Collection essentials #397: Virtual Boy Wario Land (VB)

This is probably the consensus pick for “best game on the Virtual Boy”. Wario debuted as the main villain of Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, but then starred as a sort of “bad protagonist” as he greedily looked for treasure in Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land. Now, Wario has shed the “Super Mario” part of the title and has made “Wario Land” a series all on its own.

This time the premise is that Wario finds himself lost in a cave and has to find a way out, but the cave is loaded with treasure so Wario also wants to get all of it. This game is a 2D platformer and you can play it in a rather straightforward way like a Mario game, but all Wario platformers heavily incentivize the player to go for “100% completion” and find all the important hidden stuff. In this case, there are 10 artifacts scattered throughout the game’s levels, and a player must find them all if they wish to get the game’s best ending. A player may revisit old levels to try and find artifacts that they missed. 

As per usual, Wario controls differently than Mario and his games feel very distinct because of it. Wario can jump on most enemies, but they’ll be stunned instead of defeated and Wario can then pick them up and throw them. Wario has a charge attack and a ground pound move as well, which Mario lacks. Wario’s power-ups are different, and this game has three of them. One powers up the ground pound attack, one lets him fly sideways, one lets him breathe fire, and there’s a super power-up which gives all these powers at once which is super fun to use. 

The Virtual Boy’s stereoscopic 3D effects are used pretty well in this game. Some segments of levels have a background area that Wario can access by stepping on a specific contraption on the floor, and these effects make these multiple layers look a lot cooler. Some enemies and objects will move from the background to the foreground, and that is also enhanced with these effects.

Unfortunately Virtual Boy Wario Land remains stuck and in obscurity on the lousy old system that’s part of its title. Nintendo has neglected to ever port or remake it on any newer hardware, which is a shame, because more people should check out this game. I’ve beaten it but not yet put in the effort to collect all the artifacts, and I really ought to at some point. I haven’t played every Virtual Boy game but I think I would say this one is my favorite if I had to pick one right now. It’s an easy pick as an essential for my collection.