Wario Land: Shake It!

Wario Land: Shake It!, known in Europe as Wario Land: The Shake Dimension and in Japan as Wario Land Shake, (ワリオランドシェイク) is a 2008 platform game developed by Good-Feel and published by Nintendo for the Wii, with animation produced by Production I.G. The game is the sixth installment in the Wario Land series, and is part of the Wario franchise. It follows Wario as he enters the Shake Dimension with the goal of obtaining the Bottomless Coin Sack, which provides an endless supply of coins.

It was digitally re-released on the Wii U eShop during 2016: in PAL regions on April 7, in Japan on August 24, and in North America on November 17.[1][2][3]

Gameplay

Wario Land: Shake It! is a side-scrolling platform game

Development

Wario Land: Shake It! was developed by the Japanese video game developer, Good-Feel. Madoka Yamauchi was the game's director, while Takahiro Harada and Etsunobu Ebisu were the producers. Development for the game began after Harada approached Ebisu and suggested that a new Wario platform game be made. Harada wanted to extend a gameplay dynamic prevalent in previous Wario Land games, which is Wario's "use of strength to overcome opposition", and had the developers at Good-Feel play those games to understand that dynamic.[6] Design director Tadanori Tsukawaki asked Wario's animators "to strongly emphasize his manly characteristics" to help re-create this feel. Composer Tomoya Tomita used Wario Land 4 for inspiration when writing the game's music.[6] As with previous Wario games, Wario in Wario Land: Shake It! was voiced by Charles Martinet.

Wario Land: Shake It! was designed to be played by holding the Wii Remote sideways to emulate holding a NES gamepad or SNES gamepad. Yamauchi suggested shaking the Wii Remote as a key method of control after hearing Harada say that "when he sees something placed high up, he wants to knock it down." In early development for the game, the player would shake the Wii Remote in either horizontal or vertical directions to perform distinct actions, but this idea was dropped when tests indicated that the controller could not differentiate shaking in one direction versus another. The limited number of buttons easily accessible by the player when holding the Wii Remote sideways also presented difficulties; having the player to tilt the Wii Remote at different angles to perform different actions was chosen to overcome this obstacle. Yamauchi stated that this simple control scheme would potentially benefit newer video game players.[6]

Yamauchi proposed the hand-drawn art style which is featured in the final game, though Tsukawaki was initially opposed to the idea since future changes to a character's design meant changes to all of its individual animation frames for the game. Over 2,000 frames were drawn to animate over 200 actions for Wario alone; over 6,000 frames were drawn for all enemy characters, including those that were removed from the final game. All the game's backgrounds and scenery were also hand-drawn. Program director Koichi Yagi stated that clever programming techniques were required to efficiently store and handle both the non-repeating backgrounds and the thousands of character frames in the Wii console RAM during gameplay. Japanese anime studio Production I.G assisted with character animations and both the opening and closing cutscenes, while studio Kusanagi drew the backgrounds.[6]

Marketing

Nintendo held various marketing campaigns, most notably an interactive YouTube video.[7] The company also held a competition at Six Flags near Los Angeles and St. Louis, where competitors competed for a "bottomless coin sack." Participants received fake Wario mustaches, and the winner won both the sack and an all-expense-paid trip to Nintendo World in New York.[8] Another marketing campaign had Nintendo giving away gasoline at a Los Angeles Mobile Gas area to market Wario Land: Shake It! in reference to Wario's flatulence.[9]

title	Wario Land: Shake It!
developer	Good-Feel
publisher	Nintendo
director	Madoka Yamauchi
producer	Takahiro Harada Etsunobu Ebisu
designer	Tadanori Tsukawaki
artist	Nobuhito Sue
programmer	Koichi Yagi Takanori Mori Hironori Kuraoka Yuhei Matsuda Naoya Sakamoto
composer	Tomoya Tomita Minako Hamano
platforms	Wii
series	Wario
released	JP: July 24, 2008 NA: September 22, 2008 EU: September 26, 2008
genre	Platform
modes	Single-player

Wario Land: Shake It!

Gameplay

Plot

Development

Marketing

Reception

External links

References