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Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land
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1994 Nintendo - Nintendo - GB
Storyline
Some stupid pirates have stolen all of Wario's treasure and even his wonderful castle! If you've played Super Mario Land 2 you know how fond Wario is of castles, he even stole Mario's! And now his own one is stolen, so you have to get it back. But the pirates didn't put all of the treasure inside the castle, no no. They have been spread it out across the island, so while you're travelling through the world to reach the castle you also have to look for the treasure. Yep yep. There's not much storyline to this game, but it's enough for a 2D platformer, and it's enough for you to have a reason to kick some ass.
Gameplay
As in all of Nintendo's platformers the controls are great. Wario is a lot bigger than Mario usually is in his games, and it gives the game a different feeling. You can use one button to jump and one to dash or use whatever weapon you're equipped with. More about the "weapons" later.
At first I thought Wario's big size would ruin some of the gameplay, but it didn't. I would even say that it made it better and gave the game a unique touch. You can jump around and feel free with a zoom. Yay! Anyway. Just as his twin brother/cousin/whatever Mario, Wario wears a hat. In the stages however he can find better hats to wear that will give him special powers (much like in Super Mario 64). The first hat you'll come across is the viking helmet that allows you to crush blocks with one dash and do a power jump to crush blocks beneath you. Later in the game you'll find other hats such as the dragon hat and the rocket hat. Yay! All of the hats are good in some way, and if you got the option to choose between two hats it can be a real tough one. Some of them are better to use against enemies while other are better to use when you want to move around easier. So it can be something of a strategic choice in which head gear you decide to go with. The enemies aren't exactly covering the stages but there are a lot of them, but there are also a lot of places where you have to use your head and think to be able to continue. And some of the hats will really make it easier for you in some places.
The island is divided up into five or six different worlds (I can't remember the exact number) and all of the worlds have got different themes for their courses, like in most Mario games. You start your adventure on a sandy beach where most of the courses are sandy, obviously. The level design is great in this game, which is fortunate. One thing I never liked about Super Mario Bros. 3, for example, was that if you didn't like a water stage, you would probably hate all of zone 3. You don't have the same problem here, though, since even if they follow the same theme, the stages are vastly different in terms of gameplay. You will never feel that the game is repeating itself, and in some places the courses will even change after you've beaten the boss of that world, so you can go back to try and find more secrets and hidden extra lives and such.
When each course (I say course a lot) is finished you get to choose if you want to play a bonus game where you use your collected coins from the course as bets or if you want to exit the area without playing. There are two different games to play. One where you can receive items and extra lives and one where you can increase your amount of money. The money you have left after exiting the area will be added to you total treasure.
Graphics
Like I said earlier, everything is much bigger in this game than the previous Super Mario Land games, but the graphics still have the same feeling to them. I think all of the enemies you encounter in this game are brand new and they are all very well designed and animated. Some of them might seem equally good to each other when you first face them, but after a while you'll notice that it's more than just the physical appearance of them that are different. Anyway, BACK TO THE GRAPHICS. The surroundings are drawn in beautiful 2D and so are all the enemies. You can't get a lot of effects out of a GameBoy, so the only effects you see is the sparkling of treasures.
A thing that really surprised me was that I never noticed any "disappearing" or "quickly fading away and then fading back" bugs. Everything is clear all the time and it never lags. Which is a good thing, obviously.
Sound
The music isn't great, but it brings a good atmosphere to the game and it's definitely not bad. Pretty basic I guess, and the same goes for the sound effects. Nothing more to say about the sound, really.
Replayability
The replayability of this game is great. I've only played through it twice, and I've gotten the best and the worst ending you can get. Heh. Yeah, you heard me. How the game ends depends on how much treasure you've collected, so it's definitely worth playing the games several times just to get a smile from the ending scenes. Like I said, I've beaten it twice and I'm going to beat it at least twice more before I'm satisfied. And you'll probably forget about some of the 40 courses so there can be a few surprises even if you've done everything there is to do in the game.
Originality
No recycled enemies and cool equipment. And the idea that the amount of coins and treasure you collect effects the ending of the game is great. This is game is very different from the casual platformers I've played for the GameBoy and it's definitely worth checking out just 'cause of that reason.
Overall
A great and original platformer that you can play several times in your life. Multiple endings rule.
Ratings
Storyline: 6/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Graphics: 9/10
Sound: 5/10
Replayability: 8/10
Originality: 8/10
Overall: 9/10
//Benny
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Staff Comments of Awesomeness
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August 4, 2011 - 07:25 BST - Nate
It's time to end this somewhat hiatus and start writing video game reviews for no one again. Funny that after all of these months of college and unemployment I start wasting time with video games and shitty reviews once I finally get a job.
Also, maybe I'll start reviewing games that have been released within the past six months for once thanks to my new disposable (heavy emphasis on this word) income. Maybe.
June 12, 2010 - 15:30 GMT - Benny
I got an urge to collect crap for my chao in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. I had quite a lot of fun until I realised that I already had a chao with 99 in all stats. That took a bit of the fun away but I have another 16 chao I can level up. But now I'm in a mood to play Zelda instead.May 31, 2010 - 15:53 GMT - Benny
I'm quite glad I went through with this The Green Shell idea. Combined with Hair, I've managed to build up a little backlog of updates that could last me at least a week. Although I have a feeling I'll put out a few of them at a time, which means I'll run out sooner. But yeah, while it's not necessarily easy to come up with shitty ideas for it, I have been looking around at a lot of random video game stuff over the last 12 hours and it's quite fun. I also need to play some more Star Ocean; I've got reptile aliens to kill and annoying girls to ignore! My hatred for Welch has gone down a lot since I got Lymle into my party. That annoying fuck pisses me off, 'kay.
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