I honestly don't think I've ever been more disappointed with a demo before. I can't express to you how excited I was for this game when it was announced. Then the demo happened and I realized this is not even close to what this game needs to be. The worst part is other studios will now not want to make 3d platformers thinking they will bomb, which makes me hate this game even more.

Yep.

Not every platformer can be a Tropical Freeze, or Mario Galaxy.... but... jeez.... sometimes the genre isn't at fault, and the devs are.
This is just a horribly done job by SE/Arzest games.

SE is more like the publisher.... this one is on Arzest games.
Guys behinde such hits as "Hey! Pickmin" , "Mario & Sonic at Rio 2016 Olympic games",  "Yoshi's New Island (3ds)"

They make alot of 60-70's metacritc score games.

Balan is just....  a clusterfack.

I think 3D platformers will be fine, the recent Sackboy game on PS5 got good reviews. I doubt this one stinker will deter other studios to make another 3D platformer. 

The developer has a terrible developmental history and as someone in Resetera said, Yuji Naka is still stuck on the Dreamcast.

I believe I read somewhere, months ago, that the publisher was giving this guy one last chance to make this kind of game, and then he made this garbage, so that's at least one major publisher that will probably not back this sort of project going forward.

Why someone can't just make a AAA Banjo Tooie-like game, or a AAA game that plays like 3D mario (but has it's own unique flare) is beyond me. They see Nintendo sell millions, tens of millions, of copies at $60 a piece for 80% of its life and they either ignore the genre altogether or they put the lowest quality garbage out there like Balan.

Yooka Laylee, while it had it's flaws, was a far, far better attempt at this genre than Balan, and probably with less budget. I really do believe if Playtonic got AAA funding from a publisher they could do wonders with Yooka Laylee 2.

Yooka Laylee was just a mediocre game. It wasn't actively bad. But, it still shows why so many indy/smaller devs go the 2D route. Just much easier.

Easier to make, sure. But not easier to sell. 2-d platformers are a dime a dozen. The vast majority get buried and don't make good sales. Very rarely do we get something like Shovel Knight. While 3-d platformers are harder to make and require more money, they are also far more unique in the market (especially newer ones from third party companies) so, individually-speaking, have a lot more sales potential. Plus these games are expected to cost more to buy, which increases revenue potential.

Maybe. The reason I was interested in Balan Wonderworld and Yooka Laylee in the first place was specifically because there are not a ton of good 3D platformers, while there are tons of good 2D ones out there.

So, I get that there's less competition. It's just a question of whether the amount of extra effort required for a 3D platformer outweighs the value of being in a less crowded marketplace. There's also the issue that because the initial funding required is so much higher an publisher may be able to fund 5 games that might be the next shovel night for the same amount of money that they could fund a proper 3D platformer.