Wario Land: Shake It! - Opinions

Wario Land: Shake It! is one of those games where the real joy is found in the small details. There's some setpiece boss fights, sure, but for the most part the game is the same formula over and over, with minor variations to mix things up. In a lesser game, this would naturally mean gameplay devolves into tedium, as the repetition highlights all the small flaws, but for a game as well-crafted as Wario Land: Shake It!, the opposite is true.

As is tradition with many of Nintendo's games, a high-level of polish can be seen in Wario Land: Shake It!, from its meticulously drawn animations and backgrounds to the fluidity in its gameplay. What isn't immediately obvious, however, is how intricate the mechanics actually are. It is evident that the developers were keenly aware of what consequences and possibilities resulted from Wario's simple moveset, leading them to build many levels devoted to teasing out the most potential from each interaction.

In a way, I found it similar to many of Masahiro Sakurai's games, which are famously easy to learn but hard to master. While artistically, I found it similar to Yoshi's Island, which also constantly explores new mechanics like Wario Land: Shake It!, albeit by flooding you with new enemies and mechanics, rather than novel rearrangements of existing ones.

While in truth a bit of a chore to 100%, there's plenty of engaging (and difficult) content in all the nooks and crannies that I never felt like I was wasting my time (other than when I was fighting the gyro controls). However, I would have also felt fulfilled had I only run through the base game, even though I would have missed the few more experimental levels locked behind secret maps. Seeing how fun this game was regardless of what % completion I was aiming for,  I'd say that any fan of platformers can find a few hours of fun making Wario flail around like I did.