Raced through this for "V" in the Grouvee Alphabet Challenge, it's the very first Virtual Boy game I've ever played!

Considering it's such an obscure and inaccessible piece of Nintendo's history, I was sorta hoping it'd be a hidden gem. Besides a couple neat advancements over Wario Land 1, though, it's frankly just mediocre.

The most obvious pro here is that VB Wario Land looks fantastic for a handheld(ish) game from 1995. Both Wario and his enemies are super expressively animated, with more life and detail than his Game Boy or even his GBA outings. Jumping into the level backgrounds for little bits of platforming doesn't add much to the gameplay, but it's technically impressive and very cute.

Beyond looks, there's also been major improvements to Wario's signature shoulder bash. It's way speedier, and feels way more impactful when bonking into stuff. Jumping out of a bash creates these delightfully huge arcs that travel like 3 times further than a regular jump, and they never stop being entertaining.

Unfortunately, the awful level design actively discourages you from ever using Wario's best move, or really doing any interesting platforming at all. The main issue is that each level is like 90% flat expanses of empty, horizontal nothing. Wario takes up too much space on screen for the player to be able to see very far above him, and what little space they can see has to be kept clear to sell the 3D effect and allow players an unobstructed view when they jump into the background. So most of the game consists of mindlessly running forward in straight lines.

The other big problem is the levels' focus on hiding keys behind unmarked breakable walls. You need these keys to finish the level, and many of the hidden walls can only be broken with a boring fireball powerup that robs you of the shoulder bash, so you're almost never given opportunities to let loose with the gigantic moon jumps.

And then finally, like half of the game's 10 stages are dull mazes or water levels, which inevitably slow the game's momentum to a crawl.

Taken together, all these flaws make for a game that simply isn't much fun. But it's mercifully short, and it was still cool just to play something from the near-mythical failure that was the Virtual Boy.