Hammontron
319 reviews liked by Hammontron
Is that Frieza
Fatal Fury
1991
Think the best way of articulating why I find this supposedly old/outdated fighter sick as someone who came to it without ever having played a subsequent SNK fighter is the infamous Geese Howard boss fight. In a vacuum, he's as cheap as its reputation would lead you to believe: his Reppuken has damage output that's approximately one third of your health as well as range high enough for it to severely limit your options against him and he can also casually invalidate the attacks you manage to land on him with a throw that does comparable damage to the Reppuken. Prepare to see that screen of your character falling out the window often.
However, the more times you die to him, the more predictable (no pun intended) his AI starts to become. If you jump forward and attack, he will always go forward and attack. If you try to approach him by using a special, he'll prevent you from doing so with the Reppuken. If you stand still, he'll do the same for a bit before making his move. So you have to pick up on every little quirk on his AI and find out how to bait him into a situation where he gets hit. While the sheer damage of his heavy hitting attacks would seem unfair, getting one hit on him more often than not means throwing him out of his comfort zone and turning that one hit into multiple, thus doing a similar amount of damage to what he would have done to you with one hit. If you keep this up, you can even get him into a situation where your special move will land on the early frames of his Reppuken, interrupting said attack. Through this plan of attack as well as, my noob at fighting games ass was able to eventually 2-0 him and throw him out the window like he did to me 28 times.
With its small player roster of three characters and its arcade mode that faces you off against opponents designed with no expectations of being playable, Fatal Fury 1 feels like it was designed as a single player game first and with multiplayer as an afterthought. And I am being 100% unironic when I say this design philosophy makes me feel like I became a better fighting game player, be it through learning how to exploit the habits of seemingly unbeatable opponents or by building up the ability to press buttons faster to make the most of those small moments of vulnerability when they pop up. As someone whose engagement with fighting games has usually been respecting them from the sidelines and/or having a quick laugh in a run of arcade mode on the lowest difficulty, I truly get them now.
However, the more times you die to him, the more predictable (no pun intended) his AI starts to become. If you jump forward and attack, he will always go forward and attack. If you try to approach him by using a special, he'll prevent you from doing so with the Reppuken. If you stand still, he'll do the same for a bit before making his move. So you have to pick up on every little quirk on his AI and find out how to bait him into a situation where he gets hit. While the sheer damage of his heavy hitting attacks would seem unfair, getting one hit on him more often than not means throwing him out of his comfort zone and turning that one hit into multiple, thus doing a similar amount of damage to what he would have done to you with one hit. If you keep this up, you can even get him into a situation where your special move will land on the early frames of his Reppuken, interrupting said attack. Through this plan of attack as well as, my noob at fighting games ass was able to eventually 2-0 him and throw him out the window like he did to me 28 times.
With its small player roster of three characters and its arcade mode that faces you off against opponents designed with no expectations of being playable, Fatal Fury 1 feels like it was designed as a single player game first and with multiplayer as an afterthought. And I am being 100% unironic when I say this design philosophy makes me feel like I became a better fighting game player, be it through learning how to exploit the habits of seemingly unbeatable opponents or by building up the ability to press buttons faster to make the most of those small moments of vulnerability when they pop up. As someone whose engagement with fighting games has usually been respecting them from the sidelines and/or having a quick laugh in a run of arcade mode on the lowest difficulty, I truly get them now.
Sonic Adventure 2
2012
extraordinarily conflicted about this. i literally ricochet between "this game is underrated and awesome" to "this game is dogshit" several times every play session. it continues to hold my attention after all this time, though, so that's got to count for something
The only time a lawyer can cry is when it's all over
River City Girls
2019
This review contains spoilers
I don't like feeling cynical towards games when I could invest time in more positive things, but River City Girls is twitterbait. I don't mean that out of pessimism or a weird anti-SJW way. It is a game orchestrated to cater to the in-crowds and hype circles of social media. It has nutty combo strings for DMC and FGC meatheads to share; callouts to Double Dragon, RCR and lolrandom gamer humor to get retro crowds in; pastel-neon 80's cityscapes filled with quirky shopkeeps and boba tea-adjacent wares for fashionistas and 'wow-so-aesthetic'-heads; celebrity Youtuber and VA cameos; smooth-chibi pixel art for artists and sakuga addicts to squeal over; really questionable ephebophilic touches that are synonymous with WayForward's transparently sexploitative side.
