Wariowl Landspear 2 - District of Columbia

[Veruchai]

All this time I thought I hadn't played this game.
However I vaguely remember that carrying Wario outside cutscene?
Maybe I watched or borrowed this game from someone and got "stuck" on the wrong path, that would be kinda funny.
While it definitely looks harder than the main path it doesn't look undoable so far if you happen to start there.

This map setup situation is legit really cool for 1998 gameboy.
I have been impressed by ds titles doing the same thing thinking it was unique haha.

[Ashan]

Post-game alternate universes was not something I was expecting from Wario Land 2, I'm gonna be honest

[YelseyKing]

As soon as you've seen *any* ending, the map is unlocked permanently, and the number minigame at the end of the stage changes format. It doesn't have to be the "main" ending. As proof, in pholtos' LP (which is running at the same time as raocow's, started earlier, and NEEDS MORE LOVE, PEOPLE!), he opted to do the side paths *before* the main path, so he *started* with the "retake the castle" path, before even clearing the first stage normally, and indeed, upon finishing it, the map was unlocked and the number game changed.

[Ditocoaf]

Nintendo Power and Player Guides. That's how.

Gee, that's too bad. I hope someday they invent a videogame where you can mess around and discover things on your own.

[xfix]

I mean, the tiles were revealed in a different order, but still.

[Sebby19]

Today's level has A LOT of coins in it. If you're lucky with a few silver coins, you can maxout the coin counter at 999.

I usually finish the game with ~10,000 coins, if I don't need to replay levels unnecessarily.

[Mandew]

Nintendo Power and Player Guides. That's how.

Gee, that's too bad. I hope someday they invent a videogame where you can mess around and discover things on your own.

I'm sad. Seeing comments and forum posts of people being so in-your-face with things that raocow shouldn't be knowing ahead of time makes me sad. Running ahead of him, like headless chickens, afraid of him getting hurt and frustrated by the game - and not letting him experience the game in his natural way. Not even letting him decide whether he wants to look or ask for a hint.

This LP of Wario Land 2 will never be a true reflection of a natural first experience with the game...

[Paragraph]

Realistically, a treasure room cannot be within the first few screens of a linear level. Unless you assume the developers want you to heavily backtrack, and the game is way too competently made for this to happen. Every level can be expected to be designed in a way that allows you to have 200 coins by the time you reach the treasure room if you're diligent; of course, it'll be harder in some and way easy in others. But in order for the choice between spending 50, 100 and 200 coins to be meaningful, every level has to be built this way.

Therefore, secrets at the very start will very probably be "just" money. If the treasure room comes earlier than you think i.e. you only have <100 coins upon finding it, you probably missed a money room somewhere, or the level will loop back on itself. Because this is such a good game, conclusions like that can be drawn; if the design were less rigid and competent, it would fall apart at the "developers do anything to not make you backtrack" step. Because of course, one could imagine a level where the treasure is at the start and the stage has exactly 50 coins, and it is full of enemies designed to hit you and make you lose those coins, and the challenge is to not get hit in order to have one shot at the hardest difficulty of the minigame. This would suck though.

[Arctangent]

Because of course, one could imagine a level where the treasure is at the start and the stage has exactly 50 coins, and it is full of enemies designed to hit you and make you lose those coins, and the challenge is to not get hit in order to have one shot at the hardest difficulty of the minigame. This would suck though.

god this game really is a protoype talkhaus collab

[Sebby19]

Realistically, a treasure room cannot be within the first few screens of a linear level. Unless you assume the developers want you to heavily backtrack, and the game is way too competently made for this to happen. Every level can be expected to be designed in a way that allows you to have 200 coins by the time you reach the treasure room if you're diligent; of course, it'll be harder in some and way easy in others. But in order for the choice between spending 50, 100 and 200 coins to be meaningful, every level has to be built this way.

Therefore, secrets at the very start will very probably be "just" money. If the treasure room comes earlier than you think i.e. you only have <100 coins upon finding it, you probably missed a money room somewhere, or the level will loop back on itself. Because this is such a good game, conclusions like that can be drawn; if the design were less rigid and competent, it would fall apart at the "developers do anything to not make you backtrack" step. Because of course, one could imagine a level where the treasure is at the start and the stage has exactly 50 coins, and it is full of enemies designed to hit you and make you lose those coins, and the challenge is to not get hit in order to have one shot at the hardest difficulty of the minigame. This would suck though.

I think I remember a couple instances in this game where the treasure door is near the beginning, and unless you want to try your luck on Hard mode, you have to venture some more and come back.

[warpio]

Realistically, a treasure room cannot be within the first few screens of a linear level. Unless you assume the developers want you to heavily backtrack, and the game is way too competently made for this to happen. Every level can be expected to be designed in a way that allows you to have 200 coins by the time you reach the treasure room if you're diligent; of course, it'll be harder in some and way easy in others. But in order for the choice between spending 50, 100 and 200 coins to be meaningful, every level has to be built this way.

Therefore, secrets at the very start will very probably be "just" money. If the treasure room comes earlier than you think i.e. you only have <100 coins upon finding it, you probably missed a money room somewhere, or the level will loop back on itself. Because this is such a good game, conclusions like that can be drawn; if the design were less rigid and competent, it would fall apart at the "developers do anything to not make you backtrack" step. Because of course, one could imagine a level where the treasure is at the start and the stage has exactly 50 coins, and it is full of enemies designed to hit you and make you lose those coins, and the challenge is to not get hit in order to have one shot at the hardest difficulty of the minigame. This would suck though.

