@@whyiwakeup6460 Isn't that technically a costume? And it's a post-game completion bonus at that. My point is more "why exactly are we not playing as the most intersting design in the game?
This game's costume system reminds me a lot of a fable about a fox and a cat; The fox had dozens little tricks, but the cat had 1 good trick. When they were chased by a hunter, the cat survived with his one good trick, and the fox became history. Frost fairy was the one good trick
@@PlayerZeroStart I wanna nitpick due to boredom. While that phrase does apply here as its commonly known. The full phrase is "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one"
@@smilingstudios6342 The full phrase only really applies to humans. For video games (and pretty much all media), the more common shortened phrase tends to be more accurate
@@PlayerZeroStart You have a point; the shortened phrase works better for media, and the longer phrase likely applies moreso to the people working on said media (and in general), or something
Oh boy let me tell you about the Tim's. They're actually how you unlock Ballan as a character but the stuff you have to do with them take several hours to do thou once you do that Ballan is actually broken making it so you can get pretty much every trophy because he can basically fly
@@billyweed835 yeah there's nothing in the game telling you how to do this LSMark had a section in his review that showed how to do it and it was insane
First you need like 10 rainbow drops, which you can get from hidden statues in levels or you get one for reaching the goal of a level you completed. Give enough to the statue at the isle and it'll ask for a king tim. Breeding tims has a chance that the parent will recieve a badge of its current color, except for yellow. A tim with a red, blue and pink badge has the chance to produce a king tim, which you give to the statue to make a big tim. It'll fly you to a faraway island with the balan costume. If you lose the costume, feed the big tim a rainbow drop and it'll take you to the costume again
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Balan Wonderworld is a perfect example of "No-one will engage if you are not engaging." There's some good story stuff in the game. There's some great messages about the temptation of wallowing in self pity and the need to fight against that, temporarily painful as it is, to get past your problems. There's some interesting semi-grey morality in how Lance is arguably protecting people from the pain needed to perform that growth. There's thoughts that can be drawn from how the hero and villain combined make "Balance"... But almost nobody cares because the game sucks. I've seen someone argue that the fact that the box fox costume is set up in an area where the first time you pick it up will mean it probably gets you dropped off a cliff is meant to be "Playful", a lighthearted joke at the player about what's probably the worst costume in the game. Honestly, I can't even tell if that interpretation is correct. Is Box Fox's utter uselessness a joke, or incompetence? When the game hasn't been enjoyable, Most people are gonna lean towards an answer of "The people who made a bad game are continuing to make a bad game.". BW's also a good example of why someone being a big name can be Awful for creating quality. Several ideas feel like if they'd been brought up by someone who's Not as big a name as Yuji Naka, they'd be told "Sir, that's a fucking awful idea.", but because they're either sucking up to the big name in an industry rife with nepotism, or just assuming "Hey, he did good stuff before, and I'm just some nobody, maybe I just can't tell how great his ideas are!", no-one spoke up. (See also: How everyone acted around George Lucas behind the scenes during the prequel trilogy.)
You know, I honestly love Yuji Nakas stuff for his pure creativity a lot of the times but this game seems to have been a painful reminder that he needs a group of people who know how to put gameplay first than just bloat it with that creative juice even more to make his ideas truly work. Billy Hatcher and NIGHTS are probably some of the best examples with this being the antithesis if that. I like Balan visually and think it's got a lot of charm, but if playing through it is a chore I don't think I can appreciate it as much as I should. I agree that they should have had more fleshed out costumes than just a bunch of them.
Yeah, this is a lesson a lot of designers who created famous franchises need to learn. Oftentimes they or the folks hiring them, will go "hey, you created X, you can do whatever you want," which as we've seen many, many times in history from Balan, to Mighty No. 9 (Though personally I actually liked that game), to even non-video game examples like the Star Wars prequels, often leads to the head being a great idea guy who isn't given someone to rein those ideas in and help make them translatable into the actual product, and end up with a game that's either bloated with half-ideas, or is in shambles because they had to rush/cut large portions for time or cost.
@@BillyBob-xx5jr Yuji Naka is a great producer, but he's not a good directer. SquareEnix did not realize that before it was too late. With Mighty No 9 lets just say that Indie Creates is not good at 2.5d.
4:30 And even Kirby has more buttons than that. Select deletes your ability, X summons a partner on some games, B attacks, A jumps, etc. KIRBY. THE GAME SIMPLE BY DESIGN. EVEN SONIC MANIA HAS MORE BUTTONS, SO EVEN *SONIC* HAS GOTTEN MORE BUTTONS AT THIS POINT
FINALLY SOMEONE HAS MENTIONED THE HOD AWFULL BREATHING ANIMATION I AM VALIDATED! I think they just took the animation from the Tim's and slapped it into the human models
Balan’s failure really really eats at me. I saw this game and I was like “holy shit, this is gonna be NiGHTS 2. This is gonna rip.” And the potential is THERE for it to be just as good as both games. But they took quantity over quality and didn’t do anything interesting with it.
When you write a paper about Balan Wonderworld, and then a TH-camr you like reviews Balan Wonderworld. Love your videos and I feel the repetition on "costume"
Honestly this game is fun when you try to break it, especially with the multiplayer giving you a permanent double jump that the game was definitely not designed for
I did buy the game myself because I was thinking "there's no way the game is THAT bad", and I pretty much feel the same way Bumbles does: 5 out of 10. Overly ambitious, but still fun.
