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Is Balan Wonderworld worse than Sonic 06?
- Thread starter JuicyPlayer
- Start date
I actually can't remember if I finished Silver's story tbh. I honestly didn't mind the game; it was more frustrating the fact that I feel like fit could've been a worthy Adventure successor if not for the loading and all the glitches. It's also doubly frustrating that on PS3 at least the split screen mode runs really damn well seemingly because it doesn't do the thing were when boxes explode they shatter into like 30,000 pieces and slow the fps to single digits.
Balan Wonderworld is a mediocre footnote. Sonic 06 was the result of a company completely unwilling to admit it was time to slam the breaks and took both the franchise and the people behind it to the absolute breaking point and has pretty much forever tainted the brand's reputation.
Sonic 06 worked fine to me, some glitches here and there but sure never crashed.
(I did play the 360 version tho ps3 version is supposedly worse, can't comment on that one)
(I did play the 360 version tho ps3 version is supposedly worse, can't comment on that one)
Any game that has the amount of glitches and bugs that sonic 06 has is an automatic 0. Games will always have glitches, but to be as bad as sonic 06 would be to not work properly as a software, and that is simply unnaceptable.
Balan is just a small boring game.Is not even worth to compare both games.
Balan is just a small boring game.Is not even worth to compare both games.
I mean, on entertainment value alone Sonic 06 provides far more than Balan ever will, it'll be an eternal source of laughter and bemusement. Balan will be sitting along with all the other forgotten platformers like Rascal, Jersey Devil and Gex in a couple of years.
Sonic 06 is one of the worst games of all time. They somehow made a game that is even less enjoyable than the already bad Adventure games. The only good thing about it that I can say is that it runs at a decent framerate. Which I guess means that it might be more tolerable to play than Sonic Unleashed, so I guess that's something? But really the game is filled with so many bad ideas and the game had barely any time in the oven. Although with Sonic 06, even if it was polished would still turn out to be a pretty shit game. As the core of it completely unsalvagable.
I still have no idea how some baffling terrible ideas got past the concept stage, as the red flags should have been obvious immediately.
I still have no idea how some baffling terrible ideas got past the concept stage, as the red flags should have been obvious immediately.
I still love that 06s demo was made later so it works better than the actual game.
Haha i was just about to comment on this. Animations, controls and camera os better in the demo. Im gonna have to hunt down a copy of this game to see how it feels today.
Theese changes would not have made the game any better though. Story, cut scenes, level design, feel and so on would still be just as bad.
Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric is so bad that we almost have forgotten about it, it even don't have good music.
But it wasn't make by Sonic Team, so they have at least some competence left even when a game is bad
But it wasn't make by Sonic Team, so they have at least some competence left even when a game is bad
I guess you could make an arguement about the projects' intentions as well.
You got stuff like that fan-remake of Sonic 06 that honestly makes it feel like a proper entry, even if not as interesting as Unleashed.
But with Balan, the core idea seems to be flawed from what I saw. If you wanted to fix it you'd need to rethink the game idea itself.
You got stuff like that fan-remake of Sonic 06 that honestly makes it feel like a proper entry, even if not as interesting as Unleashed.
But with Balan, the core idea seems to be flawed from what I saw. If you wanted to fix it you'd need to rethink the game idea itself.
I get that Sonic 06 was 15 years ago but it feels like some people are too soon forgetting exactly what that game was and why it sucked. It wasn't just bad, it was an absolute trainwreck in every aspect. The team was split in two during development to make Secret Rings and the game was rushed to be ready for Christmas. It has horrifically long load times, gameplay that feels far worse than its primitive Dreamcast predecessor, multiple mechanics like snowboarding and climbing on walls that simply do not work, hideous graphics, ridiculous and trivial hub missions, voice acting errors, a cringeworthy story, a gross Eggman redesign, lifeless character models, and bestiality. The only things going for it are the soundtrack and the sheer comedy value of playing such a mess of a game.
