Retro Redux: Wario Land 2

Here it is folks, as promised. Our second Retro Redux this week. Don't get used to it. I play through all of these games the week they show up on the site and some of them take a while to play through. I hope you enjoy this look back at Wario's second trip for treasure; Wario Land 2.

Wario has had a very colorful past when it comes to his appearances in video games. He’s been the antagonist in Mario platformers. He’s been the protagonist in his own titles, usually not by his own design. He’s a bit of the reluctant hero, and only a hero because his greed somehow manages to do something good. Wario Land 2 was the last game developed by Nintendo for the Game Boy and would also be redone to take advantage of the Game Boy Color.

1998 saw the release of Wario Land 2, the sequel to 1994’s Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. This game saw the return of Captain Maple Syrup and her Black Sugar Gang. When this game starts the gang has broken into Wario’s castle, stolen his treasure, set of his alarm clock and left the water running. It might remind you a bit of the Wet Bandits from Home Alone. Wario wakes to the revelation that his gold is missing and sets off to find it. His first mission is to shut off that annoying alarm clock.

What follows is an adventure that makes a very nice swansong to Nintendo’s efforts on the original Game Boy. Wario Land 2 is full of branching paths through levels, multiple endings, Wario torture and more. This was Nintendo’s second attempt, after Wario Land, to branch the Mario series into something different and it completely works. Wario’s greed is the perfect start for a platformer and is the perfect counter balance to Mario’s wholesome goodness. Wario is out for money, he just got his new castle and now people are messing with him.

You’ll begin inside Wario’s castle and your first task is to turn off the aforementioned alarm clock which you will hear buzzing constantly along with the catchy Wario tunes that are built into this game. Enemies, unlock in traditional Mario games do not hurt our “hero”. They simply bounce off of his enormous girth and he’s able to pick them up and use them as projectiles. If the enemy doesn’t have some sort of spike or weapon on them, chances are they can’t hurt him. This is used to great effect through out the game and these enemies will be used to dispatch more dangerous foes, break open blocks that Wario can’t reach and help bounce him higher than he normally would be able to.

There are also, in traditional Wario Land fashion enemies that will cause something to happen to Wario. There are some blocks in the game that can only be destroyed with fire. Wario can’t carry a torch, but enemies with torches can light him on fire. While he’s engulfed in flames you can break the blocks in your way and wait for the fire to go out or find a source of water than can put him out faster. There are some enemies that will feed Wario cake causing him to double in size. He can then proceed to run over enemies that would otherwise cause him to just bounce backwards or destroy blocks below him that need a little more weight before they give up the fight. These enemies replace the hats that Wario used in the first game and would make appearance many years later on the DS in Wario: Master of Disguise.

There are a number of different paths in each of the levels. Many of them contain hidden treasures that are used to unlock things throughout Wario’s adventure. Some hidden treasures are simply bigger amounts of gold or hidden deposits of gold. Collecting all of the hidden treasure will reveal a different ending. After each level Wario has the ability to play a guessing game where a number is covered up by 9 squares. Paying 50 coins from the treasure you’ve accumulated allowing you to take a guess at the hidden number. You can keep paying these coins to uncover another part of the number. The more coins you pay, the easier it is to guess the number. If you guess correctly you receive a tile that uncovers part of a picture. Gain all these tiles and the Simon Says game unlocks.

The music in this game is some of my favorite from the Game Boy era. Granted, that history is relatively small as my original Game Boy library was very limited. It’s slowly getting bigger, but that’s a different story. The bleeps and bloops that system could put out created some very catchy tunes. The Tree Maze area is probably my favorite in the game and they use it to great effect, taking the same basic concept and molding it a little differently every time.

Wario may be the bad guy to Mario’s hero, but he still has been in some memorable games that are the perfect flip side of the coin to our favorite plumber. He started out as a villain in Mario’s adventures, quickly received his own game and has won the hearts of millions throughout the world. This second adventure of his sets the stage for the many different games that follow. They may all follow the same basic style of play, but you don’t always have to reinvent the wheel. Nintendo has been perfecting a great game over the years and Wario Land 2 is simply put a great game. You owe it to yourself to find this game in a vintage store if you can. It will play on the original Game Boy, Game Boy Color, or the Game Boy Advance, so you probably don’t have much excuse to not get a hold of this game.