Balan Wonderworld is a great game. Great art style, good level design probing 3 decades of trajectory, simple yet versatile control due to power ups, intriguing and cohesive world, fun combat and enough side content to not get repet ... Ups, i was talking about Kirby and the forgotten land.
So it sounds like the ideal way to play this game is to power through, get by with the bare minimum, make a beeline for the Frost Fairy powerup, and then get everything you missed at your leisure.
Honestly the way you were talking about unironically liking it by the end and why you do really reminds me of my own attachment to Agents of Mayhem, a game not necessarily car-crash-fascinating levels of bad like Balan's development, but still damn near universally seen as a complete failure that I regardless love and unironically had a ton of fun playing. Just like Balan t's got major issues that largely stem from its own indecisiveness and lack of any direction whatsoever, but at the same time it's bursting with charm because SOMEONE clearly put all their love into it, and once the player has all the tools in their hands to work with, you can break the game with unintendedly OP combinations of abilities in a way that paradoxically fixes so many of its issues. And while I realllly don't think well of Yuji Naka's work...like, at all lol, I can 100% share the sentiment. I still remember I put out a tweet about a random bit of dialogue I didn't really get in reference to a character's backstory, and not only did the Volition account respond, the person working it gave me a full rundown of lore it pertains to that never got properly implemented into the game. TLDR it turns out the german football player with berserker powers is super into magical girls. They apparently had a straight up encyclopedia of characterization and worldbuilding to fit the Saturday Morning Cartoon style setting but they just...never got to use most of it. But I 100% believe they had it because every single character was absolutely bursting with charm and had a unique identity. But, just like how Square already fired Yuji Naka, Volition already abandoned the IP entirely, and decided they'd rather milk the Saints Row series to death by rebooting a clearly finished franchise. It's especially painful for me because while Balan's issue was moreso a pure lack of creative focus, giving Yuji Naka so many resources with not enough reigning things in, Agents of Mayhem was kinda the opposite. I said above it has the same issue of lack of focus but unlike Balan it had a very clear Single Player Hero Shooter idea it was focused on, but the execution was what had no focus. It got so bogged down by lack of resources and probably higher up mandates (based on the design-by-committee aspects and dead on arrival "live service" elements...) that the finished product was simultaneously way too spread out and yet not varied enough. Breadth of an ocean depth of a puddle all that except the puddle is like an event horizon with how narrowly it's spread out. Which kind of further proves my point though that I was so attached to so many of its characters even with so little to work with, speaking as someone who typically has pretty unreasonable standards for characterization. Anyways went on a big tangent there but in my defense you can probably tell it's not the sort of game I have many opportunities to talk about. TLDR: Much as I love the bashing and look forward to that Babylon's Fail bashing, it was nice hearing you talk about the game in a unique light like this, and it's a take I can very much understand cause I have my own game just like that!
I only found you recently but I just gotta say, you're becoming one of my favourite youtubers man. You're humour kinda reminds me of Scott the Woz, but it's not the exact same, I only mean similar in how you quickly deliver a joke and then continue as if nothing happened. Keep up the good work man
random fact, on day one when the game came out, one of the attacks from the final boss on his 2nd phase cased seizures. i'm not making this up, that one attack where he causes parts of the platform to vanish would make the screen flash a white color repeatedly and it happened really quickly. thankfully it was patched but the damage was already done.
@@woobgamer5210 i'm not so sure about sonic colors ultimate though since some of those glitches were from emulators. but some did happen on consoles though. what a coincidence
Don't forget that they didn't want those cutscenes at all because reasons. But honestly, a lot of the glaring issues could've been solved pretty easily. Like the costumes? Take a page from Kid Chameleon (yes really) and give them all their individual HP pools, you lose them if they run out, can only be got back by finding the power up, doesn't affect base character HP, and give the base character basic actions. As for the costume bloat? Besides cutting some, make them upgrades to one another so that you can do more with them, increase max HP, and make the closet a glamour/mog thing so you can switch to the look you like. And make them two button so you have jump and action or action and attack. Lastly, make stages centered around one of the power ups while letting you use other to find extra trophies.
17:32 "God, I've been waiting for YEARS for a game where there's a... A GEAR power-up that lets you get through maybe three doors in the entire game!" Bumbles, what are you on about, Twilight Princess released in 2006!
Also do you know which platformer uses the costume mechanics pretty well? Kid Chameleon. When you get a costume, you have 3 hit points. If you lose them you turn back into a kid. All costumes (masks) can jump and perform a special action. Even without a costume (mask) the Kid is pretty nimble and can even kill bosses. Such an easy concept that could have been used.
Before watching, to be honest I'd love to see ballan get a sequel. The man cared so much he just got to committed to some bad gimmicks. It wasn't a buggy mess maybe a bit broken balance wise, and a few issues with controls but a sequal or even a re-release can fix that. (Edit clarification)
I still feel like qn aspect of Balan that's actually admirable is its constant theme of Reigniting passion. Everyone we see had a passion that they truly enjoyed until something happened. Their own self doubts or a traumatic event pushes them away from the things that makes them happy or the desires they may wish for. I legitimately love it and I find myself rewatching the cinematic to experience that resolution. This game really needed to go through the ringer a little more.
