Balan Wonderworld is, for the most part, a very pretty world to explore. This inconsistency bleeds into the visuals of the game. Again, I don’t see why this and abilities couldn’t have been mapped to a different button press. Box Fox turns into an invulnerable box whenever it feels like it, and that’s exactly how it’s described in game. Worse still, there are some that are – for all intents and purposes – utterly useless. Some of them are fantastic but others, owing to the controls, feel like they only have one, very specific use. It’s a strange sense of monotony that seeps in as you unlock yet another power up that basically lets you jump further.Įven when they’re more imaginative, the costumes are very inconsistent in their gameplay. There are a lot of costumes in Balan Wonderworld, which adds some variety to how you can overcome challenges, but there are too many that are practically the same. Then there’s the costumes themselves, which are excellent in premise, but fall short in execution. You might have a power that activates only when standing still, which is just as irritating as you would think. There are several buttons here that could be used for separate actions, and you’re left puzzling over clumsy context sensitivity. Yes, it simplifies the controls, but it means that the controls end up more frustrating than anything. The camera is an ever-present obstacle, the powers don’t always activate, and the idea to map all actions to a single button (which is duplicated all of the face buttons) is baffling. To put it another way, the character control is diabolical. Your character controls similarly to modern 3D Sonic games. It’s hard to tell which is the more frustrating idea in the game the controls or the execution of the costumes. Using the device in the centre, they then gradually unlock the Tower ‘O Tims in the centre of the island for… reasons. The unlocking of more worlds also means more Tims run around the place, eating gems, growing larger and changing colour. These statues are then used to unlock new levels once you find enough to have Balan summon a train ride that inexplicably opens more worlds around the Isle of Tims. These beasts aren’t difficult to dispatch in all honesty, but beating them earns at least one statue, and results in a gloriously excessive dance routine between your character and the one you saved. This honestly isn’t well explained, and can be tough if you don’t have precisely the right costumes, but is often the quickest method of taking them down if you get it right it. The bosses then have three statues per encounter, which are earned by approaching the fights in different ways. If you get consistent ‘Excellent’ ratings, you earn the Balan statue – if you can master the weird timings required here.
This takes you to an oddly monotonous minigame in which you need to time button presses as Balan’s shadows line up with him. Each main level contains eight Balan statues, which you’ll often need to return to try and retrieve once you’ve unlocked a later costume. One per level is behind a Balan’s Bout, hidden in golden top hat.
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