Wario Land 2, sequel to WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3, is a sequel that feels bigger in terms of a step forward and backwards for the franchise.
The steps it takes forwards are in terms of overall it's total length of time to complete, as well as the different branching paths that can be found depending on certain levels having different ending for different circumstances.
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The game in general is fun however way too repetitive with it kind of having unique objects in certain levels, but all usually are:
- Get from Point A to Point B
- Defeat this Miniboss which is just an overgrown pirate enemy
- Defeat 4 Ducks
- Hit this Random Lever or Anchor
A big issue is treasure collecting and puzzle piece gathering.
TREASURE COLLECTING
Treasure collecting has Wario enter random entrances that may lead you into a minigame room with the entire minigame being a matching game all the time, the idea is you spend 50, 100, or 150 coins to allow you to see what the pictures are in which area for a little longer. If you choose 50 that's hard mode, meaning you get to see the images for 1 second, Medium 100 3 seconds, Easy 150 5 seconds. The treasure chest will have an image of the enemy and you will have to pick the matching enemy based on muscle memory of it's location, it's really simple to do, though if you don't pay attention you're on your own. The issue with this is it just seems like Nintendo missed the point of what a TREASURE should be, something hidden that has a lot of value and while these Treasures are found in chests, there was more grandiose in WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3 because they were in secluded rooms where all Wario had to do is smash the chest and collect the item.
PUZZLE COLLECTING
The puzzle pieces are worse, the way the puzzle piece mini games work is through your adventure you'll collect a coins that add up, towards the end of every level you need to guess a number from 3 by 3 number tile based upon revealing tiles to make it easier to guess which number it is, the selection is 1-9, and while you can reveal more tiles to give you hints, you could still mess up, and if you mess up, unlike the treasures where you can go back and attempt to match the correct image, you would have to go back and play through the entire level again to try again, luckily I'm playing on my 2DS so I had save states when I messed up on guessing, but still doing it 50 times is a hassle, and it doesn't help that the minigame switches up when you go through a branching path.
In the branching path version, your total coins will start to reduce revealing more and more tiles, while causing you to lose coins, while it doesn't make it easier to see what the numbers might be, the cavoite is you're losing 50 coin per tile as it goes down in increasing increments.
Like I said, I played on my 2DS so my save states helped get through this so I can experience the full game and all it had to offer, but it can seriously be demoralizing if you were playing on a Gameboy, I assume this was done so it could extent the game lengths for little kids. All I know is I doubt kids were able to get to the TRUE FINAL LEVEL of Wario Land 2.
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"POWER UPS"
I put quotes over that because they aren't power up, more like power occurrences that happen when you touch certain enemies:
- Baker with Cake -> Obese Wario -> Allows Wario to barely jump but can destroy strong platforms
- Hammer Pirate -> Spring Wario -> Causes Wario to become a spring and jump like crazy, takes 10 seconds to wear off.
- Penguin with Bomb -> Drunk Wario -> Makes Wario get drunk and cause him to stumble like an idiot with no benefit other than he guess a breath attack, however when drunk he's uncontrollable.
- Fire Hedgehog -> Burning Wario -> Wario gets put on fire and runs around crazy until he burns in a great ball of fire, and during this he can destroy fire objects next to him or below him (fire platforms/obstacles) are marked with fire symbol)
- Zombie/Ghost -> Zombie Wario -> Infects and turns Wario into an actual putrid corpse, he can't jump and when he falls from heights he actually crumbles into pieces before regenerating a second later, sometimes in situations where there are no platforms below a floating platform, if Zombie Wario falls he will fall through said floating platform to the platform below that, not really beneficial more a hindrance that you have to use the sunlight to break free of.
- Bat with Anvil -> Smushed Wario -> Wario gets smushed by an anvil which reduces his jump but allows him to float down from far drops in a swaying motion to reach hidden/tight areas, can be finicky though.
- Magic Wizard Pirate -> Turns Wario into Mini Wario (looks like what Wario looks like when he's defeated in SUPER MARIO LAND 2: 6 GOLDEN COINS and when he takes damage and becomes small in WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3.) Allows Wario to jump higher but he can't pick up and throw enemies.
All "POWER-UPS"/ POWER OCCURANCES can be removed by jumping in Water, or for some, waiting around 10 seconds for the powers to deactivate.
Really a step back when it comes to comparing it to it's predecessor, it's WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3 had only 3 power ups but they were still unique and fun to use, sucks that they gave up on that in WARIO LAND 2 that occasionally benefit you, but in general hinder the player.
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The game doesn't really have a punishment system in terms of losing lives, but instead losing coins, which can stop you from accessing treasures and puzzle pieces. Though I guess an aspect you could find repetitive is the format of some of the levels, as well as some music straight up being painful to listen to, though for the most part I was playing with video game music from my phone with headphones to ignore the ingame music.
