NARITA BOY MISSABLE ACHIEVEMENTS PROFESSIONAL
NARITA BOY MISSABLE ACHIEVEMENTS TV

Some may appreciate this multi-media approach, but I’m personally not a fan of sharing your game’s vision through multiple forms of media (*cough* Final Fantasy XV *cough*). There’s also a novel called Balan Wonderworld: Maestro of Mystery, Theatre of Wonders, which apparently goes more in-depth with the game’s story and characters. I really enjoyed the game’s minimalist approach, although it does leave many questions as to what you’re doing half the time for the people that you’re “saving”. The game also has beautifully rendered CGI from Square Enix’s Image Studio Division (formerly Visual Works), which are quite well done.

NARITA BOY MISSABLE ACHIEVEMENTS PROFESSIONAL

There’s even a professional chess player, who just happens to get defeated by someone younger than them (perhaps some would say is a metaphor for the game’s creator, Yuji Naka?) and the entire stage is a warped chess board of sorts. There’s a dolphin trainer, for example, who had a bad experience while performing underwater, so their level is water-themed, including the boss, which is a nightmare-ish amalgamation of a dolphin. The game, once again, is about exploring the sub-conscious (or dreams?) of individuals who have experienced some sort of life hardship. Similar to NiGHTS, the game has no dialogue and the cut-scenes and environment tell the little story that’s actually there. It’s certainly frustrating and a strange design decision no matter how you slice it, despite the levels mostly being designed around this philosophy. The stages are mostly designed around a level’s costumes, but a lot of the time you’ll reach a platform or two that can’t be reached without something that allows you to perform the most simplest of actions. Furthermore, you can only carry 3 costumes at any given time and once you get hit, you’ll lose that costume until you recollect it. The problem, however, is that some of these costumes don’t allow you to jump by default. One costume might allow you to float short distances while another may grant you the ability to destroy specific blocks. Each of these costumes typically grant you a new ability/power which lets you traverse the stage in unique ways or solve simple platforming puzzles/sequences. In each of the game’s numerous levels, you’ll also collect costumes which transform you into various characters. The gimmick? You have one button that does nearly everything in the game (including your jump), which has become one of the (many) focal points for the discourse surrounding its release. At its core, Balan Wonderworld is a 3D platformer with a heavy emphasis on collecting things. To no one’s surprise, Balan Wonderworld released to little fanfare and an almost universally heated reception.

Needless to say, I approached the game with a degree of bias, so I knew I was going to enjoy Balan Wonderworld to an extent, but what about everyone else? Years later, I would graduate to Sonic Adventure and the rest of Sonic Team’s releases long after Dreamcast’s (short) lifespan, including Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg for the Gamecube. I loved the game so much for all of its weirdness and eccentricities, but I especially loved the soundtrack, so I found myself recording the game’s music from our old TV’s terrible speakers with a blank tape and a boombox. Years later, my parents were cool (and fortunate enough) to gift my siblings and I a Sega Saturn for Christmas with a handful of games, including NiGHTS Into Dreams.

NARITA BOY MISSABLE ACHIEVEMENTS TV

There’s home videos of me sitting on the carpet, glued to the TV at my aunt’s & uncles house playing the original Sonic as a child during the holidays. Growing-up, like many kids born in the late 80s/early 90s, it was almost impossible to not have played Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis. Balan Wonderworld isn’t great by any stretch of the imagination… but I sort of love it for all of the missteps it made along the way. See you in my nightmar… I mean dreams, Balan…Įvery year I’m on the lookout for a game that feels so aggressively out-of-place and in 2021, that game was Balan Wonderworld.

Narita boy missable achievements