10 Biggest Recent Fan Critic Divides In Video Games

When developer and publisher Square-Enix announced a partnership with Sonic The Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka to create a spiritual successor to Nights Into Dreams - one of the few classic games we got from the Sega Saturn - people were... well actually kind of worried.

Balan Wonderworld was intended to bring back the classic mascot platformer, a genre that dominated the 90s and early 2000s, but went nearly extinct almost over night. In hindsight, critics were probably the reason for the genre's demise.

Balan was largely rejected by reviewers who were reminded of everything they didn't like about those games, such as endless collectibles, outdated level design and a grind-heavy progression system. Add "floaty" controls into the mix and what you get is a Metacritic score of 44.

Players were just as divided with each other as they were with critics. While Balan has a 6.0 user score on Metacritic, individual ratings are largely either 0 or 10. The 0s had the same complaints as critics, while the 10s loved that it faithfully recreated those old platformers, warts and all.