Balan Wonderworld Is Officially The Worst Switch Game Of 2021, According To Metacritic

Is it bad yes. But the worst? Far from it. Look at antdudes latest video.

And deserves/ has every right to be, That game was a dumpster fire!

@blindsquarel Metacritic limited their picks to games that had at least 7 reviews. I don't doubt there are plenty of $0.99 eShop titles that Bubba Codejockey slapped together in a weekend that are worse than Balan Wonderworld, but that's kind of a given.

I actually kinda enjoyed the demo a bit. But the whole 1 button scheme is pretty weird.

More like Balan Lameworld amiright

@MrHonest could use a little workshopping, may I suggest "Balan Blunderworld"

And I recently purchased it for $20.

EFootball is truly truly atrocious. Absolutely deserved.

Why did Taxi Chaos got low score ?
What was the not fun part from playing Taxi Chaos ?
Was that the relentless chores to get the passengers all the time without break ?

Efootball was an absolute abomination. Glad it got the worst score.

Should be worst game of the decade

Very much deserved lol

I didn't hate the demo. I kinda still wanna pick the game up on a steep sale sometime. 3D platformers are my favorite genre, and I grew up with plenty of mid-tier ones like Ty the Tasmanian Tiger that I have a lot of nostalgia for. Same can be said for Sonic Boom, actually--thought the demo was okay, reminded me of the unpolished games from my childhood, wanted to buy it from a bargain bin someday but never did. Oh, and the Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures games. Maybe someday, when there isn't so much genuinely good stuff to play.

Very much deserved.
It's a game that's bad by design, the kind that can't just be fixed by patches. They simplified the concept of a 3D platformer so much that it collapsed in on itself.

What makes this worse is that it had everything required not to be such a colossal embarrassment.
Money, manpower, experience, talent.
And it used none of that and made every bad decision in the book.

It's not a bad game because it was meddled with, because it was rushed, because unfamiliar tools were used.
None of that, it was just a bonafide horribly designed game from the ground up.

And to its credit, those have actually become rare!

Taxi Chaos also was released on the Switch wasn’t it?

Was it ported to PS4 later, or do PlayStation fans not get the appeal of Crazy Taxi?

Walmart by my house was selling Baylan for $4. FOUR DOLLARS BRAND NEW. Pretty sure I still overpaid.

@noobish_hat
I know you are trying to get under peoples skin, so I guess it worked. But it is actually better than ocarina and botw. Same level as wind waker.

The bigger story is that eFootball is #1 despite Konami having a perfectly good foundation to build upon with PES. Instead, they made a worse football game in every way.

RIP wierd hat and suit guy with eyes that make no sense. I'll always remember you for absolutely nothing. Hype responsibly

Played Balan Wonderworld, and I disagree with it being the worst. For what it was I did enjoy the game, like the world and puzzle solving. My only real complaint was lack of a dedicated jump button and no back button in the menu.

Honestly, I feel the game is over-hated if anything. What do I know, I just play games and form my opinions on those experiences. I don't follow MetaCritic or reviews personally.

In the past I avoided games because of reviews, and when I finally played them, I loved them. Hence why I choose to just play games myself, to see what I think and if I like them.

More like BADLAD’S BLUMBERSQUATCH woaaaahhhh \falls over sideways/

@Maxz now that's more like it

Can't say I am surprised

That's why I have the PS5 version.

It's def the worst full-priced 60-dollar release from the last decade.

I quite liked earthblood. It felt like the good ol' days of PS1/2 where you could have an objectively bad action game but still have a great time.

@XBontendo That's good to hear. I was quite looking forward to that one honestly, but for obvious reasons never got it. It looked so dang fun in the previews.

GTA Trilogy is a blast.

@kingbk yeah it's been mostly fixed now but this website suffers from "if it isn't made by Nintendo, we must keep bashing it" syndrome.

One would hope that before writing this, they would fire up the game to see its current state, but when your journalistic integrity has about as much depth as a puddle of water, asking for a proper due process is a bit much. Unfortunately.

I purchased the GTA trilogy when it was first released for the Switch. I played through most of San Andreas and have had a lot of fun with it. I did run into a couple of glitches / errors / lighting problems (such as when walking indoors, sometimes it is like walking into a dark cave) but nothing that truly spoilt the game for me. I never regretted purchasing the trilogy, just that you can not purchase them separately because I probably would not have bothered with “III”. I love the music in “Vice City” though, all the great music that came out when I was a kid in the 1980s. 👍

Got this for $10 on PS5 and while it's not good it's not awful. It's good for a chuckle. Heard the performance on Switch is terrible tho. Sucks because this game LOOKED appealing in trailers. Sad.

