Precision Flailing
By Shaunage 2 Comments
As I prepare for the onslaught of AAA releases over the next few weeks (Rock Band 2,
Wario Land, then. It's a pretty nice looking 2D platformer. The level designs aren't bad at all, with all sorts of well hidden secret bits and a whole lot of places to use the wii remote based controls. They had a chance to destroy the game with these, but they're pretty basic and moooostly functional. Certainly better than the game breaking soul capturing mechanic in Folklore - the single worst piece of motion control I have been assailed by thus far. The only trouble I had was the coin bags you need to shake, which would occasionally refuse to accept my spastic flailing. There are only so many ways to shake a remote control, Nintendo. It's beyond silly at this point and if the next Microsoft console has motion control I'm probably going to cry.
Minor, mostly irrelevant control complaints aside, I had a lot of fun with Wario land in the 5 hours it took to finish. It is a little weird seeing the transition in difficulty from just getting through the levels (super easy) to all of the boss fights from the third world onwards. While insanely difficult compared to the rest of the game, the boss fights are probably the best thing about the game. All six of them are a lot of fun and are very well designed. I've missed boss fights like this.
That 5 hours to get through the game is exactly that - the bare minimum required to see the end credits - including grinding coins out of that easy train level seven or eight times. That reminds me... If I have completed all levels prior to world 5, just let me play it. There's no test of skill involved in playing a level over and over so I can afford to play the one I'm up to. Take out that nonsense and the game is 4 hours long. That's probably why it's in there to begin with. It's not necessary, though. The number of secrets and challenges in each level could easily keep a person coming back for another 20 hours. Maybe even longer. It's a sad side effect of the number of games being released that I just won't have time to go back to these. Maybe in a few months. Maybe not, if this release schedule keeps up. The game does feel like it could have been stretched out to eight or more worlds instead of five, but that might have just made it get boring. The fifth world, for example, consists of one Chinese level, one underwater level, one ice level and one haunted house.
Overall, it's a good game which is a must own if for whatever reason you only have a Wii, but is badly timed if you have either of the other two consoles. Well worth playing.
Random note: I wish they'd stop giving games different names worldwide. Translating from Japanese is fair enough, but this game seems to be called Wario Land: Shake It! in America, Wario Land: The Shake Dimension in PAL territories and Wario Land: Shake! In Japan.
Another note: This is the fourth Wii game on my shelf (instead of the pile) as 'completed'. All four of them have titles beginning with 'W'.