I think Alpharad's video really did a damn good job of showing off just how much of a mess Wonderworld was, the game very clearly had a lot of love put into it, but they also gave you a suit who's only power was to light up the dark, and then made the light turn off every few seconds. Yet as bad as the game is... I've rewatched that video like 7 times already. Because Balan's Wonderworld is, despite all it's flaws, very unique in a genuinely entertaining way. Like seriously, you *cannot* tell me they didn't know that between the guy who put too much of himself into chess and the painter with ~~writer's~~ *PAINTER'S* block, putting a woman who was going to get married and then had her literal entire fucking family die immediately was gonna be fucking hilarious. Like... I refuse to believe they were that thick headed about that, they had to know the sheer tonal whiplash they were putting there. I don't blame anyone for not finishing the game (hell, *you* didn't), and to be fair, "unmasked" Balan is genuinely fuckin ugly, like a Beauty and the Beast human Beast kinda rug pull, so it's honestly better to not finish the game, but... I really don't think the guy deserved to be fired over it. It's a bad game, yea, but what is there that isn't bad (and some that is) is so enthralling we're still talking about it almost 2 years later. It's got something, which is more then I can say about Anthem. Remember Anthem? No you don't.
It’s just a tragedy because I love the GameCube/Dreamcast era. Being the first generation where 3D gaming was solidified, they really tried kinda psychotic ideas that developers don’t do as often in recent years. Monkey ball, billy Hatcher, Amazing island, all games that are psychotic, but charming because the goal was just being fun and if Balan Wonderworld was good, it also would have been like those games because it’s got the psychosis on its side.
A game is supposed to grab your interest in the first 10%. 15% is also reasonable. The fact you had to get 60% through the game before it became fun is a statement on what problems it has
I'm surprised a jump button on all costumes wasn't ever patched. One would think players constantly needing to restart stages because they got softlocked and that the unwinnable situations start as far back as World 1 would tell the team that it was time to drop the one button gameplay!
Just such a shame. Balan himself has such a great design and we’re stuck playing as the kids. And I like the idea of having all these costumes with different powers but what they should’ve done is a smaller set of costumes each with multiple abilities.
you should explore stage 3 of chapter 7 for a bit there is a costume hidden in there, that is even more broken & much more fun then Frost Fairy *Triple Jumper* (the name says it all)
Love the video and everything you make, just wanted to say that you actually can get a Balan costume that's like Frost Fairy on crack but it's locked behind the Tims
I think part of the reason it was constantly called the worst game of 2021 was due to there being so much hype and prestige behind it. So when it came out as something that you need to break to have fun with, lots of people were massively disappointed, and so gamers did what they do best when faced with a major disappointment: call it a sin against man that should be thrown into the pits of Mount Doom.
Balan has become one of my fav games because of how absolutely incoherent it is, and I became absolutely excited upon seeing that you were reviewing it for realsies. (And on my birthday no less!!) I feel like when it released, it's quality was blown waaaay out proportion. I don't think the game was perfect by all means, but I don't think it was as bad as people made them out to be. During that year there were barely any games being released, and since Balan was objectively one of the worst releases of that year, it became the subject of over exaggerated bullying. I agree with a 5/10, and nothing else I could say couldn't have been said better in this gorgeous video. (The dance scenes being hilariously incoherent is one of the best parts.) Thank you Bumbs for taking the time to make a genuine review of this game, the fact that you have such a low sub count is factually incorrect, youtube should fix that also if you enjoy Balan Wonderworld because you're a hipster like me, look out for a board game adaptation on Tabletop Simulator!! (Being made in collaboration with the Balan fandom)
Hell, they're technically the same guy; Lance was the original Balan, and the current Balan is a clone Lance made to replace himself when he fell to darkness.
Honestly while I like Yuji Naka's old games, I know he isn't a nice person, having sabotaged many games that were under development and even that recent reveal about what he did in regards to Geist Force were just awful. So to hear he tried to get others to do the work for the game only for it to end up like this, I feel is a sense of poetic justice. :)
Apart from that, they have other uses depending on how you feed them. They can fight Negati, eat spike ball obstacles, go pick up stuff for you, and _that's about it._
I actually like positive videos. And, for that matter, I liked this twisted and tormented video. Basically do whatever, man. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the TH-cam channel.
3:00 and 19:03 Hold up, really? I played the PS5 as well as the Steam version of this game as well (even played all the third acts and got the achievement for it) and the cutscenes were never laggy. I believe that the game ran badly for you, but I have no idea why it didn't do the same for me...
I’d think it’d work better if the costumes could work like gadgets from ape escape (each one can be activated by pressing one of the face buttons but also have one dedicated to jumping.
That Arzest is made from the major players of Artoon, known for the cult classics Blinx the Time Sweeper and FlingSmash, made it sting even more when the _best_ thing Arzest made since the shutting-down of Artoon was the StreetPass Mii Plaza.
I think that if this game gave you all the costumes you needed at the start and allows you to freely switch between them, and then dropped you in a and just gave you a vague waypoint and you had to figure out how to get there with the costumes available, it would be a lot more fun.
