BALAN WONDERWORLD

Square Enix + Sonic Team founders = musical theatre. Wait, wut?

Imagine if the remaining members of the Beatles reformed under a new name and released a song called Raspberry Meadows. After the most delicious moment of realisation, long-term fans would be utterly beside themselves with excitement, even if your average Billie-Eilish-loving teenager would have absolutely no idea what the fuss was about (or why the song had such a weird name). Well, this is one of those moments.

Balan Wonderworld is best described as ‘a new game from 1990s-era Sonic Team’, or more specifically Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima. The development studio is even called ‘Balan Company’; that’s a statement of intent if ever there was one. It was announced a few months back, and PS5 in-game action has now been shown off in an extended demo. So what can you expect from Balan’s theatre of dreams?

The answer is more than 80 themed costumes, each with its own moves and ability. While the initial reveal showed a few of them, the PS5 demo sheds more light on how the game feels when you play. Three suits are available to you at any one time (once you’ve collected them by unlocking a touchstone with a specific key), switchable at will using o and u. And that’s handy, because you must change attire mid-action in order to navigate the levels and enemy attacks successfully.

“THE CHARACTERS DANCE TOGETHER AFTER THE BOSS IS DEFEATED.”

The costume-characters are often super-cute, and Ohshima’s design will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s played Nights Into Dreams. Dainty Dragon is able to fire flaming green projectiles. Piggy Pounder (complete with curly tail) is able to ground pound scenery elements into the floor, raising other platforms in the process. Tornado Wolf can throw cyclones and smash certain large blocks of stone. Elastiplant turns your body into an extendable stem, allowing you to reach higher items without leaving the ground. According to Yuji Naka, all these abilities will be accessed with a single button (aside from jump, we imagine), making the game accessible for children, while still requiring you to show skill and solve problems in order to collect the Balan statuette trophies hidden throughout the colourful levels.

One of the boss fights was also shown; in it, you face a huge, wolf-faced creature that attempts to ground pound you into oblivion within a closed arena, with attacks that you must counter with those switchable suit abilities.

ACTING UP

Also of note is the glimpse of Lance, who appears to be the game’s main antagonist – the equivalent to Nights’ Wizeman, who appears before the boss battle. He’s a slender figure with creeping black tendrils of hair that appear to be able to touch and corrupt the good characters, perhaps symbolising their minds being overcome by negative emotions. Lance again looks like something out of Nights Into Dreams and has dramatic makeup including a drawn-on tear. It’s all creepily theatrical, and provides a good counter for the game’s happy, uber-kawaii main levels. When one of the costumes is a kangaroo, complete with adorable joey in your front pouch, perhaps some emo makeup is necessary.

The demo also helps flesh out that ‘musical theatre’ theme as the characters dance together after the boss is defeated, and some of the vocal-led music can be heard. West End actors’ vocal talents were used for the soundtrack (by Ryo Yamazaki), so perhaps we’ll get another singalong ‘classic’ *cough* like ‘Dreams Dreams’ from Nights Into Dreams. You and me we could be together foreveeeerrrrrrr…

Though the game’s massively exciting in premise, a few concerns remain. First, while Naka-san understands the importance of character movement better than most, it doesn’t look anywhere near as fluid as 2D Sonic or Saturn Nights in motion. It’s more like Billy Hatcher And The Giant Egg, and that’s been forgotten by history for a reason.

The other possible negative is that Square Enix is releasing the game on pretty much everything, all the way from PS5 down to Nintendo’s comparatively diminutive portable, Switch. While the PS5 version shows some gorgeous misting effects and a far smoother framerate than that seen in the initial reveal, its movement, animation, and geometry is clearly more basic than, say, the Dark Souls remake.

Still, when Naka himself describes Balan Wonderworld as “The action game of action games” and promises it’ll pack in all the best bits from the genre, who wouldn’t will him to create something utterly magical? This could be the last big-budget flourish of that mid-’90s Sonic Team genius we ever get, and that’s a very big deal.

“THE PS5 VERSION SHOWS GORGEOUS MISTING EFFECTS AND A FAR SMOOTHER FRAMERATE.”

Balan’s long legs, alien-like eyes, and performer’s attire is instantly reminiscent of Nights from 1996.

Right Find enough Balan statuettes as you play through the levels and the Maestro will unlock more doors to new stages.

Left The dreamlike levels have some surreal features, like these Through-TheLooking-Glass-style giant chess pieces.

Above Like in Nights Into Dreams two children have to confront their insecurities – these are named Emma and Leo rather than Claris and Elliot.

Above If you’d shown these images to a kid in the mid-’90s they’d have traded their granny for this game.

Above The fairground level looks particularly promising. Here, the teacup ride has gone dangerously out of control.