Wario, the greedy villain, videogame designer, and Mario rival returns in another E-rated platformer, this time for the Wii. Wario may be an anti-hero, but with other characters like Mario and Link taking a break this holiday season, he looks to be the closest we're going to get to an actual Nintendo hero. Below I'll rate on a scale of 10 as I examine whether Wario has brought the goods or left us holding the bag.
Story: 6
The story is no more and no less than what you would expect from Wario, who will only take the lead role when it's for his good. This time, the evil Shake King has taken Queen Merelda and her Merfle citizens prisoner. Wario wouldn't give two cents to help these kindly characters, but learns that along with the queen, the Shake King has also taken the Bottomless Coin Sack, which can be shaken over and over to produce limitless coins. Kaching!... And Wario's off!
The story never gets developed any further
than that, and players may be disappointed that they don't see more of
these new characters, but this is a simple platformer, and a Wario title
at that. It's enough to get the player going, and doesn't get in
the way. With a story this simple, I'm not even going to bother adding
a characters section, but this game does get a nod for including Captain
Syrup (even if it is in a supporting role now), and I'm sure at least one
or two of these enemies have been seen before. Those penguins are
still annoying.
Gameplay: 7
Shake It is what I would call a relaxed platformer: platformer meaning it's a 2D sidescroller in which you must negotiate enemies and other obstacles as you venture towards the goal, and relaxed meaning that the levels are simple to complete. Unlike in conventional Mario platformer, there are no bottomless pits or other traps that can kill Wario instantly and send him back to the start. While Wario can take damage from enemies and hazards (unlike in some of his other games), he has a long life meter, and many enemies cannot injure him. So marching through the game is pretty simple. The game does offer challenges, which I will discuss further in the Difficulty section, but the essential platforming elements are simple. In addition to those standard platforming elements, this is also a treasure hunting game that challenges the player to find treasure chests, diamonds, and coins. Hey, it's Wario! He wouldn't be bothering if it wasn't for that stuff, and you won't either if you want to get some fun out of this game.
You'll progress through five worlds with four levels each plus a boss. Throughout those levels the gameplay can oddly shift between very relaxed to very frantic. At times the game can be slow as Wario can progress through levels relatively unimpeded and at only a standard pace. At other times, gameplay can be frantic as you race through the course or need to make a series of well-executed jumps to reach a treasure, or else fail and restart the level. Late in the game this inconsistency comes together a little more, if only because the levels are not quite as much of a cakewalk, but early on I did find myself bored at times.
Probably the best part of the gameplay is that most levels have a unique element in them that you'll need to master. Whether it's outrunning boulders, navigating the Subwarine in aquatic levels, or using Wario's super ground pound move to knock down icicles he can use as platforms, there's always something new to negotiate, and that keeps the game lively. On the flip side, though, this game really cuts down on a series staple by including only a few ways in which Wario can be transformed. Wario can be set on fire, turned into a snowball, or shrunk. Those are fine, but other games in the series have had many more transformations. The variety in gameplay may make up for this, but transformations is something fans of the Wario Land games have come to expect, and I would have liked to see more of them.
One bothersome element of the gameplay is that to unlock new worlds, you'll need to collect a certain number of coins. At least in my case, I did not always have enough just from playing the game normally. So what do you do if you don't have enough coins? You go back to previous levels and play as many times as necessary. It's not difficult to get the coins, and is rather an unnecessary gameplay element that feels like repetitive leveling in a Final Fantasy game or something.
Overall, though, this game delivers
what you'd expect from Wario. The gameplay rarely excels, but it
is a relatively easy platformer as is the rest of the series. Fans of the
series and of basic platformers will feet at home playing this, and this
game offers enough new elements to keep things fresh.
Controls: 7
A major element of this game is the ability to shake the controller to make Wario shake things and pull off certain moves. Now, to start off with, the controls respond perfectly fine. Whether you're shaking or tilting the controller, or using the regular buttons to run and jump (you hold the Wii-Mote like you would an NES controller), the control is almost flawless. One minor annoyance: Why do I have to wait for that bar at the top to refill before using another super ground pound? Let's go already!
