Wario Land: Shake It! for Wii Reviews by Gamers

In an industry always looking forward to the next big thing, leave it to Nintendo to turn around and peer directly into the past for a little inspiration. The result is Wario Land: Shake It!, a traditional 2D platformer built exclusively for Wii that harkens back to so many of the games veteran players, myself included, grew up with. It's old-school design for a new generation of players and it's a revival long overdue. This new Wario Land isn't very innovative. There's almost nothing in the title, some shaking of the Wii remote aside, that you haven't experienced in other platformers before. It doesn't boast cutting-edge technology. There are no polygons to speak of and you can forget about techniques like depth of field blur and bloom lighting. But what Nintendo's celebration of 2D platformers may lack in originality or tech is made up for with truly tight, fun and all-around winning controls and play mechanics, and it's got style to spare. Simply, from the moment you pick up the Wii remote, you will be reminded (again and again) not only of those classics which shaped the industry, but why you started gaming in the first place.

The game's storyline is typical Nintendo fluff, surreal nearly to the point of becoming nonsensical -- a lazy setup for the platforming to follow. The Shake King has inexplicably appeared in the land of Yuretopia, stolen the magical Bottomless Coin Sack (which holds an endless supply of money), and run away with the area's kidnapped queen. Approached by the subtly named Captain Maple Syrup, a female pirate, Wario is persuaded to dash through five worlds in search of treasure, his insatiable greed his only driving force; saving the queen and restoring peace is merely a side effect of his adventures to come. This flimsy tale is supported by brief, but nevertheless beautiful hand-drawn animation sequences that set the mood quite nicely.

Wario Land: Shake It! runs in progressive-scan and technically supports a widescreen mode, too, although not really. The experience is presented in 16:9 mode, but the gameplay action itself is constrained to the 4:3 presentation -- the extra space on the left and right sides is utilized for a handful of icons and nothing more. It's really disappointing because this is a gorgeous game that would have looked even better running full resolution on widescreen TVs. Contrary to some fan speculation, this would not have been an impossibility with a little ingenuity on the developer's part. And beside, Nintendo is supposed to be setting a precedent for third-parties, a difficult task when some of its own games don't adhere to the visual standard.

The game really is quite stunning, though. All of the characters, backgrounds and animations are hand-drawn and as a result, you will feel as though you are playing through a well-designed cartoon as you make your way past the selection of varied stages that comprise the atmospheric world. There isn't a whole lot of 2D trickery going on -- you won't see too many layers of parallax, whether in the foreground or background, for example. However, the quality of the animations, which are both fluid and funny, and the caliber of the backgrounds, always colorful and stylized, is rivaled by few platformers today. And, of course, Wario will trot through a comprehensive list of locales, from Wild West themed trains to icy slopes, underwater caverns, lush jungles and tropical forests on his way to victory. Few stages look similar, which is quite an accomplishment.

Shake It! is refreshingly straightforward platformer whose difficulty lays not in the journey from the first stage to the final boss -- a process that can be blasted through in little more than five hours if you're really rushing -- but in truly completing the experience, which is going to take at least twice as long, maybe more. There are five worlds, each with five stages, and most of them can be breezed through in 10 minutes or less. However, completionists will have cause to come back to stages again and again for there are all sorts of secondary challenges, from collecting a certain amount of coins to finishing under a specific time limit. You will even run into more obscure tasks such as finishing stages without falling into any water or taking any damage. How about detonating multiple bombs at the same time or jumping on the heads of three consecutive enemies? Yep. Those are in there, too. The list is robust, sure to heighten your level of enjoyment and extend replay value for hours.

I really like Wario Land, though, for three reasons. First is that it controls wonderfully, even if you are gripping the Wii remote classically and using the D-Pad to manipulate Wario, losing analog precision. You've only got two buttons -- one for jumping and the other for both a quick shoulder burst and also for throwing enemies and items. There's a butt stomp. And, naturally, you can shake the Wii remote at any time so that Wario will pound the ground, upending the screen and knocking any nearby foes upside down. That's about it. It's a truly simplified scheme, it's easy to learn and feels good. You will never miss a platform and Wario turns on a dime.



The second reason this game is so addictive is because it features excellent level designs. No gimmicks. No big, bloated, unnecessary open world, for example. Actually, just the opposite -- Shake It! is comprised of refreshingly linear levels that go from the left to the right and then back again at the end. You won't ever get lost, but you might scratch your head now and again as you try to figure out how to get past an obstacle or two. Once you reach your end goal, the play undergoes a slight change: suddenly, a countdown timer sounds and now you must race back through the stage, usually by a secondary route, as you attempt to return to the starting point.

Third, the variety in play mechanics is as plentiful as the visual differences between stages. At one moment, you're engaged in fairly standard run-and-jump obstacles and in the next, you're piloting an underwater submarine in shooter-style stages. You'll control Wario over high wires with a unicycle, tilting the Wii remote to and from to make him steer left and right. You'll pilot a hovering craft in the same fashion. And Wario himself will jump off springboards, swing from ropes, twirl across poles, and be jettisoned forward into a super-sprint, crashing through barriers and finding secret treasure, cleverly hidden at every seemingly unobtainable ledge and faraway platform. The contraptions that the anti-hero uses throughout his explorations all have places within the worlds -- the fun lays in figuring out how to best utilize them in order to achieve results.

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