The art and modelling team walked so that the rest of the team could fall and break their nose (Also, a "story with no words" without any visual storytelling just feels like a way to cut translation cost)
They really should have just gone the Kirby Route and made a fun platforming moveset for the character regardless of what costume you're in and then make each costume just a power up with an action associated with the action button. Yeah, it would have been derivative but it also would have just been a better game. It would have also allowed the devs to work more on the level design.
I feel like I’d enjoy Balan I’m more of an aesthetics guy over gameplay, and the style that Balan is in really catches my heart. Every video I see of the game just looks amazing. Still not gonna buy it, I’m not that enticed.
Something I've learned over time is that even bad games can be fun, intentionally or not. That being said, while I was never very interested in this game, I do wish it had the time and focused development it deserved.
So about playing as balan…. He has a costume if you do stuff with the weird tower in the middle. And yes, it’s a costume, and yes, to restock it you have to do the tower over and over and over.
As one of the lunatics who actually platinumed the PS5 version of Balan Wonderworld, I pretty much agree with what you said across the board. It's a very fun game with great ideas, but suffers from its own lofty ambitions and somewhat poor execution. Maybe it's the NiGHTS fan in me that ultimately gave it a pass, but I did find it fun and felt genuinely engrossed in the cutscenes, especially the ending. Sorry your version ran so crappy though. I can at least say the PS5 was buttery smooth the entire time.
What people didn't know about this, 3d sonic games are notorious with its high-quality cutscenes, for example was duping players by watching fmv intro cutscenes they spent high production and other half was gameplay due to budget cut.
![Balan Wonderworld - A Fourth Look: Throw The Book At Them [Bumbles McFumbles]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MZuq4K1rIHg/mqdefault.jpg)
![Balan Wonderworld - A Fourth Look: Throw The Book At Them [Bumbles McFumbles]](/img/tr.png)
![Sonic Adventure - A Hedgehog but in 3D [Bumbles McFumbles]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/77w1bJiqhTY/mqdefault.jpg)
![Polar Express [Bumbles McFumbles]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VLz_4x-MZfY/mqdefault.jpg)
![Balan Wonderworld - A Third Look: The Yuji Naka Story [Bumbles McFumbles]](/img/n.gif)
"A story that went AWOL and established an independent nation in the Fiction section of Barnes and Noble"
You certainly have a way with words.
Imagine designing a character like Balan, just, an amazing character design, and then going "let's NOT make him the player character".
He is
@@falefisx5330 Quick time event minigames don't count.
@@billyweed835 there’s a reward for completing the tower of timbs that’s a balan costume, and he’s the best one in game
@@whyiwakeup6460 Yes, what amounts to a post game completion bonus. And its not even the character himself, its a costume.
@@whyiwakeup6460 Isn't that technically a costume? And it's a post-game completion bonus at that. My point is more "why exactly are we not playing as the most intersting design in the game?
This game's costume system reminds me a lot of a fable about a fox and a cat; The fox had dozens little tricks, but the cat had 1 good trick. When they were chased by a hunter, the cat survived with his one good trick, and the fox became history. Frost fairy was the one good trick
A jack of all trades is a master of none
@@PlayerZeroStart I wanna nitpick due to boredom. While that phrase does apply here as its commonly known. The full phrase is "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one"
@@smilingstudios6342 The full phrase only really applies to humans. For video games (and pretty much all media), the more common shortened phrase tends to be more accurate
@@PlayerZeroStart You have a point; the shortened phrase works better for media, and the longer phrase likely applies moreso to the people working on said media (and in general), or something
Is that a motherfucking Witcher reference!?
2020: 4 years old kids already playing fully fledged AAA games
Yuji Naka: "Let's make a one button game as it worked in 1991"
The difference isn’t simply the amount of D but also the lack of power-ups in the 1991 game
Oh boy let me tell you about the Tim's. They're actually how you unlock Ballan as a character but the stuff you have to do with them take several hours to do thou once you do that Ballan is actually broken making it so you can get pretty much every trophy because he can basically fly
Wait, THAT's how you finally get to actually play as the cool character they designed?
@@billyweed835 well, technically it isn’t him, it’s a costume.
@@billyweed835 yeah there's nothing in the game telling you how to do this LSMark had a section in his review that showed how to do it and it was insane
First you need like 10 rainbow drops, which you can get from hidden statues in levels or you get one for reaching the goal of a level you completed. Give enough to the statue at the isle and it'll ask for a king tim.
Breeding tims has a chance that the parent will recieve a badge of its current color, except for yellow. A tim with a red, blue and pink badge has the chance to produce a king tim, which you give to the statue to make a big tim. It'll fly you to a faraway island with the balan costume. If you lose the costume, feed the big tim a rainbow drop and it'll take you to the costume again
@@cryguy0000 this just... sounds like a playground rumor like the mew under the truck.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Balan Wonderworld is a perfect example of "No-one will engage if you are not engaging."
There's some good story stuff in the game. There's some great messages about the temptation of wallowing in self pity and the need to fight against that, temporarily painful as it is, to get past your problems. There's some interesting semi-grey morality in how Lance is arguably protecting people from the pain needed to perform that growth. There's thoughts that can be drawn from how the hero and villain combined make "Balance"... But almost nobody cares because the game sucks.
