Board 8 > Yuji Naka reveals Balan Wonderworld wasn't on him and wasn't finished.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Apparently he's been in a legal battle with SE over it and couldn't say anything. Got fired for some music argument 6 months before release, and the game never really advanced past that, went completely uncooked.

https://twitter.com/Cheesemeister3k/status/1519667053283532801

I'd swap 'reveals' out for 'claims', as I'm learning now that Naka apparently has a long history of being a bad boss, and it's weird that HR wanted him gone if it's just over a music dispute. But yeah I doubt this will reflect well on anyone involved at the end of the day.

andylt posted...

I'd swap 'reveals' out for 'claims', as I'm learning now that Naka apparently has a long history of being a bad boss, and it's weird that HR wanted him gone if it's just over a music dispute. But yeah I doubt this will reflect well on anyone involved at the end of the day.

I'm guessing they wanted him out and thats how they got him

dude literally cited a decision he made 30 years ago as proof that he could have fixed this game by release

Aecioo posted...

dude literally cited a decision he made 30 years ago as proof that he could have fixed this game by release

I think he was saying 'Decisions were made to make Sonic the Hedgehog good, decisions on Balan Worldworld didn't care'.

He would say that it wasn't his fault.

It'll be interesting to see Squeenix's response, if any.

Raka_Putra posted...

It'll be interesting to see Squeenix's response, if any.

"We won the trial."

Mac Arrowny posted...

"We won the trial."

PoV, Square Enix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPOFjeHS_hc

But the issue with BW wasn't a lack of polish, it was fundamentally bad design at a very basic level.

If he said he'd pitched a concept, done a load of design work, and been fired while they were still experimenting with gameplay, I'd sympathise. But he must have signed off on some terrible mechanics choices.

BlackMageJawa posted...

But the issue with BW wasn't a lack of polish, it was fundamentally bad design at a very basic level.

If he said he'd pitched a concept, done a load of design work, and been fired while they were still experimenting with gameplay, I'd sympathise. But he must have signed off on some terrible mechanics choices.

In his defense - rounds of iteration could take Balan Wonderlands gameplay to actually good. I don't think its ever the case that you get the base structure of a game up and running and the first round of gameplay is "good", it's just a base to start expanding on and actually give depth to. I didn't play Balan Wonderland but it it looked to me like the gameplay was a first draft and just released as is. I guess that's actually what happened! Square Enix probably didn't care that much about refining this game and just decided to dump it out the door.

That's not to say that he actually would have made good choices to make it good though.

I felt similarly of It Takes Two. Everyone seems to think that game was amazing but I had a problem with how every gameplay gimmick (which it introduced a new one in every level) was implemented in the most simple way, then you'd solve some very simple puzzles with it, then move on to a new area with a new mechanic. What I really expected was for the game to naturally give you more interesting challenges with escalating difficulty to solve for each gimmick but it never really happened. Not necessarily "hard" challenges but more satisfying ones to flex the muscles you develop when using those mechanics. Maybe those game devs got fired before release too.

As someone who finished Balan, two things could have made it way more bearable: costumes being one-time pick-ups and every costume being able to jump. Thats it.

Now, do I believe Naka would have implemented either change ahead of launch because he did once for a game 30 years ago? No.

CoolCly posted...

I felt similarly of It Takes Two. Everyone seems to think that game was amazing but I had a problem with how every gameplay gimmick (which it introduced a new one in every level) was implemented in the most simple way, then you'd solve some very simple puzzles with it, then move on to a new area with a new mechanic. What I really expected was for the game to naturally give you more interesting challenges with escalating difficulty to solve for each gimmick but it never really happened. Not necessarily "hard" challenges but more satisfying ones to flex the muscles you develop when using those mechanics.

I'm getting way off track here, but in its defense, "it takes two" really had to be that way, perhaps unfortunately

The game was marketed and designed to be played co-op with your casual spouse or other relative! The length of the game, combined with the difficulty of some puzzles and boss fights is already borderline too much for that sales pitch

You really don't want to feel like you need a skilled player at your side to win in a game that doesn't have a single player mode. And higher difficulty co op puzzles tend to leave one player feeling stupid, giving up, and just doing whatever the other player says. Happens a lot with coop board games

Some creative types really struggle with this idea that projects have budgets and timelines.

I probably would have yanked the project away from him too