Square Enix’s upcoming platformer Balan Wonderworld has just released its demo and we took the game for twirl to see what the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog is up to in this new game.
The game looks like an old school game where it has a colourful yet simple colour palette. It is not the best looking game out there for sure but it does fit into the category of platformers like Yooka Layle or Super Mario 3D World aesthetics.
You play either as a boy or girl character which is transported to Wonderworld by a character called Balan. There you try to save certain worlds using the powers of costumes which you can choose or collect around the world. There is a lot of traditional platformer cliche like jumping on enemies to defeat them and collecting stuff but what standouts in this game is the costume which not only look silly but each has its own unique ability.
Unlocking more costume will allow you to unlock more areas in the world and with up to 80 costumes available, you can see that there is a lot of exploring to do. Sadly during the demo, you can only switch between 3 costumes and collecting the forth will replace 1 which you already have. I was genuinely frustrated because the forth costume you collected will just randomly delete one of the costumes you have without even an option to select which to overwrite.
Each world also feels unique on its own, there is one world which you can control certain ball movements by moving around since the world is curved while another world have platforms which can be moved by using a certain costume.
Oh… Did I mention, there are also cute chicks running around with you. The demo skips a lot of the storyline (I guess not to spoil it) so not sure what those little chicks do. As far as I tested, you have to feed the chicks with the gems you collect from the worlds and they help you build a tower at the centre of the hub.
Overall playing the demo brings back good old school vibes of platformers with places to unlock and puzzle to solve. There are bosses in each world but so far besides having an excellent character design, they basically feel like any other ordinary enemy in the game. If you like platformer games, be sure to try out Balan Wonderworld demo which is now available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch. (PC will be released on the 28 January 2021)
I look forward to playing more of this game when it fully releases to try all the 80 costumes in the game on 26 March 2021 for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC.
