Virtual Boy Wario Land (Virtual Boy)

Only 22 games were officially released for the ill-fated Virtual Boy, and one question tends to crop up about the system as a result: were any of the games any good? It’s a tougher question to answer when you eliminate games that are merely decent or were technically good for the time, but one game does tend to come up as the crown jewel of the system: Virtual Boy Wario Land. A side-scrolling platformer and the second title in the then rather young Wario Land series, one thing that certainly stands out about it compared to other titles is the simple fact that, while it does make some use of the system’s 3D effects, it is first and foremost just trying to be a good game.

Virtual Boy Wario Land sees the greedy treasure hunter Wario in the Awazon river basin, the burly brute initially there just to relax until he finds a cave behind a waterfall. Within, an enormous vault filled with treasure immediately catches his eye, but when the floor gives out beneath him, Wario finds he needs to gradually fight his way back to the surface if he wishes to claim it. Virtual Boy Wario Land is only a 14 stage journey, a few of those exclusively boss battles to boot, but simply beating stages as best you can isn’t going to net you the best ending. Wario needs to be on the lookout in the ten normal stages for hidden treasures that are used to unlock the vault, and if you don’t manage to find them all, your ending will change to instead be based on how many coins you’ve collected across the stages during the adventure. Another consideration is added on top of it, the game rewarding you different endings based on how quickly you complete it, Virtual Boy Wario Land both encouraging a sense of urgency and a commitment to exploration that make levels feel deeper but also more important to clear skillfully. Whatever ending you get is more a badge of honor since this is primarily a quest for treasure rather than a deep story, that leeway making it not too devastating if you slip up while still providing a motivator to play the game a bit differently.

In fact, while the side-scrolling action of Virtual Boy Wario Land is an important element, its the focus on exploration that gives a lot of levels their most interesting layers. Despite the adventure nominally taking place beneath the cave whose floor you fell through, each level even capping off with you taking a mining elevator upwards to play games of chance and save your game as you see your results for the stage, there is quite a range in the level theming. A forest with tall trees to scale, an eerie mansion whose rooms connect in sometimes odd ways, and what almost seems to be a factory full of fans, flippers, and fire, Virtual Boy Wario Land can set it stages apart despite the inherent limitations of red and black visuals. One of its best visual tricks though involve stages sometimes taking place across multiple layers. Somewhat often you might spot an entire area in the background full of enemies, platforms, treasures, and all the usual stuff you contend with in the main stage. Find the proper spot nearby and you can hop into this background area, the game able to produce dual-layered spaces where you can sometimes use clues you got from seeing the level from the other side to inform your exploration even more.

Admittedly, sometimes those background spaces will just be another place to do your normal adventuring, although having to find the way to leap between layers can already add a bit more work to do in the game’s levels. Technically, the only thing you absolutely need to do in a level in Virtual Boy Wario Land is find a key and then unlock the mining elevator at the exit to clear the stage. The key is usually hidden a bit out of the way, meaning even if you aren’t interested in any of the treasure hunting, you’ll still need to keep your eyes peeled, Virtual Boy Wario Land levels often filled with plenty of hidden paths. Destructible environments are fairly common and hinted at just enough you soon get an eye for what can be broken apart, different levels also throwing in new gimmicks related to getting around like one where you need to properly launch watermelons into the background to hit moving targets or swimming sections where you need to identify which currents to ride to get to different areas. The main way you’ll be engaging with the levels though is the game’s power-up system, and while many of these are useful to have for the extra protection and strength they provide, they’re actually crucial to uncovering the hidden areas of each level as well.

