BALAN WONDERWORLD

A theatrical dreamscape built from private fears and fond memories gives BALAN WONDERWORLD a setting few platformers can match. Emma and Leo enter the mysterious Balan Theatre, where maestro Balan leads them through twelve storybook worlds shaped by troubled residents and their emotions. Each chapter mixes bright, toy-like scenery with hints of sadness, frustration, and insecurity, giving the adventure a deliberately odd, almost stage-musical atmosphere. Its charm comes less from a tightly plotted narrative than from the sheer willingness to be strange.

Platforming revolves around collecting costumes, with more than 80 outfits granting a single defining ability such as hovering, breaking blocks, freezing hazards, shooting projectiles, or crossing gaps in unusual ways. Stages encourage players to search for alternate paths, solve light environmental puzzles, recover collectibles, and revisit areas with newly acquired powers. Combat remains simple and many costumes assign their special move to the same action input, so success depends more on choosing the right outfit than mastering a deep move set; taking damage can also strip away a useful costume. Local two-player co-op lets one person control Emma and the other Leo, creating occasional opportunities to combine abilities, while rhythm-focused Balan’s Battle sequences punctuate the journey with timed button presses.

What stands out is the costume system’s sheer variety: an apparently disposable outfit can become the answer to a hidden route or an awkward obstacle several rooms later. That inventiveness is paired with uneven controls, inconsistent level design, and a presentation that feels closer to an eccentric early-2000s mascot platformer than a modern genre leader. Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima’s involvement is apparent in its colorful character designs and dreamlike visual identity, even when the mechanics do not always support the imagination behind them. Players who enjoy unusual collectathons such as Nights into Dreams, or who value bizarre atmosphere over precision platforming, may find a memorable curiosity here; anyone seeking the polish of Super Mario Odyssey or Sonic Mania should keep expectations measured.