I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I have a bit of a personal taste paradox when it comes to Nintendo products. I own and love nearly all of their mainstream hardware, but I’m really not a fan of most of their mainstream franchises, having fundamentally failed to connect with them - be it the ‘Mario’ platformers, the ‘Zelda’ series, ‘Donkey Kong’, or ‘Smash Bros.’.
Interestingly, or at least I think so, there’s a lot of Nintendo IPs that are developed by ‘2nd party’ studios that I find it much easier to enjoy - I’ve loved most of the ‘Star Fox’ series, a good half of the ‘Metroid’ games were developed via this route; I even found the Capcom developed ‘Zelda: The Minish Cap’ easier to enjoy than the other games in that franchise.
One such developer that has recently risen to prominence is ‘Good Feel’. Their big break came with ‘Kirby’s Epic Yarn’ and even more so when they retooled the striking aesthetic of that game for ‘Yoshi’s Woolly World’. They’ve continued in a similar vein with ‘Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World’, ‘Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn’, and ‘Yoshi's Crafted World’ but their first game for Nintendo was this ‘Wario Land’ effort, subtitled ‘The Shake Dimension’, ‘Shake it’, ‘Shake’, and ‘Shaking’ in various territories, and which is arguably even more of a visual departure from the Nintendo norm (Nintendorm?).
Wario Land was met with a fairly lukewarm reception everywhere but Japan when it launched in 2008. At this time review scores where king, and aggregation sites like Metacritic were at their most influential - there were even stories of entire development teams getting laid off or missing bonus payments because they failed to meet a metacritic target score.
The games press, in an attempt to keep readers clicking and review copies arriving from publishers, had turned the 10 point scale into a 4 point system in which: 7 meant awful, 8 meant OK, 9 meant good, and 10 meant Valve.
Into this toxic pool ‘Wario Lands' review scores landed mostly in the 7-8 region and, despite it’s Nintendo backing, it promptly disappeared into near obscurity.
A big reason for these (contextually) low scores was that by late 2008 the Wii, and more specifically it’s motion controls, were already falling out of fashion. The word ‘gimmick’ was now an exclusively negative adjective and it had become increasingly hard to get to the end of a Wii review without reading it.
But over a decade has passed and, approaching ‘Wario Land: The Shake Dimension’ today, I found it impossible not to enjoy it. Both the very non-Nintendo (Nontendo?) presentation and the well implemented and appropriate motion controls are a breath of fresh air.
The game features animated cutscenes by Production I.G.; a prolific and high profile studio responsible for output related to some of the biggest properties in Anime. They’ve been involved in films and OVAs for ‘One Piece’, ‘Ghost in the Shell’, ‘Patlabor’, and ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ - they even produced the “Origin of O-Ren” sequence from Kill Bill vol.1.
As you can imagine with that pedigree these sequences are beautiful, but what’s even more impressive is how the developer has kept up the animated look and feel as the 2D platforming gameplay begins.
Wario is lured to the (in some places) titular ‘Shake Dimension’ by a Pirate who has much more in common with ‘Shantae’ than ‘Peach’ with the promise of a literally bottomless sack of gold - as a by-product he’ll be rescuing the lands princess - but he can’t really help that.
Each stage is split into two parts. First there is the main level in which Wario is beautifully animated as his body swings on ropes, squeezes into pipes, or pushes through tight spaces. The levels are gorgeous too and the enemies have an equally high quality hand-drawn style as our protagonist.
You have time to appreciate this during this first part of the stage, as the focus is on traversal and exploration - with a little puzzle solving for good measure.
This is also where the motion controls feature most prominently. The game uses just the Wiimote held sideways and you shake it to have Wario shake enemies or bags of coins, slap it down once to execute a ground pound, and tilt it to aim cannons or throw enemies.