Normally, Wario’s default state might be best called Explorer Wario, where he wears his adventurer’s topee as seen on the box art. This form lets him do the basics of exploration such as knocking over and throwing enemies, but if you take a hit you’ll shrink down into Small Wario who has very few skills and won’t help you much in terms of level navigation. The other forms you can acquire though open up many more opportunities for navigation. Bull Wario is able to do powerful shoulder charges and ground slams that can break blocks. Sea Dragon Wario has a hat that breathes fire, it perhaps being a sea dragon specifically since his fire is undaunted underwater and thus the only way you can break blocks while swimming. Eagle Wario is able to fly horizontally for a good distance, but mix Eagle and Sea Dragon and you’ll become King Dragon Wario who gets both hats’ powers at once. While these all give you some apparent advantages in terms of movement and combat abilities, many times these abilities are key to exploring levels to the fullest. You’ll need to shatter walls, burn away fire blocks, and fly across huge gaps fairly often if you want to find hidden treasures, and there are even points where a power-up is almost required and thus placed right at the start of the area to make sure you can engage with its specific idea. While all these power-ups make you more effective against the game’s enemies, it actually makes you end up being more careful than if you didn’t have them at all, losing them potentially making you unable to engage with the level design so easily. Encouraging a measured approach at pressing forward suits a game where you’re often looking for secret paths, and it seems Virtual Boy Wario Land understands how frustrating it could be to lose power-ups since if you make them appear by hitting a block, they’ll remain there even if you plunge deep into the level and then backtrack later.

A good deal of enemies in Virtual Boy Wario Land do make some interesting use of the system’s 3D effects. While swimming underwater, you might need to watch out for a fish that swims in and out of the background. In the mansion, bees shaped like cannons fire spiked balls from their spots in the foreground or background. These concepts often would work even in a game presented with completely flat visuals and there are also a good deal of enemies who do more standard things like try to ram into you, but bosses definitely lean into the game’s main gimmick of leaping between the foreground and background heavily. One boss starts off by flinging its spiky ponytail at you from the safety of the background, another you have to repeatedly follow through both layers until you can pin it down, and even the one boss that doesn’t really involve that dual layer concept instead repeatedly breaches out of the sand like a dolphin with the player having to gauge when it will actually come down in their layer. Bosses are where death feels like a true possibility since cautious advancement isn’t possible during a fairly active fight, the extra lives you earn feeling like they mostly matter for these sometimes tough battles. Seeing their use of the 3D adds another fun touch to the battle, Virtual Boy Wario Land also having a good sense for making the extra depth a complementary part of its cartoonish presentation.

THE VERDICT: Virtual Boy Wario Land is a true treasure hunting adventure, its small range of levels still beefy enough to encourage exploration. Whether you’re jumping between layers, carefully managing your power-ups, or facing some unique danger in the stage, Virtual Boy Wario Land keeps testing youf eye for hidden paths and your ability to navigate safely. The importance of power-ups for level exploration does mean most of the difficulty is saved for the boss battles where it’s truly just a fight, but multiple endings give you a goal to shoot for that makes the adventure richer than what its short length might otherwise provide.

And so, I give Virtual Boy Wario Land for Virtual Boy…

A GOOD rating. Virtual Boy Wario Land doesn’t just use its creativity to come up with some nifty ways to make use of the 3D. The bosses and certain enemies do engage with it well as does leaping between layers of a level, but those all have purposes beyond the brief spectacle. Having the foreground and background important at times lets you get an overview of the area you’re heading to and adds some density to the stage, and enemies engaging with the extra dimensions gives them a new way to oppose you that doesn’t feel unnatural. However, the real brilliance of the game might be the power-up system even though things like the King Dragon hat make you a bit too much of a powerhouse to be easily stopped in a regular level. The power-ups are so important you do feel peril even when your life isn’t in danger, not wanting to lose out on your useful tool for navigation, and while having them is key to finding secrets and goodies, they also provide some more common uses like easily clearing out baddies that also makes it rewarding even when you’re not scrounging around for the level’s key or treasure. Virtual Boy Wario Land does have a save feature even though its an adventure that you can clear in 2 to 3 hours going in blind, but it could have certainly benefited from even more time to keep throwing new ideas at you that would justify saving a bit more. Even if this was a completely standard platformer you still have a good mix of level themes, new enemies, and mechanical gimmickry at play to make the adventure generally enjoyable, but encouraging deeper exploration is what makes Virtual Boy Wario Land feel robust despite its runtime.

Virtual Boy Wario Land still doesn’t quite reach the point that you should go out and get a Virtual Boy just to try it, and because it works so well even without its 3D elements it doesn’t even feel like much is stopping it from one day returning on a newer system without losing much. 3D enhances parts of it, but on a system that encourages a break every 15 minutes, maybe being too long and broad of an adventure felt inadvisable. Virtual Boy Wario Land does make good use of the time it has though, and while it likely will be some time before I have played every Virtual Boy game, I can at least say I see why this one is always at the forefront of recommendations from its tiny 22 game library.