Balan Wonderworld is officially the worst Switch game of 2021, according to Metacritic.
We’re at the end of 2021, and that means awards are being given out for the best (and worst) video games of the year.
We’ve seen plenty of winners, but what about the games that didn’t do so well this year? If you’re wondering what exactly were the worst games of the year, Metacritic has put together a “Top 10” list. This was the criteria:
“the lowest scoring games released for any platform between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021. Games are ranked by Metascore (as of December 18, 2021) before rounding, and any title with less than 7 reviews from professional critics it is excluded. If a single title had appeared on the list multiple times due to low scores on more than one platform, we only included the version with the lowest score.”
While the overall winner is technically eFootball 2022 on PC, the worst game specifically for the Nintendo Switch was Balan Wonderworld. Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto Trilogy for Switch was the only other Nintendo release mentioned on the list, taking sixth place.
- eFootball 2022-25 (PC)
- Balan Wonderworld – 36 (Nintendo Switch)
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood – 42 (PS4)
- Cab Chaos – 42 (PS4)
- Of Bird and Cage (PC)
- GTA: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition – 47 (Nintendo Switch)
- I Saw Black Clouds – 48 (PS4)
- Arkham Horror: Mother’s Embrace – 48 (PC)
- Demon Skin – 48 (PC)
- Necromunda: Hired Gun – 49 (PS4)
This is what Metacritic had to say about these two games:
Balan Wonderworld:
A new 3D platformer from the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog? Count on us! Er, on second thought, maybe not. It’s one thing to be a retro-style platformer, which might have its charms, but it’s another thing when the game actually plays like it was made decades ago, which is what critics felt about the crispy Balan Wonderworld. (It also doesn’t help that Balan has a weird costume change mechanic, overly simplistic controls, and an incomprehensible story.) The game appears to be a commercial failure, with creator Yuji Naka departing from Square Enix shortly after its unfavorable release.
While the Switch version may have the lowest Metascore in the game, Balan Wonderworld scored low on all platforms, though it managed to sneak into the yellow rank with a 51 on PS5.
Grand Theft Auto Trilogy:
Need more proof that we now live in the darkest timeline? How about the inclusion of one of the most famous franchises in the world of video games in our list of the worst games of the year? Rockstar’s remastered compilation of three vintage Grand Theft Auto titles – 2001’s Grand Theft Auto III, 2002’s Vice City and 2004’s San Andreas – each of which scored in the ’90s over their original releases – turned out to be one of the biggest game disappointments of 2021. The remastered graphics managed to remove some of the charms of the originals and introduce new distractions and inconsistencies, while the build also had unexpected bugs on launch. The next-gen console versions (on PS5 and XBX) of the trilogy were slightly better than this Switch version, which suffered from even more performance issues, but were still completely underwhelming.
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