I've seen someone argue that the fact that the box fox costume is set up in an area where the first time you pick it up will mean it probably gets you dropped off a cliff is meant to be "Playful", a lighthearted joke at the player about what's probably the worst costume in the game. Honestly, I can't even tell if that interpretation is correct.
Is Box Fox's utter uselessness a joke, or incompetence? When the game hasn't been enjoyable, Most people are gonna lean towards an answer of "The people who made a bad game are continuing to make a bad game.".
BW's also a good example of why someone being a big name can be Awful for creating quality. Several ideas feel like if they'd been brought up by someone who's Not as big a name as Yuji Naka, they'd be told "Sir, that's a fucking awful idea.", but because they're either sucking up to the big name in an industry rife with nepotism, or just assuming "Hey, he did good stuff before, and I'm just some nobody, maybe I just can't tell how great his ideas are!", no-one spoke up. (See also: How everyone acted around George Lucas behind the scenes during the prequel trilogy.)
You know, I honestly love Yuji Nakas stuff for his pure creativity a lot of the times but this game seems to have been a painful reminder that he needs a group of people who know how to put gameplay first than just bloat it with that creative juice even more to make his ideas truly work. Billy Hatcher and NIGHTS are probably some of the best examples with this being the antithesis if that. I like Balan visually and think it's got a lot of charm, but if playing through it is a chore I don't think I can appreciate it as much as I should. I agree that they should have had more fleshed out costumes than just a bunch of them.
Yeah, this is a lesson a lot of designers who created famous franchises need to learn. Oftentimes they or the folks hiring them, will go "hey, you created X, you can do whatever you want," which as we've seen many, many times in history from Balan, to Mighty No. 9 (Though personally I actually liked that game), to even non-video game examples like the Star Wars prequels, often leads to the head being a great idea guy who isn't given someone to rein those ideas in and help make them translatable into the actual product, and end up with a game that's either bloated with half-ideas, or is in shambles because they had to rush/cut large portions for time or cost.
@@BillyBob-xx5jr Yuji Naka is a great producer, but he's not a good directer. SquareEnix did not realize that before it was too late. With Mighty No 9 lets just say that Indie Creates is not good at 2.5d.
You made my Google home yell at me about how to change costumes in Balan Wonderworld.
4:30
And even Kirby has more buttons than that.
Select deletes your ability, X summons a partner on some games, B attacks, A jumps, etc.
KIRBY. THE GAME SIMPLE BY DESIGN.
EVEN SONIC MANIA HAS MORE BUTTONS, SO EVEN *SONIC* HAS GOTTEN MORE BUTTONS AT THIS POINT
Unless you’re like me in which case Y attacks and B jumps
Bumbles McFumbles: the Chicken hater who unintentionally ends up on fan wiki articles
FINALLY SOMEONE HAS MENTIONED THE HOD AWFULL BREATHING ANIMATION I AM VALIDATED!
I think they just took the animation from the Tim's and slapped it into the human models
Balan’s failure really really eats at me. I saw this game and I was like “holy shit, this is gonna be NiGHTS 2. This is gonna rip.” And the potential is THERE for it to be just as good as both games. But they took quantity over quality and didn’t do anything interesting with it.
Hiring a terrible development studio, one they must have KNOWN was terrible as they already had that reputation is just mind boggling.
Have you ever heard of NiGHTS: journey of dreams for the nintendo wii?
Bumbles I love your work keep doing what you're doing but if I hear the word costume one more time I'm going to strangle someone
It was even worse saying it
When you write a paper about Balan Wonderworld, and then a TH-camr you like reviews Balan Wonderworld. Love your videos and I feel the repetition on "costume"
i love the idea that theres an academic paper about balan wonderworld. thank u yugioh
19:51 there is ONE FRAME where you accidentally put the intro frame with naoto oshima's on it. this is a bumbles mcfumbles easter egg
Rewatching this video right in time for Yuji Naka to get arrested for tax evasion.
Honestly this game is fun when you try to break it, especially with the multiplayer giving you a permanent double jump that the game was definitely not designed for
I did buy the game myself because I was thinking "there's no way the game is THAT bad", and I pretty much feel the same way Bumbles does: 5 out of 10. Overly ambitious, but still fun.
I still have no idea why they only used one button, and left the plot out of the main game.
Balan Wonderworld is a great game. Great art style, good level design probing 3 decades of trajectory, simple yet versatile control due to power ups, intriguing and cohesive world, fun combat and enough side content to not get repet ... Ups, i was talking about Kirby and the forgotten land.
If I remember correctly- if you do all the Tower of Timm stuff, you can actually unlock a Balan Costume, which is stupidly broken.
You can get a Balan costume, but it doesn’t involve the Tower in ANY way whatsoever. It involves Tim breeding and Rainbow Drops.
So it sounds like the ideal way to play this game is to power through, get by with the bare minimum, make a beeline for the Frost Fairy powerup, and then get everything you missed at your leisure.
Or just get the cat and then Frost Fairy since those are literally insane in cheesing the game
@@InsomniaDaydreamer Air Cat may not have the upward elevation of Frost Fairy, but it's still plenty handy for cracking this game wide open!
