Nobody Saves the World succeeds where Balan Wonderworld fails

digitaltrends.com:

Nobody Saves the World, a game from developer Drinkbox Studios, is the latest indie darling to hit Xbox Game Pass on day one. Its hook: Your main character can change into 17 different forms, each of which has unique abilities. As players explore a Zelda-like open overworld and investigate intense dungeons full of swarming enemies, they’ll have to constantly mix and match different forms and abilities to best surmount a given challenge. 

It’s also reminiscent of 2021’s worst video game: Balan Wonderworld.

Released in March 2021, Balan Wonderworld lets the player transform into one of 80 different costumes to complete platforming challenges in worlds based on the memories of troubled individuals. Balan Wonderworld‘s transformation-based gameplay tackles some of the same ideas as Nobody Saves the World, but was received much more harshly. Nobody Saves the World has a 79 on the review aggregate website Metacritic; meanwhile, Balan Wonderworld’s score is as low as 36 on Nintendo Switch.

While Nobody Saves the World and Balan Wonderworld are different genres, their core concepts are similar. Nobody Saves the World‘s successes highlight Wonderworld‘s shortcomings and how Square Enix could have improved it.

Sometimes, less is more. In Nobody Saves the World, players slowly unlock 17 different forms and over 80 abilities. For example, one form is a Knight whose signature ability is to attack enemies with a sword and whose passive ability gives him an attack stat buff when he’s low on health. 

After taking down a group of enemies as a Knight, you can then switch to another form on the fly like the Slug who fires slimy tears and leaves a trail of status effect-inflicting slime behind him. 

Players spend ample time with every form,