It's a game meant to appeal to several terminally online crowds - some good, some bad. With exception to a few scenarios, I can't find fault in developers and creative leads building a project that min/maxes appeal while staying true to a consistent vibe and vision. Devs gotta eat: You can't let your comrades starve because making a desirable project is 'cringe' or 'weak' in the eyes of a nebulous, journalistic ego.
But it's bad and I don't like the ways it's bad so I get total dibs on being mean to it, tee hee!
RCG is a Scott Pilgrim clone. Scott Pilgrim - by way of beat-em-ups, - is reeeeally bad (mandatory reading). RCG is thankfully a better-feeling game than SP, and its RPG structure carried over from the main Kunio-kun games makes more sense for this style of combat and player growth. Except that RCG is still bad on a scenario and encounter design standpoint - and oddly, it blows as an RPG, too. Stats gained from leveling up are mostly worthless because enemies scale with your level, too. You have to invest money in food items (as tradition from kunio and scott) to get buffs that will actually improve your odds above enemies. But shit is expensive in this game; you get hardly any money for how long it takes to beat guys. Instead, large cash sums are doled out after major events and bosses. You can't grind at your own pace; you have to wait until the game lets you empower yourself, undermining the point. Even Scott Pilgrim - a game that put grinding in a linear gameloop, - understood that leveling up in quantifiable chunks feels satisfying. And the money you get from these objectives is overkill too: Once you get a little past halfway, you have enough money to buy basically everything. Combat does become more fun with progression as your speed and movepool grows, but enemies also gain insane HP boosts as you go. The thrill of pulling off successful combo strings feels sorely diminished when end-game enemies tank 4 full volleys before dying, only to drop 3 bucks and negligible EXP.
And even though RCG is a better feeling game than Scott, it still has that ball-and-chain sense of weight dragging it down. Everyone stays knocked down for so long, enemies basically always beat out your priority on clashing attacks, while blocking out most incoming threats. At a certain point, I was mostly spamming dashing and jumping Heavies just so I could clear waves without risk of randomly getting pummeled - but it's not like there's much threat for dying anyway, since you spawn in the same area you left off with a little less money. It's just a matter of wasting time so you can avoid wasting marginally more time.
Bosses are a total embarrassment. Nintendo bosses don't belong in beat-em-ups. Even Scott had good bosses. End paragraph.
The one part that most of the internet dislikes - the normal ending, - felt lukewarm to me, because it's not like the plot leading up to its twist has anything going for it worth tarnishing. I was floored how much of the overarching conflict goes 'kyoko/misako look for kunio/riki -> kyoko/misako meets sex pest -> kyoko/misako demand info from sex pest -> sex pest demands task/fight before info -> sex pest admits they have no info'. There's no weight to this gamble, and none of the flavor text or dialogue spruces it up: It's 'lolawkward' quips and whedonisms for days. Honestly? I think the funniest bit this game's story has is that you spend the whole game beating up dumb incels, only to realize kyoko and Misako are equally dumb incels. (Guess more of this was scott pilgrim influenced than gameplay lmao). I think they should've kept that angle instead of retconning it through the secret ending and sequel.
I gotta be somewhat nice to RCG so I will say that the spritework here might be a top 10 for me, it's really fucking smooth. It's a flat, cel-shaded, blocky style of animation with cubical body frames and chunky appendages that feels totally perfect for belt-scroll knuckledusting. It's definitely too good to a fault tho, as all the expensive animation means the enemy roster is pitifully small and starts repeating as early as the main town areas. Alternate palette enemies don't even have many differences from each other, so it can't even fake variety the way footclan soldiers and yellow signals of old can. I'm stunned you could draw 500 whole frames for this one enemy type, but... did you need to? Do you see what a design inconvenience that can be?
