Wario Land II

This guy's pissed off.

Developer: Nintendo Publisher: Nintendo Genre: Action/Adventure Players: 1 Color Game Boy: Yes ESRB: Everyone Difficulty: Easy

Here's one of the signature games for the Color Game Boy. It, of course, stars Wario, Mario's evil twin. It's got an okay plot, wonderful and humorous graphics, catchy music, and easy gameplay. It's a lot of fun, mostly because Wario's really mean and he likes charging into enemies.

Gameplay-- The object of the game is to get to the end of the level. Well, you can't expect much from a platform game, but still, the gameplay is wonderful. There are some challenging obstacles you have to get through, like using enemies to get through walls, hitting a very hidden switch to get to a certain place, and so on. The neat thing about it is that there's a hidden door in each level. That hidden door opens up a little game, kind of like the game Memory. The game goes as follows:

There are eight cards face down. An image on one of the cards appears on the top of the screen, and then the cards on the bottom are displayed for a very short period of time, longer if you spend more coins on the game. Now you have to pick out which card matches the above one. If you do, you recieve a little treasure. There's a different one for each level. This isn't required, but it is if you want to see the real, real ending of the game.

Speaking about that, once you beat the game, you're told how much treasure you've gotten, how many pieces of a map you've gotten (another mini-game at the end of each level), and it also tells you that you've completed only 50% of the levels. Yep, that's right, 50% of the levels in the game are hidden! Fortunately, when you beat the game, a stage select also appears. Now you can go back and get any treasures and map pieces you haven't gotten, and also look for those exits to the secret levels, which lead to different endings of the game. There are four different endings! When you've done all of that, the REALLY final level appears, along with a cool game similar to Simon. Oh, yeah! One more thing! Wario can't die! He just gets stunned by enemies for a second and loses a couple coins! That makes the game impossible to lose at, and much more fun.

Graphics-- Wow. The graphics live up to those on a Super Nintendo. It really uses those 56 colors (that's how many the Game Boy Color can display). The background scenery is great, the sprites are well detailed and funny, and the cutscenes (yes, there are cutscenes) are really well done for a Game Boy game.

Music-- The music is really good, too. Wario has his own theme, and it just goes along with a different beat in each level. For instance, if you're underground, the melody is slow, and kind of creepy. In dungeons, the music is in a minor key. The ending theme is really, really nice. It's almost the same melody, but really fast tempo and happy. I gotta find the MIDI for that!

Control-- The controls are pretty simple, A is jump and B is tackle. Yeah, Wario tackles. It's a nice attack, only just be sure not to tackle an enemy head-on.

Fun Factor-- Whoo hoo! This is a really fun, humorous game. Since Wario is easy to handle, it's a big hit.

Storyline-- That's kinda as good as the rest of the game. The evil Captain Syrup and her three hench-uh...-bad guys stole Wario's trasure. He's out to get it back. The thing I like about the story is that that Wario doesn't try to do anything nice. He's not out for world peace. Hell, he's got a castle and Captain Syrup doesn't!

Overall Satisfaction-- Nintendo's done it again with a really cool platform game. Along with... hey, wait a minute, I already explained its good points. Just understand that this game's a gem.

Highs: Wario's stylin' moves, the graphics and music!
Lows: Doesn't have a plot.
Score: 10