days. Not only is not even decent, it's also 60$... And I actually kind of liked the look of this when it was announced :(
Exactly, it didn't need to be groundbreaking but damn what the Hell was that button mapping and power-up management
Didn't expect you here.
Holy crap, he finally made a video that beat Sonic 06.
IKR LMAO
By 6 MINUTES
@@cybernova0730 06 MINUTES
Jouta Kujo nice.
If you don't count the SGB Review: Ourselves, then yes.
You know, Resident Evil 2 was restarted from scratch when the developers weren't satisfied with the initial version of the game. As Johnny put it in his review of RE2, it must have been an especially bitter pill to swallow, but they did it, they restarted production from scratch, delayed the release for a whole year, and it paid off with one of the best games of the RE franchise and what is still a great classic game overall even to this day.
It's very sad Yuji Naka didn't consider doing the same thing. This game was in serious need of a production restart; no delays would have made this one eventually good.
Unfortunately given some comments it seems easy to blame Square's deadlines for it. I get it was dumb to let Monster Hunter Rise perform a public execution on this game, but there's so many fundamental problems, I think Square wanted this trainwreck to be done with.
Given Square has FF14 Endwalker and FF16 to worry about I'm not surprised they treated this game as a band-aid to rip off.
Instead of a novel and a game they could've made a movie out of this top notch cutscene material
Just want to add that the only Sonic game Naoto Ohshima worked on with Naka prior to Sonic Adventure was Sonic 1. Ohshima directed Sonic CD which Naka had no involvement in, and he remained in Japan while Naka and Hirokazu Yasuhara worked on Sonic 2 and 3 (and Knuckles) over in the US. After Sonic 3K, Naka returned to Japan where he and Ohshima reunited for NiGHTS, Burning Rangers, and Sonic Adventure before Ohshima left to found Artoon.
And gave us Blinx.
I don't mind this kind of unscripted in depth talk video in between the Versus series once in a while, felt so good to hear the back and forth. It may be hard to do this often during this time of the year, but I'd love to see you do this kind of video again in the future.
The Sonic 06 review has FINALLY been dethroned.
Not by much, but yeah.
But it's not a versus vid so I don't think it counta
@@blazingfury057 I was gonna say aswell that I’m not sure if it counts since it’s not structured like his normal reviews.
Yes, yes it has
Nope
the failure kinda feels like it was intentional on part of square.
Cause not only they release the demo, but they released it the same day as mh rise
And recently took it down
From what I saw on wikipedia; the reason why the boy acts cold to the 2 people in his intro is because he's sad about an argument with a friend of his
and is acting distant from others because he feels bad about the argument.
Another version from the novel is that Leo just doesn’t connect with people, with anyone, dancing is the only thing he truly likes. Idk why Leo’s the only character whose backstory differs from the little introduction backstory the twitter gave out when introducing characters (Which is where the friend backstory came from)
@@ukokira9852 imo, from what I could gather by just watching his intro, I was thinking that maybe he thought he wasn't "good enough" and either felt the praises towards him not sincere or not deserved.
*shrugs*
@@ukokira9852 So he's like Neku from TWEWY except not as good
@@alexanderthomas3187 Yeah basically. Just swap graffiti with dancing.
That makes sense! Would be nice for the game to CONVEY that!
The Chess Master wasn't mad that he lost, he was afraid of failure. The point of that whole level was showing him its okay to lose, it doesn't make you less of a person if you're not constantly a winner. This gets shown when he gets beaten by the child he's teaching and laughs it off.
As a content creator I'm incredibly surprised you didn't catch onto that one. I thought you'd identify with that one the most! ❤️
I'd chalk it up to the way those scenes are presented not being clear sometimes. It doesn't help that the book they mention probably *does* expressly say that and they just don't feel like actually saying it here.
@@UltimaKeyMaster I mean I gathered it just through the video. I've not read that book.
To think that sega fans had so much hope when we heard the names to only be dissapointed... Megaman fans can relate.
The problem is they get hyped up, and then get disappointed
Megaman fans get happy endings megaman 11 the Megaman and megaman x collections...sega fans get disappointment unless they love the yakuza series or the othet series people forget that are technically under sega
As a Megaman fan I can so, no can't really relate.
