Few successful games let you play as the villain, and care for nobody but yourself. No princess to rescue, no world to save. Your only goal is to find treasure, and ransom the gold statue of Princess Toadstool for money. Yes. This is Wario Land.
Wario Land takes a snide twist from the standard Mario formula. You still get Nintendo's wonderful platforming, but you also get this neat sense of exploration. It's rich with secret areas, and secret worlds, encouraging you to increase your treasure hoard to its full potential. After beating the game, the level map tells you where the remaining treasure is hidden which gives you a nice clear path for 100% completion. With 40 brilliant levels to explore, you get quite a large amount of gameplay.
In his standard form, Wario can perform a dash attack, allowing you to break blocks and destroy anything that gets in the way of his shiny things. You can also obtain three other temporary power-up hats which dissapear after taking damage. They include an increased dash, jet engines, and a flamethrower hat. These can be used to go places otherwise unattainable, get more coins, discover more treasure, and make Wario happier. There really is no stress in this game at all.
This game is the Anti-Mario. You'll even hear some of the original Mario tunes as if it were remixed by a stoner. The general concept of Wario Land, allowing you to perfectly portray the role of an anti-hero, is complete genius on Nintendo's part. Being a legendary game which helped give the Game Boy its extraordinary appeal, Wario Land is one of the best platformers released on the console.
I highly suggest this game to anyone who owns a Game Boy at all. It's quite affordable, especially for the amount of game you get. Nowadays, bare copies will cost you a little under $10.
