The Destroyed Potential of Gold, This is the Full Story Behind the Failure of the Wonderworld Balan

Keeping expectations for a game seems to have become a necessity in this era. Because regardless of the good reputation of the developer to the effective marketing of the game, the end result will not always be beautiful. Since we’re tired of citing Cyberpunk 2077 as the best example, how about we talk about another failed game, Balan Wonderworld?

Marketed as the newest 3D platformer game from Yuji Naka who is one of the creators of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, expectations for Balan Wonderworld are indeed very high before its release. This is also due to Square Enix’s excellent role in marketing the game to the point of bringing it to prestigious game presentation events such as Nintendo Direct. But as you know, this game ended up as a failed project, both in terms of reception from critics and gamers to sales figures that were so bad that they could be counted on the fingers.

We haven’t had the chance to play the game yet, but looking at people’s reviews and impressions of Balan Wonderworld, it’s enough to judge it as a bad game. But recently while relaxing on YouTube, on our recommendation appeared a new video from the channel Austin Eruption which provides a complete discussion of the game. He is willing to spend a lot of time to finish the game to 100% and read the novel.

We anticipate that Austin will suffer and may rail against his game throughout the 38-minute video above. Our predictions weren’t completely wrong, but Austin provides a clearer picture of the ambitious concept Balan Wonderworld is trying to offer, where this game was created as a dream project of Yuji Naka with Naoto Ohshima and his new team at Balan Company. At least in terms of concept and planning, this game is very well prepared, where you can even see the passion that is emitted in several places.

Then why this game can end badly? Agree with Austin’s explanation above, we believe that the main problem lies in Arzest. They are a team of developers working with Balan Company to develop the game. If the Balan Company has done a very good job of creating a mature concept, Arzest’s role is more focused on developing the game itself (this includes concocting gameplay mechanics, graphics, and all that).

We think that choosing Arzest to take on this very important task is a bad decision, especially if it is seen from their track-record that is not optimal and has not been involved in a project with a large scale 3D game like this. We think the party that will suffer the most is the Balan Company, because they have just debuted through Balan Wonderworld and now their name is even remembered as one of the worst games released in the last decade.

As we mentioned above, the game concept has been carefully prepared and this is further proven through his novel entitled Balan Wonderworld: Maestro of Mystery, Theater of Wonders. This novel provides a deeper explanation of the main story of the game, which turns out to take place after the overall story begins to reach a serious point. If likened to, this is the same as serving a plate of food but there is no content. There are so many important story points that have lots of interesting moments, which unfortunately don’t make it into the game.

By looking at the scenario above, it can be concluded that choosing a developer to work on a game project is a risky decision. We don’t know if it’s due to budget constraints or something else, but what is clear is that Balan Company needs to get support from more experienced developers, especially for 3D platformer games. Hopefully Yuji Naka’s next project can end up being a much better game.

Balan Wonderworld itself is now officially released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch and PC.

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Wonderworld Balancing

Publisher: Square Enix

Developer: Arzest

Release Date: 2021-03-26

Console, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series

The latest 3D platformer game from creator Yuji Naka with his new team at Balan Company. The platform concept in this game allows players to adventure in a dream world, where they can get access to 80 costumes that have their own unique designs and special abilities.