Honestly the way you were talking about unironically liking it by the end and why you do really reminds me of my own attachment to Agents of Mayhem, a game not necessarily car-crash-fascinating levels of bad like Balan's development, but still damn near universally seen as a complete failure that I regardless love and unironically had a ton of fun playing. Just like Balan t's got major issues that largely stem from its own indecisiveness and lack of any direction whatsoever, but at the same time it's bursting with charm because SOMEONE clearly put all their love into it, and once the player has all the tools in their hands to work with, you can break the game with unintendedly OP combinations of abilities in a way that paradoxically fixes so many of its issues. And while I realllly don't think well of Yuji Naka's work...like, at all lol, I can 100% share the sentiment.
I still remember I put out a tweet about a random bit of dialogue I didn't really get in reference to a character's backstory, and not only did the Volition account respond, the person working it gave me a full rundown of lore it pertains to that never got properly implemented into the game. TLDR it turns out the german football player with berserker powers is super into magical girls. They apparently had a straight up encyclopedia of characterization and worldbuilding to fit the Saturday Morning Cartoon style setting but they just...never got to use most of it. But I 100% believe they had it because every single character was absolutely bursting with charm and had a unique identity.
But, just like how Square already fired Yuji Naka, Volition already abandoned the IP entirely, and decided they'd rather milk the Saints Row series to death by rebooting a clearly finished franchise. It's especially painful for me because while Balan's issue was moreso a pure lack of creative focus, giving Yuji Naka so many resources with not enough reigning things in, Agents of Mayhem was kinda the opposite. I said above it has the same issue of lack of focus but unlike Balan it had a very clear Single Player Hero Shooter idea it was focused on, but the execution was what had no focus. It got so bogged down by lack of resources and probably higher up mandates (based on the design-by-committee aspects and dead on arrival "live service" elements...) that the finished product was simultaneously way too spread out and yet not varied enough. Breadth of an ocean depth of a puddle all that except the puddle is like an event horizon with how narrowly it's spread out. Which kind of further proves my point though that I was so attached to so many of its characters even with so little to work with, speaking as someone who typically has pretty unreasonable standards for characterization.
Anyways went on a big tangent there but in my defense you can probably tell it's not the sort of game I have many opportunities to talk about.
TLDR: Much as I love the bashing and look forward to that Babylon's Fail bashing, it was nice hearing you talk about the game in a unique light like this, and it's a take I can very much understand cause I have my own game just like that!
Ironically, in their quest to make the most simplistic game using only button, they made it a complicated mess
For no reason one of my favourite youtubers personality wise
I only found you recently but I just gotta say, you're becoming one of my favourite youtubers man. You're humour kinda reminds me of Scott the Woz, but it's not the exact same, I only mean similar in how you quickly deliver a joke and then continue as if nothing happened.
Keep up the good work man
"It's deader than a dead person"
random fact, on day one when the game came out, one of the attacks from the final boss on his 2nd phase cased seizures. i'm not making this up, that one attack where he causes parts of the platform to vanish would make the screen flash a white color repeatedly and it happened really quickly. thankfully it was patched but the damage was already done.
didnt Balan and Sonic Colours Ultimate come out at the same time? SCU had a glitch on switch that made the game freak the fuck out and strobe out
@@woobgamer5210 i'm not so sure about sonic colors ultimate though since some of those glitches were from emulators. but some did happen on consoles though. what a coincidence
Don't forget that they didn't want those cutscenes at all because reasons. But honestly, a lot of the glaring issues could've been solved pretty easily. Like the costumes? Take a page from Kid Chameleon (yes really) and give them all their individual HP pools, you lose them if they run out, can only be got back by finding the power up, doesn't affect base character HP, and give the base character basic actions. As for the costume bloat? Besides cutting some, make them upgrades to one another so that you can do more with them, increase max HP, and make the closet a glamour/mog thing so you can switch to the look you like. And make them two button so you have jump and action or action and attack.
Lastly, make stages centered around one of the power ups while letting you use other to find extra trophies.
honestly, kid chameleon is this games concept done right.
17:32 "God, I've been waiting for YEARS for a game where there's a... A GEAR power-up that lets you get through maybe three doors in the entire game!"
Bumbles, what are you on about, Twilight Princess released in 2006!
Also do you know which platformer uses the costume mechanics pretty well? Kid Chameleon. When you get a costume, you have 3 hit points. If you lose them you turn back into a kid. All costumes (masks) can jump and perform a special action. Even without a costume (mask) the Kid is pretty nimble and can even kill bosses. Such an easy concept that could have been used.
Before watching, to be honest I'd love to see ballan get a sequel. The man cared so much he just got to committed to some bad gimmicks. It wasn't a buggy mess maybe a bit broken balance wise, and a few issues with controls but a sequal or even a re-release can fix that.
(Edit clarification)
I dont see that happening. With that this was Yuji Naka's ONE SHOT to make a game himself with Square Enix, and now... him being a fugitive
@@woobgamer5210 sadly I do agree with you.
This is the most underrated channel ever
I still feel like qn aspect of Balan that's actually admirable is its constant theme of Reigniting passion. Everyone we see had a passion that they truly enjoyed until something happened. Their own self doubts or a traumatic event pushes them away from the things that makes them happy or the desires they may wish for. I legitimately love it and I find myself rewatching the cinematic to experience that resolution.
