Balan Wonderworld

Balan Wonderworld looks great but feels incomplete. The game lets you journey through six different stories while collecting golden statues and morphing from one outfit to another. There are 80 different outfits in the game, but some of them feel double or not useful at all. Where the game is great to play alone, the multiplayer feels rushed, where player two doesn't get to do all the things player one can. That being said, the game feels like a great way for kids to spend time.

This game is far too undercooked. [Issue #52 – May/June 2021, p. 73]

Balan Wonderworld is a videogame from Yuji Naka. However, even if the team had more time we wonder if the game would be worth your time.

Balan Wonderworld is not comfortable or fun to play. It isn’t memorable. If you want to understand everything happening, you have to buy the ebook and go to that outside source for an explanation. It is bland, repetitious, and has design choices that are the opposite of ensuring a good quality of life. It is a clear example of a situation where you should read the book, rather than play the game. There are times when it feels like a fever dream, something too weird to actually be true, as it fades from your mind. But then you look at that icon in your system’s Home menu and know it really happened.

Balan Wonderworld will leave you with a sense of wonder. A nagging sort of wonder. The kind of wonder that makes you wonder. Wonder how a game could so masterfully miss literally every opportunity to treat its players with a modicum of respect. Wonder how a very well known publisher could stomach having it in their library. Wonder what in the world happened with the Switch version. Wonder where your $60 went.

Balan Wonderworld is a hodge-podge of half-formed platforming ideas that squander a whole lot of charm.

We’re not going to mince words here, Balan Wonderworld is a waste of your time. Monotonous level design, awful performance, and shallow gameplay combine to make for an experience that is simply not fun to play. It may look pretty (when it’s framerate isn’t chugging), but there simply isn’t enough good content here to justify your time or money, and this is doubly true when you take into account that this is a full-priced retail release. If you’re looking for a good 3D platformer for your Switch, this most definitely isn’t it.