Wait where's Popeye and Sonic Colours Ultimate? Not sure why Taxi Chaos is up there, I enjoy that game very much despite its flaw and lame soundtrack.

@zachchat Ya but you got it for 10$, The game is 60 at default.

JUSTICE FOR BALAN

Necromunda: hired gun gets a bad rap, buy it cheap and you can have a great knock off doom 2016.

@Snatcher truth

@blindsquarel To be fair, Eshop shovelware doesn't count. Most of these just count big games from AAA publishers.

Edit: Skyward Sword is worse than Ocarina, due to the motion controls, and worse than BotW, due to how linear it was in comparison to previous entries, as well as not fleshing out the systems it presented, like the annoying stamina system in Skyward Sword.. which BotW flushed out, and actually did much more with. Or that annoying crafting system, which BotW got rid of.

It's honestly no wonder why Balan did so poorly. The game caused seizures if you didn't patch it.

I guess that’s Karma for Yuji Naka being a prick all the time. Somehow I felt bad for him and his disappointing game at first…. Then I learned he likes speaking in Japanese and trashing people he thinks don’t understand the language.

Good… pricks deserve to go to the bottom of the barrel making mobile games, just like Molyneux.

@Nintendzoey I only wanted Vice City and it's thr only one I downloaded and played. Great games. Got better after the patches. Before the helicopter rotors would spin so slowly I was afraid of falling out of the sky.

@VoidofLight I enjoyed Skyward Sword more then BoTW personally. I don’t think being linear is a valid criticism. More like a preference. Ppl can be as bored with linear as they can be wondering around an empty map with nothing but two npcs searching for mushrooms.

@BenAV so you might say that you have an A-version.

I'll show myself the door.

@Kirby_Girl I mean, there's a reason as to why BotW came after Skyward Sword. The linearity in comparison to the other games ended up being one of the biggest pieces of critique that lead to BotW being open world. Skyward Sword also has much more wrong with it than BotW, given the systems it introduced to the series, and the Motion controls.

The stamina system, for example, was introduced in Skyward Sword, and it was genuinely awful in that game. You needed it for every action, similar to BotW, but there was no way to actually expand the stamina. Instead, you just had to walk around and run up to these fruits to gain more stamina. I believe there were also potions, but I could be wrong. BotW fixed that system, by letting you upgrade the wheel, and by offering solutions to get around obstacles without having to force you to use tons of stamina.

Then you have the Shield durability, and shield upgrades, which were also a complete hassle to deal with. BotW also claimed Durability, and messed with it. You no longer had to craft shields, and durability was given to all weapons, allowing you to find them in the world, instead of having to buy and upgrade them with parts. The only drawback is how easily the weapons and shields end up breaking in BotW.

@Sunsy From what i have seen i can imagine that it is a great Game for little Kids.
The one Button Scheme could help to get into it and not overwhelm them.
Clearly not the most well suited Game for Adults.

I haven't heared anything about gamebreaking Bugs or else.

So yes, i can not understand the Ira vehementi.

It seems People where expacting some new Sega Messiah and got a Game made for Kids.

The GTA Trilogy... It is the crapiest Release since Warcraft 3 Reforged and topped it in everything...

And I remember everyone being inexplicably hyped by the atrocious first trailer for Bland Wonderworld just because it was made by Mario's ugly cousin's co-creator.

@AstraeaV Yes, as far as music goes - Vice City wins for me (I love just about every radio station in that game).
For the game itself though, San Andreas wins (I just love the map / openness of the world) and even though I am from Australia, I have been to places such as Hollywood, San Fransisco, Las Vegas.. so the sights are familiar to me. I do particularly like one of the radio stations in the San Andreas game though - “K-DST” (“The Dust”).
Yes, it would have been nice if you had been able to pay for just the games that you want though. I would have only purchased Vice City and San Andreas.

The problem with the GTA games is that it, first the game was ported to mobiles and then ported back to consoles, they should have taken the original code and fixed it from there, then we might of got a half decent game

Fake news, they forgot this one : https://www.nintendo.fr/Jeux/Jeux-a-telecharger-sur-Nintendo-Switch/Beat-Them-All-2035902.html

We need de-makes of these games for N64. That would impress me.