The second part of the level is mad dash back to the beginning to escape. These brief epilogues can’t help but bring ‘Sonic’ to mind as maintaining momentum is key. The creativity of the level design really becomes apparent in these sequences as a completely new route back through the stage is often revealed.
The whole game comprises just 5 worlds with 5 stages in each. If that sounds short to you then you’d be correct, it will take very little time to get to the end of the game and beat the final boss if that’s all you want to do.
However, there’s a lot in this game that takes cues from the Yoshi’s Island. I’ve already mentioned throwing enemies but there are other elements here that make the developers' eventual transition into making Yoshi games seem almost inevitable in hindsight, not least of which are the optional collectibles and objectives available for each level.
A lot of those bothersome reviews in 2008 quoted a 5-6 hour gametime - and there’s no denying that’s low for a single completion of a game. But when the game is designed around the concept of repeat plays it’s disingenuous to focus on that.
There are three treasures to be found in each stage and three additional objectives that can be met. One of these objectives will almost always be to escape in a certain time and if anyone has ever met this objective on their first attempt I’d be utterly stunned - in fact I’d suggest that meeting all objectives and retrieving all the treasure will take a minimum of three attempts at each level - and 15-18 hours for a 2D platform game seems more than adequate to me.
It looks great, is fun to play, doesn’t over-use the motion controls, and will keep you entertained for a good amount of time, so, “where’s the but?” you’re thinking.
There isn’t one, really.
Although it’s not a game that’s particularly exceptional in any regard, this is still the most fun I’ve ever had with a ‘traditional’ 2D platformer published by Nintendo - and I mean ever.
I enjoyed ‘Woolly World’, but ‘Wario Land’ is more challenging, the aesthetic appeals to me more personally, and there is more variety in the level design - a lot of which I haven’t really touched on but that means it will be fun for you to discover.
I'm fully aware that stating this game is better than all those classic Mario’s that have so many millions of sales will seem ridiculous to some, but everything is subjective, and I can only tell you what I take from playing a game. ‘Wario Land: The Shake Dimension’ is the most I’ve enjoyed a traditional 2D platformer since ‘Rayman Origins’, which is the best 2D platformer I’ve ever played.
Interestingly, or at least I think so, there’s a lot of Nintendo IPs that are developed by ‘2nd party’ studios that I find it much easier to enjoy - I’ve loved most of the ‘Star Fox’ series, a good half of the ‘Metroid’ games were developed via this route; I even found the Capcom developed ‘Zelda: The Minish Cap’ easier to enjoy than the other games in that franchise.
One such developer that has recently risen to prominence is ‘Good Feel’. Their big break came with ‘Kirby’s Epic Yarn’ and even more so when they retooled the striking aesthetic of that game for ‘Yoshi’s Woolly World’. They’ve continued in a similar vein with ‘Poochy & Yoshi's Woolly World’, ‘Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn’, and ‘Yoshi's Crafted World’ but their first game for Nintendo was this ‘Wario Land’ effort, subtitled ‘The Shake Dimension’, ‘Shake it’, ‘Shake’, and ‘Shaking’ in various territories, and which is arguably even more of a visual departure from the Nintendo norm (Nintendorm?).
Wario Land was met with a fairly lukewarm reception everywhere but Japan when it launched in 2008. At this time review scores where king, and aggregation sites like Metacritic were at their most influential - there were even stories of entire development teams getting laid off or missing bonus payments because they failed to meet a metacritic target score.
The games press, in an attempt to keep readers clicking and review copies arriving from publishers, had turned the 10 point scale into a 4 point system in which: 7 meant awful, 8 meant OK, 9 meant good, and 10 meant Valve.
Into this toxic pool ‘Wario Lands' review scores landed mostly in the 7-8 region and, despite it’s Nintendo backing, it promptly disappeared into near obscurity.
A big reason for these (contextually) low scores was that by late 2008 the Wii, and more specifically it’s motion controls, were already falling out of fashion. The word ‘gimmick’ was now an exclusively negative adjective and it had become increasingly hard to get to the end of a Wii review without reading it.
