At one point while playing this brilliant shit, I almost burst into tears because I got suddenly hit with a powerful memory of being 10 years old, on holiday in Gran Canaria. Playing a Game Boy Color I got from a dodgy shop for what must have been £30. A truly good and happy time in my life.

It wasn't even this I was playing back then. It was some 32-in-1 nonsense. But this smelly garlic man reached through time and brought joy from 22 years ago roaring back into me for just a moment. Thank you, you fat fuck.

Many moons ago I was on a field trip to the zoo, it was a long bus ride so me and my buddy brought along our Game Boy Colors. He owned Wario Land II, I owned Wario Land 3. We ended up swapping games for a while out of curiosity, and he wanted to do a trade. I was unwilling to depart with Wario Land 3 however, since I was very much attached to it despite beating it at that point. I did however trade him something for Wario Land II, I unfortunately cannot remember what it was that I traded, it's probably actually a good thing I can't remember, since I probably wasn't attached to whatever the game was. Which means I probably pulled one over on that kid. What a sucker.

Wario has been hitting the gym and eating his Wheaties in this game, not only is he a bunch faster than he was in the last game, but he is now completely invincible and cannot be killed whatsoever. I remember an AVGN episode where I recall the Nerd saying something like "how can you call it a game if you can't even die?", I remember that line annoying me a bit since... well this game exists and it kinda rules. It's like a puzzle-platformer-coin grabbing simulator, I feel like this has the most satisfying coin grabbing sounds out there. Which is good, because you're Wario and you want to be a greedy shithead. Having a good coin sound is like having good hit sound effects in a beat'em up, you gotta keep that satisfaction high for something you're going to be doing a lot of.

The content for a Game Boy game here is pretty astonishing, there's a ton of stages and alternate paths/endings to find. You'd totally be playing this game for a long time, I mean I sure did back in the day, and even now I played this for about two weeks I wanna say. I think my favorite alternate path was the Atlantis one, though both it and the Haunted House one can be pretty creative in their stage design. My personal headcanon is that all of these paths and endings are canon and represent multiple times Captain Syrup stole treasure from Wario. She would be that persistant.

As far as comparing it to Wario Land 3, I don't think II's structure is quite as sound, but one thing for sure it does have over 3 is the enemy roster. It helps when it's an actual faction of enemies rather than just random critters that happened to be hanging out in the areas you visit. Dangerous Duck is still a top tier enemy, but I absolutely adore this little football helmet wearing guy who punches in the air). Special shoutout to the Penguin who throws a bowling ball at you that puts you into a dizzy spell, I found out later though that he throws a mug of beer at you in the Japanese version, lol. The Basketball Rabbit is also a better boss fight than the Soccer Rabbit in WL3.

I vividly remember a Billy and Mandy episode aping music and sound effects off this game for when Billy was playing some kind of Not-Game Boy console, couldn't tell you what episode it was since I haven't watched that show in years, but I remember it being there! Honest!

Adore this game, love that the game description here is talking in Wario's character. Please keep it that way.

(zerei só a primeira rota, depois eu faço o resto)

depois de finalmente conquistar seu próprio castelo e se aventurar pela awazonia o Wario consegue seu primeiro descanso...

...até que a princesa Syrup chega e invade seu castelo.

Wario acorda e no primeiro contato com o controle eu penso "por que ele anda segurando as calças?" ao invés de "por que a movimentação é tão esquisita em relação aos anteriores?" mas aí eu paro pra pensar e porra, ele acabou de acordar, não tava nem um pouco preparado pra nada, fora que o começo dá a entender que ele nunca mais precisou fazer platforming porque é a primeira vez que o Wario consegue definir um status quo em sua vida.

