Jeremy Parish

Game Boy Works Color #003: Wario Land II (Patreon)

Published:

2019-07-17 17:00:02

Imported:

2024-04

Tags:

game boy works color nintendo video wario land

Content

You can usually tell how enthusiastic I am about a game by how long its video retrospective turns out to be. That rubric holds true here; Wario Land II is genius, and I could have gone on much longer about it if I'd really wanted to. But you gotta draw the line somewhere, so you'll have to settle for a mere 20 minutes of me raving about it.

Files

Wario Land II retrospective: Colour my WAAAAAHrld | Game Boy Works Color #003

For Nintendo's third portable system (allowing for a very loose definition of "portable" where Virtual Boy is concerned), we once again have another platformer in the Super Mario Land family to help kick things off. But while Wario Land II may technically be a sequel to Super Mario Land, it has almost nothing to do with that game besides being a platform game inspired by Super Mario Bros. It drops the "Mario" title altogether, focusing entirely on antagonistic protagonist Wario, who finally distinguishes himself from his do-gooding rival by being completely immortal. There are no health pick-ups here, no 1UPs, none of that frail nonsense. Wario is indestructible, like all cartoon bad guys, and Wario Land II builds on that premise to create an exploratory puzzle-platform experience like nothing before it. It's a masterpiece, and a great launch title for Game Boy Color... even if it technically wasn't, originally.