The context of the Balan Wonderworld release matters. It is an okay game for kids, that could have received more favorable reviews had it not been hyped over the moon. It is the same story over and over and over, marketing creates high expectations, the product falls short, consumers get mad. No Man's Sky, GTA, Cyberpunk, the biggest reasons I am never going to pre-order or buy day one, but wait for reviews, the bug fix, and the price drop. However, I will never buy Balan Wonderworld. Arzest, Square Enix and Yuji Naka are now names that I will look out for and avoid. Not because the game is bad, but because of their attempt to hype the game with fake "user" reviews.

There's no way even eFootball should be labeled anything less than a masterpiece in comparison to the ACTUAL shovelware that was released this year. Like that Popeye game, for instance.

Ridiculous and way better game, than the internet makes the people believe. Balan is somewhat around 75%

Banal WonderWhereItAllWentWrong

And that in the year an actual calculator and clock were released on the Switch.

But with the worst score on metacritic you could call it the most hated game of 2021.

Sonic 2006 no longer holds the title of being the worst game that Yuji Naka had a hand in? When you remember what a disgrace to the videogame industry that Sonic 2006 was ... that's pretty damning.

Life's too short for bad games. With so much information about games available from forums, review sites and review channels. I don't understand why anyone wastes their time with them.

@kingbk Vice City is playing pretty okay just now. Replaying SA though and it went from one of my favourite games to much further down the list. Forgot exactly how frustrating the game is and how dire it gets after San Fiero

@WadeMcG If Sonic 06 released just a year later it would have released at a time when patching was more common, probably would have become an okay not great game 2bh. I don't think it's ever received a patch?

It was definitely my least favorite gaming experience of 2021.

I'd put "according to Metacritic" at the beginning to save people the trouble of reading the rest of the title.

@VoidofLight Skyward Sword is still a great game though. And since when is linearity bad?

@Nintendo4Sonic I would like to know what led you to that opinion, 75% seems to be a lot for a game like this in my opinion, its a 25 at the highest.(So I would like to know please)

@Darkyoshi98 Or maybe they have an opinion, Yep, I remember those.

Balan Wonderworld is a very disappointing, rushed and rough game (much worse on Switch) but some games are worse like Skate Bird.

It had so much potential because of balan design and the characters even the villian we could have got next nights game but sadly its bad rip off super mario odyssey I thought sonic 06 is bad.

@VoidofLight @Kirby_Girl In my opinion, Breath of the Wild is not a bad game but it's a bad The Legend of Zelda game. Besides, I'm sure that it would have met mixed reviews if it was the same but wasn't a Nintendo/Zelda game. I mean, without The Legend of Zelda name and swopping Link, Zelda and Ganondorf for other characters.

@VoidofLight personally I found the stamina meter more annoying in BoTW since you have to do a bunch of wondering before your first upgrade and by then I was getting annoyed by it. Atleast there was free fruit to pick up everywhere in Skyward Sword so I never had to slow down at the start. Also I still think ppl's complaints about games being linear is more personal taste. I just don't think a game being linear is bad. Some ppl enjoy wondering as ganeplay. I just think the general public wanted the Zelda series to keep up with the trends and compete with what's out there. Which SURE as a series and product, yeah. I personally like getting to the dungeons and the dungeons being more unique with unique bosses. That had to be chucked in BoTW for all the extra forests they had to put in now. Also I found weapons breaking all the time annoying. That's just me tho. Preferences.

@Bunkerneath Yeap and Square Enix is guilty of that pleasure the most. They ported classics like Final Fantasy IX, Dragon Quest I-III, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy VI to that garbage platform that is mobile and then when they port those back to consoles and PC, they based those on the garbage mobile versions and not the originals. It's like if someone made a delicious whopper burger (the original), threw it in the trash (mobile), and then re-pick it back up, polish it real good, and serve it back to the same customers (console and PC) in the restaurant.

I bought it for $20 after the price drop and on a sale back in Sept. I think. I haven't really played much but it was ok for the short while that me and my daughter played it. It needed more time in the oven that's for sure. Had potential to serve a very niche audience but it is what it is.

@Anti-matter Because Taxi Chaos was a bad, cheap and mobile-looking game. It's a shame as had a lot of potential.