e é daqui que parte a grande premissa de Wario Land II: definir o que é Wario Land. e isso soa meio estúpido vindo de mim que tá jogando pela primeira vez e não faz ideia de como os jogos posteriores funcionam, mas jogando o primeiro e o spinoff de virtual boy eu senti muito que o começo era a melhor parte do jogo pela sensação inicial de estar jogando "um mario só que com o Wario" e apesar do primeiro funcionar dessa forma e o virtual boy contornar isso com as gimmicks do console, eu nunca senti o Wario sendo caracterizado de uma maneira tão próxima ao game design do jogo quanto eu senti agora no Wario Land II

pela primeira vez, o objetivo do Wario não é mais uma grande jornada em busca de saciar algum desejo em específico e sim uma reação à situação em que ele é colocado: invadiram seu castelo e agora ele precisa recuperar seus tesouros. o primeiro capítulo é só ele consertando as merdas que fizeram no castelo dele (fechar a torneira que usaram pra inundar tudo, desligar o alarme gigante que ele tem e derrotar a cobra gigante que deixaram ali como armadilha) e o resto do jogo consiste em ir atrás da princesa Syrup e sua tropa.

foco no: "ir atrás" -- é basicamente esse o objetivo do jogo, e é basicamente essa a forma em que os desafios são estruturados: enquanto seus antecessores progridem de uma forma padrão de super mario com timer, múltiplas vidas, gameover e num geral, alterando só as mecânicas que diferenciam os personagens, Wario Land II se distancia disso: o Wario não tem "vida" pra perder e não tem "timer" pra se preocupar-- tudo o que ele tem é dinheiro. e gimmicks, MUITAS gimmicks.

eu honestamente considero isso a evolução natural da franquia, já que ele vai cada vez mais abandonando os signos originais de Mario e moldando um foco maior na busca pelo dinheiro (que é o grande ponto do personagem) -- mas e as gimmicks? como que funciona? -- basicamente, já que o Wario não pode perder vida e nem morrer, os inimigos tem dois tipos de ataque nesse jogo: um que faz ele perder moedas (igual as armadilhas) e outro que vai depender do inimigo, mas é um ataque especial que "transforma" o estado físico do Wario e as vezes isso é um malefício e na maioria das vezes é essencial pra progredir na fase. exemplos: um inimigo cospe fogo no Wario, ele sai correndo e você perde parte do controle, e só volta ao estado normal caso entre em contato com a água; ou, um inimigo que te transforma numa mola e você consegue pular pra alturas maiores do que o normal e explorar caminhos diversos pelas fases -- e essa é a gimmick principal do jogo. um kirby ao contrário.

a punição dos desafios na maioria das vezes consiste em "volte três casas" o tempo todo e apesar disso ser meio idiota eu particularmente achei bem divertido ficar raciocinando cada tarefa que eu precisava fazer em cada tela dos mapas e pensar que todas as forças externas do jogo queriam sempre atrapalhar meu passeio, me empurrar com todas as forças pra de volta pro meu castelo e me impedir de retomar o que é meu

Wario Land finalmente virou um jogo para viciados em catar moeda pelo mapa e sair andando por aí, mesmo que muita coisa do jogo faça o Wario de bolinha de ping-pong -- mas acho que, mesmo com os "power-downs" sendo limitados (a maioria serve só pra elevar a verticalidade das fases ou pra fazer você perder o controle do Wario por um tempo) e a IA dos inimigos sendo estúpida (pelo amor de deus, a detecção visual deles é muito psicopata), o level design do jogo é bem construído o suficiente pra ter valido a pena a jornada (e pra me fazer jogar mais horas disso)

It's a bizarre decision to make your platforming character literally immortal, but I am absolutely down with how well this change fits exploration and collection. This new approach makes it so much less frustrating to experiment with your surroundings when taking hits just means losing some coins instead of restarting a stage. The exploration itself feels so good as well, with Wario making the most of smashing walls and throwing enemies through bricks. I do wish that the collected treasure is used for a wider variety of mini-games, but both of them are pretty intense whenever they pop up. I couldn't think of a much better game to represent this superhuman schmuck and it's possibly the best Game Boy Color game I've played.

A pretty ambitious platformer being held back by the limitations of the Game Boy. Unavoidably kind of a comedown from VIRTUAL BOY WARIO LAND because of how good that felt to play - now we're back to chunky, clunky GB movement and simplistic animation.

