Some of you may remember Balan Wonderworld and its rocky launch last year. The 3D platformer, coming from well-known Sonic developer Yuji Naka, was a little rough at launch, and now its director has shed some light on the situation.
According to Naka himself, he was "removed" as director six months before the game even came out. We knew following the game's launch that Naka had parted with Square Enix, but due to legal reasons, the exact timing of Naka's departure wasn't disclosed at the time.
The director's recent tweet thread says that the legal ordeal is over, and as a result, he can now speak more specifically about what happened. Through rough translation, the gist is that both he and Square Enix knew Balan Wonderworld was unfinished at launch, but the publisher decided to remove him early and release the game as planned.
Unsurprisingly, Naka had some scathing words to say about Square Enix in the wake of these events. This is rough Google translation, so the wording might not be perfect, but Naka says he's "really sorry" that Balan Wonderworld released as it did, and that "Square Enix and Arzest are companies that don't care about games and game fans."
At the time of Naka's official departure announcement last year, he said he may well retire after Balan development, so we might not see another game from the famous developer ever again. Only time will tell on that one!
What did you make of Balan Wonderworld? Did it deserve more time in the oven? Let us know below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 5
He should stick to what he is good at, 2D platformers. He could make a crazy looking sonic style game on current hardware. 2D side scrolling platformers are not dead, they still have a place in current gen hardware.
I really can't tell who the villain of this story is...
By gosh; I was surprised to see Balan Wonderworld get a news article and even more surprised by it's content. The "Square Enix not to value games and game fans" line doesn't surprise me in the least though.
Q) What did you make of Balan Wonderworld?
A) I'm in the rare camp of being someone who enjoyed Balan Wonderworld. It was a fun experience for me in both single player and co-op.
Q) Did it deserve more time in the oven?
A) That said, there are certainly elements that could have been improved. The books contained tons of story elements that were never presented in the game, the Tims could have been a more involved experience in playing with them and quite a few costumes had barely any utilisation outside of their first or second appearance.
Normally I'd say this is the sort of thing that can get touched upon in a sequel but I'm not foolish enough to think this game will ever get a sequel.
Yuji Naka co-created one of the most innovative and fun games in the 90s, Sonic the Hedgehog. That game shows excellent programming skills compared to 99% of the rest of the 2D platformers. It was obvious that the team he had were not doing a great job since the demo was released. Perhaps he had good ideas and good 3D platformers are as fun as in the 90s-00s whether old or new so the genre is not the problem, the problem is the game itself. I haven't played the final game, I'll do it someday when it's cheaper. Even if the final game is a mess, it's unfair to judge a developer because of it, mostly if he was removed from the project and the game was rushed. Balan Wonderland is just a project he started but Yuji Naka is not Balan Wonderland.
@BartoxTharglod I don't see many others with an appreciation for Balan Wonderworld so this was a lovely comment to see!
I ended up playing the game both single player and co-op. A single player is decent and a co-op run is pure chaos with how you can cheat your way to earlier statues and costumes,
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