An open love letter to Wario Land 4 (and the original Warioland for the GB).

GBA

Bseriously! Much like another great 2D good looking amazing sounding SNES game ( Yoshi’s Island) my first interactions with Wario Land 4 would be a confusing one, with no instructions to go by only relying on my seemingly innate understanding of 2D game-design and experienced trough a sticky barely working control pad in a shoddy store (Yoshi’s island was actually in a burger shop, guess how long their N64 controllers worked later on?, hint: about one day).

In fact those game almost have more in common with each other than it has with Wario’s much more loved rival Mario’s games (yeah I know , technically Yoshi’s island is a Mario game), which is pretty amusing and a huge part to why I love it so much.


( Funky fact , did you know that the guy who designed Wario also designed Samus?)

So where does Wario’s appeal come from exactly? Judging by his appearance alone one could think that he was intended to appeal to the “cool” kids with his much more macho appearance and obviously his more “bad-ass” equipment like a motorcycle and other masculine stuff, but everyone who’s spent time with Wario knows how wrong this presumption is. He’s wackier than a Japanese pe-wee’s on drugs man! And so much more entertaining and lovable for it!

He-he-here I go he shouts before he sets out for yet another adventure to further secure his placement at the top of the financial gauntlet seemingly rivaled by nobody but himself. And what did he really do with all of the dough and that fantastic mansion I got by collecting all of the hidden treasure in the original Warioland? Which by the way added a tremendous amount of replay value to the game, and is still present in the fourth instalment but be it at a less frustrating but still as exciting way. This time around your treasure total is measured by how fast you can hammer down the games bosses HP meters, watch those sweaty palms as the clock ticks down at a excruciating rate , better not loose focus, only one hit left, Fuuuuuu*k! There goes my sweet treasures. Brilliant!

Talking of bosses, they’re as creepy and strange as ever in the 4th game , and it’s not only the enemy design that’s brilliant about this game, pretty much everything graphics wise is top notch, and even at it’s blown up 3DS resolution (as seen if you’re not holding down select as you start the game on the 3DS), to me the game still looks amazing. And Wario’s colorful animations helps a lot with conveying the greedy self centered bastard he is, I mean, that’s why we love him right? I know I do!


Sprite mashup by
ShyguyXXL

What’s more to marvel at here , ah , did I mention the odd soundtrack ( It should be instantly familiar to Wario ware fans) which sounds nothing like game music usually does, meaning that melodies takes a step back while ambiance and chill out sounds play the main role here. It’s definitely not for everyone but I know that I can appreciate something different and wacky as a Japanese lady singing with a distinct 16-bit voice to a chillout jazz track. Actually I pretty much adore most of it! One of my favorite aspects of the game is that the levels doesn’t have a timer on them, so you can take you time and appreciate the locals, maybe plot a safe escape route for your “oh my god” frantic escape that takes place at the end of every level where your (Super Metroid speed boost) hold down L button running technique comes at handy while the stage is collapsing and you’re desperately trying to escape from it whilst another amazing and frantic track plays to please your ears. It’s just so stressful and wrong in most aspects, but it’s so good at conveying what it sets out to do so it doesn’t stick out , rather , blend in perfectly with the rest of the game. Which also could be described as odd in many aspects, but so stupidly charming and well crafted at the same time, and that’s a combo you don’t get very often. And that’s perhaps why I treasure these games so much. Because even if the Wii tried to substitute my 2D platforming needs (Warioland : Shake dimension and so forth) this is where it’s freaking at.



Saira ( or I’m in love , again)

PC - steam,fastspring,gamers gate

Proof that I’m a proponent of Nifflas games can be found in almost all of my blogs and even though I know this I still had trouble justifying the 9£ price-tag after reading about people on the Nifflas support forums complaining about how short the game is. This feeling of uncertainty was completely abolished when I noticed that Saira was part of the Gala indie bundle , I payed 5 bucks and excitedly started playing.

The game revolves about Saira, a freelance interstellar photographer that once day experiences a teleporter malfunction and suddenly she’s the only human left in her galaxy. And it’s your task to find out what went wrong by gathering parts to fix the now broken teleporter.

Saira's past and her feelings are shown to the player in cozy or sometimes scary surreal dream imagery, which adds quite some personality to the character. And it's hard to not think of another videogame heroine when you're running around on distant planets with your space helmet complete with a green visor. *shudders*

Fans of Nifflas previous Knytt games will immediately recognize how Saira moves and others will soon be dashing trough otherworldly fields and jumping between walls to gain altitude. It’s has the same mentality as the Metroid prime games with it’s greater focus on atmosphere and puzzle solving but plays more like Super Metroid. And manages to strike a satisfying balance between you avoiding environmental hazards and solving a diverse bunch of logical puzzles. Some of which at first can feel almost a bit too straining at first but give them some though and approach them in the right way and you'll be handsomely rewarded, simply put some of them are genius in their design.



The game is pretty nonlinear and sports 7 planet clusters with usually 2 planets each wich can be visited in almost any order, one of them is often visited first to gather information with your super handy camera that can later be reviewed on your PDA, which you can dual wield with most interactive consoles making for seamless and fun puzzle-solving even for us with a short memory span, and it also makes so you don’t have break the immersion of the game because you felt like you had to write something down. Brilliant game design right there! All of the planets also have different gravity and environmental dangers to adapt to which makes for a varied experience.

Speaking of immersion, this game is easy to get lost into with its gorgeous vistas and fancy and mighty imaginative backgrounds. Most planets have multilayer backgrounds and sometimes even high res photos of fauna and other beautiful real life objects spliced into them , and it fits perfectly. It’s appealing visual style is only trumped by it’s meticulously sound design, Sarias footsteps pans with the camera as she moves trough the snow and every planet has it’s own atmospheric often electro flavored ambient theme, it really shows that Nicklas Nygren did loads of electronic music before this.

There's also a couple of minigames and extras to flesh out the experience, there's a addicting pinball game reminicent of the pinball levels in Nightsky and a ship radio with a couple of stations showcasing Nifflas friends and his own music.

It’s hard to recommend Saira for the 9 dollars asking price since it’s a fairly niche game that doesn’t quite live up to the standards we are used to with the content healthy market we have today, I've managed to squeeze 5 hours out of it and I'm at the last planet. But yet Saira managed to ensnare and immerse me in it’s beautiful world in a way that few games manage to do, (Metoid prime did this for me). And it has me marveling at it’s design around every corner. So if you’re as me a Nifflas supporter and you feel like few games manage to give you that magical feeling of immersion that comes with total desolation, by all means try the demo , it just might be the thing you’ve been missing in modern games. For all of you people who aren’t as euphoric about the idea of the beauty of desolation and puzzle solving as I am I suggest you wait for the next indie bundle or a steam sale.