Even though I got some fleeting dope highs from RCG, I felt totally exasperated by it in a way I hadn't felt in years. Where SP at least feels like a well-intentioned project that got caught up in unusual ambitions and clashing systems, RCG feels unambiguously corporate and petty: A surface-level understanding of beatemups and action titles, hidden by videogameisms and trend-chasing. SP was excusable in 2010 amidst a total drought of meaningfully-stylish projects, but RCG in 2019 released too close to SoR4 and several other action gigs; it feels like limp bait. It has passionate work put into it, but was clearly assembled and marketed with visions of golden geese.
It's a game meant to appeal to several terminally online crowds - some good, some bad. With exception to a few scenarios, I can't find fault in developers and creative leads building a project that min/maxes appeal while staying true to a consistent vibe and vision. Devs gotta eat: You can't let your comrades starve because making a desirable project is 'cringe' or 'weak' in the eyes of a nebulous, journalistic ego.
But it's bad and I don't like the ways it's bad so I get total dibs on being mean to it, tee hee!
RCG is a Scott Pilgrim clone. Scott Pilgrim - by way of beat-em-ups, - is reeeeally bad (mandatory reading). RCG is thankfully a better-feeling game than SP, and its RPG structure carried over from the main Kunio-kun games makes more sense for this style of combat and player growth. Except that RCG is still bad on a scenario and encounter design standpoint - and oddly, it blows as an RPG, too. Stats gained from leveling up are mostly worthless because enemies scale with your level, too. You have to invest money in food items (as tradition from kunio and scott) to get buffs that will actually improve your odds above enemies. But shit is expensive in this game; you get hardly any money for how long it takes to beat guys. Instead, large cash sums are doled out after major events and bosses. You can't grind at your own pace; you have to wait until the game lets you empower yourself, undermining the point. Even Scott Pilgrim - a game that put grinding in a linear gameloop, - understood that leveling up in quantifiable chunks feels satisfying. And the money you get from these objectives is overkill too: Once you get a little past halfway, you have enough money to buy basically everything. Combat does become more fun with progression as your speed and movepool grows, but enemies also gain insane HP boosts as you go. The thrill of pulling off successful combo strings feels sorely diminished when end-game enemies tank 4 full volleys before dying, only to drop 3 bucks and negligible EXP.
And even though RCG is a better feeling game than Scott, it still has that ball-and-chain sense of weight dragging it down. Everyone stays knocked down for so long, enemies basically always beat out your priority on clashing attacks, while blocking out most incoming threats. At a certain point, I was mostly spamming dashing and jumping Heavies just so I could clear waves without risk of randomly getting pummeled - but it's not like there's much threat for dying anyway, since you spawn in the same area you left off with a little less money. It's just a matter of wasting time so you can avoid wasting marginally more time.
Bosses are a total embarrassment. Nintendo bosses don't belong in beat-em-ups. Even Scott had good bosses. End paragraph.
The one part that most of the internet dislikes - the normal ending, - felt lukewarm to me, because it's not like the plot leading up to its twist has anything going for it worth tarnishing. I was floored how much of the overarching conflict goes 'kyoko/misako look for kunio/riki -> kyoko/misako meets sex pest -> kyoko/misako demand info from sex pest -> sex pest demands task/fight before info -> sex pest admits they have no info'. There's no weight to this gamble, and none of the flavor text or dialogue spruces it up: It's 'lolawkward' quips and whedonisms for days. Honestly? I think the funniest bit this game's story has is that you spend the whole game beating up dumb incels, only to realize kyoko and Misako are equally dumb incels. (Guess more of this was scott pilgrim influenced than gameplay lmao). I think they should've kept that angle instead of retconning it through the secret ending and sequel.
I gotta be somewhat nice to RCG so I will say that the spritework here might be a top 10 for me, it's really fucking smooth. It's a flat, cel-shaded, blocky style of animation with cubical body frames and chunky appendages that feels totally perfect for belt-scroll knuckledusting. It's definitely too good to a fault tho, as all the expensive animation means the enemy roster is pitifully small and starts repeating as early as the main town areas. Alternate palette enemies don't even have many differences from each other, so it can't even fake variety the way footclan soldiers and yellow signals of old can. I'm stunned you could draw 500 whole frames for this one enemy type, but... did you need to? Do you see what a design inconvenience that can be?
