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With Nintendo releasing their Virtual Boy NSO library... I was reminded... hey... I have like 6 3DS systems (1x 3DS, 1x N3DS, 1x N3DS XL, 1x N2DS XL, 2x 2DS) TIME TO SOFTMOD AND INSTALL RED VIPER!
so I installed Red Viper and had to try the probably most complete, most interesting Virtual Boy game there is... VB Wario Land.
I almost forgot how much I love the 3D effect of the 3DS btw. and Wario Land, being a Virtual Boy game, really pushed the 3D effect hard!
it's the rare occasion where I had my 3D slider not set to max, but only to around half
the game itself is surprisingly fun.
it's essentially a 2D Platformer with a strong exploration aspect.
you have to explore each level to find a key for the exit elevator, and also collect as many hearts and coins as possible along the way.
Hearts give you extra lives if you collect 100.
and coins can be used to gamble for more coins or to play a heart collecting minigame as you go from one level to the next with the elevator.
by the end I had like 80 lives and I only really died to bosses (and that too was very rare)
the level themes and gimmicks have decent variety, and the 3D nature is used decently as well. enemies fly in from the background, you can jump to multiple layers to find secrets/explore etc.)
the powerups are fun, although there aren't many. you get horns that improve your ramming and lets you stomp, you get a fire hat that gives you a flame thrower, and then there are basically upgraded variants of both, that both allow you to fly, and the flame thrower upgrade turns it into fire balls that go through walls.
you often have to use these abilities to get secrets and unlock the hidden artefacts (although having the improved fire ability is essentially always the best thing to have and allows you to get every secret, so really it will always be your goal to get that one eventually, and then keep it if possible)
finding all artefacts (one in every level) gives you the true ending, and unlocks a harder second quest mode (I only briefly started second quest so not sure how hard it gets... seems just some added obstacles here and there)
speaking of the artefacts, let's get to the not so good aspects.
I already said how there's not that many power ups, and that one of them beats all the others, so there's really only one you'll always want to get... but collecting the artefacts can also be annoying.
I missed the ones on level 11, level 5 and level 1...
(if you can do magic eye, these are stereoscopic 3D images
, the Luma Custom Firmware lets you take these)and the way the game is structured is, that there's always an elevator at the start, and at the end of the level. these elevators only get you either one level down or up respectively. so in order to get back to level 1, I had to run through each level backwards (there are 10 levels and 4 bosses, bosses are also one layer basically, so 14 layers that are connected by elevators) ... and then had to run back through all 14 layers again to fight the final boss again, and then get the good ending where you insert all the artefacts and open the treasure vault.
I would have wished that there was just a central elevator that can get you up and down to any layer you want. running through the layers doesn't take that long, as you don't have to find any keys or anything, but it was still tedious to do.
so all in all, a really fun game.
relatively short.
controls well, looks good (I set the emulator to be grey scale... that red would have annoyed me I think).
has really good level design and really fun exploration.
BUT, if you want to go for the good ending, I urge you to always get the artefacts in every level before moving on! you don't want to run backwards through the whole game and then back up again just because you are missing 2 or 3 at the end!...
oh and the final boss is kinda annoying, because hitting his weak-spot is very finicky!
all in all 8/10,
and probably the only real reason, and at the very least the biggest reason to either touch a real Virtual Boy, to get the NSO Virtual Boy thingy, or to install Red Viper.
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