Balan Wonderland its Sonic 06-2 as you truly imagined/ Izuka its a better father.

[DrParadise]

Over the course of 4 years since the release of Forces a discourse regarding the "dark age" of sonic has change into defending a lot of the most hated games like shadow the hedgehog, sonic the hedgehog 2006 and sonic and the secrets rings (the latter being the factually worse).

However the one that causes a lot off noise its the defense on Sonic 06 a game the internet has made YOU sure to never forget its the punching bag of every sega boomer and gamer boomer (when I refer boomer I refer to old gamers that are from the millennial generation) sonic fans who are Gen z has been fighting over Sonic 06 stating it was misunderstood and the games which were more acclaimed (colors and generations) were the actual bad ones only focusing on story and never the gameplay.

While Izuka has made mistakes like approving sonic boom on wii u (goddamned nintendo contract) many blame him for stuff he doesn't have any involvement in the development of sonic games, the last sonic game he was credited as a director was shadow the hedgehog so when he became the boss and decided to change sonic HE KNEW everyone hated the 3d sonic games and its stories since he was in the us at the time of 06 development  (thanks sonic retro) after all he was the director of every 3d dreamcast era sonic game, so if you want to blame anyone for charging sonic stories you can start by blaming yourselves IF you are nearly 40 years old.

Anyway what's the point of everything I just said? Well a few weeks ago at the time I wrote this, a demo for Balan Wonderland the new game sonic 2 of sonic's original creators: Yuji Naka and Naoto Oshima was released and the reception was mostly negative, let me tell you I was not surprised this game was going to be bad ever since it was announced because when I've heard that Naka and Arset (Oshima's studio responsible for Yoshi's New Island) were involved I knew this was going to be bad.

Why the Naka hate? Yuji Naka has a lot of pride on the things he has accomplished and that's perfectly fine and good BUT ever since he left Sega he never had any success like how he had on Sonic and if what Tracker TD (aka: the vocaloid fan who hates colors and sonic 2, the audacity I know) said was true, then its not really a good idea for Naka to direct a project like this.

In a sega livestream event in japan for the launch of the Mega Drive Mini sega invited developers of the many games included in the console and Naka as well as all sonic 1 staff were invited, boy was Naka drunk screaming and asking why all of the games he has worked on were not included in the console and overall being pretty rude. (If Tracker reads this please correct any details I've missed or got wrong on what you said on twitter)

Not only that but many of the most questionable decisions made to the sonic brand were made by him like: shadow's gun, changing drastically the story of sonic from being nature vs machinery into political conspiracies, religions and gods, sonic riders questionable racing mechanics, punishing the player for going fast in 3d sonic, and of course his biggest failure that he was only half way into it Sonic 06 a game that signifies Naka's insanty run as the leader of sonic team.

Balan Wonderland as he calls it: "the best platforming game ever" its Sonic 06-2 and they are a lot of reasons why I think this way, if you can try watching back to back gameplay of 06 and Balan to compared the two, some may not see it but I do and its shocking how similar they are.

The level design and animations remind me way too much of Sonic 06, specially by how slow the movement and platforming is, the kids walking animation looks as awkward as they did in 06.

Having way too many "characters" was also a negative point many had with heroes and 06, in the case of 06 it was because the only fun characters to play were sonic and blaze everyone else was painful to play either because of pacing or gimmicks (amy, knuckles/rouge, tails and silver), in Balan having over 80 different costumes its going to get frustrating since to get a collectable you need a specific costume and the reward its as simple as a coin, the player its going to give up because its not worth it and some costume dont even let you jump in a platformer.

Level design its confusing to navigate and it features the same problems of objects and platforms blocking your view that many early 3d platform games had something mario has tried to fix since galaxy, the pace and movement is very slow you only have one action and that is jump, that's it you can't do anything else like how you did in super mario odyssey and when you have a costume some of them can't jump as stated before.

Balan its a game that was design for kids, let me tell you if I was 10 today and this game came out I would think that its lame, see a big reason why Mario and Sonic are the most recognizable and popular gaming mascots its because they aren't design to be children mascots they are design to be as flexible as possible and for any age group to like them, Sonic's atmosphere, world and music its something kids genuinely love, Mario is the same way as well.

So the fact that Naka didn't understand what made sonic so popular when making Balan shows how disconnected the game its, it feels outdated lie Yooka Laylee and Mighty no.9

So to anyone who thought that Balan was finally going to show sega how its done let me ask, how does it feel to be wrong?

End

[Guest]

Sir this is a Wendy's.