Yuji Naka and Balan Wonderworld Deserved Better

Despite a critical mauling and being a commercial failure - Balan Wonderworld could have been so much more.

[isarai]

I think he still has an amazing talent at character and world design. Dude has a knack for charm, but i think he needs the right team to really put that to good use, and Balan Wonderland just wasn't it.

[Nerdmaster]

In my opinion their biggest mistake was making a game aimed at kids. It's different when something is made for all ages, than something made for children.

Because of that, gameplay was made too slow and simple, plot was too silly (especially the characters dancing parts), they put too many costumes that would attract kids but not deep enough to make adults think it's fun playing with them.

And worst of all, the characters we control are kids other than Balan himself. Nights: Journey of Dreams taught us how bad that idea is. Playing as the children is the worst part in that game and we just wanted to play the Nights parts. Meanwhile, in Balan Wonderworld, controlling the slow and uninsteresting children is the main part.

[Nerdmaster]

About Yuji Naka himself, I really appreciate him for being part of creating Sonic, but after I learned he let his ego take over during the 32-bit and threatened to leave SEGA if the american team used Nights engine for a Sonic game (since they were struggling to create one, for SEGA taking so long to send them a Saturn dev kit), I lost a great deal of respect for him. As a SEGA fanboy, I knew a Saturn Sonic was extremely important, and in the end we didn't get one (mostly for SEGA Japan incredible incompetence and trying to undermine the american branch whenever possible, but using Nights engine, which was already working, would've made it possible for the american team to actually finish the game).

So I don't really care about what happens to him.

[Pyrofire95]

I would certainly like to see him make another game. Baland had a bad premise that was made worse by outsourcing almost everything and probably on a fairly tight schedule. He's good with style and character/world design I think he just needs to team up with the right people, a good co-director.

[CrimsonWing69]

Well, seeing as he hasn’t made a hit in a while I think it’s safe to say he lost his touch. Balan was his chance to shine, especially after Rodea the Sky Soldier and he didn’t pull it off again.