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Balan Wonderworld demo launches January 28

Miles708

Member
I live in the Saturn bubble so I'll get this.
It's a bit stiff but I think it has a very nice presentation and good gameplay and music.
Not sure about the full price, but I'll get this for sure.
 

D.Final

Banned
Balan-Wonderworld-Demo_01-19-21.jpg


Publisher Square Enix and developer Arzest will release a demo for Balan Wonderworld for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC via Steam on January 28 worldwide, the companies announced.

The demo will feature Acts 1 and 2 of Chapter 1, Act 1 of Chapter 4, and Act 1 of Chapter 6, as well as access to the Isle of Tims, the hub area where you can also raise mysterious creatures called Tims. The demo also supports two-person local multiplayer.

Here is an overview of the demo, via Square Enix:

Gematsu
A demo is always a good thing to do
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I guess I still have Monster Hunter Rise and Kena to look forward in March. I know Rise will deliver since I put 60 + hours in to the demo alone but I'm hoping Kena is also good.
 
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Orta

Banned
Yikes, I mentioned the PC version looks lovely, tried the Switch version just now, it genuinely looks like a Saturn game! I know its a demo and possibly an early one at that but its as shoddy looking a Switch title as I've seen. Jaggies, lo-resolution, really dark, blurry textures, etc. The difference between it and Mario Odyssey for example is monumental.

Inexcusable!
 
Liked the demo a lot, very charming game. Controls feel great, I dig the character and level designs. Unfortunately, the game is not for me. If my daughter was a little older, I'd recommend it to her. I hope this game is a commercial success.
 
I don’t think I’ve ever played something where contrast is so stark between gorgeous CG cutscenes (where SE continues to be at the top of this industry) and game itself that is just so awful beyond words. WTH is going on there at SE, it’s baffling. 😕
 

Shaqazooloo

Member
Okay, played the demo and yeah it's kind of bad. The character moves so slowly and feels like you lose whatever little momentum you have when you jump, changing forms is slow and feels like very little is happening as you run around these areas. It's quite boring.

Played the Switch version, i'm not usually someone to comment on graphics but this looks really rough.

I like the world design and how it flattens out or folds up the further you go and the cutscenes look fantastic but those are the only good things I can say about it tbh.
 
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GrayFoxPL

Member
Played whole day. Got 24 statues. Max I think.

Tried to get one far away costume in stage one by using cloud sheep costume for 2 hours but the game wouldn't let me cheat.

Big demo. Chapters 1,4,6, Boss.

Game oozes atmosphere and charm, so much Nights similarity in characters, story, art style and music. Fantastic stuff.

Runs smooth and looks great on base PS4. There is heavy aliasing in train cutscenes but I think these were simply unfinished.

Anyone knows if there's any use for the hilarious Cat Cube costume?

Shame about some of the reactions here, many people didn't appreciate Nights either.

Yuji Naka, you did great again.

aaron rodgers thumbs up GIF by State Farm
 

Moogle11

Banned
Didn’t like this at all. Honestly, feels like a bigger budget mobile game to me. Something like Oceanhorn. Not bad really, but I can’t stand the art style and just don’t see it as worth playing over other games in the genre on consoles/PC. Powerups are all kind of lame and boring to me as well. Just nothing appealed to me in my time with the demo.

To be fair, I don’t enjoy exploration/collectathon 3D platformers anymore, so it’s just not my cup of tea even if it had clicked with me on other fronts. I just hadn’t heard of it before seeing the thread about the demo and gave it a go while laid up recovering from hernia surgery.
 
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Played whole day. Got 24 statues. Max I think.

Tried to get one far away costume in stage one by using cloud sheep costume for 2 hours but the game wouldn't let me cheat.

Big demo. Chapters 1,4,6, Boss.

Game oozes atmosphere and charm, so much Nights similarity in characters, story, art style and music. Fantastic stuff.

Runs smooth and looks great on base PS4. There is heavy aliasing in train cutscenes but I think these were simply unfinished.

Anyone knows if there's any use for the hilarious Cat Cube costume?

Shame about some of the reactions here, many people didn't appreciate Nights either.

Yuji Naka, you did great again.

aaron rodgers thumbs up GIF by State Farm


Thanks for your positive impressions.
 

