Before Wario was a big bellied crazy mini-game man, he liked searching for treasure in mysterious locations in the Wario Land series. The series, for the most part, was an interesting take on the platforming genre but can Wario’s once impressive old style be revived by Nintendo? Can Wario still shake it?

Wario Land: The Shake Dimension tells the tale of Queen Merelda, the once great queen of the Shake Dimension, who has been attacked and kidnapped by the notorious pirate, Shake King who also took the queens greatest treasure, the Bottomless Coin Sack. After hearing the news Wario jumps into action helped by Captain Syrup and the queens followers, he goes across the Shake Dimension collecting Boss Keys and rescuing more of the queens followers to aid him in his quest to rescue the princess and ultimately, get his hands on the Bottomless Coin Sack.

Impressive bit of story huh? The only problem is, this is as far away from Nintendo as you can get. Once put in the players hands its almost like they’ve put these characters here and pretended we’ve known them all along. If I didn’t know any better, I could easily believe that, much like Star Fox Adventures, Nintendo have taken a sub-par platformer and just put Wario in it. The plot isn’t going to win any awards for great writing, but lets face it, this is a platformer and as such no one notices if the story isn’t at the Bioshock or Zelda level.

What is at a high level is the presentation. Graphically, the game is solid gold with some impressive animations beautiful level art and anime style cut-scenes. I can honestly say with this high level of detail and smooth frame rate it is the best looking 2D platformer I’ve ever played on a Nintendo platform. It’s a shame the package is then broken by the odd arrangement of melodies for each stage and boss battle with what is only describeable as ‘80’s adult entertainment’ music it isn’t fitting, doesn’t get the blood pumping and overall dampens the overall fun of the game.

Something just feels wrong when playing Shake Dimension, for the most part its clear that motion and waggle is used far too much in the game, breaking up the fun of platforming into more of ‘shake, run, shake, run, shake’ affair on each level which just spoils what Wario Land platforming elements that have been put in the game and there aren’t many. Then again there aren’t many worlds in the first place. Vehicles are also used in the game but are forced into motion controls also with tilting being the order of the day for cars, rockets and submarines. With this being a Nintendo game I hoped a alternative option for controls would have been implemented by its not to be.

In an unusual twist for a Nintendo platformer, the game has only 5 worlds rather than the normal 8 worlds seen in past Mario games of worth. Each world has 4 stages and a boss level and if I’m being honest the game is pitifully short. When I was first playing I assumed that there would be some sort of twist, giving me more stages once I had done the first five, in a similar way to Twilight Princess did a few years ago. Instead I was given a boss fight which, once I had the pattern down, felt disappointing and half baked.

Not that this is much of a shocker, other boss fights in the game are also incredibly simple with the possible exception of worlds 4 and 5 for the fact that you have no idea what to do. The game isn’t as challenging as you would hope if you have been playing Nintendo platformers for more than a few years. No doubt newcomers would enjoy playing it however.

Each stage in the game has missions to accomplish and treasures to collect, which try and add to the replay value but I don’t think a lot of players will be interested in doing this as it lacks the enjoyment of previous games in the series. Another annoyance is having to purchase maps of each world which, towards the end of the game, cost a fairly large sum. Players will be forced to go back into previous levels and then farm until they have the amount needed just to continue in the game, this is a real annoyance and feels like a timewaster to make the game feel longer.

As I mentioned before, the game isn’t long. If you are a ‘hardcore’ gamer or anyone who’s played some older Nintendo platformers, this shouldn’t take you anything more than a day if you try. For the more younger player, this will probably keep him busy for a week if it can keep his interest but I think if I was a kid playing this I would get tired of it quickly. After the rather underwhelming ending, the game gives you the option for more quests in levels and now the chance to complete quests in boss battles as well and although they are tough it seems it would make more sense to put this in when the player needed money IE before they finished the game.

Closing Comments
Shake Dimension isn’t a terrible game, its just not a very good one either hitting somewhere in the middle of ‘ok’. Much like the disappointing Alone in the Dark, the game feels half baked and while it has beautiful presentation and fairly smart level design, forced motion gimmicks and a days worth of gameplay doesn’t warrant its price tag and will leave the player feeling deflated. Kids will enjoy for the 5 minutes they are paying attention or until they see the new pokemon game.

Score 7.0

+ Beautiful, beautiful game
+ Smooth and responsive gameplay
+ Fairly clever level design

- Uninspired gameplay
- Extremely short
- Hardcore market will feel unchallenged