“Wario Land II” — A Game Time Forgot…

The title may be a bit misleading here, so let me qualify it: Wario Land II is one of those games that time has forgotten in my particular case.

See, the game was released back in 1998 on the classic Game Boy with compatibility for Super Game Boy, and it was a time when I was a lot more focused on the original PlayStation and Nintendo 64 than I was on anything portable. The late-90s saw a lot of really awesome titles hit the PS1 and N64, so it’s no wonder that something like the release of Wario Land II kind of flew under my radar. I did actually get the game when it came out, but it’s one of those games where I played it for a bit and then moved on. I can’t really say why. Maybe some of the game mechanics just didn’t do it for me when compared to the first Wario Land game, which admittedly was perhaps closer to a mainstream Mario game in some ways?

In any event, Wario Land II is a strong successor to the first title (minusing out Wario Land on the Virtual Boy, though, which might be an even better game than the original). The game handles very similarly in some ways, but in this one, Wario is invincible and when he takes damage, he loses coins and gets inconvenienced in some way. Instead of power-ups, there are different effects that can befall him, such as getting lit on fire, turned drunk, squashed flat, and more. Sometimes, these are things you want to happen so that you can access special areas or progress through a stage. Other times, though, it’s a big inconvenience that might make you restart an area.

I had fun in this video revisiting this title. It just called to me the other day, and I decided that since I hadn’t done a Retro Play Show episode in a little bit, it might be fun to take a shot at.

Let me know what you guys think, especially if you’d like to see me continue on with it!

Jessica Brown

Retro Games and Technology Editor. She'll beat pretty much every Mega Man game without breaking a sweat.