This game really needed to go through the ringer a little more.
I think Alpharad's video really did a damn good job of showing off just how much of a mess Wonderworld was, the game very clearly had a lot of love put into it, but they also gave you a suit who's only power was to light up the dark, and then made the light turn off every few seconds.
Yet as bad as the game is... I've rewatched that video like 7 times already.
Because Balan's Wonderworld is, despite all it's flaws, very unique in a genuinely entertaining way.
Like seriously, you *cannot* tell me they didn't know that between the guy who put too much of himself into chess and the painter with ~~writer's~~ *PAINTER'S* block, putting a woman who was going to get married and then had her literal entire fucking family die immediately was gonna be fucking hilarious. Like... I refuse to believe they were that thick headed about that, they had to know the sheer tonal whiplash they were putting there.
I don't blame anyone for not finishing the game (hell, *you* didn't), and to be fair, "unmasked" Balan is genuinely fuckin ugly, like a Beauty and the Beast human Beast kinda rug pull, so it's honestly better to not finish the game, but... I really don't think the guy deserved to be fired over it. It's a bad game, yea, but what is there that isn't bad (and some that is) is so enthralling we're still talking about it almost 2 years later.
It's got something, which is more then I can say about Anthem.
Remember Anthem? No you don't.
It’s just a tragedy because I love the GameCube/Dreamcast era. Being the first generation where 3D gaming was solidified, they really tried kinda psychotic ideas that developers don’t do as often in recent years. Monkey ball, billy Hatcher, Amazing island, all games that are psychotic, but charming because the goal was just being fun and if Balan Wonderworld was good, it also would have been like those games because it’s got the psychosis on its side.
A game is supposed to grab your interest in the first 10%. 15% is also reasonable. The fact you had to get 60% through the game before it became fun is a statement on what problems it has
I'm surprised a jump button on all costumes wasn't ever patched. One would think players constantly needing to restart stages because they got softlocked and that the unwinnable situations start as far back as World 1 would tell the team that it was time to drop the one button gameplay!
the sad part is because this game was bad no one wants to mod it. No community will want to mod Balan
ive seen this game at a used game store near my house multiple times and the urge to buy it just to experience it for myself gets greater everytime
Every video you make always are awesome. Thanks for all the content Bumbles.
I demand a costume tier list. I need it in my life.
Just such a shame. Balan himself has such a great design and we’re stuck playing as the kids. And I like the idea of having all these costumes with different powers but what they should’ve done is a smaller set of costumes each with multiple abilities.
you should explore stage 3 of chapter 7 for a bit
there is a costume hidden in there, that is even more broken & much more fun then Frost Fairy
*Triple Jumper* (the name says it all)
I haven't seen a proper review of balan yet, Im exited to see something goin this in depth
As much as I like bmf, I prefer Transparency's review. They seem more biased towards liking the game though
Love the video and everything you make, just wanted to say that you actually can get a Balan costume that's like Frost Fairy on crack but it's locked behind the Tims
The watching the subscriber number going up bit is legit one of my favorite jokes in any YT vid i love it
Not gonna lie, I was expecting you to say “So we first get the choice to play as either Leo or Emma and I CANT DO THIS CUE THE OUTRO CARD!”
1:15 don't worry Ohshima was involved in the latest Sonic game so hopefully he's back on someone's payroll
Bumbles just praised the Spongebob Movie Game, the man officially has taste
I think part of the reason it was constantly called the worst game of 2021 was due to there being so much hype and prestige behind it. So when it came out as something that you need to break to have fun with, lots of people were massively disappointed, and so gamers did what they do best when faced with a major disappointment: call it a sin against man that should be thrown into the pits of Mount Doom.
finally, I can legally laugh at this video's jokes
I appreciate the Enron joke. I don't think many other people will, but I do.
Balan has become one of my fav games because of how absolutely incoherent it is, and I became absolutely excited upon seeing that you were reviewing it for realsies. (And on my birthday no less!!)
I feel like when it released, it's quality was blown waaaay out proportion. I don't think the game was perfect by all means, but I don't think it was as bad as people made them out to be. During that year there were barely any games being released, and since Balan was objectively one of the worst releases of that year, it became the subject of over exaggerated bullying.
I agree with a 5/10, and nothing else I could say couldn't have been said better in this gorgeous video. (The dance scenes being hilariously incoherent is one of the best parts.)
Thank you Bumbs for taking the time to make a genuine review of this game, the fact that you have such a low sub count is factually incorrect, youtube should fix that
also if you enjoy Balan Wonderworld because you're a hipster like me, look out for a board game adaptation on Tabletop Simulator!! (Being made in collaboration with the Balan fandom)
really had to put nox on the same level as gaster, vanny, and herobrine
What I hate is that it took me forever to realize their names are supposed to be a play on the word Balance.
Hell, they're technically the same guy; Lance was the original Balan, and the current Balan is a clone Lance made to replace himself when he fell to darkness.
the dance bit is awesome and you cant change my mind on that
The balan bouts are also bouts of slowpoints since they take so darn wrong
Honestly while I like Yuji Naka's old games, I know he isn't a nice person, having sabotaged many games that were under development and even that recent reveal about what he did in regards to Geist Force were just awful. So to hear he tried to get others to do the work for the game only for it to end up like this, I feel is a sense of poetic justice. :)
Fun fact, the Tims are useful, they give you the Balan costume.
