Wario Land II (GB)

Damn, is there a space between Wario and Land or not? How am I supposed to write about these games if I can't even get the name right?

One day, as the spiral sun began to rise, or perhaps set, three thieves make a daring raid on Castle Wario. In an unskippable cutscene.

They steal his coins, turn on his giant tap, and set off an alarm.

So, uh, am I supposed to be pressing something here? I don't get how this alarm isn't waking him up because it's annoying the hell out of me.

I let him lie in for a bit, and the monsters came and threw him out of the castle in his sleep. Then I started on a different level where I had to break back into the castle.

But I'm going to be boring and restart to play the regular beginning levels instead.

First thing I did after waking up was to smash down my bedroom wall and steal my own coins. Weirdly I have to press up on the d-pad to get enough height on my jumps to collect the top row.

It doesn't feel like a Mario game, but Wario moves around just fine in his own way.

I can charge into objects to smash them, but it seems these guys are immune to a forward assault. He knocked some coins out of me, but I'm still alive. Even when I run out of coins he still won't die.

As far as I can tell, Wario is basically immortal! I can't think of a single other platformer off the top of my head that has an unkillable hero.

I get to save at any time I want too? Well I'd be a fool not to...

Crap, it doesn't save my position in a level, just what level I'm on! Then it boots me back to the title screen. I just lost all my progress!

Oh, sorry, false alarm. I didn't lose any progress, it just played the intro again to remind me the story so far. And let me skip it this time too! Nice game.

Hey, I found a bonus game.

Eight pictures flash up on screen at once, then I have find and remember which of them matches the picture on the lock. Then I point to the box which I think had the correct picture on it. Easier difficulties give me slightly more time, but are more costly. I picked easy mode and it took basically every coin I had.

I'm starting to see where the challenge in the game might come from. Not from trying to survive a level, but from trying to find and hold onto enough coins to win the bonus games.

First boss is down! Actually it was less of a boss and more of an alarm clock. It  just sat there while I smacked it around for a bit then kicked it off screen.

Level one complete! And I got a viking hat from winning the bonus game earlier. I doubt I get to wear it though.

Another bonus game, this time I have to buy pieces to fill in the grid at the top so I can guess the letter. It's 50 coin per piece though, so I'm stuck with what I've got.

I guessed 0... it was 5! No treasure for me.

Next level, my objective is to turn off the giant faucet that Wario installed in his castle for no good reason, and stop the flood. I've been pretty unkillable so far, but I'm not sure I want to push my luck by diving into the water.


SOON.

Fire fire fire, I'm on fire!

Well at least I know now that Wario can swim.

Also I learned a very important lesson about fire. When Wario's aflame, he can break through blocks marked with fire symbol. He doesn't much like it though.

Agh, what the hell? Get out of my way! I don't get how I'm suppose to get past this thing. When I walk up to it, it inflates blocking my path.

Oh wait, hang on. I have an idea.

Have an enemy in the face, ya path blocking bastard. Oh hey, I got rewarded with coins.

At last the mysterious giant tap is deactivated.

I hope it wasn't put here for something important, I'd hate to think that I'd just turned a river off or something.

Now I have to find a way to let the water out.

These bubbles are a nice idea, because they're either something you need to proceed, or an obstacle, depending on whether you're swimming up through an area or down.

No! Let me out you damn air pocket, I don't need your oxygen to survive! This thing's just going to drag me back up the level until it bursts.

Uh, shouldn't this be a the bottom of the castle? To let the water out.

Whatever, it's unblocked now. Well that's the alarm stopped out and the water sorted out. All that's left now is to, uh, I don't know. Apparently I'm heading to the basement.

Huh, what? Do I start this level being crushed? Now I have to shuffle along as flat Wario trying to find a way to reinflate him.

Oh right, a bat grabs him and stretches him back out. Well that almost makes sense.

Actually it turns out that being flattened is useful to get through areas like this to grab more coin.

Gotta go find every door and every secret wall to collect the coins to win the treasure. I have no idea if I even need the treasure to win, but it seems important. Plus I don't think I'm going to be allowed to backtrack and replay old levels.

I have no idea why there's a snake boss in my basement, but he didn't put up much of a fight. I may be invulnerable, but the snake can win this fight by eating Wario, then flinging him out of the room in an egg. Which is just nasty.

Well I guess everything's resolved now and Wario can go back to bed.

Oh right, the guys who stole my stuff. I'd forgotten about them.

Wario's hot on their trail though and... wait, why is he stopping? He sees that chicken run away and then he just stops.

Return the hen to her nest? Why would Wario do that? Why would I want to do that?


I think this is the part where I stop playing. It's a nice enough game but it's not really enthralling me, and I'm not sure why. It doesn't do anything obviously wrong that I could tell. Well it doesn't have a Mario-grade catchy soundtrack, but that can't be it. Anyway I'm moving on to the next game.