(This is the 90th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet/blog is in my bio.)
Mario felt so bad after kicking Wario's butt in Super Mario Land 2 that he decided to gift him his Game Boy series. So in his first adventure as the protagonist, Wario figures out a path to obtaining enough money to buy a castle for himself in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, which initially released on January 21st, 1994 as a first-party Nintendo title exclusively for the Game Boy.
It went on to sell over 5 million units to date and released to mostly positive reviews at the time. Wario would go on to start in plenty more games after this, including Wario Land 2 to 4, as well as Wario World and Wario Land: Shake It! among others. Wario was still a very new Nintendo creation at the time of this game's release, having debuted just a little over a year prior to this as the final boss of Super Mario Land 2. All players knew about him at the time was that he was a bad guy who stole Mario's appearance and castle (he would be called the "wicked imposter" in commercials for that game), and with the release of this game, the manual would go on to describe him as "mean and ugly". You would also quickly come to understand that Wario is quite a greedy individual. You'd think that doesn't sound like the ideal protagonist, but 1) the sales numbers tell a different story and 2) I can appreciate a unique personality for a protagonist in the video game medium, where "Protagonist saves the world" stories are all you have at this point in time.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
Wario lost his chance at his own castle when Mario took his own castle back from the thieving hands of Wario. Wario remains steadfast in his desire to find his own castle howevere, and one day, he hears of a rumor that the giant golden statue of Princess Peach got stolen by the pirates of Kitchen Island. "Mario is looking for it but, if I find it first, I could cash it in for a princess' ransom." Wario is looking to get enough money to buy a castle that is even bigger than the one Mario has.
This little summary of what you find in the manual is pretty much all you get here, apart from the endings, which I think add a lot here. Depending on how many coins you collect through your playthrough, you can get one of five different endings in this game. The thresholds are not known to me, but if you don't reach the first threshold, a cutscene plays where Wario hands a genie one bag of coins and gets ... a tiny birdhouse. Wario looks to the floor in disappointment and as a player, you can't help but feel sorry for him. Get more coins and you can get Wario a ... treehouse, which he also doesn't like. Keep going and you can finally get him his castle at one point. Reach the 99,999 limit of coins and a surprising gift awaits Wario. I thought these were well done and add nice incentive to do well during your playthrough.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
Wario Land plays like the uglier version of Mario Land, which fits the two characters and therefore, if this was intended, should be seen as a compliment. In reality though, I just couldn't enjoy my time playing this game as much as I would have liked.
The game is functional and overall well made, as is typical for a first-party Nintendo title. The end product does not equate fun to me however. Similarly to many Mario adventures, you see Wario on an overworld and start in World #1 Stage #1. With each stage or 'course' that you beat, you get closer to the boss stage. Beat the boss, and the next world opens up.
Each world is themed differently and each course has its own challenges for the player to overcome through platforming. You have to watch out for enemies, spikes, gravity and something that looks like water but actually isn't and will kill you.
What makes or breaks platformers though is how you engage with these challenges, and in that regard, I think Wario Land falls short in what makes a platformer enjoyable to me. First off, Wario Land's gameplay is really slow and repetitive. Through the first two worlds, most of what I experienced felt pretty much the same, looked mostly the same and played exactly the same. Few enemy types (there are a total of 10 in this game with little variety), low difficulty (apart from many cheap deaths like the aforementioned "water" and jumps having to be a lot more precise than one can comfortably do) and bland power-up choices.
Wario can have a normal size and a shrunk-down version of himself just like Mario. When he is at his normal size, finding a "pot" allows him to become Jet Wario (which lets him fly for a short period of time), Bull Wario (attach Wario to the ceiling with the horns) and Dragon Wario (fire breathing skill). Wario has no speed to speak of and the challenges are just way too one-dimensional to ever really get a fun gameplay loop going in this game.
As far as items to collect go, there are only three. A star like in the Mario games, which I found just once. Hearts, which you find regularly and which give you 10 points to your heart counter (when you get 100, you get 1 extra life) and a key, which you are meant to carry while you search for a treasure room, which you need to find to get better (and the best) endings.