Even though I got some fleeting dope highs from RCG, I felt totally exasperated by it in a way I hadn't felt in years. Where SP at least feels like a well-intentioned project that got caught up in unusual ambitions and clashing systems, RCG feels unambiguously corporate and petty: A surface-level understanding of beatemups and action titles, hidden by videogameisms and trend-chasing. SP was excusable in 2010 amidst a total drought of meaningfully-stylish projects, but RCG in 2019 released too close to SoR4 and several other action gigs; it feels like limp bait. It has passionate work put into it, but was clearly assembled and marketed with visions of golden geese.
River City Girls
2019
Tryhard parody attempt at catering to the ironic weeb crowd, the ones who don't get why anime is popular other than meme culture so it's chock full of bad voice acting, ORAORAORA XD, and writing that pretends to be self aware while unironically having a Dab attack. The only ones here making a genuine effort and sounding sincere are the singers, but that's why soundtracks are sold separately.
Cringe. River City Ramson wasn't even that good to warrant a revival.
Cringe. River City Ramson wasn't even that good to warrant a revival.
Super Castlevania IV
1991
It's fine.
When folks decry Super for being a blasphemous take on the tried-and-true formula of Classicvania with it's eight-directional whipping, they're absolutely justified in their thought. It takes away the strategical element that made us love the thinking person's aspect behind the careful movement. An entire sub-system becomes a complete afterthought, with them only being convenient at hyper-specific instances rather than something that was there to truly compliment our whipping prowess to help with entire courses and encounters. Taking a death becomes less threatening as losing a sub-weapon essentially turns into a very minor slap on the wrist at worst, as an empty sub-weapon box may as well had been what it felt like the entire time we had been playing.
It's an ordeal that can't be simply ignored in a self-imposed challenge like the charged mega buster in every NES era Mega Man past the third game, and you're left with Simon being able to skillfully twirl his whip better than any other Belmont before or after him. Perhaps Simon was always meant to be presented as the most headstrong and bullish of the family? Characterization through mechanics? It remains to be seen if that was the intent, or if it was supposed to be an "evolution". An evolution that no doubt would've made this entry an even bigger target of contempt, especially if the stage design would continue to fail to compliment the new system beyond smattering a few bats flying down from odd angles, and if we could still easily thwart Axe Armors from below the floor they're standing on. Luckily for all of us however, this would be the only time such a new take would be used, and instead of being a deplorable turning point for the series, it is in fact unique and now it's own experience.
A retelling of the original that shows Simon's entire journey from beyond Devil's Castle, braving the horrors that crept from the onset of the horrid manifestation of Dracula's power within what was once a peaceful forest accompanied by strings of a violin within a purple and grey console. A walk through the caves with beautiful woodwind arrangements, and mesmerizing illusions brought upon by the seventh mode conjured by unknown forces presumably under the control of the dark lord himself. The approach to familiar scenery from the beginning of our original story of the legendary quest partnered by intimidating percussion for nightmares to come. We make our way through the retold portions of Simon's tale, and upon completion hear echoes of our past one last time before we must move on to beginnings of a new generation. The slow haunting keys of an organ cue the entry of Dracula to the main stage. Simon's Theme of which signaled the entrance of the hero at the very start, returns once again at the final moment the Count is nearing his defeat to build the audience's tension to the epic conclusion of the adventure. The orchestra plays to the agonizing death of the villain, and rings in daylight's victory over the darkness.
The fabled saga, retold and reimagined with added flare of chilling drama and suspense. Not to replace the original, but to remember it through a more cinematic lens. Forever immortal.
When folks decry Super for being a blasphemous take on the tried-and-true formula of Classicvania with it's eight-directional whipping, they're absolutely justified in their thought. It takes away the strategical element that made us love the thinking person's aspect behind the careful movement. An entire sub-system becomes a complete afterthought, with them only being convenient at hyper-specific instances rather than something that was there to truly compliment our whipping prowess to help with entire courses and encounters. Taking a death becomes less threatening as losing a sub-weapon essentially turns into a very minor slap on the wrist at worst, as an empty sub-weapon box may as well had been what it felt like the entire time we had been playing.
