Great Game Stories, No. 4: The Hero Who Could Not Die (Wario Land 2)

Once upon a time, there was a hero who simply refused to die. Squash him flat, set him alight, or turn him into a shuffling zombie, and he would only grumble, shake it off, and keep marching toward his treasure. This is the tale of Wario Land 2, the adventure where losing was made impossible and getting even became the whole point.

No lives, no game over: the only truly deathless hero on the Game Boy.

It is a story that begins, of all things, with a flooded castle and a stolen chicken, and it ends not once but many times over, depending entirely on which secret doors our greedy hero decides to open. Come and see how a game turned a plumber's old rival into the most unkillable treasure-hunter on the little grey machine.

The Characters

Our hero, if we may still call him that, is Wario, and the cartridge that carries him is Wario Land 2. By now Wario has his own castle and a fine hoard of treasure, and there is nothing he loves more than a good long nap on top of a pile of gold. That nap, as it turns out, is exactly the problem.

Returning to trouble him are Captain Syrup and her band of pirates, back for revenge after their earlier defeat and just as cunning as ever. They have not forgotten the greedy man who once raided their island, and they mean to teach him a lesson while he sleeps.

The trouble begins with a marvellously petty crime. While Wario snores away, the pirates creep into his castle and help themselves to his treasure. They even make off with his beloved pet hen. For good measure they set off his enormous alarm clock to jolt him awake at the worst possible moment, and they leave the taps running so that half the castle is flooding as he opens his eyes. Wario wakes up soaked, robbed and absolutely furious, and off he stomps to get everything back.

The World

The adventure begins right at home, in Wario's own castle with the water still rising, and then spills outward into a long chain of chapters. Wario chases the fleeing pirates through caves and forests, across strange machines and eerie haunts, deeper and deeper into their world as he tries to catch them and reclaim what is his.

The pirates flooded his castle and stole his hen. Big mistake.

What makes this land so unusual is that it is not a single fixed road. The chapters branch. Tucked away in many stages are hidden exits, and each one sends Wario down a different path to a different place. Two players can set out from the very same flooded castle and end up wandering completely different corners of the story. The map, in a sense, is different for everyone.

The Adventure

Here is the great twist that makes Wario Land 2 so different from almost every game around it: Wario cannot die. There are no spare lives to lose and no game over waiting for a careless step. The very worst that an enemy can do is change his shape for a little while, or knock a few of his precious coins loose to go rolling across the floor.

Better still, those changes are not punishments at all. They are the keys to the puzzles. Get squashed flat by a weight and Wario becomes a pancake who can flutter down and slip through the narrowest of gaps. Get set on fire and he charges about in a blazing panic, burning through ropes and obstacles that would otherwise stop him. Get stung and puffed up like a balloon and he floats gently upward to places his stubby legs could never reach. He can even be turned into a zombie who sinks straight down through certain floors. Every misfortune is really a tool in disguise.

Japanese Game Guide - Cheeky as Wario

Because Wario can never be beaten, the whole spirit of the adventure shifts from surviving to searching. Instead of fearing enemies, he uses them. Instead of counting lives, he counts coins and hunts for hidden treasure. And because those secret exits keep branching the road, a curious, greedy Wario is rewarded with more paths, more riches and more of the story to uncover.

Spoiler Alert: How It Ends

Because the roads keep forking, this tale does not have one tidy ending. It has many. Depending on which hidden doors Wario chooses to open and which paths he follows, he arrives at different conclusions, some quick and some winding, each with its own final scene and its own secret treasures to be found only along that particular route.

Yet whichever road he takes, the heart of the ending is always the same. Wario chases down the pirates, gets the better of them, and stomps home with his stolen fortune recovered and his flooded, ransacked castle set right again. To see every last one of the endings, though, a player must go back and walk the roads not taken, which is exactly the sort of thing a treasure-hound like Wario would want you to do.

If you would like to meet the cartridge that made its hero utterly impossible to defeat, you can find Wario Land 2 in the collection. Come and see it at the Game Boy Museum.