Within their limitations, though, they went all out. Loads of moves, mechanics, minigames, secrets, and so many coins to get, it feels borderline predatory. Someone looking to really dig into this would be richly rewarded (branching storyline! new levels and endings on every path!), but I found myself not really wanting to invest. I was compelled to engage with the Virtual Boy game to its absolute fullest because it felt so good to play. Here, the moment-to-moment action was kind of dull to me by comparison. The Kirby-lite transformation stuff didn't do much for me, and some of the challenges are designed to be annoying because Wario can't die now and they need to punish you somehow for goofing up. (Not sure if I love that particular tradeoff.) At some point it started to feel like going through the motions.

Crazy that the Game Boy's life was so long that they were making bigtime franchise games for it next to, like, the release of the Dreamcast. This is still some admirable stuff! Pushing it a bit, though.

This is a very unique and interesting platformer, It's not perfect but the ideas presented here are really fun and interesting. One of which is how "power ups" are handled. Basically the power ups in this game can only be obtained from certain enemy attacks but they're not always helpful in fact at points they're outright detrimental. Which is I found to be very interesting as a enemy I was just avoiding in one level is now an enemy I'm actively trying to be hit by now to gain a new form. Light puzzle solving and fun level design is spawned from this design and it makes the game stand out from other 2d platformer. It's not all gold but when it hits, it hits really well.

This is unironically one of the greatest platformers ever made and should be seen as a prime example of good game design in not only 2D platformers, but video games in general.

This is a gigantic improvement over the already really good Wario Land. Yeah, sure, you can't die in this but that doesn't make it baby levels of easy. You lose coins when you're hit and you need the coins to be able to get all the treasures and 100% the game so it can be more challenging than you think when it comes to completion. And yeah, sure, the controls are a little weird compared to the first but the levels, while definitely pretty gimmicky, are so expertly designed around these controls that they make the controls feel natural, and they almost remind of puzzle platformers with how cleverly thought out they are. It's the kind of game that doesn't think the players are braindead morons, it uses the level design to make the player think and teaches the player how to play without saying anything and I think that's some awesome shit right there.

This game is a masterclass of good game design and I can't praise it enough. It might be designed with 100% completion in mind but that doesn't make it less stellar. From what I heard Wario Land 3 seems to be the fan favorite and I will be mind-blown if it ends up being better than Wario Land II. Can't wait to check that out!

Technically this is Wario Land 3!
This game feels like both a step up and a step down from the first game. It gets rid of most of the Mario mechanics in favor of new ones which im a fan of. The transformations shake up the gameplay in a way that definitely sets itself apart from Mario. Where this game feels like a step down however is that those transformations are mostly all thats new to the game. No interesting ideas to flesh out in the levels unlike Mario or heck, even the first 2 Wario land games.
Because of this I think that's why this game has more of a focus on puzzle platforming which in my opinion, has been done better in installments after this one. It can make levels feel longer than they should and what's worse is the entire game contains 50 levels. So the game ends up feeling like its stretching itself VERY thin. The general flow is that you'll have a couple levels that all feel insubstantial and exit your mind the moment you reach that goal. With only 1 or 2 good actually levels here and there.

Speaking of goals, depending on which goal you entire in some levels, you'll end up on a completely different path in the story and get a completely different outcome. Big fan of this branching story paths idea, I can only think of a couple other games that do this and i feel there's potential in a concept such as that.

Im a guy who likes to 100% platformers purely for pleasure, the level you unlock after getting every collectible is a decent challenge stage with a disappointing boss.
But I don't care all that much, I'm more of a fan of the journey rather than the destination, and the way this game handles getting treasures was simply annoying. Inside every level you'll have to find a secret room and play the same minigame every single time to unlock a treasure, I appreciate being able to set the difficulty but I would have handled something like this a little better, a rebalance on selecting the difficulty options to maybe entice the player to do higher difficulties is what im trying to get at here. But ultimately I'd just get rid of it. I think the act of finding the treasure room should be a challenge in of itself instead of both that AND an annoying minigame. There's also a goal game collectible. It also gets repetitive but the worse thing about this is if you fuck up you have to reach the goal again to retry it.

