You can move, perform actions while in a costume, and change your costume. It's a creative way to add difficulty to Balan Wonderworld's simplified take on puzzles and platforming.Įverything else quickly comes off the rails.Ĭontrols are important to every platformer's success, but Balan's controls are often loose and unresponsive. The general idea is that each chapter has certain puzzles that require backtracking you encounter objectives in early chapters that can only be solved after unlocking costumes in later chapters. After collecting enough statues, new chapters open up in the hub. Inside, they are greeted by Balan, an extremely well-dressed clown who performs a booming musical number and whisks them off to a magical world where they help other people who have lost their way.Įach "chapter" of Balan Wonderworld is themed around a different person, such as "The Man Who Rages at the Storm." In each chapter, you collect costumes with different abilities and use them to then solve puzzles, and by doing so, collect different colored gems and Balan Statues. Regardless of which character you play as, they both end up in a dilapidated theater called Balan Wonderworld. Leo begins by dancing in the park, impressing people and then walking away without talking to anyone. Emma begins by seeing people whispering behind her back everywhere she goes. Though the story is convoluted and difficult to make out since very little is explained either narratively or mechanically, the basic premise of Balan Wonderworld is this: you play as either Leo or Emma, or both if there are two players, who are each going through rough patches.ĭepending on the character you choose, the game begins a bit differently. Its design and sensibilities feel hopelessly dated, the controls are oversimplified and lack tightness, and none of its elements live up to their potential.
Nothing is abjectly terrible in Balan Wonderworld, but almost nothing works. The opening cinematic is, unfortunately, the high point here.
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