Orta

Banned
Gave it a second more thorough playthrough on my PC this evening and despite my initial positive reaction, yeah, its pretty meh. I think at best I'd buy it for a tenner. I can see the costume changes becoming very tedious and involving lots of backtracking if you don't have the correct one for a specific scenario. The levels look to be very cliched too and the cut-scenes & story to put it mildly are completely retarded. Might have been a keeper 20 years ago, not in 2021 however and certainly not for €60.
 

hemo memo

Gold Member
I don’t understand!

Is this some recently found old code that they build quickly for a game or amateur coder competition inside the company they decided to make it into a game? Why is it this bad?
 
Simply having two, distinct actions buttons would help the game immensely. One could allow the character to perform a basic jump, regardless of costume, while the other executes the costume ability. This would prevent instances, where the character isn't able to jump at all or stomp on enemies; it'd also decrease the frequency of switching costumes and the need to sit through the change animation.
 

Wunray

Member
Tried the pc demo, game is capped at 900p and 60fps, gonna be a no from me. (That 900p probably is a bug but the fact that they sent it out that way tells me the pc version isn't going to be great)
 

Esppiral

Member
I don't know what the fuck I've just played.
Is this a Chao Garden? That Balan dude is Nights in disguise? Why the main character looks like sonic from behind? Was that song sung in German? What I am supposed to do after beating the first boss, look how all those Chao like flurries wonder around?
Why the game runs at 60fps, the game world updates at 30fps and the shadows at 15?
Why does the farmer dances after all his field was devastated? Why is people dancing while monsters are trying to kill you? Why the CGI's are Pixar tier and the game looks like shit?
Have they just ripped sounds from Sega Saturn Nights? Because those gems sounds are 100% the same.


Why I am doing so many questions?
 

BabyYoda

Banned
I tried the demo and the feeling I got is it's made for very young kids. Like 4-9 year olds.

We have to remember not every game is made for us adults.
Totally agree, the game seems very dated, but it has it's charms, no doubt aimed at a younger audience. My niece and nephew really enjoyed the demo and that makes me happy, heck, I might even play it with them in coop. Not paying full price though...
 

Neff

Member
This feels like the kind of PSX/Saturn 3D platformer developers tried making before Super Mario 64, where they attempted to brute force everything they knew about 2D platform design into a redundant third dimension for the sake of it. The level design is extremely bland, and worse, it commits the terrible sin of simply not feeling good to play. Actions are unsatisfying and lack feedback. The pace is plodding without brisk movement. It all just feels too trite and simplistic, and lacks mechanical sophistication.

There's something about it though. The general presentation is quite fresh (I was not expecting that post-boss dance number), the character designs are great, and I even like the QTE bonus stages. That intro, too.

I'll keep an eye on it, but I expect it to do poorly.

I tried the demo and the feeling I got is it's made for very young kids. Like 4-9 year olds.

Pretty much. It's no Mario or Astro Bot. Those games hold up for all ages because they deliver on quality throughout.
 
Played the demo and I wasn't too impressed. The controls are stiff, the world is barren and it doesn't have anything going for it outside of visuals and music. I was looking forward to this as I love NiGHTS but I'm probably going to wait until this hits $10-15 on sale. It's really unfortunate that it turned out this way, I was hoping for a lot more out of this game.
 

Dthomp

Member
Man, I can't recall the last time I played a demo so bad. I thought at least I'd enjoy how pretty it is, but that is all in the cutscene stuff. Game is stiff as hell to play (Like dated by multiple gens), and just not fun. What's worse is my wife that was looking more forward to it then me stopped at the same exact spot like 5 minutes in saying this is bad and I don't want to play this crap. So many better 3D platform games out there from last gen alone, not to mention that this will come out within some sort of window (Hopefully) of Ratchet. Maybe a PSN $10-15 dollar sale, but I doubt I'd bite at that, I felt it was that bad
 

Furball

Member
Just try the Demo , This game run at 20 -25 fps on Switch eventhe graphic is not even that demand. The control also feel janky
 
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SpiceRacz

Member
Just finished the demo. The game is not that bad at all. It's just an unremarkable and simplistic platformer. I'd definitely pay $20 for it and play it over a weekend or something. But it's not a $60 title as far as I can tell.
 
I hope this was just a bad demo because certain things were well executed but imo the core gameplay combined with the level design didn't do it for me so far. My favorite thing about the demo was the rythym game Special Stage and the scoring system that was born from Sonic 3 and Knuckles'.
 

Miles708

Member
Tried also in local coop and it is fun and charming, and surprisingly relaxing.

I kinda like the "low intensity" of it all, honestly. It's not a masterpiece but it's the perfect game to recharge batteries. Will buy.
 
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