Virtual Boy Complete - Game #19
If you know anything about the Virtual Boy, you know that this is the The One. I played this many years ago and fell head over heels for it. It's no surprise that this is my #1 VB game, I knew it would be going in, no matter how good the other games are, and boy are some of 'em good! This might be hard to talk about because it's so good.
VB Wario Land is very much a direct sequel to Wario Land 1 - all of the Wario Lands have a very different formula from one another, but VB Wario Land just plays it safe, which works well for it, because the original Wario Land is also a very well-designed game, and this improves upon it. The thing that sets these two games apart from the other Wario games is their more conventional Mario structure, with power-ups in blocks, except you're a big burly bully who can destroy things and throw enemies around into one another.
Wario feels the heaviest he's ever been, yet also feels agile enough to freely navigate levels, even without his dash from WL4. This is really what makes the game so great, Wario just feels so good to control - even underwater - and despite the significantly slower pace than later WL games, Wario feels unstoppable if you're good enough at the game, the ground pound especially has a strong weight to it. The power-ups are the same as in WL1, but the jet is rethemed to an eagle, and you can combine the eagle and dragon. The dragon is kinda lame just like in WL1, a flame thrower that isn't terrible practically but isn't as fun as bull or eagle, but just like the jet, the eagle is extremely fun. The enemies are all super fun to plow through, though there are some invulnerable ones, which to me kinda defeats the point. One thing Wario could do in WL1 if memory serves correct, that he cannot do here, is throw enemies upwards. This isn't too big a deal, but it does make some situations a little less fun than they could be.
The levels are quite cleverly designed for Wario to plow through, they hit that classic Mario sweet spot of being direct and linear while also having secrets to find, and have some clever placements (like a particularly hard vertical segment where you can hit a box before going into it that summons an item at the end). The game uses background and foreground layers - as I've said a few times, "because Virtual Boy" - which doesn't add or take much really
This game has an interesting collectable system - there are hearts which give you extra lives, and coins you can collect for different endings, it doesn't change the gameplay much but it's a cool idea. There are similar end-level minigames to WL1 you can spend coins on, but the chance of getting something out of them is pretty low so best to just go past them.
I struggle to think of major flaws with this game, everything I've mentioned so far is a nitpick or minor gripe, but there is one glaring issue: keys. This games falls into the unfortunate trap of "linear levels with a tacked on key collection objective". Think Crash 2 and 3. Yuck yuck yuck. At the very least, they keys do actually gate you from completing the level, so you don't have to restart should you forget a key.
If you know anything about the Virtual Boy, you know that this is the The One. I played this many years ago and fell head over heels for it. It's no surprise that this is my #1 VB game, I knew it would be going in, no matter how good the other games are, and boy are some of 'em good! This might be hard to talk about because it's so good.
VB Wario Land is very much a direct sequel to Wario Land 1 - all of the Wario Lands have a very different formula from one another, but VB Wario Land just plays it safe, which works well for it, because the original Wario Land is also a very well-designed game, and this improves upon it. The thing that sets these two games apart from the other Wario games is their more conventional Mario structure, with power-ups in blocks, except you're a big burly bully who can destroy things and throw enemies around into one another.
Wario feels the heaviest he's ever been, yet also feels agile enough to freely navigate levels, even without his dash from WL4. This is really what makes the game so great, Wario just feels so good to control - even underwater - and despite the significantly slower pace than later WL games, Wario feels unstoppable if you're good enough at the game, the ground pound especially has a strong weight to it. The power-ups are the same as in WL1, but the jet is rethemed to an eagle, and you can combine the eagle and dragon. The dragon is kinda lame just like in WL1, a flame thrower that isn't terrible practically but isn't as fun as bull or eagle, but just like the jet, the eagle is extremely fun. The enemies are all super fun to plow through, though there are some invulnerable ones, which to me kinda defeats the point. One thing Wario could do in WL1 if memory serves correct, that he cannot do here, is throw enemies upwards. This isn't too big a deal, but it does make some situations a little less fun than they could be.
The levels are quite cleverly designed for Wario to plow through, they hit that classic Mario sweet spot of being direct and linear while also having secrets to find, and have some clever placements (like a particularly hard vertical segment where you can hit a box before going into it that summons an item at the end). The game uses background and foreground layers - as I've said a few times, "because Virtual Boy" - which doesn't add or take much really
This game has an interesting collectable system - there are hearts which give you extra lives, and coins you can collect for different endings, it doesn't change the gameplay much but it's a cool idea. There are similar end-level minigames to WL1 you can spend coins on, but the chance of getting something out of them is pretty low so best to just go past them.
I struggle to think of major flaws with this game, everything I've mentioned so far is a nitpick or minor gripe, but there is one glaring issue: keys. This games falls into the unfortunate trap of "linear levels with a tacked on key collection objective". Think Crash 2 and 3. Yuck yuck yuck. At the very least, they keys do actually gate you from completing the level, so you don't have to restart should you forget a key.