The game begins with two kids, Leo Craig and Emma Cole, appearing listless and lost in their daily lives. It’s also worth noting that this was only Yuji Naka’s second project as a director (the first being Chu Chu Rocket!) and that he earned his reputation specifically through his programming skills on games like Phantasy Star. The game was developed by the teams at Arzest and the newly founded Square Enix subsidiary Balan Company, and with these teams come a vastly different design ethos compared to the glory days of Sonic Team, focusing on slower-paced exploratory adventuring seen in their divisive games such as Yoshi’s New Island and Hey! Pikmin. It’s important to emphasize that Balan Wonderworld being marketed as from “the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog” was rather misleading, since such a claim made people expect a successor to Sonic Adventure or NiGHTS into Dreams. Some complaints were addressed via the day one patch, but the damage was already done and the game was seemingly destined for failure – releasing on the same day as Monster Hunter Rise certainly didn’t help either! Players were befuddled by the aesthetic, displeased with the game’s pace, and unable to see the appeal of the costume system combined with the single-button controls.

What initially appeared to be a promising collaboration between the renowned Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima during its debut at the Xbox Games Showcase in 2020 ended up becoming the internet’s punching bag once people got their hands on the demo. If you’ve ever wondered why there aren’t demos for every game, look no further than Balan Wonderworld.

Balan wonderworld development