It's an ordeal that can't be simply ignored in a self-imposed challenge like the charged mega buster in every NES era Mega Man past the third game, and you're left with Simon being able to skillfully twirl his whip better than any other Belmont before or after him. Perhaps Simon was always meant to be presented as the most headstrong and bullish of the family? Characterization through mechanics? It remains to be seen if that was the intent, or if it was supposed to be an "evolution". An evolution that no doubt would've made this entry an even bigger target of contempt, especially if the stage design would continue to fail to compliment the new system beyond smattering a few bats flying down from odd angles, and if we could still easily thwart Axe Armors from below the floor they're standing on. Luckily for all of us however, this would be the only time such a new take would be used, and instead of being a deplorable turning point for the series, it is in fact unique and now it's own experience.
A retelling of the original that shows Simon's entire journey from beyond Devil's Castle, braving the horrors that crept from the onset of the horrid manifestation of Dracula's power within what was once a peaceful forest accompanied by strings of a violin within a purple and grey console. A walk through the caves with beautiful woodwind arrangements, and mesmerizing illusions brought upon by the seventh mode conjured by unknown forces presumably under the control of the dark lord himself. The approach to familiar scenery from the beginning of our original story of the legendary quest partnered by intimidating percussion for nightmares to come. We make our way through the retold portions of Simon's tale, and upon completion hear echoes of our past one last time before we must move on to beginnings of a new generation. The slow haunting keys of an organ cue the entry of Dracula to the main stage. Simon's Theme of which signaled the entrance of the hero at the very start, returns once again at the final moment the Count is nearing his defeat to build the audience's tension to the epic conclusion of the adventure. The orchestra plays to the agonizing death of the villain, and rings in daylight's victory over the darkness.
The fabled saga, retold and reimagined with added flare of chilling drama and suspense. Not to replace the original, but to remember it through a more cinematic lens. Forever immortal.
Wario Land 4
2001
The circlejerk around this being correct is proof that a broken clock (the average Nintendo fan) is right twice a day
Wario Land 3
2000
For a bit Wario to me was just a guy who I'd see in Mario-related spinoffs like Mario Party and Mario Kart 64. I would always pick him for some reason, I couldn't quite pinpoint a particular reason other than that I liked the cut of his jib. My friends at elementary would be all "Wario Land 2 rules" or would complain about the Wario castle in Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins. I never got to play these games though until much later, so for a time Wario never got to reach that status of being "beloved" like Spyro, Sonic or even Robbit from Jumping Flash. He was just "that fat guy with the goofy grin" I liked to play as.
That is until I took a trip with my family to Toys R' Us with some meager allowance money I saved up for a month and took a gander at the Game Boy Color section. Thar she blowed. It was Wario Land 3. I had seen this game in gaming magazines and it looked pretty cool! That coupled with my classmates' word of mouth of how good prior games were made me curious. Suddenly, Pokemon Silver had competition! Shit just got fuckin' real! My Game Boy Color no longer had a Pokemon game of ANY kind in it, did these games finally meet their match?! Apparently so!
One day Wario decided to go on a trip in his airplane, but of course as you'd expect the dumb oaf forgets to fuel it and crashes in the middle of a forest. He stumbles upon a music box in a cave and then gets sucked into it! Suddenly Wario finds himself in a another world and in a predicament where he must help some very trustworthy face in a temple gain back their power, so Wario can be sent back to his own world (and keep the treasure he collects along the way of course). This world also really really REALLY loves golf, a specific more brutal version of it that requires using a little yellow guy as the ball.
Unfortunately Wario had been slacking off more than usual, so he has lost a few of his abilities and has been weakened a bit since the last game. He is however still strong enough to be completely invincible to ALMOST everything in the game. Enemies instead either stun you with huge knockback or make you change form, which is normally a detriment, but can also be helpful. Sometimes it's a good thing to be lit on fire, or be turned into a sliding ice statue that knocks out giant toads! My favorite visual is still Wario getting dizzied by a bird creature that flies past him, making him stumble walk like a drunkard, falling down a trap hole and straight into water that suddenly sobers him up. It's ridiculous, much like the game's concept in general honestly.
