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.