QCF: Balan WonderWorld

here are developers out there who hold some of the highest prestige in the industry from their work on a few, or even just iconic game—some of these developers have gone on to do great things in the current day scene, and then there are some who are just stuck in the past.

Yuji Naka’s Balan WonderWorld is an indictment of the latter because the new release from Arzest and the Balan Company is seemingly engineered to compete with platformer games released back in 2003 more than anything else. At its core, Balan Wonderworld plays like a pale imitation of the Super Mario Odyssey formula dressed up in a bad NiGHTs into Dreams aesthetic…

I know I started marching my steps strong and heavy with the Poo Poo Parade real early into this review but I honestly can’t help it; for every neat idea the game seems to have, it comes back with three more flaws or design choices that put a big sour on any fun to be found.

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Late to the Party: Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time

ow that the character is over 24 years old, Crash Bandicoot has amassed a generation of fans that look at him with the same reverence as Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog—he’s a household name among Generation Z. On that token though, beyond the remastered releases and cameos, just how relevant is the property today’s gaming climate? Ironically enough, one of the biggest attractions the marsupial had over its competition was its sense of exclusivity, both in terms of gameplay difficulty and the platform brand the property wore heartily on its sleeve.

Interestingly, the Crash Bandicoot property made its bread and butter on appealing to the public as the coolest outlier on the market with the PlayStation, but as the years have passed, the marsupial mascot has evolved into a far more accessible franchise. That sentiment couldn’t be more apparent than the latest entry from developer Toys for BoB, and publisher Activision, Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time.

With the success of the remastered trilogy, the developer was tasked with releasing a new sequel that would invoke the initial spirit of Bandicoot’s PlayStation outings, and thankfully, Toys For BoB answered that call with a game that successfully caters to everyone like no other entry before it, and is easily the best Crash game to date.

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