How else do you make a platforming game interesting when you can't die? With puzzles, interesting mechanics that are used to their fullest, and fun boss fights? Absolutely. When you begin this game you'll only have one stage to go to, but as you collect treasure more stages will be opened up and new sections of prior stages will be available/reachable. You see, Wario cannot travel to the The Peaceful Village next to the woods he started in, because he needs the Axe of Chopping! He cannot hope to get past that tree in his way without the Axe of Chopping! Once that tree is out of the way he can now travel to the Peaceful Village as well as The Vast Plain! In addition to treasures just plainly helping Wario in little cute cutscenes, these treasures can also help Wario get back in tip-top shape and gain back his old abilities or even have them upgraded. One of the treasures is just a literal bulb of garlic which gives him an upgraded shoulder tackle, another is also the high-jump boots from Metroid! Extended Nintendo universe? More likely than you think.
By the way, that village ain't peaceful, depending on the time of day it's either crawling with zombies or little baker guys throwing doughnuts at you (they make you fatter, literally).
Game is kooky as shit and so well-designed. It instantly made me fall in love with Wario as a character, and that love would only grow overtime as I played more of his games. It's a true mark of an amazing series when not one game is clearly above the rest, and Wario Land to me is a prime example of that. WL3 will always be my personal favorite, because aside from nostalgia and those music boxes always making me misty eyed like a fuckin' baby, it's the one that feels most like a treasure hunt. Exploring all over music box world for new items and watching as the overworld map changes constantly to indicate your progression, it's like crack to me. If I could commission someone to make a fully-functioning replica of the music box from this game I would, that's how much love I've got for this favorite from my childhood.
God, Wario fucking rules. My man, you're the best.
That is until I took a trip with my family to Toys R' Us with some meager allowance money I saved up for a month and took a gander at the Game Boy Color section. Thar she blowed. It was Wario Land 3. I had seen this game in gaming magazines and it looked pretty cool! That coupled with my classmates' word of mouth of how good prior games were made me curious. Suddenly, Pokemon Silver had competition! Shit just got fuckin' real! My Game Boy Color no longer had a Pokemon game of ANY kind in it, did these games finally meet their match?! Apparently so!
One day Wario decided to go on a trip in his airplane, but of course as you'd expect the dumb oaf forgets to fuel it and crashes in the middle of a forest. He stumbles upon a music box in a cave and then gets sucked into it! Suddenly Wario finds himself in a another world and in a predicament where he must help some very trustworthy face in a temple gain back their power, so Wario can be sent back to his own world (and keep the treasure he collects along the way of course). This world also really really REALLY loves golf, a specific more brutal version of it that requires using a little yellow guy as the ball.
Unfortunately Wario had been slacking off more than usual, so he has lost a few of his abilities and has been weakened a bit since the last game. He is however still strong enough to be completely invincible to ALMOST everything in the game. Enemies instead either stun you with huge knockback or make you change form, which is normally a detriment, but can also be helpful. Sometimes it's a good thing to be lit on fire, or be turned into a sliding ice statue that knocks out giant toads! My favorite visual is still Wario getting dizzied by a bird creature that flies past him, making him stumble walk like a drunkard, falling down a trap hole and straight into water that suddenly sobers him up. It's ridiculous, much like the game's concept in general honestly.
How else do you make a platforming game interesting when you can't die? With puzzles, interesting mechanics that are used to their fullest, and fun boss fights? Absolutely. When you begin this game you'll only have one stage to go to, but as you collect treasure more stages will be opened up and new sections of prior stages will be available/reachable. You see, Wario cannot travel to the The Peaceful Village next to the woods he started in, because he needs the Axe of Chopping! He cannot hope to get past that tree in his way without the Axe of Chopping! Once that tree is out of the way he can now travel to the Peaceful Village as well as The Vast Plain! In addition to treasures just plainly helping Wario in little cute cutscenes, these treasures can also help Wario get back in tip-top shape and gain back his old abilities or even have them upgraded. One of the treasures is just a literal bulb of garlic which gives him an upgraded shoulder tackle, another is also the high-jump boots from Metroid! Extended Nintendo universe? More likely than you think.
By the way, that village ain't peaceful, depending on the time of day it's either crawling with zombies or little baker guys throwing doughnuts at you (they make you fatter, literally).