The problem with repetitiveness in a game is it can start to feel like a chore doing the same thing over and over to complete said level, and in my opinion a big issue is while certain levels did introduce unique enemies/obstacles I feel like seeing the same pirate enemy in all levels was annoying, along with some minibosses amounting to: small enemy... BUT NOW BIG AND MULTIPLE HITS!
The final true level is a punishment as it's a time trial which wants the player to use tricks and tight navigation for getting to the end, and you can still mess up at the end since the final enemy is on a platform and you need to attack it with out it dropping to the second platform, just getting there is a pain in the ass, and I was lucky I was playing on my 2DS so it made reloads more bearable instead of having to go to the beginning of certain level segments.
For some reason, as great and fun yet repetitive this game is, it somehow still does something bad games do and that's putting all it's egg in 1 basket, all the difficult from the game is encapsulated within 1 level made to induce rage and piss the player off, I don't know why Nintendo thinks 1 level should represent difficulty instead of having harder yet reasonable to complete levels, they've done it so many times now, the most recent examples I can give are:
- DONKEY KONG COUNTRY TROPICAL FREEZE DELUXE
- SUPER MARIO 3D WORLD + BOWSER'S FURY
- SUPER MARIO BROS WONDER
Please understand I AM NOT CALLING THESE GAMES BAD, THEY ARE FANTASTIC, I just find it stupid they decide to make 1 hard as hell level only experts/adults can get through, instead of having reasonably difficult levels in their base games.
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I think the different ending branching paths are nice as it adds a reason to continue to replay old levels that have secret exits to reach these alternate endings as well as the normal ending, and True Ending:
- Normal Ending: Wario fights Captain Syrup with her floating in her mini ship and throws enemies and bombs at Wario, Wario uses the flame beneath him to defeat the Greedy Gold-digging Pirate and obtains all his money/treasure back.
- Alternate Path 1 - Wario sleeps over alarm and Captain Syrup takes over his Castle
- Alternate Path 2 - Wario goes to a sky temple or fortress and "saves" Captain Syrup from the Bubble monster but still kicks her ass sky high and takes back his money.
- Alternate Path 3 - Wario remains in the Haunted Mansion and "saves" Captain Syrup from the Stretchy Ghost but still kicks her ass out of the mansion sky high and takes back his money.
- Alternate Path 4 - Wario remains in the dangerous factory and fights Captain Syrup controlling a Giant Robot Pirate you use to take her down.
True Ending - After Collecting all 50 treasures (25 normal, 25 differing branches) and all 50 puzzle pieces, you get a map to Captain Syrup's grand treasure, in the final level Wario has a time trial to get to the treasure as fast as possible, at the end defeating a giant Pirate enemy and taking Syrups giant treaure... Wario is happy to be greedy and wealthy as ever... as he returns home... only to be followed by said Giant Pirate Enemy, as the game ends.
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I think it does a lot of positives with featuring more levels and branching paths and different endings. It has a fun minigame when you 100% it that's essentially "SIMON SAYS" but it's a pirate duck giving the indication. I think the different final bosses are unique especially the one against the Bunny playing Basket Ball. The game does so many thing to make the WARIO LAND franchise it's own, but took away so many things/did them worse in this sequel. While it is cool having 50 levels, you need to essentially guess where the secret exits are if you're not using walkthrough. Another issue is that while WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3 had linearity there was freedom to tackle certain areas early depending on if you found certain secret exits. Power ups are more so occurrences that sometimes will benefit you, but other times won't. I think the main bosses are great, the minibosses are a joke especially because they're copy and paste.
I had fun with Wario Land 2 within the time I beat it, I think modern platforms for this game with Save States helps it be a great game, because it is. However I can see someone losing their patience with this game because of Trial and Error, and sometimes it being a chore to get through. More levels is fine, but you need to make the levels have quality as well so they don't feel repetitive and while adding a different objective can be seen as mixing it up. It can still feel like a lazy way of trying to mix things up instead of coming up with unique things.
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I had a fun time with WARIO LAND 2 I think it has some flaws, but I think the positive thing to take from it is that it feels like Nintendo now know what they wanted the franchise to be, which is nice. I only hope that WARIO LAND 3 and 4 improve upon the issues I had with 2.
Overall I don't want to say it's better than WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3, I think honestly WARIO LAND 2 is either equal or slightly below the first game, still for what it does, it's a good game, that at the very least had nice esthetics to it.
I'm giving WARIO LAND 2 a 3.5 out of 5 STARS, i recommend it but I would recommend playing it on a device that has save states to truly enjoy it.