Apart from that, they have other uses depending on how you feed them. They can fight Negati, eat spike ball obstacles, go pick up stuff for you, and _that's about it._
@@Blackheartzero really dumb, ngl.
I love when I can't find a video of someone I'm subbed to, especially not in my subscription feed
As someone who officially got the platinum trophy in Balan Wonderworld, this game is....something. the Balan costume makes it so much more tolerable
My favorite costume combination by far was bullet kid, frost fairy, and leap frog. They're so fun.
If you do this next year, you should talk about the lore from the book and how it ties into the game.
Fun fact: geese have teeth
What
@@The_Ice_Type_Specialist They also have teeth on their tongues.
not until i get to em
@@richardmorgan3665 visible confusion
Damn, It wasn't Gex.
I actually like positive videos. And, for that matter, I liked this twisted and tormented video. Basically do whatever, man. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the TH-cam channel.
Let's not make April 20th a National holiday could be problematic. But other then that great vid.
always love to see a bumbles early
Somebody has probably already pointed this out but the Elastiplant Costume is literally just that one enemy from the Wooded Kingdom in Mario Odyssey
Yup, except less useful.
Yuji Naka has hijacked Bumbles's channel. Nobody is safe. Run. Run!
Yeah I'm playing Rodea the Sky Soldier next
The whole game was designed to look good in a screenshot and nothing more.
3:00 and 19:03 Hold up, really? I played the PS5 as well as the Steam version of this game as well (even played all the third acts and got the achievement for it) and the cutscenes were never laggy. I believe that the game ran badly for you, but I have no idea why it didn't do the same for me...
Being entirely honest, what caused me to watch this was the number in the thumbnail.
"Belting out PURE BABY GARBAGE!" Jack, it's okay. You can just say she's singing in French. We all hear it.
I’d think it’d work better if the costumes could work like gadgets from ape escape (each one can be activated by pressing one of the face buttons but also have one dedicated to jumping.
gotta say, this was fun to see
that one plant costume from the start of the video is LITERALLY a mechanic ripped from super mario odyssey lmao
Some designs looked really interesting, but man...this turned out to be a hollow experience.
Imma keep it a buck
That farmer was the storm that is approaching
Honestly this shouldn't have been a platformer to begin with. Balan's design just BEGS for a NiGHTS spiritual successor.
That Arzest is made from the major players of Artoon, known for the cult classics Blinx the Time Sweeper and FlingSmash, made it sting even more when the _best_ thing Arzest made since the shutting-down of Artoon was the StreetPass Mii Plaza.
I think that if this game gave you all the costumes you needed at the start and allows you to freely switch between them, and then dropped you in a and just gave you a vague waypoint and you had to figure out how to get there with the costumes available, it would be a lot more fun.
3:16 why is RTGame at the top of that tier?
12:38 HA jokes on you! I skipped the dancing
Born in flames balan has been blessed.
I played Balan all the way through and I basically 100% agree.
Yay! Love your content.
This is how Kirby COULD'VE turned out
The art and modelling team walked so that the rest of the team could fall and break their nose
(Also, a "story with no words" without any visual storytelling just feels like a way to cut translation cost)
They really should have just gone the Kirby Route and made a fun platforming moveset for the character regardless of what costume you're in and then make each costume just a power up with an action associated with the action button. Yeah, it would have been derivative but it also would have just been a better game. It would have also allowed the devs to work more on the level design.
I can’t believe you could play this on an Atari 2600 controller.
I feel like I’d enjoy Balan
I’m more of an aesthetics guy over gameplay, and the style that Balan is in really catches my heart. Every video I see of the game just looks amazing.
Still not gonna buy it, I’m not that enticed.
Balan Awesomeland
Something I've learned over time is that even bad games can be fun, intentionally or not. That being said, while I was never very interested in this game, I do wish it had the time and focused development it deserved.
Ah yes Balan WonderWar against having actual function
So about playing as balan…. He has a costume if you do stuff with the weird tower in the middle.
And yes, it’s a costume, and yes, to restock it you have to do the tower over and over and over.
I feel in a slightly weird position watching this video. As i had literally never heard of this game prior to this video showing up on my sub feed.
As one of the lunatics who actually platinumed the PS5 version of Balan Wonderworld, I pretty much agree with what you said across the board. It's a very fun game with great ideas, but suffers from its own lofty ambitions and somewhat poor execution. Maybe it's the NiGHTS fan in me that ultimately gave it a pass, but I did find it fun and felt genuinely engrossed in the cutscenes, especially the ending.
Sorry your version ran so crappy though. I can at least say the PS5 was buttery smooth the entire time.
i want a Balan's WonderWorld game but GOOD. if thats too much to ask
4:02 Hey! If you don’t the Tims, don’t interact with them. That’s what they’re called by the way.
Where's the full tier list bumbles
What people didn't know about this, 3d sonic games are notorious with its high-quality cutscenes, for example was duping players by watching fmv intro cutscenes they spent high production and other half was gameplay due to budget cut.