Wario Land II

Wario Land II follows up on the successful Super Mario Land spin-off and definitively turns Wario into the lead of his own series, independent of Mario. The game abandons the classic concept of lives and game overs – Wario cannot die, at most enemies transform him into strange forms, such as a flat, burning, frozen, or inflated puppet, each of which opens up different paths and solutions to the platforming puzzles. This idea makes the game more of an exploratory puzzle than a traditional action platformer, where the player searches for hidden coins, secret passages, and alternative story endings depending on how much treasure they manage to collect in each level and how quickly.

Each level also often hides two distinct paths that lead to a different continuation of the storyline, so the game repeatedly returns to explored places with a new perspective. The graphics on the classic monochrome Game Boy are clean and clear, the levels are full of layered platforms, traps, and interactive elements that react to Wario's transformations and force the player to think about which form is most advantageous for a given situation. The music accompanies a jovial, mildly comedic atmosphere that matches Wario's incorrigible greed and refusal to play by the rules befitting a hero. The level design is among the most elaborate created on the handheld at the time, and the game rewards repeated playthroughs of the same levels via a different path and searching for hidden bonus rooms.

Contemporary reviews particularly praised the courage to strip the platformer of the game over and replace it with a transformation system, which became one of the hallmarks of the entire Wario Land series. The influence on the genre is also evident in later entries, which further developed the concept of transformations, nonlinear progression, and branching storylines based on collected treasure. Today the game feels surprisingly fresh – the experimental design without punishment for dying makes it accessible even to players without much experience with classic platformers, while offering enough depth for players seeking 100% completion.

Why play it: For a platformer without a game over, where death only transforms Wario, it's a great choice even for players without experience with genre classics, while offering depth for treasure collectors.