Do you want to wander around for an hour or so in colorful comics created by the creators of Sonic the Hedgehog? Do you enjoy the feeling of being pleasantly confused? If you answered yes to any of the questions, you would like to play the demo Balan Wonderworld. This is something else.
That Something Else is a dreamlike platform in which some of your heroes, Leo Craig and Emma Cole, are sent by the mysterious maestro Balan on a journey through imaginary worlds created from others’ dreams. In the demo, which will be released tomorrow for PlayStations, Xboxes, Switches and Steam, we explore the dreams of a farmer who had crop problems, a boy who dreams of flying, and a girl who meets a kitten has.
The demo opens with your chosen protagonist in a place called Isle of Tims, a green field with portals to the available levels. This is where we interact with the Tims, little soft creatures that Leo and Emma follow on their adventures. By giving these creatures crystal drops collected in the different stages of the game, we can change their colors, which influences how useful the Tims are during the exploration. Red Tims attack. Pink Tims will hunt for hidden items. They are definitely not from Chao Sonic the Hedgehog, but they are similar.
The Sonic agreements make perfect sense, given Balan Wonderworld‘s family tree. The new game is directed by Yuji Naka, director of the original Sonic the Hedgehog, directed by Naoto Ohshima, Sonic’s designer and director of timeless classics Nights in dreams and Blinx: The Time Sweeper. Echoes of each of the games can be found in Balan Wonderworld.
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The demo stages of the demo are huge, twisted wonderlands full of dancing creatures in dainty costumes, golden statues to collect, challenges to overcome and puzzles to solve. The colorful landscapes take clues from the dreamers they dream of. The farmer’s levels, for example, are littered with giant vegetables and hay bins. ‘The boy who would be one with the wind’ in the demo features the real boy, giant, lying in the air and presumably dreaming of flying. The designs are lively and imaginative, as one would expect from art director Naoto Ohshima of Sonic and Nights in dreams fame.
The nuclear mechanic of Balan Wonderworld change costume. Leo and Emma unlock costumes while being adventurous. Each has a unique ability. With the Soaring Sheep costume, the heroes can turn into puffballs, which can drive the wind created by spinning fans. The Elastiplant costume allows the pair to protrude their torso to gain access to crystals and switches that are placed slightly higher than other crystals or switches.
Other costumes mimic moves you might find in a Mario or Sonic game. The Aero Acrobat outfit gives Leo and Emma the ability to keep their enemies and objects in the air, to move towards them to deliver an attack. This is Sonic’s home attack. The Pounding Pig costume is Mario’s ground pound in beautiful pig shape.
Instead of just giving all these abilities to the characters and letting them go to town on some dream landscapes, Balan Wonderworld let them juggle up to three costumes at once. It gives the player something to think about as he searches for levels for Crystal Drops and hidden secrets. Level checkpoints can be used to swap players’ costume sets, so don’t worry if you run into a path that is inaccessible to your current wardrobe.
I can not honestly say that I have a thorough understanding of what exactly is going on Balan’s Wonder World of the demo play. A lot of my playing time was spent pointing to the screen and asking my partner what the hell was going on. Why do they dance? Why is this fan here? Why is that giant boy floating there? It seems like our characters are some well-meaning kids who wander off to solve people’s problems, which is good. We also hallucinate, which can be fun. I look forward to getting to the heart of this trippy mystery when the full game appears on March 26th.