Some costumes prohibit jumping entirely, which overrides any sense of unique identity these abilities are meant to provide, substituted by annoyance. Movement, in general, is not abysmal, but controls hit a few snags during gameplay. However, these rapidly morph into monotonous drudgery overtime. There is an impressively charismatic flair that Balan emits whenever prompted during the button presses. The first and maybe second instances of these events are pretty cool. There are also quick-time events that can be performed when finding Balan in the stages. Making players re-snag the same costumes they have already obtained prior in locations became arbitrary to where they are needed in other stages. However, this instead serves to make the process feel like a chore and nothing else.
I think the idea here was to promote a sense of familiarity with the level layouts by making each of the costume placements feel meaningful. Having to farm costumes is just a baffling design decision. However, getting hit or falling off the stage makes you lose the costume you currently have on, which would be fine, but the process of getting the costumes again is just so tedious.
For example, if you want to reach a Balan statue that requires a costume not found in said stage, you would have to go to a different stage and collect the costume there if it is not in the Dressing Room. This is a bit of an issue when you need to find a certain amount of Balan statues needed to reach later stages. You can’t freely switch between all of the costumes you have ever found. A large annoyance that comes with exploring the levels with costumes has to do with the fact that you only have a finite number of them. Once again, this is a simple yet effective gameplay element, but its incorporation also leaves much to be desired. The level design is rather inoffensive and genuinely gratifying at points, with some obstacles needing a particular costume to get through. They ultimately came off as an almost lazy, artificial way to spice up the gameplay loop. Still, there came the point where their lack of synergized utilities caused the copious shine of their capabilities to lose their luster. The costume mechanic itself works as a platformer mechanic. Variety is always great in a platformer, but it merely portrays itself as a taxing burden and not much else when presented in this manner. Rather than feeling enthused whenever encountering a new costume, which is what I assume the short scenes and triumphant sound cues are designed to impart, I just grew minutely irritated. The fact that these costumes can only perform singular actions was unnecessary. Some costumes feel like they could have been combined into one, making the number of costumes come off as superficial. While navigation is decent, the sheer amount of playable costumes feel a little too needless and frustrating in execution. A vital factor for what makes a platformer fun is the gameplay loop, which is where Balan Wonderworld lacks. These costumes are essentially powerups and vary in practical validity and general enjoyment.
Gameplay consists of traversing puzzle-esque platforming stages by utilizing costumes found in a stage. However, that is where my wholly praise for the title ends.
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