However, the motion controls don't mesh with Shake It's gameplay as well as they did, say, with Galaxy, where Mario's spin jump move not only was useful and easy to execute, but immediately felt like it could have been in any Mario game. Wario's motion sensitive moves work well, but don't necessarily fit as well. Some of his motion-sensitive abilities, like steering a "unibucket" by tilting the controller, are only used in one or two levels and feel like a gimmick rather than a core gameplay element. In terms of Wario's shaking abilities, it's mildly amusing to shake down an enemy for life-restoring garlic, though it would have sped things up to get the garlic just by pounding the enemy, plus when you shake him the garlic can go bouncing off and you may not be able to collect it.
Wario also shakes coin bags to release the valuable metal discs, but here is where this control element can backfire. You want to collect as many coins as possible, but as with garlic, coins can go bouncing off and be difficult to collect. It's annoying to lose coins that bounce away, even if it doesn't hurt your progress. You'll soon learn that you can prevent coins from bouncing away by shaking the coin bag while standing near a wall, but sometimes there isn't one very close by. I won't say it's not fun to give the coin bag a good shake, but simply opening the bag and getting all the coins may have been the better way to go. Also, another minor annoyance. Sometimes when the bag has been drained of coins, it will disappear, and if you're still shaking the controller, you'll accidentally execute a super ground pound. This probably won't hurt you, but it's annoying to use a move you didn't want to.
The bottom line with the controls is,
they work well, but don't add that much to the game. I expected more
from a game that advertises its control scheme in the title.
Graphics: 9
As a 2D platformer without 3D landscapes
and cutscenes, this game probably won't blow you away, but within its constraints,
it's a very good-looking game. The environments are colorful and
well detailed, and you can tell that a lot of effort was put into character
movements. Some of the bosses are very large, and all look good.
One minor complaint: sometimes grass and other background elements can
be in the foreground and obscure small enemies and coins. Otherwise,
Shake It excels visually.
Sound: 4
The sound effects are decent, but the
music? ... Eh. The good thing about the music is that each of the
20 levels has its own song, and those songs are usually well themed.
But none of those level themes are great, and this game really falls short
with the songs that could have been dramatic. The boss themes are
entirely uninteresting, with the final boss hardly even getting music in
his last phase. At the end of each level, after freeing a Merfle,
you'll have to race back to the start of the level within a time limit.
The music will change at this time, but those songs don't exactly scream
"Hurry up!" To be fair, you don't really have to go that fast, but
still... This is a very unappealing soundtrack.
Difficulty: 3
I had a lot of trouble with the difficulty of this game. It's not that it was too hard, but rather, that some parts of the game are too easy, while others are, while maybe not all that hard, insufficently rewarding relative to the difficulty. First the easy part: completing the required elements of the game. Wario has a long life meter, is met by relatively few dangerous obstacles, and cannot be killed instantly. The result is that clearing levels is an easy task even late in the game. With few intimidating hazards in your way, simply progressing through the game can be boring, and disturbingly quick. Even escaping the levels is simple, I have never failed to reach the start of the level in time and do not know what happens if you do. Bosses do provide a legitimate challenge, but you can buy up to two Recovery Potions at a time to essentially triple Wario's already long life meter. So you shouldn't struggle too much.
Now the hard part: collecting all the treasures and completing all this missions. Each level has three treasure chests to reach, and a varying number of missions. Those missions can include escaping the course within a certain amount of time, collecting a certain number of coins, and not taking any damage, all of which appear on most courses; as well as course-specific challenges like never breaking your unibucket. Treasures can be very well hidden or require timely jumps to reach, and missions can be very challenging.
