Wario has seen a massive shift in popularity. His Warioware games are doing quite well and his Wario Land series before it were pretty fun. Now, Nintendo decided to give Wario another chance to star in a platformer with Wario Land: Shake It. Can Wario show us a good time? Or is he all shaken up?
The story here is as paper thin as you'd expect from any game with Wario in the name. The Princess of the Shake Dimension has been kidnapped by the Shake King and one of her servants travels through dimensions to ask for Wario's help. Wario is completely uninterested until the servant mentions the royal treasure; a coin sack with no bottom. You can shake the thing for the rest of your life and it'll never run out. Wario is motivated by this item and heads out to save the Princess. Wario Land regular, Captain Syrup, opened a shop to help Wario out for a price and gave him a magic globe that allows Wario to enter the shake dimension. It's not deep, but it's entertaining. It won't be scored, however, due to it's simplicity.
The gameplay is what a Wario game is all about. You wander about the stages in 2D and jump on platforms, jump on enemies, attack enemies and climb things. These actions are very familiar to Wario, but the Shake Dimension brings with it some new actions. You can now pick enemies up and shake them or throw them. This is used to hit switches, destroy blocks or defeat enemies. Each stage has at least 3 missions to complete, such as beating the level without getting hit, and 3 treasures. This gives you a reason to play the levels over again as you probably won't get all 3 missions on one run.
You collect coins in the stages and these are used as your stage score and money to use in Syrup's shop. Syrup sells the maps for each area, extra health points, potions and other bonus features. You need the area maps to progress and, unless you are really good at the game or really thorough, you might need to play through levels again to earn money to buy them which can be annoying. The bosses are pretty entertaining and all have gimmicks that allow you to beat them. The game uses the motion controls quite often, mostly tilt for throwing and moving special vehicles. The motion controls work quite well and very rarely feel out of place.
One issue with the game is the difficulty. The game is far to easy, at least if you are just playing to beat it rather than get everything. Wario can take a lot of punishment and is immune to a lot of things that would kill other platforming heroes instantly, such as a block falling on his head or a passage closing on him. Most things only deal half a heart of damage and most of the bosses keep this low difficulty. There are two bosses that buck this trend and the one that breaks it the most is the final boss. Other than that, the game is enjoyable, though the easy difficulty makes things less fun.
The music is entertaining and well done. It has it's own sound and it's really catchy. There aren't many sound effects, but what was there is decent. Wario's voice clips make things pretty cool. Not much to say, but the music is great and Wario's voice is awesome.
The visuals are the most striking thing about the game since they are so well done. The game is completely animated and hand-drawn. Each frame looks great and Wario is animated amazingly and all of the enemies look great. Wario's personality shines through in every action he performs. This is a game that shows what even HD games are missing this generation, beautiful 2D animation. Bottom-line, this game looks great in every way, aside from the 2 borders on the left and right of the screen.
PROs
- Goofy and entertaining premise
- Wario is a great character and fun to control
- Platforming is fun and level exploring is enjoyable
- Music is great and catchy
- Visuals are fantastic and extremely well-done
- Motion controls don't get in the way
- Bosses are enjoyable
- Final boss can be a challenge
- A lot of missions to complete and treasures to collect
CONs
- Game is really easy
- Massive difficulty spike when it comes to the final boss
- Need to grind for money is a shame
Overall, Wario Land: Shake It! is a fun game and it plays great, looks fantastic and sound good. It's far to easy and is pretty short, but it ends just as it's about to wear out it's welcome. It shows that Wario has it in him to star in a series of platforming games. The 2D animation also shows that putting time and effort into these things is well worth it and makes your game more enjoyable to play. If you own a Wii console and like Wario or platformers at all, buy Wario Land: Shake It! as it's pretty enjoyable.
Story: N/A
Gameplay: 8.5/10
Audio: 8.0/10
Presentation: 9.0/10
TOTAL: 8.5/10