It's almost showtime for Balan Wonderworld, and producer Noriyoshi Fujimoto announced that the game will come with a magical day one patch to address some technical difficulties found in the demo.
In a letter shared by Square Enix, Fujimoto explained that the day one patch will give players a balanced experience of Balan Wonderworld, following the footsteps of the titular showman, after the development team Balan Company received negative feedback from the demo, which was released back in January. No matter which platform you're getting the game for, downloading the patch will fix issues related to camera movement, controls, and the game's difficulty.
However, Fujimoto noted that, as the game is scheduled for release in less than two weeks, all the aforementioned issues that players harshly criticized the demo for won't be fully addressed at this point in the game's development.
"There has been a wide range of opinions and responses to the demo, and unfortunately at the current stage of development, it simply isn't feasible to reflect every piece of feedback into the game. However, to offer you all a more balanced gameplay experience, we will be implementing a day one patch for the full game," he said. "Specifically, the patch will adjust movement controls, camera movement, and rebalancing of the difficulty. There's just over a week left until launch now, so I hope you all enjoy the world of Balan Wonderworld to your heart's content."
In addition to announcing a magical fix to the entirety of Balan Wonderworld, Fujimoto also gave a recap of the game's plot, which surrounds two young teens, Leo and Emma, exploring 12 worlds born from the hearts of different people and helping them solve their problems by wearing costumes of different animals to overcome obstacles and defeat the Negati, creatures created by negative emotions, in order to restore balance to Wonderworld.
Most of the problems people have reported in the demo involved identical control mechanics. In other words, the controls are mapped out in such a way that you jump and use a costume ability no matter what buttons you press — A, B, X, Y, ZL, or ZR on the Switch controller, for example. It's as if Yuji Naka recreated the button mapping he programmed for Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive for international gamers). Another issue that players have reported is NPCs vanishing from view the closer you get to them, which is a glitch.
All these issues have prompted players to tell Square Enix to delay Balan Wonderworld so that they would have more time to address them during the development of the full game. But with the announcement of the day one patch, the company seems committed to release the game right on schedule.
Balan Wonderworld will launch on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam on March 26. We hope to see the day one patch fix the controls and many more on the game's opening night.