Virtual Boy Wario Land

Virtual Boy Wario Land is the main, and really the only truly convincing reason to ever switch on Nintendo's red stereoscopic console, and at the same time one of the best platformers of the mid-nineties that almost nobody played. During a treasure hunt, Wario falls into a vast underground world, and as always he's driven by a single motivation: to carry off every valuable thing he can. The gameplay builds on Wario Land from the Game Boy, so this isn't about balletic precision like Mario, but about brute force. Wario headbutts enemies with his shoulder, crushes them by landing on top of them, smashes through walls with them, and hunts for hidden chambers until he's sure not a single bag of coins is left in the level.

The key added value is the use of depth. Levels are split into two layers, front and back, between which Wario moves through special passages, and because the Virtual Boy's display shows a genuine stereoscopic image, the player sees both planes at once and has to plan ahead how to get into the other one. On top of that come helmets that temporarily transform Wario: a horned one turns him into a battering ram capable of driving into the ground, a dragon one lets him breathe fire at obstacles and enemies alike. Boss fights at the end of the worlds make full use of the stereo effect, since attacks quite literally rush into the foreground. Technically it's the pinnacle of the whole catalogue, animations are smooth, sprites are large, and the four-shade red graphics still stay readable.

At the time, the game drowned along with the whole platform's commercial collapse, even though reviewers largely called it the strongest piece of software the Virtual Boy ever got. Today it's often cited as the missing link between the first Wario Land and its Game Boy sequel, since it contains ideas the series later expanded to their full extent. Anyone who dares try the original hardware will pay a fortune for the cartridge and rub their eyes after an hour. Through emulation or anaglyph glasses, though, it remains a surprisingly modern, brisk, and funny game that deserves far more than the role of curiosity.