A massive change to the original with great ideas mixed with awful level design and pacing.

Gone now is the Mario bros style platforming the original changed it all for a more puzzle-styled platformer with the goal of either reaching the end door or killing X enemies usually at the end of a puzzle maze. On paper, this idea isn't too bad but when the game has 50+ stages it becomes a massive chore to go through them, and worst of all is that all of the stages suck! They are just big mazes with each room looking like the last one!

I'd like to say that the main new gimmick is the transformations but the game itself is a new gimmick compared to the original, but the most important change is that you can no longer die, all you do is lose coins when damaged by dangerous enemies or like Wario Land 2 and 3 get transformed into something usually to solve some puzzles but in this game, they mostly are just here to fuck you over.

About coins, this game removed all type of Mario-style item blocks since this game have no powerups so all of the coins are usually found by exploring the stage and breaking invisible walls. I actually like this sense of exploration and giving the incentive to find secrets, my only issue with it is that the coins are useless! Not literally useless but all they do is feed this awful gimmick minigame found in each stage that makes playing a stage 10 times more stressful.

The treasure-hunting part of the game. Each of the 50+ stages has a secret door leading to a minigame room for Matching games, It's irritating how it's the same damn minigame every time and the sole purpose of the coins is to select a difficulty (difficulty change how long you can see the cards) so the more difficult it is the cheaper it is. The coins don't even matter for the ending of the game, unlike the two previous entries and it's not the only minigame in this game as there is another one that plays after each stage to get one bit of the treasure map for the true ending, it's just a dumb guessing game and again it's the same minigame after each stage.

I honestly have no idea if the treasure in the game matter since I think you only need the treasure map to get the true ending, it makes me mad because I bothered playing through the fucking matching game 50+ times and looking for that secret door on each stage.

The positive point I'd like to mention is the flowchart, it's a pretty cool gimmick in itself but I'm not sure if I like it in a Wario game but for a 1998 game it's pretty dope. You can get a total of 5 endings and a true one, the endings are obtained by finding a secret entrance in a stage and usually getting 5 levels to get to the secret end.

This is the black sheep of the franchise, it's awfully boring and totally broke what Wario Land virtual boy had started with the quality over quantity stages. Even though the road was a damn rocky one to get to Wario Land 4 I'm glad this game tried something different from the original and let us have the perfect fourth entry.

Was honestly a bit surprised with how much I enjoyed Wario Land 2, given its shift from traditional, level-by-level platforming to a more puzzle orientated style of play. The game isn't without issues; the concept of Wario being immortal serves to add a kind of obnoxious handicap to otherwise easy boss fights, and the method of acquiring the game's treasure and map had to have been designed by an insane person, but the level design, interesting puzzles and shockingly high replayability were more than enough to make up for it. I'll be sure to go for 100% in due time, but I don't wanna be only playing Wario Land 2 for the next month.

I can just link my review of Wario Land 3 here and say 2 feels exactly like the previous draft of that game. Most of the mechanics from 3 were actually created here: what 3 did was change secondary systems, such as stage structure and character progression. However, those are changes that elevated the game to a new level, and while I also like 2, it's not my favorite.

There are, if my notes don't fail me, exactly six exceptions, other than which every stage in WL2 is linear and has exactly one exit and one treasure to be found. A lot of extra rooms exist, which does give some room for exploration and puzzles, but the only thing in them is coins, and considering only one route is relevant to complete the stage, they can be skipped.

Coins are however, necessary to obtain treasures and map pieces, which are required for completion and are locked behind rather costly minigames. This turns the game into a bit of a grind, with coins feeling like they're there more to pad the playtime than anything.

Wario Land 2's greatest flaw, however, is in the secret exits to stages. In six out of the fifty stages there are secret exits, and while the game tells you in which stages they are, they're downright impossible to find without a guide. Butt-stomp this ordinary-looking tile, throw an enemy against that ordinary looking wall, and so on.

It's all stuff you wouldn't try unless you knew about it, and this is a problem because half of the total stages in the game are locked behind those exits. If you can't find them, you'll miss out on a large portion of the game.

Speaking of butt-stomping and throwing, though, another issue I have with this entry is how character progression is handled, or rather, how it isn't. In Wario Land 2, Wario starts out with all of his abilities unlocked, and the only way you'd know about them is by opening the tutorial screen and memorizing each one, making for a far steeper learning curve than the sequel.

In the end, though, while Wario Land 2 has its problems, I still consider it part of the top cut of Game Boy Games. If you only really have the time to play one game, skip it in favor of the sequel, but 2 is when the foundations of 3 were created, so it's a solid game, as well.

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.

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.