@@ligtningdog6399 okay, tell me who made mighty number 9
@@bebopknux5857 Here the thing. MN9 was at least playable. It was a disappointment but not a joyless slog like Balan.
Also I think Sega fans should be used to disappointment by now.
To quote the AVGN, "What were they thinking?!"
Wouldn’t be surprised if that was a future episode
@@tailsprower8118 The Nerd usually only plays games from the pre-2000s era. But then again, by popular request he did play Sonic 06, so there is a chance
@@manospondylus4896 And Life of Black Tiger which came out in 2017.
@@CeHee123 True
@@manospondylus4896 I never thought about it but he did that game because he said “I thought there were no bad sonic games”
Nothing to add about Balan Wonderworld. It's a tragic game with so much missed potential. Love when you and Russ have done LP's together. Some of my absolute favorite to listen to, like ya said it's super chill. Plus love how passionate Russ is about NiGHTS. Not to mention the hilarious adventure of good ole Spartac Belmont LOL.
Remains my favorite game of all time.
29:03 Johnny: "No, you fucking lost, Bobby."
Billy: "But my name's Bill-"
Johnny: "IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOUR NAME IS!"
Feels like this game should have been a movie or something. The graphics are beautiful and the simple plot could've made for a really cute watch.
FINALLY AFTER 8000 YEARS A NEW DRAGON HAS RISEN TO GRANT OUR WISH OF A REVIEW LONGER THAN SONIC 06! WHAT DARES DISTURB ITS SLUMB- Oh its Balan's Wonderland.
*WORLD.*
I'm at the 6 minute mark, just now realizing that this video is almost an hour long and I don't actually have time to finish it right now.
Take your time.
Yuji Naka.........
I will always respect and appreciate the man for helping make Sonic, but I will not forgive him for sabotaging Sonic X-Treme and making this game.
Edit: as well as having a hand in the cancelation of a Star Fox clone Dreamcast game called Geist Force just so he can have more manpower on Sonic Adventure.
Wow, the fact Yuji Naka had one shot to prove he could make an action platformer, puts this a new light.
Dude's still a great character designer, but either he was not the one who made those games good, or he straight up does NOT have the glow anymore.
Yuji Naka's forte is programming, not character design. His main contribution to the creation of Sonic was programming his movement and gameplay, as he came up with the gameplay concept first, and then had other people develop the characters. Naoto Ohshima was the character designer on the first Sonic game and this, as well as Nights. Ohshima is indeed a really talented character designer, and I definitely feel he bears little blame for this as he has little to do with the gameplay and was responsible for one of the few aspects of this game that people like (the visual design).
Naka is an extremely talented programmer, but he's rarely actually directed a game, usually working as a programmer and producer. I'm not sure that he's good at managing and directing a group of people like this. I also think that a lot of his gameplay philosophy works well for a 2D platformer but not as well for 3D (mainly the one-button design idea).
Naka was part of what made the early Sonic games good, but there was a team of people who worked on those games that all contributed to their success. It's also just possible that Naka's a bit too stubborn for his own good. Sometimes you have a gameplay concept that sounds great on paper but doesn't work in execution, and you need to be open to changing it. Sonic was an idea that from reports was fun even as a tech demo before a character was even made, where this sounds like a misfire. The basic idea of putting on a variety of costumes to get different abilities is sound, and similar ideas have been done successfully before (see "A Hat in Time"). But they needed to overhaul the actual execution of it to make it fun here, and I kind of think that he may have been to attached to some of the mechanics here to do that. He's famously opinionated and stubborn (he quit Sega of Japan and moved to Sega of America after the first Sonic game because of disagreements with management), so I could see him refusing to listen to anyone who tells him that this just isn't working.
Someone could be talented in one area, but flawed in ways that make a specific project fall apart in ways that their previous projects didn't. Naka messing this up and being a contributing factor to early Sonic's success are not mutually exclusive possibilities.
Note: People were complaining about sluggish movement and floaty jumping in the demo, and the final game fixed this by nearly *doubling* the player's running speed and jumping speed.
They made *severe* changes to the *basic* movements of their 3d platformer a MONTH before release.
"severe"
All they did was change the value of the running speed and jump height.
