I love 3D platformers, especially of the collect-a-thon variety, so I’ve been interested in Balan Wonderworld ever since it was first announced. A demo is now available, so I checked it out to see what this new game from Yuji Naka and Square Enix is like. It’s a surprisingly sizable demo that lets you play through Acts 1 and 2 of Chapter 1, as well as its boss fight, Act 1 of Chapter 4, and Act 1 of Chapter 6, in addition to the hub world called the Isle of Tims. Performance on the Switch version isn’t great, and the frame rate struggles at times, but I didn’t find it to be too much of a problem.
The gameplay revolves around getting costumes that give you new abilities. In your basic human form (whose appearance you choose at the start), you can’t do much of anything, but each costume lets you transform into a different form. In the demo, I got to try out a form with a spin attack, another with a ground-pound move, one that could float through the air, and many others. You can only have three at a time, and getting a new one pushes out the last one in your list. You also lose your current costume if you take damage, which leads to a bit of tedium if you decide to backtrack to grab the costume again. At first, I assumed different buttons would be assigned to different costume functions, but that’s not true. All of the face buttons do the same thing, and you need to switch costumes to change which ability you have access to. That’s fine, but it does slow down the pace of the game.
Balan Wonderworld is fairly generous about putting a costume nearby when you’ll need it to proceed, but you’ll need to use a variety of costumes if you want to get all of the collectibles. There are little gem-like drops scattered throughout each level, as well as the Balan statues that are your main goal. Once you collect a certain number of statues, Balan will open the way to a new world for you, so seeking out statues in each level seems like the main form of progression. There are also golden top hats to find, which trigger a mini-game called “Balan Bout.” This is a QTE sequence in which you must press a button when Balan overlaps with his silhouette, or mash the button when multiple copies of Balan appear on-screen. At first I thought it was a cute change of pace, until I found an identical Balan Bout in a later act. The demo’s sole boss stage was also fairly bland, with it simply requiring you to hit the boss three times, although you get statues for attacking with different costumes.
On the other hand, the worlds themselves are bright and colorful, with some areas changing as you walk through them. For example, one level has platforms rise up or the land curve downward as you approach, which at first seems to be only an aesthetic touch until you need to guide a giant ball to the correct area of the stage in order to open a door. The Isle of Tims is cute; while there’s little to do there in the demo, you can use your collected drops to feed the little creatures known as Tims. You can also pick them up, although I’m not sure why. It’s also possible to find hidden eggs and bring them back to the Isle of Tims to hatch them. According to the official information about the game, Tims will help you as you explore stages, but this wasn’t apparent from the demo.
In fact, one of the biggest problems I had with the demo is that there’s no context for anything. Balan sweeps you off into his world because you’re missing a piece of your heart, and that’s pretty much the only explanation given for the entire demo. Why are you visiting these worlds? Why does a shadowy enemy pop up from time to time to attack you? Why are you grabbing collectibles, aside from it being a 3D platformer and that’s what you do in these games? Why are you feeding the Tims? The demo doesn’t give answers for any of these things, although I hope the full game will have more context.
The Balan Wonderworld demo left me feeling conflicted. On one hand, I love exploring colorful worlds to search for collectibles, the idea of the multiple costumes is neat, and it has the potential to be a lot of fun. On the other hand, some parts of the demo just feel tedious. It looks like the sort of game I’d love, but I worry it might be missing the heart and soul it deserves.
Balan Wonderworld will be out on March 26 for all major platforms.
