Pros: Incredible 3D experience, the sprite-work and animation, how graphics are layered and stacked on the 2D plane, is really a sight to behold in stereoscopic 3D.
But that's just what jumps out at ya first, dig in and you've got a pretty solid 2D platformer adventure game! Levels are more exploratory focused where you need to find a key hidden in each stage in order to open the exit gate that leads to an elevator at the end of the level. Wario's got his signature shoulder barge and ground pound attacks after you get a number of power-ups, which, by the way are pretty excellent here. Unlike Mario games, these power-ups have a neat mix-n-match system, the bull horns gives you a stronger charge and a ground pound, the gator lets you breathe fire, and the eagle lets you glide, but then there's the ultimate combo that gives you a dragon that lets you glide, breath fireballs, and a ground pound. It's pretty satisfying! Another signature element of the game are the separate planes you can jump between, the foreground and background, which to my knowledge, this was the first game to really achieve that style of gameplay, prior to Donkey Kong Country Returns, the Paper Mario games, Kirby on 3DS, and Mario Wonder... And you know what? It may have done them even BETTER! And that's saying a lot coming from me, I don't even like Wario that much, heck, I'm not even a fan of the other Wario Land titles... But this one impresses! Those foreground/background interactions are probably the most impressive during boss fights! The boss battles are a huge spectacle, and make great use of the 3D planes, with the final boss having you jump between foreground and background in a very effective and satisfying way. Great boss fights!
Cons: Great boss fights... except, the power-up system in this game is maybe a bit too punishing for my tastes, as one hit sends Wario, no matter how many power-ups you have, right back to tiny form, where then one more hit after that is death. Get a gameover, and the hidden treasures you've collected on the stage, will be kicked off of your inventory, making it so you have to retrieve them all over again... And backtracking in this game is a pain in the butt, I'll tell ya, there's no traditional worldmap here. But back to the bosses, they're fun and creative fights, but in order to discover how to defeat them, it takes some experimentation, and because of how the power-up system works when you get hit, that experimentation is far too punishing, making deaths during boss fights a pretty likely scenario, which, eh... Frustrating.
What it means to me: As stated previously, I'm not a fan of the Wario Land games, I've dipped my toes in most of the games in the series, at least the one across the Game Boy family of systems, and they just never did it for me. The game feel, the level design, the quirky "transform instead of dying" mechanic the series developed... I didn't gel with it. But, Virtual Boy Wario Land was before all that, and was more like Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land where it was a bit more Mario-like with its power-up and level system, but more polished here, and it absolutely is more polished! The level design, collision, gamefeel, sprites and animation, even the sound design, it's excellent! Certainly the best game on Virtual Boy, or at the very least, the game that the developers gave the most damn about! I don't have to like Wario to admit that this game is pretty good!
But that's just what jumps out at ya first, dig in and you've got a pretty solid 2D platformer adventure game! Levels are more exploratory focused where you need to find a key hidden in each stage in order to open the exit gate that leads to an elevator at the end of the level. Wario's got his signature shoulder barge and ground pound attacks after you get a number of power-ups, which, by the way are pretty excellent here. Unlike Mario games, these power-ups have a neat mix-n-match system, the bull horns gives you a stronger charge and a ground pound, the gator lets you breathe fire, and the eagle lets you glide, but then there's the ultimate combo that gives you a dragon that lets you glide, breath fireballs, and a ground pound. It's pretty satisfying! Another signature element of the game are the separate planes you can jump between, the foreground and background, which to my knowledge, this was the first game to really achieve that style of gameplay, prior to Donkey Kong Country Returns, the Paper Mario games, Kirby on 3DS, and Mario Wonder... And you know what? It may have done them even BETTER! And that's saying a lot coming from me, I don't even like Wario that much, heck, I'm not even a fan of the other Wario Land titles... But this one impresses! Those foreground/background interactions are probably the most impressive during boss fights! The boss battles are a huge spectacle, and make great use of the 3D planes, with the final boss having you jump between foreground and background in a very effective and satisfying way. Great boss fights!
Cons: Great boss fights... except, the power-up system in this game is maybe a bit too punishing for my tastes, as one hit sends Wario, no matter how many power-ups you have, right back to tiny form, where then one more hit after that is death. Get a gameover, and the hidden treasures you've collected on the stage, will be kicked off of your inventory, making it so you have to retrieve them all over again... And backtracking in this game is a pain in the butt, I'll tell ya, there's no traditional worldmap here. But back to the bosses, they're fun and creative fights, but in order to discover how to defeat them, it takes some experimentation, and because of how the power-up system works when you get hit, that experimentation is far too punishing, making deaths during boss fights a pretty likely scenario, which, eh... Frustrating.
What it means to me: As stated previously, I'm not a fan of the Wario Land games, I've dipped my toes in most of the games in the series, at least the one across the Game Boy family of systems, and they just never did it for me. The game feel, the level design, the quirky "transform instead of dying" mechanic the series developed... I didn't gel with it. But, Virtual Boy Wario Land was before all that, and was more like Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land where it was a bit more Mario-like with its power-up and level system, but more polished here, and it absolutely is more polished! The level design, collision, gamefeel, sprites and animation, even the sound design, it's excellent! Certainly the best game on Virtual Boy, or at the very least, the game that the developers gave the most damn about! I don't have to like Wario to admit that this game is pretty good!