Game is kooky as shit and so well-designed. It instantly made me fall in love with Wario as a character, and that love would only grow overtime as I played more of his games. It's a true mark of an amazing series when not one game is clearly above the rest, and Wario Land to me is a prime example of that. WL3 will always be my personal favorite, because aside from nostalgia and those music boxes always making me misty eyed like a fuckin' baby, it's the one that feels most like a treasure hunt. Exploring all over music box world for new items and watching as the overworld map changes constantly to indicate your progression, it's like crack to me. If I could commission someone to make a fully-functioning replica of the music box from this game I would, that's how much love I've got for this favorite from my childhood.
God, Wario fucking rules. My man, you're the best.
The idea of turning a villain into a main character is one that always interested me, even back then I remember being disappointed that you actually didn't play as Dr. Robotnik in Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine. Of course, I never really played Super Mario Land 2 growing up, so I barely knew about Wario's escapades prior to my time of only playing as him in Mario Tennis or Mario Party 2, because "funny chubby guy". I regret to say, aside from the Virtual Boy game this is the Wario Land that I've completed the least amount of times probably, not because it sucks but I just literally never got around to playing it until way later once I got emulation going on my PSP. I finally completed it there after years of going "FEH! WHAT A WEIRD GAME! WHY ISN'T WARIO GETTING SET ON FIRE?!", but I never got around to replaying it again until now after suddenly going "you know what? It's the year of Wario baby. Wario Time!"
Shifting the entire series to Wario is really great, it's totally in-character for Wario to steal the series from that glory-seeking asshole Mario. With this change we also get to see just how different of a character Wario is from that pansy in red. You see, Wario is a true heavyweight, he has an odd weight to his jumps and his method of attack is shoulder charging and taking enemies and throwing them at each other. It works a bit too well imo, Wario always had one of my favorite movesets for a side-scrolling character. The hat power ups though always kinda weirded me out, I guess it was a strange leftover from SML2 where Mario was using bunny ears, but why didn't Wario have the jet cap when he fought Mario? That thing is ridiculous! It makes him faster and allows him to just fly across entire stages! Mario's cape is jealous!
Even the music has changed. It's got this funny "ugly" vibe going on to match with Wario himself. I love it!
Wario Land 1 isn't my favorite game in the series, it's a fairly basic side-scrolling affair with Wario at the helm instead of Mario, and has yet to blossom into the masterful series it would become. Weird quirks leftover from SML2 and standard platformer design kinda drag it a bit like the odd checkpoints that are often in random doors in the middle of stages, and the horrifically unbalanced items that make SMW jealous. A great game still regardless, a true sign of things to come as things would only look up from here!
One funny thing I should mention is that I recall watching a friend play this at recess and seeing the duck enemies in-game made me think they were grannies throwing newspapers at you. It's a dumb observation that stuck with me when I played this. I guess that's just how shitty the Game Boy screen was.
Shifting the entire series to Wario is really great, it's totally in-character for Wario to steal the series from that glory-seeking asshole Mario. With this change we also get to see just how different of a character Wario is from that pansy in red. You see, Wario is a true heavyweight, he has an odd weight to his jumps and his method of attack is shoulder charging and taking enemies and throwing them at each other. It works a bit too well imo, Wario always had one of my favorite movesets for a side-scrolling character. The hat power ups though always kinda weirded me out, I guess it was a strange leftover from SML2 where Mario was using bunny ears, but why didn't Wario have the jet cap when he fought Mario? That thing is ridiculous! It makes him faster and allows him to just fly across entire stages! Mario's cape is jealous!
Even the music has changed. It's got this funny "ugly" vibe going on to match with Wario himself. I love it!
Wario Land 1 isn't my favorite game in the series, it's a fairly basic side-scrolling affair with Wario at the helm instead of Mario, and has yet to blossom into the masterful series it would become. Weird quirks leftover from SML2 and standard platformer design kinda drag it a bit like the odd checkpoints that are often in random doors in the middle of stages, and the horrifically unbalanced items that make SMW jealous. A great game still regardless, a true sign of things to come as things would only look up from here!
One funny thing I should mention is that I recall watching a friend play this at recess and seeing the duck enemies in-game made me think they were grannies throwing newspapers at you. It's a dumb observation that stuck with me when I played this. I guess that's just how shitty the Game Boy screen was.