This game was one I kept constantly thinking about how it could be improved in a remake or something with how clumsy all of its issues are. Its NOT a bad game, its more of a game that's at least solid in small doses. But after playing it for an hour or so, the issues it has will sink in and the game will start feeling like a slog. No shame in skipping this if you're playing these games for the first time (I personally think the real WL3 is 10 times better) Which, after a certain Indie platformer that came out this year, wouldn't be surprised seeing an increase of people playing these titles for the first time.

Out of all the Wario Land games, II upsets me the least and honestly that's what I love about it. See Wario games tend to have a habit of not actually giving Wario lives, but rather puzzles, power ups, or other types of obstacle blocking to push you back to where you started and try again. A lot of the Wario games require to try and try and try again otherwise you can't unlock certain areas or power ups. Wario Land II however, opts to make each choice you make in this something that can affect the ending and route you take throughout the game. Instead of having to solve where to go, you simply find an exit and go to the next level, there are plenty of treasures to find throughout as well as earn at the end of a level, and the game makes it very aware that it should be played over and over again.

While I certainly understand that Wario Land 3 and 4 warped the series into the treasure hunting, puzzle solving, grind fest that we know Wario Land today, II still had a lot of ground work to make and honestly I prefer this compared to the frustration the other style gets me. Being able to simply go through a level without worrying about a path to take or explore is honestly very soothing to me, and then adding the complexity of different routes and story endings makes for a rather ambitious title.

In the end though, Wario Land II is the odd ball in the series, but something you can tell laid the ground work on what the rest of the series was going to be.

I realllly wanted to like Wario Land II. I was fine with the first one and Wario Land: Shake It is one of my favorite games of all time. The problem is that this one is just so...tedious. Maybe Wario Land is supposed to be extremely aggravating and I happened to play the oddball of the series first. Fully willing to admit that I was constantly getting hit and never getting used to the way Wario moved, so I can say that part of my frustration came from just not playing the game well. But even when accounting for that, some of the levels (especially the later ones) just got boring to play after the amount of times I had to redo sections to either look for treasure or just simply complete them. The branching path system displayed at the end of the game definitely was a surprise, I didn't expect a Gameboy game to have such a vast amount of content, but with the previously mentioned flaws, I didn't feel any incentive to go back and look for the rest of the unlockables and levels. Am I bad at this game? Yeah, probably. Is that likely hindering me from enjoying the game to its fullest? Definitely. Is it still pretty dated and flawed? I would say so, yeah.

> me 6yo at a party with my parents
> there's this annoying kid 6yo around me
> yes I was 6yo and found other kids annoying already
> he asked me to play on my gameboy
> i was like "OK but only when I lose"
> you never lose on Warioland 2.
> fuck off kid.

Interesting game, but not really my personal jam for 2D platformin. Whereas Wario Land 1 was more of a straightforward level based platformer akin to the Mario Land games that it piggybacked on, with the extra gimmick of being graded based off of how many coins you were able to collect, this game abstracts itself even further from its parent(?) series.

Most notably is that in this game Wario must have eaten some crazy kind of garlic or something because he is invincible now. There aren't any bottomless pits, and no matter how many times Wario gets smacked, slapped, roasted, frozen, squashed, or stretched, he cannot die. While there are certainly benefits to immortality, Wario Land 2 taught me that such a blessing can really be a curse. The level and game design has been fundamentally changed as a result, and now things are much more slow and explorative. Finding secrets is the real aim of the game here, as trying to straight-shot through the levels will only let you access 25 out of the whopping 51 levels that this game contains. As there's no threat of failure or death, the game really wants you to take your time combing the levels to find secret treasures and exits by leaving no door unvisited, no coin ungrabbed, and no wall/floor tile unchecked.

