Costumes

Costumes (コスチューム, Kosuchūmu) are an advertised core element of Balan Wonderworld. There are a total of eighty different costumes, each with an unique ability. If you include the Demo Launcher (Blue, X, Star, or Steam), the total count will be eighty one, or eighty four if including all the variants whom are separated by game version.

While in 2-Player Mode (Local Co-op Mode), the 2nd player's costume is colored blue.

List of Costumes

Chapter ★ (Star)

Golfer

Baseballer

Footballer

Bowler

Balan

Chapter 1

Tornado Wolf	Jumping Jack	Pounding Pig
Dainty Dragon	Elastiplant	Metal Bad Boy
Super Skater

Chapter 2

Dynamic Dolphin	Jellyjolt	Telepotter
Double Jumper	Bubble Blower	Leap Frog

Chapter 3

Dusk Butterfly	Sickle Slinger	Web Wrangler
Lovely Lantern	Itsy-bitsy Elf	Bullet the Kid

Chapter 4

Aero Acrobat	Soaring Sheep	Laser Launcher
Box Fox	Happy Horn	Gear King

Chapter 5

Guardian Bird	Lickshot Lizard	Lucky Egg
Sickle Slayer	Hothead	Lucky Bird

Chapter 6

Air Cat	Gear Prince	Pumpkin Puncher
Pounding Duck	Chrono Bunny	Lethal Vacuum Blaster

Chapter 7

Quad Cannon	Floaty Flower	Speedy Cheetah
Tackling Bull	Paladin Puncher	Triple Jumper

Chapter 8

Frost Fairy	Frost Giant	Seal Skater
Amadeus	Hardy Hammer	Lethal Laser Launcher

Chapter 9

Happy Blaster	Rail Runner	Slow Tortoise
Iron Panda	Pounding Robot	Merry Ghost
Moon Walker

Chapter 10

Inky Blaster	X-ray Ape	Sneaky Lizard
Air Unicorn	Double Trouble	Dawn Butterfly

Chapter 11

Water Blaster	Bulldozer	Key Mouse
Ladderman	Flame Blaster	Iron Apollo
Airy Apollo

Chapter 12

Invisible Man	Vacuum Blaster	Jolt Tiger
Fixer-upper	Sun Walker	Air Double Trouble

Demo Bonus Costumes

Note: The Launcher Costumes are located in the ★ (Star) Section.

Blue Launcher (Playstation 4/Playstation 5 Edition)

Star Launcher (Nintendo Switch Edition)

X Launcher (Xbox One/Xbox Series X Edition)

Steam Launcher (Steam Edition)

Gallery

Concept drawings of Bullet the Kid, Airy/Iron Apollo, Laser Launcher, Lucky Egg. There is also a lizard costume design that did not make it into the game.

Concept art of various costumes including: Bulldozer, Pounding Robot, Double Jumper. It also includes 3 concept-only costume designs: a tin-like robot, a monster (akin to Sully from Monsters Inc.), and a panda, which later may have been finalized as Iron Panda.

Concept art of Telepotter, a frog-like costume that most likely became Leap Frog, and Fixer-upper.

Early draft of various characters. Including early designs for Lucky Egg and Chrono Bunny. There is a cat character which might have been either a character or costume.

Concept of costume mechanics.

Example of how either Leo or Emma (pictured) wears a Costume. Either one's face replaces the Costume's face.

Trivia

• Almost all costumes are finite. When hit, the costume will disappear and can not be used anymore unless you have a duplicate. The only costume with infinite uses/lives are the Demo Launchers, as they reappear in the closet when you lose the Costume.
• Costumes only have one ability, which uses up the action button. If a costume has an ability that uses the action button, you can not jump in that costume, unless the ability only works in specific places [e.g. Bulldozer], or the ability is activated while jumping [e.g. Tornado Wolf, Jellyjolt].
• When changing Costumes, it awards you an extreme amount of invincibility frames, allowing you to exploit enemy/boss battles by abusing I-frames to avoid getting hit by them.
• There are a total of 4 Trophies/Achievements related to collecting Costumes:
  • Dress Rehearsal - Wear a Costume for the first time.
  • Casual Costume Fan - Collect 20 Costumes.
  • Costume Collector - Collect 50 Costumes.
  • Full Wardrobe - Collect all 80 Costumes, not including the Demo Launchers.
• All Costumes found in each Act 3 of a Chapter, the Demo Launchers, Metal Bad Boy, and the Balan costume do not have official 2D artwork, nor appear in the game (except for Metal Bad Boy), though some artworks have appeared through different official sources.
  • The 3D models for the Act 3 costume's creature counterparts can be found in the ending dance sequence, and appear on one of the pages of BALAN WONDERWORLD Theatre Program -a SHOWTIME SET exclusive-.
  • Metal Bad Boy can be seen in Chapter 1's dance sequence, and can be found as an NPC in Chapter 1 - Act 1.
  • As Balan Wonderworld's 2D artwork is generally used for promotional purposes, the reason for not releasing 2D artwork of all the Act 3 Costumes and Metal Bad Boy is most likely to keep them as a secret.
• Some Costumes have similar abilities, but each have different traits:
  • An example being Pounding Pig, Pounding Duck, and Pounding Robot. Who each have a different flutter distance and pounding range, along with Pounding Robot being able to attack iron blocks and spiked enemies.
  • Another one being Air Cat and Air Unicorn. Both can float on the air for a set amount of time, though Air Unicorn has a longer distance.
  • Dynamic Dolphin and Jellyjolt can both swim in currents. Though Dynamic Dolphin can swim faster than Jellyjolt, and Jellyjolt can attack enemies with an electric barrier.
  • Some Costumes, such as Dusk Butterfly and Dawn Butterfly, and Sun Walker and Moon Walker, have opposite abilites from each other.
• Enhanced variants of select Costumes can be found in the third phase of Lance's boss fight, this is indicated via a more detailed Costume menu, along with a white sparkle effect each Costume gives off.
• Naoto Ohshima first decided around 120 Costumes during development, which the number then dropped to 80 Costumes.