These challenges may be welcomed by players looking for something more difficult, but I mostly found them uninteresting because they are completely optional and, for the most part, unrewarding. I could see going through the game to find all the treasure chests, which require good scouting as often as good jumping, so they're a little easier and more interesting as you look for hidden areas. They're also somewhat rewarding, because the treasures are sometimes amusing even if they're also useless. The missions, though... They're usually tougher than finding the treasures. It's not that they're really so difficult, but you will have to master all the jumps and hazards of the course, as well as find every nook and cranny. If the reward was worth anything, I might bring myself to do this, but all that happens when you complete all the missions in a course is you unlock that course's music in the media room. What a lousy prize! I can listen to the music just by going to the course. And the music isn't any good anyway! So if you aim to complete the missions, you'll be doing it just for the satisfaction of success, because the game doesn't give you anything meaningful.
So, there's the problem. The core
gameplay is too easy, and the extra challenges are too difficult relative
to what you get for them, and aren't worth completing. The one way
you're bored because the game is too easy, and the other way you're bored
because you have to work hard for almost no reward. It's a losing
situation either way.
Length: 3
This is going to continue my griping from the Difficulty section. With only 20 levels that are easy to complete, this game can be beaten very quickly. Even with some challenging bosses and with having to replay levels for extra coins, I think this game could be beaten in about five hours. That is absolutely too short for a single-player console game nowadays.
The game does offer a lot of replay
value if you're into 100% completion. Between finding all the treasures
and completing all the missions, as well as searching for and completing
the ten hidden levels after beating the final boss, I could see Shake It
taking 25-30 hours to play through to completion. But why should
anybody do this? I, for one, could not be bothered to complete all
those pointless missions, and even finding the hidden courses, something
I really wanted to do, becomes tediously difficult, as you must search
the indicated courses for a hard-to-see glowing spot. But unless
you're up for completing these tasks, this game is distressingly short.
So whatcha gonna do?
Levels: 9
I should have discussed these earlier, but maybe it's best to put them here so we can rebound after those last two sections. Despite everything else, Shake It has got a wide variety of levels, including a train, an ancient Oriental setting, and some kind of casino-filled city. Many levels are unique, and they're diverse and interesting, with appropriate challenges. The levels did make me want to play on to find out what was next, and so played a key role in getting me through to the final boss. So Nintendo did very well with these.
Unfortunately, the hidden levels I've
seen are really only tougher versions of regular levels, rather than being
as unique as the original 20. And they're still not all that tough,
at least in terms of simply clearing the levels. So, that's less
interesting, and it makes it easier for me to live with not having found
them all.
Fun Factor!: 4
Shake It! screams "short game" almost
from the getgo, and even though many elements of the gameplay are well
done, the game can be too slow and easy to keep the player away from boredom
even in that short time. Shake It! offers plenty of extra challenges,
but without enough incentive for putting up with the much tougher difficulty
and completing them. You'll encounter some fun moments in this light-hearted
game, and some challenges may be worth completing, but for me it was all
done under the veil of the game feeling too short and easy. Wario
hasn't got the pedigree of the Mario series, but still, I expected much
more from Nintendo out of this title.
Recommendation:
At the peril of sounding like a skipping record, Wario Land Shake It! is too short and easy to be worth adding to your collection. The only ones I'd recommend this to as a buy would be die-hard platforming fans who would be up for completing all this game's challenges despite the lack of compelling rewards. And even in this case, I have to think these players would get more fun out of a game like Mega Man 9, which I haven't played but that looks like a good, challenging platformer. Also, these players can just go off and download I Wanna Be The Guy or something...
Aside from that, if you're not up for all the pointless challenges and do like the sound of the gameplay and levels, then go for a rental. This is a fun game, but is short enough for you to complete the required elements over the weekend. If you go into the game understanding that this game is short and easy, then you won't be disappointed. But if you're looking for a keeper, the only thing you should keep from this is the need to continue searching.
Wario Land Shake It! maintains its series charm of playing the anti-hero, and it works well and looks great, but doesn't have the length or balanced difficulty that players should expect from console games today. Hopefully this was only meant to hold us over during this quiet period, as Nintendo puts more effort into its upcoming titles.
| If you would like to send some feedback
to the author of this submission, please complete this form.
What's your name?
What's your Email address?
How do you rate this submission?
Does this submission belong in Little
Lemmy's Land?
Would you like to see more from this author? Comments and suggestions:
|