That isn't to say that there's zero punishment or challenge in this game, as while getting hit won't diminish any of Wario's health or make him any less capable than he normally is, it will put him in a cardiac arrest state for a few seconds while launching him with knockback force that makes the Belmont clan look like they have iron boots. Some enemies will instead change Wario's state like flame guys that will turn him into a fireball that can break blocks, hammer guys that will smash him into a bouncy spring form which can jump higher, hydraulic presses that flatten the lad into a pancake that can flutter, penguin lookin mfers that can make Wario drunk, and so on and so forth. You really don't know which enemies will knock you on your ass and which ones are actually powerups until you get hit.

All of this comes together to just kinda make a game that felt really annoying to play tbh. Since there's no mechanical punishment for getting hit the game usually punishes mishaps by resetting your progress whether that be by putting Wario in a state where you'd have to go back and revert or just by knocking you back down to the ground where you gotta get back to where you were before. Obviously, even in platformers with health systems mistakes commonly get punished by resetting progress by way of like checkpoints if you die or whatnot, but that's usually an automated process whereas here in Wario Land there are points where if you fuck up, you gotta drag your ass back to the starting line before you can try again. This is most egregious in the bosses, as there are a lot of bosses that punish any hit by forcing you out of the boss chamber, resetting the fight from square one no matter how far you initially got. For a game with an invincible protagonist, there's a surprisingly low margin for error in some of these levels. It makes an already slowly designed game feel even more sluggish, and my goopy gamer brain already isn't the biggest fan of slower, more explorative 2D platformers.

It still has that goofy wario charm that's all in good fun, and Captain Syrup is a fun antagonist. Instead of your typical victory animation or whatever, Wario just front-faces to look directly at you upon clearing any level to let you know what you've done. While I did get most of the endings on this playthrough, if I had this as a kid I guarantee you I would only have seen the default 25-level ending and nothing else. Definitely not my favorite game out there, but I still respect its experimentation with the platformer genre and its quirky charm.

If you haven't played this game, you'll stop reading and go play it right now.

Wario Land 2 is a masterpiece. At first I thought it was more Wario Land having played 3 and 4. I was wrong. The only thing all of these games have in common is the mechanics. Aside from that, they all have different structures.

Here we have a more linear game that focus on a story. At first, after finishing it for the first time, I thought it was just more Wario, which I was used to after playing Wario Land 4 a few months ago. But then the game hit me with an amazing post-game. Then I realized why they decided to focus on the story. After finishing, you get access to all the levels you played and you can go through different timelines through alternative exits on the levels. I definitely wasn't expecting that on a Game Boy game.

I'd like to highlight the variety of the levels and how they change depending on which timeline you're in. It is not a lazy post game that's just "Hey! Here are more levels you can play". It's like the game was made to be played as a whole. There's new visuals, a remaked level, new puzzles. Even though it's a GBC game and despite having 50 levels the game doesn't feel repetitive at any point.

This game is amazing. Since I started it until I finished last night, I was always excited to play it and find out what else the game had to offer. It is an easy platformer, easy to start and easily one of the best games on the Game Boy Color. Masterpiece 10/10.

The levels that are more tailored to Wario's unique moves than 1, but I couldn't stand the game's changes to progression and treasure collection. Cutting the main campaign in half makes the initial run feel really dry, and I didn't enjoy exploration enough to want to get all the treasures and map panels, and levels as a whole get too gimmicky to want to revisit. Even the side worlds kinda drag. It's a shame too, cause every other change to 1's formula is for the better and ups the ante on Wario's appeal. Hopefully 3 and 4 will be closer to my tastes.

A more fleshed out and forgiving game when compared to the first Wario Land, and offers something I could only describe as 'slice of life' platforming in the early worlds of the game.

The addition of status effects and breakable secret walls opens so many doors when it comes to designing a game around exploration. This game rewards exploration by simply making it fun. With the amount of exploration possible, it would make you believe that it's only gratifying in a 100% runthrough but truthfully, the game was great even though I collected half of the treasures.

Also the minigames were cute too :)