8 Exact Moments You Knew You'd Bought The Wrong Game
3. The Gameplay Shrinks Behind The Cutscenes - Balan Wonderworld
Coming from the co-creators of our beloved Sonic The Hedgehog, anyone who had missed all that pre-release footage from the game could be reasonably expected to have high hopes for Balan Wonderland.
At the beginning you’re treated to some really colourful, engaging, visually impressive cutscenes - just what we would expect- but it is when transitioning out of the beautifully animated cutscenes that you may find yourself wondering if you’re actually still playing the same game.
No amount of finesse in their animated interludes could overshadow the fact that the game is just not good. The controls are minimalist to the point of unusable, the costume power gimmick (that had the potential to be quite cool) is terribly executed and the whole thing completely lacks any meaningful plot or characterisation.
You can’t be blamed for trusting in people who have previously given you something great, leading to a sinking feeling and a passing thought of, “is this really the right one?”, when their newest offering lets you down. Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima really fumbled the bag on this one, with every step of that fleshy Sonic-lookalike player character reminding us of this.