Initially, it can seem like a pretty simple affair, but the key element which adds meaningful depth to seemingly simple levels and boss battles are the golden Balan statues. With the whimsical art style and use of dramatic music, these stories deliver their sincere message as intended. Leo and Emma essentially dive into the emotional depths of each of these characters, as they help them find emotional closure and resolution. Within this fantastical setting are 12 thematic worlds, each representing an emotional challenge faced by a character, presented as a theatrical performance. It is the latter who then proceeds to magically transport the children into the Wonderworld. In Balan Wonderworld you play as one of two protagonists, Leo and Emma (a nod to Elliot and Claris from Nights into Dreams) as two emotionally troubled kids who happen to meet this theatre wizard named Balan.
In the absence of dialogue it is able to drive the right emotional notes for the musical narrative. The icing on it all is found in the soundtrack, as there is some truly stunning music composed to bring the game’s artistic and story visions to life. This is where Balan Wonderworld really shines: it delivers emotional tales using a range of theatrical devices and visual motifs to bring its fantastical themes to life. At the very least, the animated cutscenes manage to bolster the presentation where the in-game graphics fail, and each of these sequences have the quality and charm of a Pixar animated short. The particle effects are simple, but the colour schemes still shine through. There is a vibrant sense of the wonder in the thematic worlds presented, and a memorable brilliance to the character designs, where the artwork stays with you even when the textures of the 3D models are bland. Still, despite a weak engine under the hood, the visuals of Balan Wonderworld still carry strong artistic merit. There were certainly far more technically impressive and proficient releases on Xbox 360 even Kameo: Elements of Power has a major edge over Balan Wonderworld. It’s hard to understand or know why the graphical and technical aspects are as lacking as they are, but in an era of 4K resolutions and 120 frames per second, there’s just simply no excuse for a major 2021 release to look like it is a few hardware generations behind.
It certainly would have been a different case had Balan Wonderworld been a modest indie project, but this is a major release from publisher Square Enix, created by industry legends. For a game designed for new consoles in mind, it is impossible to be lenient about the underwhelming graphical prowess. Ultimately, much like those aforementioned games, Balan Wonderworld isn’t going to be winning any awards or conceivably entering a video game hall of fame years down the track, but this is one of the few major video games to qualify as avant-garde, something so unique that it can’t invoke anything less than a polarising reaction.įrom a purely graphical and technical standpoint, Balan Wonderworld is unquestionably and objectively disappointing.
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