Balan Wonderworld

Balan Wonderworld comes to the market as a title designed to make children enjoy. However, the title fails in most of its proposals, being the artistic section and the use of costumes the only thing that allows the title to maintain its composure at some point.

This is not a modern game, no. Nor is it a particularly good one. But nor is it quite the disaster it often threatens to turn into. So, yes, faint praise indeed. We'll ensure such mistakes aren't repeated when they appoint us CEO. [Issue#358, p.116]

Balan Wonderworld is a game that I tried hard to love. It is not the pariah that the internet makes it out to be though. I think the game is charming and flawed. It has tons of issues, but I still finished it. I had some good times sprinkled in with the frustrations. It took me to a simpler time in platform games and there is truly nothing else out there with the same kind of presentation and whimsical ideas it delivers. That said $60 is a hard ask for a game that seems to want to frustrate players at every turn. I wanted to love Balan Wonderworld, but it did everything in its power to test my love every chance it got.

All in all Balan Wonderworld is uninspiring and boring to play. A lack of instruction mixed with some of the most basic platforming abilities missing at times makes the game a chore.

Balan Wonderworld is a dull game and a boring experience in a lackluster world.

Balan Wonderworld is a game of missed opportunities. It’s simplified control scheme robs it of any of the subtle complexity that the genre is best at, its various ideas are half-baked at best, and its core gameplay is a taxing uphill climb through even the most basic of platforming principles. Amusing visual design aside, the only thing that Balan Wonderworld is good at is being consistently boring.

Frustrating in its playability, abstruse in most of its rules, the soft falls without a net. No drama to report: like a drunken cannon-man, Balan Wonderworld misses his target. Too imprecise for the youngest, too basic for fans of the genre, he cannot count on any of his costumes to hide his shortcomings.

For better or worse, Balan Wonderworld feels like an HD take on a PS2-era platformer. As long as you manage your expectations accordingly and accept the limitations that come with this, there's some enjoyment to be had with it. By modern standards, however, the game falls far short of expectations.

I understand that Balan Wonderworld wasn't made with me in mind – clearly it's meant for a far younger demographic. But even from an objective standpoint, I can't figure out why anyone would want to voluntarily sink hours of their life into such an annoying and incoherent game.