Balaan Wonder World director Yuji Naka files a lawsuit against Square Enix

Balan Wonderworld was a disappointing game for most people, especially for the game by Yuji Naka, creator of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Now, Naka revealed via Twitter that she had not only been fired from director Balan Wonderworld about half a year before the March 2021 release, but also filed a lawsuit against the game’s publisher, Square Enix. I am doing that. He says the process is now over and he’s no longer bound by company rules, and is talking about what happened to him as Twitter user Cheesemeister3K translates it.

According to Cheesemeister’s translation, Naka tweeted, “I think it’s wrong that Square Enix doesn’t value games and game fans. “According to court documents, I was removed from director of Balan Wonderworld for two reasons. It was done by Producer, Head of Marketing, Head of Sound, Managing Director and HR. First, when a YouTuber’s game music arrangement piano performance was released as a promotion, and the composer, not the game original song, became a scriptwriter, claiming to release the original song caused a problem.

Naka went on to say that it was wrong to release an arranged track with a promotional material when releasing the original game. He thought that the game music that everyone hums was the original song, not the song arranged by someone other than the composer.

“I am very sorry to customers who purchased Balaan Wonder World in an unfinished state. In the future, I will be able to respond only to posts directed to me or tag me on social media. When making a game, it should be natural to ask for modifications to make something good, and if that’s not possible, we should talk about it, but I don’t think it’s possible. I don’t think they take the game seriously.”

Naka cites Sonic the Hedgehog 2 as an example. He says he changed it so that he doesn’t die if he has at least one ring two weeks before the end of the game. Naka says this wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been able to improve the game to the very end.

According to Cheesemeister, Naka says, “It’s up to you to be a game maker to improve a game to the very end, and if that’s not possible, then something is wrong.” “He asked his lawyers to negotiate just because he could comment until the end of the production, but he was turned down and he filed a lawsuit,” he said. I think the resulting Balan Wonderworld and the critical response it received has a lot to do with what happened. I am really upset that the project I was working on from the beginning turned out like this.

“Personally, I regret that Balaan Wonder World was released to the world in an unfinished state. Taking all those things into consideration, I wanted to release it as a proper action game. I don’t think Square Enix and Arzest value the game and their fans.”

It’s unclear what happened to Naka’s lawsuit, but now he’s allowed to speak publicly about Balan Wonderworld, which he says he couldn’t before.