"But, Wario, what have they done with you?"

The first Wario Land was one of the best games I’ve ever played, so I had huge expectations for this second part because Nintendo, unlike most of the companies, had always made sequels that surpassed the original (or at last they were as good), and there are a lot of examples: the first Mario game, Super Mario Bros., wasn’t as good as Super Mario Bros. 2, and Super Mario Land 3 was so much better than the original and its sequel that they simply can’t be compared; then we have Super Mario World, surpassed by Yoshi’s Island; Super Mario Land surpassed by its sequel; we have most Kirby’s games; etc, etc, etc, but this time they messed up everything. Darn.

Graphics 10/10:
The graphics are obviously improved, but I liked better the first Wario’s ones, the first game was like the old Super Mario Land but with Wario as the main character, so it had the Super Mario Land feel, now that “old feel” is gone, this is a completely new game, even Wario is different in this sequel, he is still greedy, fat, and had that horrible mustache but his new design is way too different, I found his new style hard to get used, not to mention not nearly as appealing as before.

Music 8/10:
The music is very good but not remarkable, you won’t find yourself humming the songs all the time like you did with the first game, and I can hardly remember this game’s melodies as I write this while I can easily remember all the tunes from the first Wario Land game. The soundtrack is ahead most Game Boy games that is undeniable, but for a Nintendo game it is a little bit disappointing.

Gameplay 8/10:
While still an action platform game, the gameplay is completely different from the previous game, and it’s probably the main problem. This time Wario is invincible, he can’t die, never, if an enemy harms you you’ll just loose money, but you won’t die, not even if you don’t have coins. Because of this maybe you think the game is even easier than the previous one, well, it depends, the secrets this time are a lot more difficult to find, and as the main objective now is to get as much money as you can from each level, so you’ll have to be cautious, so in fact the difficulty is higher.

We have new abilities like Zombie Wario or Tiny Wario, but not nearly as fun as before, we can’t use them freely as most of the time they just last for a few seconds. Also the world map is gone, now there are some kind of boxes to enter each level (more or less like Yoshi’s Island) over with a boring black screen. This is very dull, not nearly as nice and good looking as before.

Replay Value:
Something that hasn’t changed at all from the first games is the replay value, you’ll find yourself playing again a lot of times in order to complete all the treasures and map pieces, finding all the secret paths, and trying to obtain the best ending, and as I said before this time this is not such an easy task.

As a result:
Although disappointing, extremely disappointing, Wario Land 2 is still a very good game, nowhere near as good as Wario Land but there’s no doubt about that this is a must if you have a Game Boy.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/13/03, Updated 05/04/04