Wario Land on the Nintendo Virtual Boy (aka Virtual Boy Wario Land) was developed by Nintendo R&D1 and first released in 1995. It’s a platform game that was designed to utilise the Virtual Boy‘s stereoscopic 3D capabilities, and therefore features objects that swing in and out of the screen, and also allows the player (as Wario) to explore foreground and background areas.

To move in and out of the background, Wario must stand on special arrow boxes and press the ‘A’ button to make the transition.

As usual in a Wario Land game, Wario can jump; shoulder charge enemies and destructable blocks; collect coins, and use his head or feet to destroy or activate blocks above and below himself. Wario can also find and wear hats to gain special powers.

Like Mario, in his games, Wario has two states: large Wario, and small Wario. The large version can perform special moves, and can take a hit from anything damaging, without losing a life. The small version cannot perform special moves (nor can it shoulder charge), and taking any further damage will lose you a life. Therefore, if Wario is small, the best course of action is to quickly find a hat, or another power-up, that will make him large again.

The aim in most levels is to collect hearts and coins, and to find the hidden key that unlocks the elevator to the next level, before the timer runs out. Coins can be used to gamble for more coins, or play minigames in-between levels. Collecting one hundred hearts awards you with an extra life.

There are ten regular levels, and four boss battles, making fourteen levels in total. Each of the ten regular levels has a hidden room with a special treasure (which are shown during the intro sequence), and collecting these will affect the ending you get upon completing the game. If you miss any of these, you can at least go back and search for them again. The difficulty level, and the time taken to complete the game, also affect the ending you recieve.

Virtual Boy Wario Land is arguably the best game released for the ill-fated Virtual Boy, and is a quality experience from start to finish. It’s short, but varied enough to keep a player’s interest, and features familiar Mario/Wario tropes and secrets, but in eye-popping 3D.

If you’re going to try any Virtual Boy games in an emulator (or even on actual hardware – if you’re lucky enough to access a real VB), then Wario Land is a safe place to start.

Poignant note: this was the final Wario game produced by Gunpei Yokoi, before he left Nintendo in 1996, and passed away in 1997.

More: Virtual Boy Wario Land on Wikipedia
More: Virtual Boy Wario Land on mariowiki.com