Thanks for reading. :D
The steps it takes forwards are in terms of overall it's total length of time to complete, as well as the different branching paths that can be found depending on certain levels having different ending for different circumstances.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The game in general is fun however way too repetitive with it kind of having unique objects in certain levels, but all usually are:
- Get from Point A to Point B
- Defeat this Miniboss which is just an overgrown pirate enemy
- Defeat 4 Ducks
- Hit this Random Lever or Anchor
A big issue is treasure collecting and puzzle piece gathering.
TREASURE COLLECTING
Treasure collecting has Wario enter random entrances that may lead you into a minigame room with the entire minigame being a matching game all the time, the idea is you spend 50, 100, or 150 coins to allow you to see what the pictures are in which area for a little longer. If you choose 50 that's hard mode, meaning you get to see the images for 1 second, Medium 100 3 seconds, Easy 150 5 seconds. The treasure chest will have an image of the enemy and you will have to pick the matching enemy based on muscle memory of it's location, it's really simple to do, though if you don't pay attention you're on your own. The issue with this is it just seems like Nintendo missed the point of what a TREASURE should be, something hidden that has a lot of value and while these Treasures are found in chests, there was more grandiose in WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3 because they were in secluded rooms where all Wario had to do is smash the chest and collect the item.
PUZZLE COLLECTING
The puzzle pieces are worse, the way the puzzle piece mini games work is through your adventure you'll collect a coins that add up, towards the end of every level you need to guess a number from 3 by 3 number tile based upon revealing tiles to make it easier to guess which number it is, the selection is 1-9, and while you can reveal more tiles to give you hints, you could still mess up, and if you mess up, unlike the treasures where you can go back and attempt to match the correct image, you would have to go back and play through the entire level again to try again, luckily I'm playing on my 2DS so I had save states when I messed up on guessing, but still doing it 50 times is a hassle, and it doesn't help that the minigame switches up when you go through a branching path.
In the branching path version, your total coins will start to reduce revealing more and more tiles, while causing you to lose coins, while it doesn't make it easier to see what the numbers might be, the cavoite is you're losing 50 coin per tile as it goes down in increasing increments.
Like I said, I played on my 2DS so my save states helped get through this so I can experience the full game and all it had to offer, but it can seriously be demoralizing if you were playing on a Gameboy, I assume this was done so it could extent the game lengths for little kids. All I know is I doubt kids were able to get to the TRUE FINAL LEVEL of Wario Land 2.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
"POWER UPS"
I put quotes over that because they aren't power up, more like power occurrences that happen when you touch certain enemies:
- Baker with Cake -> Obese Wario -> Allows Wario to barely jump but can destroy strong platforms
- Hammer Pirate -> Spring Wario -> Causes Wario to become a spring and jump like crazy, takes 10 seconds to wear off.
- Penguin with Bomb -> Drunk Wario -> Makes Wario get drunk and cause him to stumble like an idiot with no benefit other than he guess a breath attack, however when drunk he's uncontrollable.
- Fire Hedgehog -> Burning Wario -> Wario gets put on fire and runs around crazy until he burns in a great ball of fire, and during this he can destroy fire objects next to him or below him (fire platforms/obstacles) are marked with fire symbol)
- Zombie/Ghost -> Zombie Wario -> Infects and turns Wario into an actual putrid corpse, he can't jump and when he falls from heights he actually crumbles into pieces before regenerating a second later, sometimes in situations where there are no platforms below a floating platform, if Zombie Wario falls he will fall through said floating platform to the platform below that, not really beneficial more a hindrance that you have to use the sunlight to break free of.
- Bat with Anvil -> Smushed Wario -> Wario gets smushed by an anvil which reduces his jump but allows him to float down from far drops in a swaying motion to reach hidden/tight areas, can be finicky though.
- Magic Wizard Pirate -> Turns Wario into Mini Wario (looks like what Wario looks like when he's defeated in SUPER MARIO LAND 2: 6 GOLDEN COINS and when he takes damage and becomes small in WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3.) Allows Wario to jump higher but he can't pick up and throw enemies.
All "POWER-UPS"/ POWER OCCURANCES can be removed by jumping in Water, or for some, waiting around 10 seconds for the powers to deactivate.
Really a step back when it comes to comparing it to it's predecessor, it's WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3 had only 3 power ups but they were still unique and fun to use, sucks that they gave up on that in WARIO LAND 2 that occasionally benefit you, but in general hinder the player.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The game doesn't really have a punishment system in terms of losing lives, but instead losing coins, which can stop you from accessing treasures and puzzle pieces. Though I guess an aspect you could find repetitive is the format of some of the levels, as well as some music straight up being painful to listen to, though for the most part I was playing with video game music from my phone with headphones to ignore the ingame music.
