Balan Wonderworld will get a day one patch to address demo feedback
Well that's what a dress rehearsal is for, I suppose
Wacky-looking 3D platformer Balan Wonderworld is making its debut in just over a week. Former Sonic Team heads Yuji Naka and Naota Ohshima are involved, so folks seem curious to find out if Balan's two young protagonists can fill those classic platforming shoes. They may yet, but they'll get an assist from an early patch to address player feedback from Balan's demo, Square Enix have announced.
If you'd not had an eye on it, Balan Wonderworld is a 3D platformer where you'll collect and swap costumes to gain abilities like a tasmanian devil spin or a kangaroo hop. Heroes Emma and Leo explore 12 different worlds based on the hopes and fears of different characters. Square Enix detail the first three worlds based on the memories of a farmer, a diver, and a bug collector, in a new blog post.
There's been a demo for Balan over on Steam since January, which it seems folks have had some thoughts about after going hands on. In the same blog post, Squenix let on that they'll be releasing a patch on launch day to address some of that feedback.
There’s been a wide range of opinions and responses to the demo, and unfortunately at the current stage of development, it simply isn't feasible to reflect every piece of feedback into the game. However, to offer you all a more balanced gameplay experience, we will be implementing a day one patch for the full game. Specifically, this patch will adjust movement controls, camera movement, and rebalancing of the difficulty.
RPS corpo siblings Nintendo Life gave the demo a try back in January and alas, were not impressed, saying "I don't think I've played a platformer that feels just this sluggish and stiff in years." I do worry that's not the kind of thing that'll be solved in a patch. I'm not so sure they can just chuck in a run button and call it a day.
Balan Wonderworld is on RPS's list of the top 14 games on PC in March, though Colm says he's not completely confident it'll be a winner. I don't know that I am either, but it's got a co-op campaign and supports Steam's Remote Play Together feature. I've had an alright time with my share of underwhelming games by playing them with pals, so I'll not count it out just yet.
Balan Wonderworld will launch on March 26th for £50/€60/$60. You can download the demo to try it for yourself until then.