Demo has been out for a few days. Played if for a few hours last night.

Presentation is a mixed bag. Tech side of things the game is underwhelming and that is made even more apparent when compared with the games wonderful CGI cutscenes. I swear to god that some of the animations are copied frame by frame from the Sonic Adventure games. Animation in general is meh and I get that they're purposely trying to emulate those games styles but even back the they were janky. What saves the presentation is the art direction. I'm so warmed at the heart to see Naoto Oshima's work again. Nights, Sonic and Billy hatcher all wrapped in new package.

The main gimmick of the game are the costumed powerups the kids can acquire within the levels. It's like SMB3 on steroids, but not all is fine and dandy with them. On one hand a lot of the powerups in the demo are the basic abilities that we expect to see in a 3D platformer. Nothing interesting in the demo, but the game does claim that over 80 costumes will be included so maybe there will be some actual interesting abilities.  On top of that each costume has one specific use and that is all, so if you only have the sheep powerup who's only use is a slow glide(Knuckles) than that sucks because the kids by themselves are useless(cant kill enemies without a costume) so prepare for an awkward time killing enemies if no other powerups are in the area. One the other hand I do like that there are powerups that exist only just to be powerups (not required to traverse the stage) and you can hold up to 3 powerups at a time. 

No strong feelings in regard to the action stages. They look visual good but nothing really seemed above standard 3D platforming. Lots of shiny stuff and paths to traverse.

Chao Garden has returned, but this time they're called Tim's. Little chicken things that can be found in egg form during action stages and brought back to the hub world where they can be hatched and fed. Oh! and they actually do shit. Once hatched they will follow you back into the action stages and they will help you fight. As you feed them they grow in size and change appearance based on what crystals you feed them.

EDIT: One more thing. The Main character Balan is playable in these interactive cutscenes that have him flying around destroying shit for some unexplained reason. Entirely quick time event based and if that is the only use the character that will be a major disappointment. 

Balan Wonderland is everything that I knew it would be; a new game from legacy developers that feels like they dusted off 10+ year old developments plans. Day 1 buy but a play much later.

Shorter version... it sucks.

Dunno what you're playing on, but on the Switch it runs horribly. Your only action is what your costume can do, so if you're using a costume that doesn't have a jump ability, you'll have to switch before you can jump. The controls feel incredibly off. It's not attractive even by Switch standards.

I was looking forward to this because there are too few 3d platformers, but I found the demo to be borderline unplayable.

lol

I played the PS5 Demo and no issues with how it runs for me. 

Sucked ass. I maybe a SEGA fan but I never thought NiGHTs was good at all. Great music. Bad game. The art was always bad. This game is even worse than that. It just seems like SE releasing an unfinished Saturn game that was canceled 25 years ago.

Well that would solve the game's fifth or sixth biggest problem.

I really love this genre and want to support games to show developers there are gamers who want to play these types of games but it sounds like this is a disappointment :(

Expected more from it. That's all I can say. The costumes gameplay mechanic sucks. Given that they intend to sell it for 60$ at least from what I've seen, it seems unlikely that I'll buy it at full price now that I played the demo.

I played it on Steam and thoroughly enjoyed my time with it. I would probably even buy it at release to be honest.

I really feel this will be a 40-50 meta reviewed game. That's being generous. Why are the visuals so bad on PS4? The textures are so low resolution and so much shimmering. Why are the controls so sluggish? The costume mechanic is terrible. Why can't this game use real transparency instead of mesh-like Saturn games used? What is with all the disappearing NPCs? Is this UI a placeholder? Why can't I use the circle button to go back on a menu? Everything that can be wrong with this...is wrong.

Yeah, I tried the demo on Switch. I can forgive certain stuff, but the framerate is just too poor.