Wario Land II

The Good
Wario Land II is the second game in the Wario series for the Game Boy, though technically the previous installment was part of the Super Mario Land series and a little more in tone with those, instead this feels for the first time like a real full Wario game.

It was released by Nintendo in 1998, so almost at the end of the Game boy's life when the system had a new breath with the success of the Pokemon series, six months later a version of Wario Land II would see a release on the GB color. You navigate through levels to collect coins that you then exchange for a chance to win a small piece of treasure in a mini game at the end of the stage. Also, each level has a secret room that leads to more treasure. All these goes with the character and his insatiable appetite for gold. The amount of fortune you'll get through the game will lead you to different endings. At its core, is really a platformer but has a focus on methodical exploration. You are "immortal. There's no Game Over" says the manual (no life points, no time limit and you cannot die), so your objective becomes rather not to lose the coins you've been collecting, and there's jumping, precise timing, quick reactions, breaking, throwing and fighting involved, but you need to "solve" the level using the game's mechanics to find all the available coins and secrets. So really what makes it so interesting is how they've made this puzzle solving interact with the platforming.

Some enemies affect your "condition", lets say you get hit by fire you become a running uncontrollable fireball that could be used to break some blocks, but these blocks are in a specific platform that is difficult to reach when you can only control your character's jumping and not his running direction; there are many different conditions like this that introduce new and interesting mechanics with some extremely clever secrets to hidden treasure that are such a joy when you finally have a crack at them.

It has an automatic and manual save system that works perfectly fine, and lets you rest from the game but has just one save file: the default. You'll need it, because the game is very long: 12 chapters with 52 levels! (in comparison this almost double the size of Mario Land 2)

The music is intentionally ugly and dissonant sounding to go with the character. Is really good and memorable.

As you expect from a Nintendo game the character controls to perfection. The graphics squeeze all the juice from the system to the point that the GB color port doesn't look much better, or better said much uglier but in an aesthetic intentional way. The enemies are also unique to the Wario series.

The Bad
A very minor complaint I'd say is the Box Art is just a generic Wario doing his signature dash attack, that wouldn't really catch my eye in the store if I didn't already knew the character. As creative as the normal game is, there're just two types of mini games and those get boring pretty fast.

The Bottom Line
This game gives you the greatest value for your money. I couldn't help but to have a big smile while playing; this is Nintendo's natural evolution in platforming and while trying to do something unique and original they outdid themselves creating a new style of platformer and a lasting franchise in the process.