Balan Wonderworld. The worst video games of 2021

Balan Wonderworld on paper seemed like a successful production. A three-dimensional platformer with fairy-tale graphics, a spiritual heir and a tribute to many similar titles from the times of PlayStation 2, and in addition, a game created by the creators of the legendary Sonic. The two heroes, Emma and Leo, travel through the fairy-tale locations of the title world of wonders, helping the inhabitants of this strange land. What could have gone wrong? Everything... Balan Wonderworld was simply crushed in the reviews.

Despite an interesting artistic style and tolerable characters, it is a boring, repetitive platformer with crude controls and poorly designed levels, not posing any challenges. The graphics look decent only in cutscenes. The creators invented mechanics of using as many as 80 different costumes, each of which was supposed to give a special power, but they did not think it through thoroughly enough, so most of them are either repetitive, or useless. Nothing is polished in the game, nothing is fun and, as one of the reviews says, in order to fully understand its plot, you have to buy and read a separate e-book! When gems such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart appear on the market, it's hard to turn a blind eye to the blemishes of Balan Wonderworld.

1. Balan Wonderworld in our encyclopedia