Despite a critical mauling and being a commercial failure - Balan Wonderworld could have been so much more.
The Outerhaven interviews Francisco González of Grundislav Games about his passion for Point and Click games.
Hidetaka Miyazaki, a renowned director & president of FromSoftware has hinted how he might be soon making another Armored Core game.
Could potentially be any one of these:
King's Field V / Otogi 3 / Lost Kingdoms 3 / Shadow Tower 3 / Echo Night 4 / Metal Wolf Chaos 2 / Kuon 2 / Armored Core VII
LETS GO !
Pilestedt writes: "Very good question. First thing we got to do is ensure we get more devs time playing the game. It's hard to make the right decisions if the eyes aren't on the road.
Secondly, I want to ensure we actively look at the sentiment and create a holistic view of WHY feedback is given. And my working theory is that TTK is too high."
They need to give us weapons that are fun to use. Right now you will have over 30 enemy patrols that randomly appear around you in a near never ending horde. Most of the weapons we are getting are either semi automatic guns that can take out 1 light armored mob if you hit the weak point or low damage automatic rifles with high recoil.
To make the game more fun, we need some fun futuristic weapons. I would love to see a gun that can fire elemental rounds except for incendiary and a proper thermite grenade.
I think he still has an amazing talent at character and world design. Dude has a knack for charm, but i think he needs the right team to really put that to good use, and Balan Wonderland just wasn't it.
In my opinion their biggest mistake was making a game aimed at kids. It's different when something is made for all ages, than something made for children.
Because of that, gameplay was made too slow and simple, plot was too silly (especially the characters dancing parts), they put too many costumes that would attract kids but not deep enough to make adults think it's fun playing with them.
And worst of all, the characters we control are kids other than Balan himself. Nights: Journey of Dreams taught us how bad that idea is. Playing as the children is the worst part in that game and we just wanted to play the Nights parts. Meanwhile, in Balan Wonderworld, controlling the slow and uninsteresting children is the main part.
I would certainly like to see him make another game. Baland had a bad premise that was made worse by outsourcing almost everything and probably on a fairly tight schedule. He's good with style and character/world design I think he just needs to team up with the right people, a good co-director.
Well, seeing as he hasn’t made a hit in a while I think it’s safe to say he lost his touch. Balan was his chance to shine, especially after Rodea the Sky Soldier and he didn’t pull it off again.