The problem with repetitiveness in a game is it can start to feel like a chore doing the same thing over and over to complete said level, and in my opinion a big issue is while certain levels did introduce unique enemies/obstacles I feel like seeing the same pirate enemy in all levels was annoying, along with some minibosses amounting to: small enemy... BUT NOW BIG AND MULTIPLE HITS!
The final true level is a punishment as it's a time trial which wants the player to use tricks and tight navigation for getting to the end, and you can still mess up at the end since the final enemy is on a platform and you need to attack it with out it dropping to the second platform, just getting there is a pain in the ass, and I was lucky I was playing on my 2DS so it made reloads more bearable instead of having to go to the beginning of certain level segments.
For some reason, as great and fun yet repetitive this game is, it somehow still does something bad games do and that's putting all it's egg in 1 basket, all the difficult from the game is encapsulated within 1 level made to induce rage and piss the player off, I don't know why Nintendo thinks 1 level should represent difficulty instead of having harder yet reasonable to complete levels, they've done it so many times now, the most recent examples I can give are:
- DONKEY KONG COUNTRY TROPICAL FREEZE DELUXE
- SUPER MARIO 3D WORLD + BOWSER'S FURY
- SUPER MARIO BROS WONDER
Please understand I AM NOT CALLING THESE GAMES BAD, THEY ARE FANTASTIC, I just find it stupid they decide to make 1 hard as hell level only experts/adults can get through, instead of having reasonably difficult levels in their base games.
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I think the different ending branching paths are nice as it adds a reason to continue to replay old levels that have secret exits to reach these alternate endings as well as the normal ending, and True Ending:
- Normal Ending: Wario fights Captain Syrup with her floating in her mini ship and throws enemies and bombs at Wario, Wario uses the flame beneath him to defeat the Greedy Gold-digging Pirate and obtains all his money/treasure back.
- Alternate Path 1 - Wario sleeps over alarm and Captain Syrup takes over his Castle
- Alternate Path 2 - Wario goes to a sky temple or fortress and "saves" Captain Syrup from the Bubble monster but still kicks her ass sky high and takes back his money.
- Alternate Path 3 - Wario remains in the Haunted Mansion and "saves" Captain Syrup from the Stretchy Ghost but still kicks her ass out of the mansion sky high and takes back his money.
- Alternate Path 4 - Wario remains in the dangerous factory and fights Captain Syrup controlling a Giant Robot Pirate you use to take her down.
True Ending - After Collecting all 50 treasures (25 normal, 25 differing branches) and all 50 puzzle pieces, you get a map to Captain Syrup's grand treasure, in the final level Wario has a time trial to get to the treasure as fast as possible, at the end defeating a giant Pirate enemy and taking Syrups giant treaure... Wario is happy to be greedy and wealthy as ever... as he returns home... only to be followed by said Giant Pirate Enemy, as the game ends.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I think it does a lot of positives with featuring more levels and branching paths and different endings. It has a fun minigame when you 100% it that's essentially "SIMON SAYS" but it's a pirate duck giving the indication. I think the different final bosses are unique especially the one against the Bunny playing Basket Ball. The game does so many thing to make the WARIO LAND franchise it's own, but took away so many things/did them worse in this sequel. While it is cool having 50 levels, you need to essentially guess where the secret exits are if you're not using walkthrough. Another issue is that while WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3 had linearity there was freedom to tackle certain areas early depending on if you found certain secret exits. Power ups are more so occurrences that sometimes will benefit you, but other times won't. I think the main bosses are great, the minibosses are a joke especially because they're copy and paste.
I had fun with Wario Land 2 within the time I beat it, I think modern platforms for this game with Save States helps it be a great game, because it is. However I can see someone losing their patience with this game because of Trial and Error, and sometimes it being a chore to get through. More levels is fine, but you need to make the levels have quality as well so they don't feel repetitive and while adding a different objective can be seen as mixing it up. It can still feel like a lazy way of trying to mix things up instead of coming up with unique things.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I had a fun time with WARIO LAND 2 I think it has some flaws, but I think the positive thing to take from it is that it feels like Nintendo now know what they wanted the franchise to be, which is nice. I only hope that WARIO LAND 3 and 4 improve upon the issues I had with 2.
Overall I don't want to say it's better than WARIO LAND: SUPER MARIO LAND 3, I think honestly WARIO LAND 2 is either equal or slightly below the first game, still for what it does, it's a good game, that at the very least had nice esthetics to it.
I'm giving WARIO LAND 2 a 3.5 out of 5 STARS, i recommend it but I would recommend playing it on a device that has save states to truly enjoy it.
Thanks for reading. :D