WARIO LAND 4 & CELESTE: WHITE MEN CAN'T PLATFORM
last year, i described pizza tower as being at least as fun as "eating pizza with one hand and knockin down a capri sun with the other, while hitting the sickest rail grind of your life with the boys on your rocket-powered board in a dinosaur costume wearing headphones blasting nofx in front of that skater girl you like". if it wasn't obvious, i loved the thing to death. the character-action-esque scoring system sounded dumb and superfluous on paper, but ended up making for what may very well be my favorite 2d platformer. shit's basically a sonic game with more combat. it was a dream come true, and totally unexpected too - i am NOT one for hyperidealized throwback games! i played sonic mania around the same time as pizza tower and only enjoyed it on basis of sonic being one of the bestest cutest guys.
naturally, i was put onto wario land 4 within minutes of dropping my 5-star rating. the gimmick system that defined pizza tower's swag was ripped wholesale from wario's portable adventures. pickin it up a few months ago, i expected an in and out easy-breezy kind of platformer, but what i ended up getting was... a bit more complicated, and taught me something about my tastes. but before we get to that, let me get something out of my system
ISN'T THIS GORGEOUS?! the pudgy angry wario! the uneven rain! the distinct layers of forestation! pictured above is one of the first levels in wario land 4 and it sets a high bar (that will be surpassed again and again) for the kind of artistic and programming prowess that this whole title is slathered in. geno7's video (that you should watch instead of reading this) has said everything i want to say about the nauseating level of detail, but i'd be remiss not to gush a little. i cannot name a single game with sprite art better. none. even something as small as coins and the text bubbles on pickup look RADICAL. and like, some of the music has vocal tracks. ON THE GBA! you'll see so much cool stuff if you sit down with wario land 4 for five minutes, and as such i figure it's better to tell you how all the cool stuff makes me feel rather than list it off. no joke, i can feel my chest tightening like i'm about to ride a rollercoaster with my crush or something because i'm just so fucking in love with this living, breathing cartridge. so keep in mind all my love and adoration when i tell you i cannot stand playing it anymore. this is partially cuz of my disdain for 2d platformers that aren't named "sonic" or "donkey kong", but i also think that its just a mess.
wl4 is a sequel-ass sequel to 3, taking the same gameplay and making small adjustments and additions. problem is that most of these additions suck balls. the first problem is with the health system: it has one. wario land 3 didn't. while this would be bad enough considering the typical wario land level design alone, it becomes unbelievably grating in conjunction the crystals and hurry up sections. the crystals turn 4 into a collect-a-thon (which is a shitty thing for a 2d platformer to be) where instead of doing the Good Collect-A-Thon thing and giving you a shit ton of a collectibles you have to get like 80% of (hence allowing player expression), it gives you a medium amount of collectibles that you have to collect all of to progress. you're meant to spend a lot of time in these levels - which would be fine without a life bar! but now, fuck ups during a level mean a total restart. the hurry up sections forcing you to speed back through the level does not help. don't get me wrong; i LOVE the tension. however, the tension turns into tedium as soon as i run into one too many enemies that i could barely see coming with this tiny ass screen and have to restart the entire level AGAIN. the hurry up sections also required a run button to be tacked on. it's kinda silly and impractical - almost like the devs slapped needlessly quick sections onto a series defined by its slow and puzzly nature. in a similar instance of indecisiveness, the design of the entire title suffers from inconsistent levels of linearity. i hate that shit. either give me total control over how i play the game or keep it as straightforward as mario. it's simply exhausting. and i do fw this game so hard!... as long as i'm not playing. to be clear, i'm not saying this is "objectively bad" or some bullshit. play it if you think you'd like it. i think my takeaway is that i'm not as "aesthetics over gameplay" as i thought i was. also i'm picky aobut 2d platformer but i alreayd knew that
which reminded me of another platformoid i recently shelved. it has the exact opposite problem, but i might like it more than wario land 4? it's celeste.
this style is so indie-kid bland across the board that i don't even care to talk about it (madeline is really cute tho...). also, the controls don't feel anywhere near as good as the wario games. also also, the story is beyond forgettable and is used by gamers to pretend like they tolerate lgbtq+ representation when that wasn't added until a late patch and is never addressed until the last 2 minutes of the optional epilogue to the game. i should trash this. HOWEVER. its level design and systems are a got damn SYMPHONY for somebody like me (ie. did not grow up with super mario world and doesn't romanticize it). the challenges are awesome, brutal, and precise without any of the monotony of a typical platformer thanks to the combo of hulking gauntlet-like levels divided up into single static screens with hella autosaves. there are collectibles that lock levels, but most of those levels are locked behind a measly 4 items, THEY'RE NOT REQUIRED TO PROGRESS, and you won't end up replaying an entire level if you die trying to get them. it feels, to me, like it would be a better handheld game than wario land 4.
so yeah, just wanted to write a little since wario land 4 made me think a lot. expect a much more substantial piece on wario land 2 and 3 when i finish those.
END GAME REVIEW