When Balan Wonderworld was first revealed last July, we and many in the Nintendo Life community, judging by these comments, were quite intrigued to see how fair it would be. The premise of a new 3D platform game by Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima, creators of Sonic the hedgehog, it was something we couldn’t no watch out and hopes were high.
Unfortunately, however, things have been going down since then. Doubt began to enter our minds as the game demo hit digital stores, and the development team quickly stated that it plans to address all of the negative feedback from gamers it generated in one day. Then we had the final copy in our hands, and all our fears about the quality of the title, or unfortunately the lack of it, turned out to be true.
With very poor reviews around, it may not be surprising to see that the game has sold poorly around the world. Last week’s Japanese charts revealed that the physical copy of the game failed to enter the top 30 in its first week (it as supposed sold less than 2,100 copies), and is a similar story elsewhere.
As reported by PlayStation Lifestyle, the game failed to reach the top 30 on the Nintendo eShop charts in both Japan and North America, and this week’s UK charts show that the game failed to enter between the top 40 places, as it sold out from a lot of titles that have been on the charts for over 100 weeks.
It’s a shame, especially because Yuji Naka has previously explained that this could be his one and only opportunity to make 3D platforms successful in Square Enix, but it seems that even those suspicious and overly positive comments from fans will not be able to turn around to this sinking ship.
Thanks to Joe for the tip.