Twitter user Game Boy Demakes recently shared several images and videos of their Balan Wonderworld demake concept in addition to a ROM of what they’ve made so far for other fans of the Square Enix game. During its development cycle, many Sega fans anticipated that Balan Wonderworld may be similar to Nights Into Dreams given that the lead behind it was the co-creator of the series as well as Sonic the Hedgehog, Yuji Naka. While there are some overlapping themes and visual similarities to Nights Into Dreams with Balan Wonderworld, the title failed to garner a significant portion of Sega fans to become its own franchise.
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Game Boy Demakes has shared a clip of their Balan Wonderworld demake running on a TV emulator to spotlight an impressive border that puts the gameplay in the middle of a theater screen with a red curtain hanging down on both sides and a small audience of people watching. The interactive portion of the CRT screen starts the game with the Nintendo and Balan Company logos before getting to the black and white menu screen that prompts the player to press start. Instead of reflecting Balan Wonderworld’s actual release date, this Game Boy demake ROM gives a year 2000 release which would be a more accurate year for the Nintendo handheld system.
After pressing start, the game quickly shows protagonist Emma Cole standing between three Tims before flashing to a completely different scene with the character in one of the many Balan Wonderworld costumes. The scenes flash by similarly throughout the clip, showing a mini-game frame, new chapter transition screens, and a hint at what kind of platforming Balan Wonderworld fans can expect from the Game Boy demake. Complimenting their demake running on a CRT, the Twitter user also showed different songs in the game running on the handheld itself such as Dance of the Negati, Peace of Mind, and It’s Showtime which play over the still 8-bit image.
The parts of this ROM running on the Game Boy demake are as stationary in the separate clips shared with the CRT one, but they highlight the chiptune music used to translate the broadly liked Balan Wonderworld soundtrack. Alongside all the clips, Game Boy Demakes also included images of the sprites used for each frame of their Balan Wonderworld project so far which is something that’s being improved over time.
Balan Wonderworld is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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