Balan Wonderworld

Balan Wonderworld is a 3D platformer from Square Enix's catalog. The title was created as the debut of Balan Company, the publisher's new studio. The team was headed by Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima, creators of the Sonic the Hedgehog series. The two recently worked together on the iconic NiGHTS Into Dreams, which shares much in common with Balan Wonderworld.

Balan Wonderworld tells the story of two characters: Emma and Leo. Both are immersed in their own troubled thoughts when they find a building housing the titular Wonder World. It soon turns out that this is no ordinary amusement park, but a huge fairy-tale world. Led by the mysterious Balan, Emma and Leo embark on a journey to heal the hearts and minds of the land's inhabitants. They will also both discover what really matters to them. The story of this journey is told through twelve smaller stories that follow the lives of different people.

The gameplay in Balan Wonderworld is reminiscent of other 3D platformers like Super Mario Odyssey and NiGHTS Into Dreams. We have a three-dimensional environment filled with platforms, obstacles, enemies and simple puzzles. There are amusement parks, surreal chess boards, ice tundras and many other locations, each with unique mechanics.

To cope with the challenges posed by subsequent levels, it's not enough to just run and jump. In the game we can find more than 80 costumes, which endow the heroes with special abilities. This includes walking in the air, stopping time and the ability to manipulate objects in many ways. These and other abilities also come in handy when fighting bosses.

In technical terms, Balan Wonderworld is not inferior to competing platformers. Three-dimensional graphics maintains Naoto Oshima's characteristic style, known for example from NiGHTS Into Dreams.