Wario Land Shake It

Warui Mario, i.e. Wario, is on the loose, chasing coin, and shakin’ his caboose in this newest installment of Nintendo franchise goodness. Having never had the pleasure of spending time with this crooked-mustache anti-hero, I was in for a treat. Wario Shake It offers just about everything you could want from a 2D family platformer... playful animations, a variety of satisfying and easy to execute moves, vast levels with multiple goals, solid puzzles and many, many secrets for those willing to keep playing after beating the final boss. Don your purple trousers and yellow shirt... it’s Wario time.

Plotting Points by Tan(x)
Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Game: Wario Shake It!
Platform: Wii
Played For: 24 hours



So let’s discuss the plot. Wario has a passing acquaintance (or maybe something more?!) with a large-busted gal who apparently likes to steal things from museums and play mercantile pirate in her spare time. Playing Fujiko to Wario’s Lupin III, this so-called “Captain Syrup” sets Wario up with a mystical telescope and globe and the promise of a bottomless purse of coins so that she can ultimately reap the benefits of all his hard work. There are also some weird pointy-nose ambiguously gendered fairy sprites who want their captured princess rescued... but our man Wario isn’t really into that kind of conventional stuff. After all, with a bottomless purse you could probably purchase your way into a suitably royal family and find a princess who is competent enough to not get caught by badguys all the time... Princess Peach, take note!

Wario uses his magic telescope to project himself into the various countries on his mystical globe, making a math guy like me invariably think of things like stereographic projection and the problems associated with making flat isomorphic maps of a spherical world... ever see those Mercator projections? Ever notice that Greenland seems awfully large? You just can’t get comparative sizes to work out right on a flat map of the world, all very annoying I assure you. Anyway, once he’s wiggled his big butt in a fair imitation of my cat getting ready to pounce, Wario leaps into his telescope and enters the Shake Dimension where he encounters a series of continents, each of which is broken into five or six levels and a satisfying boss battle.

What struck me immediately was the intricate design of each stage in this game. Wario navigates a series of lava pits, weird little enemies (that are mostly there to be kicked around, knocked over, thrown at stuff or otherwise abused) platforms and ropes, all the while collecting bags of coins of various sizes. Eventually he finds a member of the recently purloined pixie populace and shakes him loose... at this point Wario is given a time limit to escape the level with sprite and spoils in tow. While each level plays with a constant theme, it is normal for several new paths, treasures and tricks to typically open up in the second, timed half of the level, overlaying the ones that had been traversed on the way in. This overlayered complexity lends a mathematical beauty to each and every level of the game.

It also makes the game quite challenging for a completist! Every level is equipped with three special treasures for Wario to find, each one requiring some kind of trick or lateral thinking to achieve. Sometimes a treasure can only be accessed when Wario is on the way out, adding an extra consideration into your puzzle-solving attempts. Furthermore, each level is equipped with a number of “missions”, the Wario equivalent of Xbox360 achievements. These missions vary in difficulty from simply provocative to throw-your-Wii-remote-at-your-cat exasperating. In order to be 100% successful, you’ll have to be both observant and experimental. Figure out all the boundary conditions on Wario’s various abilities (I particularly like the power slam that shakes the whole board and knocks things over... very satisfying.) Shake every enemy you encounter (especially the birds... you’ll see) and find out their unique properties. Optimize the amount of gold you get by finding strategic spots to shake your bags of gold. And be ready to try each level several times as you slowly optimize your play.

Did I mention, by the way, that in addition to the normal set of stages there are secret levels to be found after you’ve beaten the final boss? And that each of the secret levels have their own treasures and missions? And that some of the secret levels even have secret levels of their own, complete with more treasures and missions and so on? Exploring the Shake Dimension is like zooming in on a fractal... each task completed opens up two more similar, but strangely different iterations.

All of this makes the game an extremely satisfying experience in that it provides so many levels of challenge... each player can be assured of smacking into their own wall of diminishing returns at some point or another... the game is scaleable for the whole spectrum of gamer ability levels. I enjoy imagining the onion-eating Wario expert out there who can and has achieved 100% completion in levels, treasures and missions... a secret king or queen of the Wario realm with a private wicked grin and shiny eye, standing tall in resplendent yellow and purple regalia and lording it over the rest of us mere strivers. If you, the reader, have reached such lofty heights, you have my utmost respect as a fellow gamer. Salute!

After Super Mario Galaxy and Wario Shake It, one can only conclude that Nintendo continues to be one of the best game designers out there today. Their games may come out infrequently, but if they continue to be as rich, multilayered and generally entertaining as this one, it is easy to justify the wait. I could see a lot of companies trying to sell you a game like Wario Shake It piecemeal... secret levels as a downloadable add-on or some such nonsense like that. Thank you, Nintendo, for holding firm to your own high standards... keep up the great work!

Will I play it more: Solving a Wario puzzle a day makes your math teacher proud