peant

Balan Wonderworld relies heavily on one-button action, but it is, in effect, a three-button gameplay experience, because your shoulder buttons are going to do some VERY heavy lifting. Those are the "change costume" buttons, and BWW requires you, the player, to switch between costumes on a near-constant basis as you progress through the levels. It's part of the reason I never liked the Atari joystick meme that went around at the time of BWW's initial release, since it didn't make much sense--how the hell are you supposed to change costumes with that, never mind...

I've long argued that Balan Wonderworld is Dreamcast-era-coded, and have speculated that Naka and Ohshima picked up exactly where they left off in 1999--either because their sensibilities were informed by that era of gaming in a particular manner, or they deliberately wanted to create a game that captured the look and feel of platformers of that era, for the love of nostalgia. As such, the button mapping feels more consistent with the input layout of a controller from that era, and not from the current era. When I remapped things for a hypothetical Dreamcast-era release of BWW, I discovered that BWW's three-button structure works quite well on the Dreamcast controller. Every button has a different function (plus a B button cancel feature, because let's face it, it's a staple), and suddenly the control scheme doesn't seem so weirdly repetitive. You can check out my remapping work in the image above, it's actually not bad!

Balan Wonderworld is, at its core, a puzzle/strategy game more than a high speed, high stakes action platformer. In a game that prides itself on evoking a sense of "mystery," every gameplay moment is treated like a riddle or a puzzle to be solved, and an exercise in strategizing--what costume do I need now, how will I overcome this obstacle, how will I obtain these items, what is the environment indicating to me, etc. And in the interest of the game's core theme of "balance," every costume comes with a strength and a weakness, a negative and a positive, and it's only by successfully utilizing the strengths of every costume you encounter that you unlock the full potential of the gameplay experience.

As to why there's no dedicated jump button for every single costume--yes, that sounds profoundly and decidedly odd for a platformer, but I don't think it was necessarily worth the outrage that it generated. Sometimes you won't be able to jump, and that's okay. You're never far from a jump-capable costume, not every gameplay instance requires you TO jump, and it's actually really hard to get stuck. I've tried to deliberately softlock myself dozens of times to no avail. Not to say it's not possible, but if you play skillfully and remember to stock up on doubles for your wardrobe, you're likely going to be able to maneuver effectively without getting stuck somewhere.

And that ties back to the theme of "balance" as well, not to mention "teamwork"--every costume has its own special ability and something unique and clever to offer the gameplay experience, and it's by using each ability to the best of its ability, working together, that the player is able to achieve great things. I guess you could say it's the real superpower of teamwork back in action again XD

(find my new sona there too :3 hehee)