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“Sonic Boy” and “Flying Dream” from the Sega Mega Drive on Saturn are my two favorite games of all time. Yuji Naka is one of my favorite game creators, the “art director” Naoto Oshima, the person who designed Sonic Boy, Dr. Egghead and Nights is without a doubt a divine existence for me. When Square Enix announced in 2018 that Naka Yuji and Oshima had set up a new studio by the name of SE and found out that they were going to develop a new platformer, I was very happy.
After almost 3 years, I am sitting here, I feel it all, but I am not happy! On the contrary, he was sad and there was enough emptiness inside. This is because I just finished the 9 hour gaming marathon, which I finally played after patiently waiting for 3 years, but found the game to be terrible. The newly released “Baran’s Wonderland” is terrible. After all, considering all the potential and all the talents that the two main creators possess, writing this article really hurt me a lot. Welcome to the fortress of disappointment.
Once upon a time, in the second half of the 90s, the most important type of game was a colorful platformer with a leading pet. “Thylacine Attack”, “Jak & Daxter”, “Baby Dragon Spyro”, “Donkey Kong”, “Abang Aka Adventure”, “Gex”, “Sonic Boy”, “Super Mario” … The game is boiling over, and the person standing at this center point is Naka Yuji. Nowadays, this genre is not that popular anymore, but considering that “Baby Dragon Spyro” and “Thylacine Attack” were particularly popular after being relaunched, when Square invested in the ambitious projects of Naka Yuji and Oshima Naoto, it is easy to understand. Square’s thought process.
In “Baran’s Whimsical Wonderland” we’ll follow Leo Craig and Emma Cole, two kids who are in trouble and all need help. One of them was harassed and the other oppressed by the difficult family environment. It was during the introduction of the animation that we could see how they stumbled upon a “Wonderland” with all its sadness The Secret of the Ancient Magic Theater. In this dream world, Balan, like Nights, is a fascinating dream demon. Your mission is to mend people’s broken hearts by improving people’s minds and getting rid of their dark and uncomfortable memories. But this is done by wandering through some useless levels like an idiot, trying on different clothes in an attempt to gain different abilities. This is the most basic premise of this game. It’s a wild hybrid between the platform design of “Sonic Boy’s Adventure”, the premise of “Flying Dreams” and the clothing approach of “Super Mario Odyssey.”
The worst part of “Baran’s Wonderland” is how stupid it feels and how unfinished it feels. It’s like someone finds a sketchbook in the trash can, takes it out, and then tries to use all the loose ideas as the basis of the game. The feeling of control was bad from the start. Leo and Emma are slow, they can jump, but their ability to jump over objects is almost useless, and the animation is, at best, similar to that of a bad PlayStation 2 game.
In theory, these 80 sets of costumes are not a stupid idea, but unlike “Super Mario Odyssey”, the implantation and realization of these costumes is completely absurd. I often turn on a special set and come to the conclusion that the special features of the set make no difference or cannot be used at this level at all. After often activating a set of clothing and a certain special function, you only realize that you cannot use that set of clothing to complete the link here, which means you have to start over or go back to a more earlier progress. There are also many costumes with the same special abilities that Leo and Emma have had all along: the ability to jump (even if it’s more like a “limited jump”), which makes me think that Naka Yuji and Oshima just want to use this one. play. Make fun of us. Super expensive and ugly joke, I must suspect it is a scam.
Also, “Balan’s Wonderland”YaoshouTerribly ugly. Really very ugly. To be completely honest, the “optimization” for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and based on Unreal Engine 4.5 feels ridiculous. These designs are a bad combination of Sonic Boy, Nights, Billy Hatcher and Giant Egg, and Cirque du Soleil, and the presentation and plot are incomprehensible in many ways; you can easily put “Baran’s Whimsical Wonderland” Described as a complete and extremely expensive fault. In each chapter, you have to deal with someone’s feelings of “darkness” and painful tragedies, but each of these emotions and the impact on the people the protagonists want to help will not be until the end of the level. To reveal it to the player, he feels stupid enough to explode. For the most part, I can’t figure out where I am? who I am? What is the OBJETIVE? Plus, coupled with the setup, bad mechanics, teasing the stupidest costumes, and lame graphic effects, this makes “Baran’s Wonderland” the worst game of the year so far. None of them.
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