The variety of outfits do keep things mildly interesting, whether it's using the 'Lovely Lantern' to light your way through dark areas, the 'Sickle Slinger' for hurling blades at enemies, or the 'Dusk Butterfly' to flap your way across gaps. You collect Balan statues, go to the next area, fight a 'Nega Boss' (enemy design, is, for lack of a better word, crap), and then you'll have a bit of a dance. But in Balan Wonderworld I had nothing to hold onto, narratively speaking or otherwise. Robotnik had ensnared animals and stolen the chaos emeralds, so you had a mission, of sorts. At least in a game like Sonic the Hedgehog, you knew that Dr. ![]() Ultimately, it all feels quite pointless. Upon completing an act of each level, you're whisked back to the verdant 'Isle of Tims', a hub region where you can look after your Tims, help them multiply, and have them complete secondary objectives for you at certain milestones, building new structures within the hub. You're also never really sure why you're collecting different coloured gems then feeding them to little fluffy birds that follow you around, called 'Tims'. And that's really Balan Wonderworld's most cardinal sin – it's a platforming game with bad jumping. Why one button isn't a default jump button regardless of which costume you're currently wearing, is beyond me. For some reason, someone thought it would be a great idea to have every button do the same thing, so with the exception of the left and right bumpers, used to switch outfits, every other input is 'jump' or 'use ability'. Different outfits you can unlock by gathering keys (usually situated conveniently next to the little pod in which the costume is contained) grant new abilities, and some of them inexplicably remove your ability to jump. That's essentially Balan Wonderworld in a nutshell. Collecting a gold top hat will initiate a profoundly dull mini-game featuring Balan himself, in which you have to match his shadow to an action he performs in a sequence. ![]() ![]() Your sole objective is to collect golden statuettes of Balan, tucked away in each of the game's 12 chapters, in order to progress. In the background is the eponymous “mysterious maestro” Balan himself, a gangly creature decked out in a crisp white suit, a hat with red trim, and stupid green hair peeking out at the back, who apparently runs the show. There's a farmer whose farm is a mess (or something), a girl who has lost her dolphin, a girl who has no friends because she likes insects, and other needy folks to help, if you can be bothered. The game is a colourful adventure in which you play as either Emma or Leo, and proceed to help people who have lost something they hold dear. Sonic the Hedgehog, Yuji Naka, and artist/character designer Naoto Ohshima. The Elastiplant is one of the first costumes you'll wear.īut I'm getting ahead of myself.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |