We missed our regularly-scheduled Retronauts podcast last week, but for a good reason: I was holding out until we could get Dragon Quest maniac and all-around rad guy Alex “Toaster Thief” Fraioli on the show. And we did! Although he is muted and fuzzy as he was on the phone from Japan. The result, though, is a fine example of the show…just in time for it to mutate radically for the next showing. Gracious, lordy, etc.
As noted in the show, this really is a shockingly good week for fans of all things old. Besides the obvious choices (Mega Man 9, Kirby Super Star Ultra) you have the less-hyped (Duke Nukem 3D, Vectorman, something else on Virtual Console that I’m forgetting) as well. And then there’s word of 7th Dragon, an old-school RPG created by three masters of the form (Reiko Kodama, Kazuya Niinou and Yuzo Koshiro). Joy and bliss, my friends. The only black mark is Wario Land Shake It!, and even that isn’t bad — just a bit short of its potential, and tragically overshadowed by a much older game for a much less powerful system.
But just what makes Wario Land 4 better than its glossy successor? Several things, which I intend to lay out over the next few days (if I can be bothered to shoot for consistency, of course). But let’s start with the most obvious element, the music.
Wario Land Shake It!’s music is, in a word, really bad. Well, as music it’s not terrible; some of it is pretty catchy, in fact. But as music for a Wario game, it’s not so good. Especially after WL4’s tunes, which were created by a group of people who really and truly love music. They later went on to make the WarioWare titles (all of which have mind-blowing music) and the Rhythm Heaven series (which has music so good it’s the entire point of the games). WL4 gave them their first shot at showing off their genius; as happened with a lot of early GBA titles, they went kind of crazy with the newfound power of the hardware and crammed a ton of (for the time) high-quality sound elements into their creation. The result was trippy, unconventional tunes like “Palm Tree Paradise” (sampled briefly here), a cheerfully lilting ballad with an extended instrumental bridge and a sense of relentless happiness that made a fantastic counterpoint to the hero’s sullen, disgusting personality.
But even that could be subverted through the gameplay: when Wario suffered status effects in WL4, the music became distorted — “wobbly” would be a good description — and was interrupted by bizarre sound effects. “Palm Tree Paradise” was no exception! I wondered when I first heard the vocal theme if it would suffer from distortion effects, and was incredibly happy when it did.
Furthermore, you could collect CDs throughout WL4 that would allow you to unlock options in a hidden sound room — which, unlike most games’ “sound rooms,” wasn’t simply a jukebox. It was literally a sound room, a chamber in which you could play random samplings of bizarre and inexplicable audio samples accompanied by equally strange Game Boy Camera-style animations. WL4 constantly teetered at the brink between genius and insanity, and the game’s music absolutely embodied that fever-dream sensibility. It’s an edge that’s been sanded smooth in Shake It!, literally; psychedelia has been replaced with smooth jazz. Of all its myriad disappointments, this was the one that perhaps struck me most.
But at least we have Rhythm Heaven Gold.
It must be an amazing week in retrogaming when you can forget about Super Dodge Ball.
Super what-what?
“Several things, which I intend to lay out over the next few days (if I can be bothered to shoot for consistency, of course).”
Speaking of which, how’s the rest of the Mega Man A-Z series coming along? :)
I’m glad that WL4 can now be universally appreciated via the wisdom of hingsight. I bought it at release and thought it was one of the best games I had ever played, and strongly recommended it to all my GBA-owning friends, but none of them listened to me. For a while I was convinced that it would basically vanish from gaming history, its existence virtually unacknowledged, and I’d be doomed to a life of confused looks from fellow gamers when I mentioned it as one of my all-time favorites. This was before Wario Ware made Wario a star.
The vocal tracks in WarioWare were a revelation for me (especially in the taxi stage). Finding out they originated in WL4 has been my main motivator to go back and play it through.
ah… Super Dodge Ball… i can’t recall how many times my brother and i rented* that game as kids… what fun! ;)
*note: toys r us, the only store that sold games near us, never had the game for sale :(
Please tell me that this is Alex Fraioli: http://www.dma-national.org/chapter/6/Winners/archive/2007/DMA-Chap_6-miss_dance.htm
The gestures in Rhythm Heaven Gold drive me crazy. Why can’t we have good old button presses back?
Hindsight my ass — I was singing the praises of Wario Land 4 when it was still import-only. Don’t be lecturing me, sonny.
doktorpeace: Man, if only.
@Lithros
Hush! Scribble shall be worshipped!
This is sad. I was actually only aware of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Game Boy, which I recall enjoying. I wasn’t even aware of all the other fantastic sounding Wario Land games. After hearing that “Palm Tree Paradise” music clip I HAVE to play Wario Land 4 ASAP. Thank you for correcting my ignorance!
I didn’t mean YOU now appreciate in hindsight, o Lord of Retro Games. I meant gamers in general, including all my GBA-owning friends at the time.
Er, that would be me above.
Wario Land 4 was great, but from a gameplay standpoint, Wario Land 3 is still the best in the series.
I disagree — WL3 was a bit too big and spread out. It grew tedious after a while, and it remains the only Wario Land game I’ve never finished. (Except the VB version, which gives me eyestrain.)
I agree with you on the VB version, I haven’t completed it either. But I’m surprised you didn’t complete WL3 – while the game may be a little long, I thought the level designs were for the most part very tight and interesting, which is a feeling Wario Land 4 didn’t give me. I only completed WL4 once while I’ve beat 3 at least three times.
Part of the reason I was even less excited about Wario Land: Shake It is that Wario has health – I thought 3’s levels were more tightly designed because failure of finding a treasure depended on your use of the enemies powers – something 4 didn’t do because you could die and you’d have to replay levels over again. Maybe I just suck, though. It’s not like either game was very hard.