Balan on the other hand is completely serviceable and mostly fun despite its flaws. Most of the people I've seen who actually bought it have a much better opinion of it than people who only played the demo. Don't buy it hoping for a similar so-bad-it's-good disaster because it's probably not going to entertain you in that respect.
Balan on the other hand is completely serviceable and mostly fun despite its flaws. Most of the people I've seen who actually bought it have a much better opinion of it than people who only played the demo. Don't buy it hoping for a similar so-bad-it's-good disaster because it's probably not going to entertain you in that respect.
Most of the costumes just suck or serve a very specific purpose and there's lots of duplicates that have a minimal or no difference. The game seriously needed a jump and action button. The costumes that pressing a button does something can't jump which makes them a pain in the ass in a 3d platformer. The ones that can jump just do their thing when they feel like it which makes it difficult to get them to do their thing when you want.
Fuck that level where you get the Fox Box and it wants to you kill 4 enemies on this narrow platform and makes it almost impossible to get enough momentum to kill the enemies with the box but not so much that you don't fall off the platform into the abyss.
The keys to unlock the costumes serve no purpose since they are always within 10 feet of a costume and respawn infinitely.
Having said that, for some stupid reason I just beat the game and 100%ed everything up to the post game and I'm currently working on the Act 3's.
Those dance numbers at the end of every level sure are something though.
Fuck that level where you get the Fox Box and it wants to you kill 4 enemies on this narrow platform and makes it almost impossible to get enough momentum to kill the enemies with the box but not so much that you don't fall off the platform into the abyss.
The keys to unlock the costumes serve no purpose since they are always within 10 feet of a costume and respawn infinitely.
Having said that, for some stupid reason I just beat the game and 100%ed everything up to the post game and I'm currently working on the Act 3's.
Those dance numbers at the end of every level sure are something though.
Balan is functional but it feels terrible to play.
Sonic '06 is broken but there are fun mechanics in there somewhere.
Sonic '06 is broken but there are fun mechanics in there somewhere.
You don't even believe that.
The demo at E3 that year was almost unplayable. There was no queue on it at the PS3 booth despite it being the first time the PS3 was playable for a lot of us. I gave it a go despite the session having been abandoned mid demo and due to Sonic taking off at full speed with a slight nudge on the stick, I remember it being almost impossible to pick up a solitary ring on the platform I was on. Like, I shot past it numerous times before I finally picked it up. After falling off a few times, I walked off to play Motorstorm, Resistance, Gran Turismo HD or something else, leaving Sonic still midway through the level.
It was shockingly bad. I know the game has a reputation for being awful, but I'd be amazed if it played as badly as that demo did.
I only know the 360 version of the demo, which was available on Xbox Live and the final game on Xbox 360. The final game was worse than the demo (even though the demo wasn't really good). The demo demonstrated the (by far) best part of the game, the Sonic action levels at normal speed, and looked significantly better than the same scene in the final game. If you think the demo was bad, I dare you do play the final game.
I don't think 06 demo was worked after the final game or something. It was probably just a different build, more polished yet less feature complete. 06 was severely rushed and at the end they released the build that had all the content done, not necessary the most polished.
On topic, didn't play Balan but for what I saw no way it's worse than 06. It's no use to compare them.
On topic, didn't play Balan but for what I saw no way it's worse than 06. It's no use to compare them.
From what I've seen of Balan, the problem is that it's just a boring game with unimaginative solutions. Stuff like invisible walls and the inability to chain costumes in creative ways means the number of solutions are going to feel quite limited compared to the acrobatics you can do in, say, Mario Odyssey. Then you have the god awful Balan's Bouts that just look awful to play.
As someone who actually played Sonic 06, I dunno if Balan is actually better than Sonic 06. Technically Sonic 06 is clearly the worse game with out of bounds issues, faulty bounce pads, and load times galore but the awful story and technical mess of Sonic 06 probably makes it a more enjoyable and memorable game if that makes any sense. Balkan's problem is that it's just boring and I argue that's the worst sin a game can make.