Karma has a way yuji naka

@blindsquarel I cant think of anything worse. It was bad in absolutely every way possible. There isnt a single thing redeable about it.

Is Balan really worse than that Lawnmower Simulator???

Too bad they don’t have scores relating to how many articles are written about a game. This one would win hands down just with this website alone. Talk about obsessed.

@Kirby_Girl @VoidofLight @blindsquarel RE: Skyward Sword

Let's just remember that opinions =/= fact. I'll add to this mix that I find Ocarina of Time and BotW very boring and unappealing to play, but I understand why they're so adored by the general populace. I love Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Very indifferent when it comes to Skyward Sword (except for that amazing soundtrack!). And all of this is alright!

Our opinions can differ and no amount of comparing game mechanics will dissuade the other. As Kirby Girl mentioned, preferences! It's not an "us vs them" type of situation where there is a "right" side we have to fight for. We can all have our own opinions and preferences and that doesn't mean any one of us is wrong.

@Azuris I can't help but agree with the game being hyped up as Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima were behind it, so I wouldn't be surprised it got hyped up. Especially with the disappointment the game is a platformer that's slower paced. It's not trying to be a copy of Sonic or trying to be Sonic. Want Sonic? There's plenty of Sonic games to play.

I understand the one button scheme may have been to make it simple for kids, but always thought a jump button isn't too much. My nephew at a young age figure out jumping in a platformer. I'm not putting down simple control schemes at all. One or two actions is simpler than having an action for all four face buttons, and shoulder buttons, each doing something different.

At least that's my two cents on it, coming from someone who enjoys the game.

@Meteoroid Right, that's what I said disappointing, rough and rushed. I had read your other comment before your reply to me, I didn't answer it but I don't think that Yuki Naka is bad but the whole project was a mess. Of course, he must take responsibility for it but everything, including what he didn't do, is poorly executed. He is one of the best programmers, in my opinion, because Sonic the Hedgehog (1991) has excellent programming and innovative gameplay, he was the only programmer, the physics were perfectly designed and he was very young. Then they expanded the gameplay in the 2D sequels. The Sonic quadrilogy still plays better than most 2D platformers. Is he a bad leader and director? Probably yes.

@BTB20 The linearity for Skyward Sword ruins a part of it's gameplay. Other games were linear, don't get me wrong, but you still had open areas like Hyrule Field. In Skyward Sword, the entire surface is a hallway, and while the sky constitutes as an open area like Hyrule field, it really doesn't feel the same, given how empty most of it is.

@Kirby_Girl I don't think people wanted BotW to follow trends. I just think people didn't want hallway simulator 2.

@VoidofLight as opposed to a wondering in empty maps/slowly climbing a rock simulator. Sorry but open worlds are trendy and ppl like to play sports teams when it comes to these game companies. If other consoles like Playstation are gonna have games like horizon zero dawn, etc then no way Zelda can stay classic. Ppl assume any new game trailer is open world now. Ppl expect Zelda to follow suit. It's fine. I don't think BoTW is a bad game but like I said earlier, preferences.

i am the proud and happy owner of this overhated title
when people look further then first impressions
they find a simple game with a wonderful story

@Kirby_Girl The thing is though, Horizon came way after BotW was first announced, so it wasn't them just chasing trends because Horizon existed. People weren't even demanding an open world Zelda before BotW got revealed in 2014, since people didn't even stop to consider it as possible in comparison to other entries in the series. To say Nintendo was chasing a trend is just flat out untrue.

It's not even a bad game.
It's just middle of the road OK.

Some good ideas, just not executed well.

Look at all the chumps arguing about the minutiae of Zelda mechanics. You can try and quantify what makes a "better" Zelda game all you want, it makes no difference to a person with a different opinion and experience than you. You're both wrong.

@VoidofLight I'm not sure when the other games came out but similar games were out and it was just an example I threw out there. I did see ppl demand that soo... guess we were reading different comments. I'll agree to disagree. When you make a game in the style of what's popular then you're going with the trends. That's not necessarily even a bad thing. It's smart and for Zelda a new take. Just felt mixed about the game myself. I had fun finding the towers and some beast dungeons but kinda just pushed through everthing else.

@Aurumonado yikes and I felt ripped off when I paid £5 for it here recently on the PS5

RGT85 was bragging that he picked this game up on a good sale. Why would anyone buy this? Even $5 is too much.