It's all competently made but it just plays like one of the less inspired Nintendo games of its time.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 3/10
No voice acting. For sounds and the soundtrack, I've played plenty of Game Boy games by now and I understand its limited sound capabilities. That said, Wario Land is one of the worst sounding games I've played during this challenge and has among the worst soundtracks of games I have played that were professionally made. I assume it's supposed to be a somewhat uglier soundtrack to tell us that we're playing a Wario game, not a Mario game, but man, I feel the need to apologize to my ears for having exposed them to this. None of the tracks I heard in this game ever felt like they had any cohesion in their composition and just sounded like an odd mix of horrible sounds. Usually when I play these monotonous platformers, I have the soundtrack to lean back on and to at least bop my heads to some of the tracks. Here, I wouldn't even know when to bop because way too often there is seemingly no rhythm in these tracks. If this is supposed to be intentional and there truly is that hidden meaning of "Wario is just an uglier version of Mario, so the soundtrack is supposed to show that", than that's fine, but doesn't make the soundtrack less bad sounding.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 5/10
The limitations of the Game Boy are excusable to a point, but we are closing in on the 32 bit gen of video games and from the perspective of anyone not tied down to a handheld system, the games on the Game Boy look pretty bad for the most part. What devs can mainly do visually is to be creative in their visual design of levels and keeping things varied. While Wario Land has some of that variety I'm talking about, it doesn't have a lot of it and whenever things visually do look somewhat different, the gameplay still feels the same. Sprites are also really big here, so they cover for more of the screen than I'd personally like. It negatively impacted gameplay as well, especially during sections with spikes at the ceiling.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10
The game kind of does a good job of presenting us with the 'uglier' version of Mario, as they described Wario at the time, by making a lot about the game ugly as well. Whether it's by design at times and not by design at others, whether the atmosphere the game presents is on purpose or isn't, it's just not something I would consider very pleasant in how it is presented.
CONTENT | 5/10
There are seven worlds with multiple courses each. After each course, you can gamble your money to try to double it or play a mini game to try to get an extra life. There are also 4 treasures you need to find to have a chance at the best ending. Overall, this game is on the longer side of platformers, but I feel like this is one of the few Nintendo first-party platformers that really shouldn't be anywhere near this long. A similar length to Kirby's Dream Land due to the lack of features would have suited this better.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
The length of most levels here is OK, however most of them lack fair and interesting challenge. While the game is generally too easy, whenever it does get difficult, it's more often than not because of the poor controls and big sprites that you have to combat than actually having to show off the skills you've learned while playing this game. That said, when you pass some worlds and come back to them, new areas open up, so there is some reason for players to explore and experiment in this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 3/10
This is, at its best, a platformer like you've seen hundreds of times already by the time this game was released. At its worst and, mostly at its normal state, it's the worse version of those platformers due to a lack of variation and slow gameplay.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
The endings add replay value to those who enjoy the game's gameplay, especially the best ending, which will require you to find and open all treasure chests.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 46/100
A good example of a competently made game that just isn't a lot of fun to play, even though it works as intended. Clearly, a lot of people disagree with me based on its sales numbers at the time and its score on a site like MobyGames, but I can't pretend to have enjoyed the very limited offering here just to go with the majority's opinion, at least critically at the time. On top of that, the game was not nice to listen to either, a rare occurence within gaming I feel, at least among known games.
Mario felt so bad after kicking Wario's butt in Super Mario Land 2 that he decided to gift him his Game Boy series. So in his first adventure as the protagonist, Wario figures out a path to obtaining enough money to buy a castle for himself in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, which initially released on January 21st, 1994 as a first-party Nintendo title exclusively for the Game Boy.
It went on to sell over 5 million units to date and released to mostly positive reviews at the time. Wario would go on to start in plenty more games after this, including Wario Land 2 to 4, as well as Wario World and Wario Land: Shake It! among others. Wario was still a very new Nintendo creation at the time of this game's release, having debuted just a little over a year prior to this as the final boss of Super Mario Land 2. All players knew about him at the time was that he was a bad guy who stole Mario's appearance and castle (he would be called the "wicked imposter" in commercials for that game), and with the release of this game, the manual would go on to describe him as "mean and ugly". You would also quickly come to understand that Wario is quite a greedy individual. You'd think that doesn't sound like the ideal protagonist, but 1) the sales numbers tell a different story and 2) I can appreciate a unique personality for a protagonist in the video game medium, where "Protagonist saves the world" stories are all you have at this point in time.
STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 3/10
Wario lost his chance at his own castle when Mario took his own castle back from the thieving hands of Wario. Wario remains steadfast in his desire to find his own castle howevere, and one day, he hears of a rumor that the giant golden statue of Princess Peach got stolen by the pirates of Kitchen Island. "Mario is looking for it but, if I find it first, I could cash it in for a princess' ransom." Wario is looking to get enough money to buy a castle that is even bigger than the one Mario has.
This little summary of what you find in the manual is pretty much all you get here, apart from the endings, which I think add a lot here. Depending on how many coins you collect through your playthrough, you can get one of five different endings in this game. The thresholds are not known to me, but if you don't reach the first threshold, a cutscene plays where Wario hands a genie one bag of coins and gets ... a tiny birdhouse. Wario looks to the floor in disappointment and as a player, you can't help but feel sorry for him. Get more coins and you can get Wario a ... treehouse, which he also doesn't like. Keep going and you can finally get him his castle at one point. Reach the 99,999 limit of coins and a surprising gift awaits Wario. I thought these were well done and add nice incentive to do well during your playthrough.
GAMEPLAY | 9/20
Wario Land plays like the uglier version of Mario Land, which fits the two characters and therefore, if this was intended, should be seen as a compliment. In reality though, I just couldn't enjoy my time playing this game as much as I would have liked.