As someone who actually played Sonic 06, I dunno if Balan is actually better than Sonic 06. Technically Sonic 06 is clearly the worse game with out of bounds issues, faulty bounce pads, and load times galore but the awful story and technical mess of Sonic 06 probably makes it a more enjoyable and memorable game if that makes any sense. Balkan's problem is that it's just boring and I argue that's the worst sin a game can make.
Guess my hot take for the day is Sonic 06 would be a serviceable sonic game if all the bugginess was fixed. Balan looks like it works but it's not fun.
I've been watching Retro Pals stream Sonic 06 this week and it's pretty amazing how every 5 minutes there's some new inexplicable glitch or design oversight.
I've never really paid attention to this game before but watching it being played from the start it becomes really evident just how unfinished it is as a whole. Really feels like an internal beta that was never meant to leak to the public.
I've never really paid attention to this game before but watching it being played from the start it becomes really evident just how unfinished it is as a whole. Really feels like an internal beta that was never meant to leak to the public.
Sonic 06 is a divine punishment brought down upon Sonic fans in reprisal for that one Sonic fanart that got posted online.
You know the one.
Balan Wonderland is just what happens when you let a person who isn't a game designer design a game.
You know the one.
Balan Wonderland is just what happens when you let a person who isn't a game designer design a game.
Is there that much of a difference between romance with a human and an alien or human and a fantasy species then a human and furry
Yeah, people get hung up on this too much. The Sonic characters are sapient, so the kiss wasn't beastiality, it was necrophilia. Know the difference!
Based on what I've played from Balan (and also having finished Sonic 06), I think Balan is on average less outright busted than 06 but that 06 is more exciting and has way better peaks than Balan.
Sonic 06 could be 100% playable and would still be worse for those loading screens alone.
I hate long loading times.
I hate them.
I hate long loading times.
I hate them.
Balan Wonderland functions as intended, 06 doesn't.
But it's an unfair comparison. 06 is a game in a long line, Balan is a new IP. It is impossible to divorce the garbage-ass choices in 06 from Sonic as a whole. Play the speed sections and tell me there's a God.
But it's an unfair comparison. 06 is a game in a long line, Balan is a new IP. It is impossible to divorce the garbage-ass choices in 06 from Sonic as a whole. Play the speed sections and tell me there's a God.
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I can't think of too many human-alien/fantasy species relationships in media where the difference between the two parties is noticeably ridiculous and off-putting, and when it is it's generally played for laughs or intentionally supposed to be weird. This on the other hand is played completely straight:
People really exaggerate how bad Sonic 06 is and it's pretty obvious how few people have actually played it. The actual platforming and running through stages isn't particularly more wonky than any other 3D Sonic game since Adventure and the crazier parts of 06 are hilarious. "It didn't work" or "barely playable" isn't even partially true. It has terrible and frequent load times and you can make it do really funny things with the physics but it's not like it refuses to listen to button presses.
Balan is atrocious in a boring way, the worst possible kind of bad.
Even something like Left Alive is far worse than Sonic 06.
Balan is atrocious in a boring way, the worst possible kind of bad.
Even something like Left Alive is far worse than Sonic 06.
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Arguable for the Sonic stages. Sonic 06 genuinely has some good stage design that gets hidden by the game being... Well, Sonic 06.
Goddamn, you just murdered Sunshine.
But it's true.
I played Sonic 06 a couple of years ago and Sunshine last year. Sunshine is clearly not as bad or broken as 06 but, considering the standard Nintendo set for every other Mario game, it feels just as disappointing.
Anyway, my point is that Balan does not seem broken or incomplete, I get the feeling that somehow it's exactly what the designers wanted to make.
You're definitely not wrong though, in the sense that both games are clearly not what the developers fully intended, and there were corners cut in order to meet specific release dates. In a world where both '06 and Sunshine are allowed an extra year or two of development time, both would probably be considered decent to great games, even if Sunshine was always destined to be better.
That said, I always find it puzzling how often people talk about '06 like it's some sort of glitch fear. I've played through all the stories at least 3 times (on the less polished PS3 version), and I've never seen any glitches. I wonder how many people who talk about it in that way have actually played through it, or are simply parroting what they've heard.