Wario Land: Shake It!

"Wario’s a crook, but this game is no rip-off."

As Wii owners we have experienced some disappointments this year: Shovelware continues to be shoveled forth at a quick pace, this year's E3 was awful for Nintendo and the late release of games like Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Blast Works have reminded European Wii owners that they are second class citizens of the gaming community. But there have also been some pleasant surprises along the way, like the announcement of Wii Motion Plus, promising games like Sin and Punishment 2 and Punch Out!, as well as the release of Super Mario RPG for the Virtual Console. Another nice surprise was Wario Land: Shake it! (known as Wario Land: The Shake Dimension in Europe). Finally we got a new Wario Land game, and this time it would be on a home console, a first for the series. And best of all, the game is excellent!

Concept

Wario Land: Shake it! is a 2D platformer quite similar to the GBA's Wario Land 4. While Wario was indestructible in the earlier Wario Land games, he's very much a mortal now, and while death is unlikely to occur in one of the ordinary levels, the end-of-world boss battles are another story. Each standard level is structured so that Wario has to rescue a trapped Merfle (some type of weird fairy) at the end, which in turn triggers an alarm. Now Wario has to escape from the level within a time limit, usually traveling a different route to do so. It's an interesting concept, executed successfully.

This is all taking place in the Shake Dimension, which features five main worlds, each containing four standard levels, as well as numerous secret levels. The motive for Wario's actions is not altruism, but greed, as he has been told that the Shake Dimension contains a great treasure, which he can only get his hands on after having rescued the Merfles and their queen, and defeated the evil Shake King. It's a very simple story that you won't really care about, but at least it's nicely told through some neat cartoons.

Graphics

Wario Land: Shake it! is one of the prettiest 2D platformers around, no doubt about it. The hand drawn graphics are simply beautiful, featuring superb, cartoony animations and facial expressions (the dizzy look some of the enemies get after having been shaken by Wario is priceless), great looking characters and very pretty, colorful and vibrant worlds with very nice backgrounds. It's a gorgeous game all around, with a great art style to top it all off.

Music & Sound

The game features a pretty big selection of music tracks, a number of them merely functional and forgettable, but also some that are really good. Additionally, a number of the remixes playing during the escape sequences of the game contribute admirably to the sense of urgency and danger that these parts demand. The sound effects are good too, and while there is no spoken dialogue during the cut scenes, Wario does crack some cute one-liners during the course of the game (”It's Wario Time!”, ”Lets rock'n roll!” etc).

Gameplay

For starters, the controls in Wario Land: Shake it! are excellent. As you play holding the Wiimote like a NES controller, you'll find that your control over Wario is superb, very tight and responsive controls being order of the day. You'll also be using the Wii's motion controls, for example when executing Wario's new ground slam attack (which renders enemies unconscious and can knock away obstacles), maneuvering vehicles, aiming objects you're throwing and shaking money bags and enemies. Of course, with title's heavy emphasis on shaking you shouldn't be surprised to hear that you'll be shaking a lot of money bags during the course of the game. It all works well enough to avoid being annoying, but the game wouldn't have been any worse off if the motion controls were mapped to buttons instead.

So the controls are great, which is crucial as you jump, stomp, smash and shake your way through the 20 main levels of the game. The levels themselves are very varied, including places like jungles, deserts, trains, casinos, snow worlds, volcano worlds and haunted mansions. What's more, the level design is quite good, being pretty straightforward and linear should you choose to just rush from point A to point B, but with plenty of secrets, hidden goodies and interesting puzzles on offer for more exploration oriented gamers. There's also plenty of different challenges along the way, and different vehicles, items and transformations that Wario will have to utilize in order to reach his goal.

While the transformations in the game are few compared to previous Wario Land games (Wario can be set on fire to become a human torch, as well as become covered in snow and turn into a giant snowball, but that's about it), it makes up for it with the vehicles. Ranging from submarines (there are actually several levels dedicated entirely to submarine action) to rocket buckets, these vehicles really add some extra spice to the levels and are all fun to use. Not that levels depend solely on the vehicles to keep things interesting: Wario can be launched out of a machine that makes him run superfast and break through previously unbreakable barriers, he can be shot out of canons, he can swing around using vines and ropes, he can spin around bars to acrobatically jump higher, he can climb, he can be shrunk down, he can be....
Simply put, there's a lot to do in this game, keeping things varied and interesting to the very end.

Another great thing is the boss battles. I don't want to spoil them for you, but rest assured, they are all very much unique, each battle is very fun and creative, and a special kind of strategy is usually required to win. The later battles are even somewhat challenging, making them by far the hardest obligatory parts of the game.

See, there are two problems with Wario Land: Shake it!. One is as suggested the difficulty of the standard levels, which is so lacking you'll pretty much never have to worry about dying or not escaping in time. Another issue is innovation. While the game is very varied and fun to play, it doesn't really offer anything new or groundbreaking to the genre, making it more a return to form for Wario as opposed to a bold step forward. Despite this, the gameplay is great overall, and a whole lot of fun.

Longevity

Wario Land: Shake it! has been criticized for being too short, and the main game is certainly pretty short, 5-8 hours long being a reasonable estimate if you just rush through it. Thankfully this doesn't cover anywhere near all of what this game has to offer. There are for starters a dozen hidden levels to unlock, these levels being bigger, more complex and more creative than most of the standard levels, meaning you haven't experience this Wario Land game at its best if you've missed out on these levels. Featuring a total of more than 30 decent sized levels, the game suddenly doesn't appear all that short.

There's still a lot more ground to cover. Each level features three treasures to find, sometimes very cleverly hidden treasures, requiring some real headscratching and skills to be nabbed. Each level also features a number of missions, meaning various challenges for the player to complete. These range from the basic tasks of collecting a lot of treasure and escaping quickly from the level to more creative ones, like defeating a golden enemy and collecting ten coins of the same type in a row. These challenge can justify multiple replays of each level, and some of them (like completing a level without dying or without killing a single enemy) can be pretty hard. When you beat the game you also get some very nice rewards that further encourage more replays. And finally, each level allows you the high score opportunity of going for the max amount of treasure and the quickest possible escape time. For the completionist, Wario Land: Shake it! should offer at least 20-25 hours of high quality playtime, making it well worth the money.

Closing Comments

While not quite on par with the best the 2D platformer genre has to offer, SNES classics like Donkey Kong Country 2 and Yoshi's Island, Wario Land: Shake it! is nonetheless a great game. If you simply refuse to explore all that this game has to offer it's merely an excellent rental, but if you intend to actually go seek out all of the secrets and the hidden goodies, then it's well worth buying. A beautiful game that plays extremely well and features a surprising amount of content, Wario Land: Shake it! deserves a closer look from any Wii owner looking for a good singleplayer game.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/24/08

Game Release: Wario Land: The Shake Dimension (EU, 09/26/08)