The game is functional and overall well made, as is typical for a first-party Nintendo title. The end product does not equate fun to me however. Similarly to many Mario adventures, you see Wario on an overworld and start in World #1 Stage #1. With each stage or 'course' that you beat, you get closer to the boss stage. Beat the boss, and the next world opens up.
Each world is themed differently and each course has its own challenges for the player to overcome through platforming. You have to watch out for enemies, spikes, gravity and something that looks like water but actually isn't and will kill you.
What makes or breaks platformers though is how you engage with these challenges, and in that regard, I think Wario Land falls short in what makes a platformer enjoyable to me. First off, Wario Land's gameplay is really slow and repetitive. Through the first two worlds, most of what I experienced felt pretty much the same, looked mostly the same and played exactly the same. Few enemy types (there are a total of 10 in this game with little variety), low difficulty (apart from many cheap deaths like the aforementioned "water" and jumps having to be a lot more precise than one can comfortably do) and bland power-up choices.
Wario can have a normal size and a shrunk-down version of himself just like Mario. When he is at his normal size, finding a "pot" allows him to become Jet Wario (which lets him fly for a short period of time), Bull Wario (attach Wario to the ceiling with the horns) and Dragon Wario (fire breathing skill). Wario has no speed to speak of and the challenges are just way too one-dimensional to ever really get a fun gameplay loop going in this game.
As far as items to collect go, there are only three. A star like in the Mario games, which I found just once. Hearts, which you find regularly and which give you 10 points to your heart counter (when you get 100, you get 1 extra life) and a key, which you are meant to carry while you search for a treasure room, which you need to find to get better (and the best) endings.
It's all competently made but it just plays like one of the less inspired Nintendo games of its time.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 3/10
No voice acting. For sounds and the soundtrack, I've played plenty of Game Boy games by now and I understand its limited sound capabilities. That said, Wario Land is one of the worst sounding games I've played during this challenge and has among the worst soundtracks of games I have played that were professionally made. I assume it's supposed to be a somewhat uglier soundtrack to tell us that we're playing a Wario game, not a Mario game, but man, I feel the need to apologize to my ears for having exposed them to this. None of the tracks I heard in this game ever felt like they had any cohesion in their composition and just sounded like an odd mix of horrible sounds. Usually when I play these monotonous platformers, I have the soundtrack to lean back on and to at least bop my heads to some of the tracks. Here, I wouldn't even know when to bop because way too often there is seemingly no rhythm in these tracks. If this is supposed to be intentional and there truly is that hidden meaning of "Wario is just an uglier version of Mario, so the soundtrack is supposed to show that", than that's fine, but doesn't make the soundtrack less bad sounding.
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 5/10
The limitations of the Game Boy are excusable to a point, but we are closing in on the 32 bit gen of video games and from the perspective of anyone not tied down to a handheld system, the games on the Game Boy look pretty bad for the most part. What devs can mainly do visually is to be creative in their visual design of levels and keeping things varied. While Wario Land has some of that variety I'm talking about, it doesn't have a lot of it and whenever things visually do look somewhat different, the gameplay still feels the same. Sprites are also really big here, so they cover for more of the screen than I'd personally like. It negatively impacted gameplay as well, especially during sections with spikes at the ceiling.
ATMOSPHERE/IMMERSION | 5/10
The game kind of does a good job of presenting us with the 'uglier' version of Mario, as they described Wario at the time, by making a lot about the game ugly as well. Whether it's by design at times and not by design at others, whether the atmosphere the game presents is on purpose or isn't, it's just not something I would consider very pleasant in how it is presented.
CONTENT | 5/10
There are seven worlds with multiple courses each. After each course, you can gamble your money to try to double it or play a mini game to try to get an extra life. There are also 4 treasures you need to find to have a chance at the best ending. Overall, this game is on the longer side of platformers, but I feel like this is one of the few Nintendo first-party platformers that really shouldn't be anywhere near this long. A similar length to Kirby's Dream Land due to the lack of features would have suited this better.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 5/10
The length of most levels here is OK, however most of them lack fair and interesting challenge. While the game is generally too easy, whenever it does get difficult, it's more often than not because of the poor controls and big sprites that you have to combat than actually having to show off the skills you've learned while playing this game. That said, when you pass some worlds and come back to them, new areas open up, so there is some reason for players to explore and experiment in this game.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 3/10
This is, at its best, a platformer like you've seen hundreds of times already by the time this game was released. At its worst and, mostly at its normal state, it's the worse version of those platformers due to a lack of variation and slow gameplay.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
The endings add replay value to those who enjoy the game's gameplay, especially the best ending, which will require you to find and open all treasure chests.
PLAYABILITY | 5/5
Works well at all times.
OVERALL | 46/100
A good example of a competently made game that just isn't a lot of fun to play, even though it works as intended. Clearly, a lot of people disagree with me based on its sales numbers at the time and its score on a site like MobyGames, but I can't pretend to have enjoyed the very limited offering here just to go with the majority's opinion, at least critically at the time. On top of that, the game was not nice to listen to either, a rare occurence within gaming I feel, at least among known games.