N-Philes

I hold a special place in my heart for the original Game Boy as it was the first system I ever received for my own personal gaming pleasure. For quite some time I had been swooning over my cousin's Game Boy collection, complete with titles I played religiously whenever I'd go to visit them such as Paperboy and Chase H.Q.. I'd play them so much that eventually my family forgot about me, and I became accustomed to living in my aunt's boiler room with a dim light flickering above as I shoot rocks at a bunch of black splotches in Super Mario Land.

Flash forward to a few years later, I'm browsing the games selection in Toys R Us as I frequently did when I was a young'n. I spotted a ticket for Wario Land 2 for the Game Boy Color, retailing for $30 as so many Game Boy Color games did. I brought my ticket to the front and my dad payed for my latest favorite piece of plastic.

The game they gave me was for the Game Boy, not the Game Boy Color. I was too young to realize that my father had just paid ten dollars extra for an inferior game, but thanks to the Super Game Boy that had been purchased for me at release for a mere $80 I at least got to experience this on the big screen.

Still, that company ripped me off $10. If my dad still had that money today he'd be able to buy like, half of a tank of gas. Almost half of a tank, anyway.

Wario Land 2 stars everyone's favorite plumber alter-ego, big jagged-mustache himself, and it's the second in a series of four Wario Land games to grace our beloved Nintendo handhelds. The maps aren't nearly as bizarre as those found in Super Mario Land 2, where Wario made his glorious debut, in fact, they're actually pretty uniform and consistent. One of my personal favorite battles would be one where you need to bounce on one of the bosses to get them into a ball and throw them into a basketball hoop. I believe you scored three times and you've defeated him, if memory serves me correct.

Captain Syrup returns as the foxy end boss, complete with a bandanna and no mouth. I can't find any images of the battle on the internet, and considering the length of the game I'm not prepared to make my own screenshots, so you can use your imagination here and picture an epic final battle for glory... and syrup. Actually, I don't believe there was any actual syrup involved. It's been a long time since I've played the game, and I can't remember a second of the final battle, so I guess it wasn't all that memorable anyway. Either that or her biggest weapons are surprise... and fear... and ruthless efficiency.

Get off my case, reader. I wasn't expecting some sort of Spanish Inquisition.