That's a pretty good analysis of the level design in this game, actually. I really enjoy hearing these kinds of takes that go deep into the structural patterns of levels and the reasoning behind them. Reminds me of that crazy huge Wario Land 4 essay that I saw passed around on other forums before (can't recall the name of it exactly, it's on my backlog of things to read), or the Mark Brown Zelda dungeon videos.

[BobisOnlyBob]

That's a pretty good analysis of the level design in this game, actually. I really enjoy hearing these kinds of takes that go deep into the structural patterns of levels and the reasoning behind them. Reminds me of that crazy huge Wario Land 4 essay that I saw passed around on other forums before (can't recall the name of it exactly, it's on my backlog of things to read), or the Mark Brown Zelda dungeon videos.

Game Design Companion: A Critical Analysis of Wario Land 4 was an excellent read, and I did a full play-along with it and raocow during his LP! It's quite delightful, and is very keen on analysing the idea of folded level design - the rush back from the switch to the entrance of each level.

[Sebby19]

Too bad the creator of that book doesn't blog very often anymore.

[Paragraph]

That's a pretty good analysis of the level design in this game, actually. I really enjoy hearing these kinds of takes that go deep into the structural patterns of levels and the reasoning behind them.

Thanks! Analyzing level design is a bit of a hobby of mine. Search for Simply Simon on Youtube if you want to see how I apply that hobby.

god this game really is a protoype talkhaus collab

lol I actually thought "maybe I should write this less harshly (and I did, this is the less harsh version) because someone here might think that it'd secretly be a brilliant idea".

[Sebby19]

Dangit raocow, you give up too easily!
-That early room with the crawl space in it, you need to smash your way to the rest of it. Generally, this game does not do 'Come back here from another direction'. You'll miss lots of stuff thinking like that.
-That column of giant coins, again, gave up too easily. You need to 'create' your footholds, by smashing sections of the wall, which you found parts were destructible.

As for treasure in the 3-5(a), your hint to the fake floor was the Goom. Notice it was walking back and forth across 2 spaces?

[Leet]

the yoshi egg is htere as a reminder that wario is a mario character, which is bizarrely easy to forget when immersed in these nonsense games that have nothing to do with mario

[Nimono]

As for treasure in the 3-5(a), your hint to the fake floor was the Goom. Notice it was walking back and forth across 2 spaces?

to be fair, i doubt raocow pays any real attention to how enemies react to ledges, so there's no way he'd ever notice it

[Paragraph]

I don't know how often the situation will come up again, but if you ever find yourself with 200 coins in the treasure room and have the intention of just saving and quitting afterwards, you won't lose anything if you play the easy version. I mean that's obvious, but maybe not while LPing and when taking "Normal" speed is so ingrained.

[MonkeyShrapnel]

As for treasure in the 3-5(a), your hint to the fake floor was the Goom. Notice it was walking back and forth across 2 spaces?

to be fair, i doubt raocow pays any real attention to how enemies react to ledges, so there's no way he'd ever notice it

Honestly, even without the duder walking between the gaps, him being in a hard to reach spot because of the long ledge above him raised a lot of suspicion from me.

[Mandew]

This game really does want you to take your time and pay attention to every tiny detail, especially when it comes to things moving or performing an action.

In other words, not exactly the most raocow-friendly thing, since it isn't really an action game P:

[Leet]

The problem with that puzzle is that this game doesn't really encourage you to observe enemy behavioral patterns. The small screen size and instant attack means if an enemy's on the screen and you can kill it, you usually will pretty fast. There aren't "blocks" like in normal Mario games above you for you to observe how enemies behave around ledges while you walk under them. I had no reason to believe that the enemy's behavior was unusual.

[warpio]

I think even if you're playing this on a GBA, it's not at all unreasonable to expect the player to learn the simple behaviour patterns of enemies and notice that something is wrong when a spearman stops and turns around in the middle of the floor for no reason. That's not an example of bad game design imo. It's easy to miss, sure, but it's completely fair.

[Arctangent]

It kinda is as we've previously seen gooms randomly stop and turn for seemingly no reason. Possibly because of other fake floors, sure, but unless you actually realize that the fake floors where there to begin with ( when the point is not to, esp. with the ones that are only a tile wide ) then it doesn't seem all that odd to think that gooms just aimlessly wander around, especially with how quirky and full of personality they are in the cutscenes.

[warpio]

Gooms do not stop and turn randomly for no reason. These are the conditions that will make them stop and turn around:
- Bumping into their spike
- Ground Pounding
- They walk into a wall or reach the end of the surface they're walking on.

In addition, the enemies like the duck that throw projectiles or have some specific attack animation will attack whenever they see Wario, and turn around after they they get to the end of their attack and Wario is no longer in their sights. So they're not quite as reliable as a red koopa for figuring out where the floor is disconnected, but it should be very obvious to anyone playing the game that Gooms basically act like red koopas.

[Nimono]

Gooms do not stop and turn randomly for no reason. These are the conditions that will make them stop and turn around:
- Bumping into their spike
- Ground Pounding
- They walk into a wall or reach the end of the surface they're walking on.

In addition, the enemies like the duck that throw projectiles or have some specific attack animation will attack whenever they see Wario, and turn around after they they get to the end of their attack and Wario is no longer in their sights. So they're not quite as reliable as a red koopa for figuring out where the floor is disconnected, but it should be very obvious to anyone playing the game that Gooms basically act like red koopas.

In fact, this is seen in the earliest levels, where there AREN'T fake floors- fake floors only start to pop up after you've had plenty of time to watch how Gooms act!


so tomorrow's video is gonna be a thing.

A WARIO LAND TH- *kiled*