But over a decade has passed and, approaching ‘Wario Land: The Shake Dimension’ today, I found it impossible not to enjoy it. Both the very non-Nintendo (Nontendo?) presentation and the well implemented and appropriate motion controls are a breath of fresh air.
The game features animated cutscenes by Production I.G.; a prolific and high profile studio responsible for output related to some of the biggest properties in Anime. They’ve been involved in films and OVAs for ‘One Piece’, ‘Ghost in the Shell’, ‘Patlabor’, and ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ - they even produced the “Origin of O-Ren” sequence from Kill Bill vol.1.
As you can imagine with that pedigree these sequences are beautiful, but what’s even more impressive is how the developer has kept up the animated look and feel as the 2D platforming gameplay begins.
Wario is lured to the (in some places) titular ‘Shake Dimension’ by a Pirate who has much more in common with ‘Shantae’ than ‘Peach’ with the promise of a literally bottomless sack of gold - as a by-product he’ll be rescuing the lands princess - but he can’t really help that.
Each stage is split into two parts. First there is the main level in which Wario is beautifully animated as his body swings on ropes, squeezes into pipes, or pushes through tight spaces. The levels are gorgeous too and the enemies have an equally high quality hand-drawn style as our protagonist.
You have time to appreciate this during this first part of the stage, as the focus is on traversal and exploration - with a little puzzle solving for good measure.
This is also where the motion controls feature most prominently. The game uses just the Wiimote held sideways and you shake it to have Wario shake enemies or bags of coins, slap it down once to execute a ground pound, and tilt it to aim cannons or throw enemies.
The second part of the level is mad dash back to the beginning to escape. These brief epilogues can’t help but bring ‘Sonic’ to mind as maintaining momentum is key. The creativity of the level design really becomes apparent in these sequences as a completely new route back through the stage is often revealed.
The whole game comprises just 5 worlds with 5 stages in each. If that sounds short to you then you’d be correct, it will take very little time to get to the end of the game and beat the final boss if that’s all you want to do.
However, there’s a lot in this game that takes cues from the Yoshi’s Island. I’ve already mentioned throwing enemies but there are other elements here that make the developers' eventual transition into making Yoshi games seem almost inevitable in hindsight, not least of which are the optional collectibles and objectives available for each level.
A lot of those bothersome reviews in 2008 quoted a 5-6 hour gametime - and there’s no denying that’s low for a single completion of a game. But when the game is designed around the concept of repeat plays it’s disingenuous to focus on that.
There are three treasures to be found in each stage and three additional objectives that can be met. One of these objectives will almost always be to escape in a certain time and if anyone has ever met this objective on their first attempt I’d be utterly stunned - in fact I’d suggest that meeting all objectives and retrieving all the treasure will take a minimum of three attempts at each level - and 15-18 hours for a 2D platform game seems more than adequate to me.
It looks great, is fun to play, doesn’t over-use the motion controls, and will keep you entertained for a good amount of time, so, “where’s the but?” you’re thinking.
There isn’t one, really.
Although it’s not a game that’s particularly exceptional in any regard, this is still the most fun I’ve ever had with a ‘traditional’ 2D platformer published by Nintendo - and I mean ever.
I enjoyed ‘Woolly World’, but ‘Wario Land’ is more challenging, the aesthetic appeals to me more personally, and there is more variety in the level design - a lot of which I haven’t really touched on but that means it will be fun for you to discover.
I'm fully aware that stating this game is better than all those classic Mario’s that have so many millions of sales will seem ridiculous to some, but everything is subjective, and I can only tell you what I take from playing a game. ‘Wario Land: The Shake Dimension’ is the most I’ve enjoyed a traditional 2D platformer since ‘Rayman Origins’, which is the best 2D platformer I’ve ever played.
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