The recent news that Yuji Naka has left Square Enix only about a month after the release of Balan Wonderworld has highlighted how poorly the game was received both from critics and consumers. Having previously been cautiously excited for Balan Wonderworld, I thought it might be interesting to share my, admittedly limited, experience with the game, why I was excited in the first place, why I believe that Balan Wonderworld was a fail for both Yuji Naka and Square Enix and why the game was received so disastrously.
I should probably start with when I first heard about the game. Balan Wonderworld was announced in July 2020 as a new game that would reunite Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima, the co-creators of the famous Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. As you might expect, this was quite exciting for many people and I was also excited to see the release of another 3D platformer in a market where so few are released these days. Admittedly, the price tag of €60 was a concern for me as 3D platformers are typically priced more competitively but I was still eager to see more of the game.
Eventually, Square Enix announced that they would release a playable demo for Balan Wonderworld on January 28th of this year. I can specifically remember the date as it was the same day that the Yakuza Remastered Collection was released on PC and, to emphasise how much I was looking forward to the demo, I held each release as equally exciting. I downloaded the demo and chose to play as the female character as I’m wont to do. I was treated to a lovely CGI animated opening and I was ready to play.
However, as soon as I gained control of my character, I began to run into problems. The character movement was slow and at odds with the rapid animation and I realised that six of my controller buttons were set to jump. “Perhaps it’s meant to start out this way and I’ll gain new abilities and improvements as I play” I thought to myself. I entered the first world which was centred around a farming atmosphere. I saw this giant farmer staring at me and thought “This must be an NPC who’ll explain to me what’s going on” and as I approached him, he disappeared. I was quite surprised and I began to explore the level itself. The platforming felt basic, the costumes were similarly uninspired and I came across a bizarre quick time event where Balan himself destroyed rocks. After a single level, I stopped playing, uninstalled the demo and took to the internet to see if others were as disappointed as I was.
I soon learned that I was not alone. Numerous others were complaining about the same concerns that I had but they had also came across problems that I had not reached. Costumes that took away your ability to jump, losing your abilities when you took damage, bosses T-posing and little to no context for what you were doing, these were all problems that others had come across and the future of Balan Wonderworld seemed bleak. A patch was later announced to be in development to try to improve the camera, allow the characters to move a little faster, to remove a potential seizure risk etc. but I and many others knew that this patch could not save the game and that Balan Wonderworld would fail disastrously.
The game was released on the 26th of March 2021 and proceeded to receive a critical thrashing with the Switch release in particular being received poorly due to low framerate, visual glitches etc. The game also sold poorly, selling 2,100 copies in Japan in its first week and failing to chart in numerous countries. To merely call it a failure feels like an understatement but the fault clearly lies with Yuji Naka who ignored many of the basics of 3D platformer game design and Square Enix for not overseeing the process thoroughly enough.
Perhaps the legacy of Balan Wonderworld will be to serve as an example to video game developers of what not to do in a 3D platformer and I also hope that Yuji Naka will get an opportunity someday to redeem himself. Let me know your thoughts on “Why Did Balan Wonderworld Fail So Disastrously”, did you play Balan Wonderworld, whether it be the demo or the full game and, if you did, what did you think of it, whether you think Yuji Naka will really retire or if he can make a comeback and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Update – 28/04/2022
It’s just been revealed that Yuji Naka had been removed by Square Enix as director of Balan Wonderworld six months prior to the release of the game. It appears that Square Enix removed him due to an issue related to music during the marketing campaign as well as a lack of quality control from the co-developer of the game. While I still think that the game wouldn’t have been particularly great even if Yuji Naka had remained as director until launch day, it’s true that many aspects of game development can be left to the last moment with Yuji Naka giving an example “For Sonic the Hedgehog, two weeks before finalizing, the specifications were changed so that if you have even one ring, you won’t die. This now well-known rule was the result of improving the game until the very end, and people world-over have enjoyed it as a result.” He also stated that he thinks Square Enix doesn’t care about games and fans of games and, while I think that statement is slightly too harsh, this is certainly another example of the stupid strategies of Square Enix.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.