Wario Land is the Perfect, Portable Platformer

Post 00022 | October 22nd, 2022

Last week I went on a course thing with work. It took place in a town a couple of hours away and because a couple of departments were going, they had rented a bus. It spent a lot of my childhood on buses so I was probably in a nostalgic state of mind when I had to decide on entertainment for the journey. In the end I picked a Game Boy with an extra set of rechargeable batteries and a copy of Wario Land.

When you look at the modern Mario who is so well-defined, for lack of a better word, you can forgiven for looking at the Super Mario Land series with berfuddlement. They were all great games with interesting ideas with some of the best beeps your Game Boy could produle, but they just seem... Off. The first Mario Land game featured an 8x8 Mario who rode a submarine and avoided sprinting moai heads and Chinese undead in his quest to defeat a mysterious spaceman.

The sequel fared better in that it featured multiple Mario enemies but instead of saving a princess your main task is to kick out a squatter who took over Mario's castle (never underestimate a plumber's union) while he was out beating the spaceman.

And then there's Mario Land 3 where you don't play as Mario but rather the creepy squatter. He's ready to end his squating ways and has decided to buy his own castle by becoming a bouty hunter. In this game the princess you are looking for a golden statue that has been stolen by Captain Syrup and her gang of pirates all through Kitchen Island.

So while the plot setting highlights the importance of opening a window once in a while to combat carbon monoxide build-up in meeting rooms, I'd argue the game itself as actaully one of the best on the system. In a way the change of protagonist freed them from a lot of boundries and the game feels more creative for it. Being the humoursly crude counterpart to Mario, Wario comes with entirely new move set. Jumping on enemies will make them fall over, allowing Wario to pick them up and hurl them at other baddies. He is also able to tackle which allows him to defeat enemies and break blocks sideways. And then there are the power-ups. Instead of mushrooms, Wario eats garlic. Eat one while normal size and he gets a viking helmet that allows him a tackle further and ground pound to break blocks and topple enemies. There's a dragon helmet that breathes fire and a seagull cap that works as a jet pack, letting Wario fly.

There's a place in the sun for whomever designed this cap.

To compliment the new character, Kitchen Island has thirty-nine stages in seven different worlds to explore - and for once you are actually meant to do some exploration. Rather than just heading for the goal to save the princess, Wario is in it for the money. Coins are no longer exchanged for 1-ups but rather saved up to make his real-estate dreams come true. Detours may contain extra coins or, if certain stages, a key. If you find the matching keyhole you get a treasure which Wario is able to pawn after the game. Other stages may have secret exists that leads to secret levels, much like in Super Mario World.

Among the worlds there's a teapot mountain and forest made of parsley (Kitchen Island, remember?). Some of my personal highlights were the auto-scrolling train levels, mainly becuase of the upbeat music, and the level where you climb the above the clouds at Teapot Mountain to ambient sounds. Each world also has it's own boss. These are probably the closest you get to a challenge; Wario Land is in no way a difficult game but isn't tediously easy either. It's just right.

Wario Land came out around the same time as the Super Game Boy but sadly doesn't support it. This means there is no special colourisation or frames if you were to play it on a Super Nintendo. However, earlier this year romhacker korxo released a colourisation mod for the game for use on a Game Boy Color. I only just noticed this after completing the game but I was so excited that I decided to beat the entire game again!

This time I decided to go for a coinless run to add a bit of challenge. You don't have to avoid coins completely - you can summon a throwable 10-coin by pressing up + B (in fact most exists have a coin slot that requires it) but that means you can only collect a coin amount divisable by ten. After beating the game I realised I had done it all in vain though as you receive an unavoidable 300 coins for beating the last boss.

And I guess that's part of the joy of short games. Wario Land only takes about four hours to beat. Most stages are less than a couple of minutes long so after fifteen minutes you are in a different world with a completely different setting. This change of scenery helps making the game feel fresh. The game also lets you replay courses for instance to look for treasure. A couple of times you get to revisit stages after events have altered a stage. At one point for instance you punch a !-block that ends up draining the lake you just swam through. If you then go back all the water has gone and it's a different course.

It seems like a cool idea today, but for a 1994 game running on on a 4 MHz processor it's downright impressive. Wario Land is a short, sweet game filled with ambition and that's why I think it's one of the best on the system.