Takes all of 2 seconds to do so.
@@nobodyinparticular9640 ...And? The fact that they were easy to change doesn't change that your *base movement* is extremely important in a 3d platformer.
*Doubling* the player's movement speed is a pretty severe change, indicating a lack of focus or design on the player's actual movement.
@@PoppySis Ah, apologies, I read your comment more like "that it took them severe effort" or what in doing so, rather than you pointing an obvious flaw in their game design.
For as much as I decently know english, it's not my main language, I get things wrong sometimes.
The debut video for this game featured four people prominently: the character designer, the director of the full motion video cutscenes, the music composer... and the game's director. Can you guess which one of those four people dropped the ball?
I was extremely confused when Johnny said he felt Mario Odyssey felt slow to him, a side effect of playing Sonic his entire life I guess, but Balan must have felt unbearable.
I felt mario's default running speed was a tad too slow. Like it wasn't bad or anything but. Noticeable enough to be annoying and just have him roll everywhere
Yeah, but that sounds more like a "you" problem rather than a game problem.
Mario still had plenty of movement options to increase speed. Like dives and rolling. Mixing his techniques together could really help being his momentum up.
Yeah, I feel like Mario's movement speed was perfect in Odyssey. The one 3D game where he was faster (Sunshine) people were complaining he's too slippery.
Let’s not forget that compared to past 3D Mario games, some the levels in Odyssey are huge which makes Mario look slower by comparison.
Thanks to Raycon for sponsoring this video *slaps that 10 second skip over and over like it owes me money*
Facts
Here $10! Don't beat me any more!!!!
Thanks for telling us you skipped the sponsored part. It was totally necessary and not fucking annoying in the slightest.
Seriously, please screw off
@@zscout1288 Please leave
@@famoussession7426 you dont have enough power to make anyone leave lol. You dont have enough power to do anything.. And not very many people like you because of the way you choose to be. It's really sad, and I pity you tbh.
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who keeps wanting to call it Balan Wonder*land*
It just sounds better
The future of game design is taking all control from the player. David Cage would be proud.
You know a game is truly something special (and I use the word VERY loosely in this scenario) when Johnny makes a 50-minute discussion on it.
God, it breaks my heart how colorful and interesting this games looks. The designs really do play off late 90's nostalgia, it really invites you in.
For fairness. I think its important to note that you can get a costume of balan himself which gives the kids his powers. But it's asecret
Ya know? Thinking about it, I now know why SEGA didn't persue Naka to come back.
Naka have some bad rap within the company he’s a egotistic and pain in the ass to work with I think Peter Moore did interview about how pain in the ass to work with Naka back when he was in Sega
SEGA might actually be a lot smarter then we give them credit for...
Emphasis on *might be*
@@NoahDaArk Sonic Forces: Hello there
@@sonario6489 He said *MIGHT.*
@@sonario6489 nah not even close
I’d like to make a comment thread listing out games Johnny still had the energy to make video scripts just to show how much this game impacted him.
I’ll start us out with 3 examples:
Mighty No. 9
Sonic 06
Mega Man X7
This would have been better as an animated movie than a game, it sounds like.
Lessons Learned: a. You need the novel to get the complete story (so 70 bucks. 60 for the game and 10 for the novel) b. Great Ideas doesn't excuse bad execution. C. Just get the Novel and soundtrack. Thanks for the video guys.
and to never release to a franchise like monster haunter.
You and Russ should totally do more videos like this together, this was very interesting. On another note, the last time Johnny looked at a game with such animosity, he went into a drunken rage and passed out afterwards.
Imagine being a Hat In Time fan and getting all this hype for this new game only to be greeted by this.
Man a hat in time was great hope we get a sequel
@@nman551 it's a heavy contender for my favourite game of all time on pc, I absolutely love it. I would be out of this world ecstatic if Gears for Breakfast announced a sequel
What is Square Enix recent obsession with releasing the story of games on separate novels.
It's the new DLC.
Edit: But since it has the tangibility of a physical collectible, it's OK! [/sarcasm]
This isn't like how mighty number 9 enraged people or how yooka-laylee disappointed people. This is just... depressing...
At least Yooka-Laylee was able to bounce back with its sequel.
I like the first yooka laylee