@Meteoroid Yuji Naka doesn't seem like he had a very stable work history after leaving Sega. The dude kept jumping from company to company and never dedicate himself to just one or two which result in him having a less than stellar portfolio and game project compare to his peers like Yu Suzuki.

@DragotheKomodo Wonderful story? XD They literally cut the story sell it as a novel.

Where is FIFA 22 Legacy Edition? That one had some very low scores.

@stuntz0rZ Simple answer, different reasons are why someone would want to buy a game. Maybe to see if it's really that bad. Some may have a genuine interest in the game, and want to play it, and who knows, maybe they'll like it enough to call it good, or maybe not.

Just because a game makes it to a worst ever list or scores low, does not mean it's going to be the "worst" to everyone. Some may disagree and find a game to be good or great, and that's ok.

At the end of the day, video games, like movies, books, TV shows, and music, are subjective. Some are going to like it, others won't.

@ShePenny have you made more than a single positive comment in months? if they wanna back and forth, who cares, just ignore them

I haven't played it yet, and it might be bad, but I bet I'll still enjoy it more than most modern AAA releases. So, that's worth something.

The Balan demo is one on the worst experiences I've had in 25 years of gaming.

@VoidofLight
Motion controls are fixed in hd and skyward sword is as linear as every Zelda except majora and botw.

@somebread Feel free to take your own advice.

@blindsquarel The motion controls weren't actually fixed. They just let you use a worse button control scheme instead now! Also, it's more linear feeling compared to every other 3D Zelda, given that Skyward Sword has no central overworld connecting areas. It's just a barren sky area, which has different color lights for the different regions.

@Kirby_Girl Breath of the Wild is mostly inspired by Assassin's Creed and Monster Hunter but ended up being boring because it excluded the most important things of a The Legend of Zelda game: story, dungeons and soundtrack and doesn't have any of the depth of AC and MH. Climb rocks (instead of buildings) and towers (instead of... towers) to unlock map items like in AC and cook, eat and hunt like in MH. Add the puzzle shrines, annoying gameplay mechanics like the inventory management and pausing battles and climbs to sort items out and a few watered-down bosses and there you go. Finally, add a pointless crazy motorbike, four lines of story and a boss battle as DLC and sell if for $30.

@BlueOcean I disagree on the story. If there's one thing I like about BoTW is its story telling. I give BoTW all the props there. I liked piecing the vision and building up the memories that shed light on Zelda's strength, vulnerability, and burden to bare.

@Kirby_Girl I didn't enjoy the story nor Zelda's voice. Do you agree with the other things, though?

@Kirby_Girl For the record, Horizon Zero Dawn released in Feb of 2017, while BotW came in March on 2017. It doesn't change what you were saying at all, but just giving you the correct info since I believe it was said that Horizon came out way before we knew about BotW. Also fun fact: we knew about BotW since like 2014 while the first trailer for Horizon was in 2015.

I have an honest question about Balan Wonderworld. I want to complely ignore actual gameplay faults that will obviously never be fixed; if the core is broken upon release, it is just broken, and will remain so, permanently--and this includes the entire mask/limited "power-up" system.

My real question is, since its release, how does the Nintendo Switch version of the game hold up? At launch, it was a disaster... even demonstrably worse than the other consoles, and that alone was at the time no high bar.

But what about now? Technologically speaking--again, ignoring all the gazillion actual design flaws of the game itself, how does the the game run... how does it actually perform on Switch, as of December 2021?

I bought Balan Wonderworld for PS5 despite the bad reviews and honestly for the price I paid of around £25, its a decent game, but I can see how people would be upset at full price or on Switch if it performs poorly.

I mean sure its a flawed game but the idea was somewhat interesting (though frustrating having to keep redoing old levels to re-collect old outfits), dare I say its a really good looking game on PS5 and runs well with the art style very Yuji Naka, it just screams "NiGHTS into Dreams".

But then I had never heard of it until I read an article about him retiring and it being a huge flop, which makes me sad as I do like his crazy ideas, just perhaps needed to be done on a much smaller budget so it could be cheaper

Avoid the hype and games are far more enjoyable, I went into Cyberpunk 2077 with next to no knowledge of what the hype had been and enjoyed it for what it was, same with Fable 2 & 3.

Glad I got the demo first