Wardner review

Game: Wardner
Platform: Genesis
Genre: Action (Platformer)
Developer: Dragnet
AKA: Wardner no Mori Special (JP)

Staff review by Marc Golding

December 22, 2003

Wardner strikes a blow for overweight kids everywhere. Because the hero of Wardner is… well, fat. And he’s not one of those fat kids looking (illogically) for a supermodel either; his girl is also pretty portly. There’s nothing more annoying than someone of the George Costanza mindset: ''I can’t date her because she’s bald.'' But, you're bald! (Don’t worry, I won’t digress any further into the universal applications of my Seinfeldian knowledge.)

So it’s back to our little story: you are Dover. One Mr. Wardner, an old egg-headed wizard with nothing but time on his hands to raise petunias and kidnap little girls, gives into his pedophile tendencies once more, and makes off with your new wife, Mia. The two of you were enjoying an inexpensive honeymoon in Niknik (I kid you not. I guess Dover’s after some nuknuk). You take a walk in the forest. You become ''so enamoured of the checkerboard sunshine and the foliage'' (as the instruction manual has it) that you lose your way. One of Wardner’s stooges, Terragon, swoops down and abducts a panicking Mia right from under your nose. Oh Dover, wimp of all wimps, you’re telling me you can’t protect your girl even when the two of you are holding hands? Never mind, it’s happened to the best of them, and besides, what better reason to necessitate this splendid adventure? Well, this very respectable adventure, anyway.

And that’s what this game is: very respectable. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s a direct port of the side-scrolling action arcade game with the same name, and in terms of gameplay, nothing noteworthy has been lost in the transition from coin-op to console. However, the quarter-muncher had bright, vibrant graphics going for it, and those visual attributes, insignificant as they often are, went a long way in selling the appeal of the game as a cutesy adventure. Play Super Mario Brothers 3 on a black and white television, and you’ll know what I mean. For whatever reason, the Genesis version of Wardner is stricken with the 'washed out home version' curse. Lots of games were plagued with this affliction in the 16-bit era, so it’s not a unique situation with Wardner, but certainly the more serious-looking games don’t suffer nearly as much.

There are six levels of side-scrolling action. Dover has control of magic fireballs as his weapon. He can collect crystals from fallen foes to increase the rate of fire (read: the amount of fireballs in one shooting stream) of his attack. He can shoot while ducking, standing and jumping. Despite his unathletic build, he glides about the environs fairly quickly and smoothly. I am wont to compare this game with Alex Kidd in Miracle World, so if you’ve played that Sega action adventure classic, you’ll be relatively comfortable with this. As is the case with that game, Wardner's hero will die instantly if he’s touched by an enemy. Further, he can buy items from a shop to give him a fighting chance.

There are three types of magic fireball upgrades from your normal shot: the magic of the Stars, Moon, and Sun. They rank in that order of effectiveness, as well as that order of expense to you. Gold money bags are left behind by the deceased, and often, even larger bags are just left lying about the Wardner world (honest set, these bad guys) to facilitate your shopping. Still keeping with the Miracle World comparison, a magic cape can be purchased that saves you from death by damage once (a thread and needle kit is also available, allowing you a second save, assuming you’ve already got the cape). A clock item rounds out the store inventory, and naturally its use is to extend your time alottment for the current level - by 30 seconds. The magic flute and the high jump shoes are somewhat exclusive items, found solely during your travels, and not in any store. Each will prove useful for one special, specific function. I’ll leave you to discover what those functions are.

Now that you know your capabilities, you’re better prepared to begin your journey. You’ll do so in the dark heart of Wardner's forest. Standard platform jumping is the order of the day, so you’d do well to familiarize yourself with the nuances of Dover’s slightly misleading jump animation (when it looks like he’s on the edge of a platform, he probably needs to amble still forward to make most jumps). Little cannons will try to pin you down, firing flames in sequence from your left and right, catching you in a toasty crossfire. Leap from rope to rope to avoid a messy demise in the swamp below, and live to fight the leaping Emerald Dragon.

Stage two presents you with perhaps your greatest challenges of the game. You'll traverse conveyor belts with spinning blades threatening to part your hair - and skull - and you'll need to make sure that your stay on platforms with fumes that form vaporous skulls is a short one in each case. The ol’ 'pretty girl turns into a big hairy spider named Kaja' trick is at work at the level’s conclusion, so be careful. This level, in addition to being pretty challenging (at first, anyway) also features the most boring backdrop of the adventure. It’s a flat, dull factory that you’re in, and disappointingly, it looks like a flat, dull factory. There are no points for realism in cutesy games! Shame on those developer folks at Mentrix - this isn’t Resident Evil! Things should be kept light and colourful in this genre. The audacity of these Mentrix guys...!

But wait! If it’s colour you want… the third level (back on the forest stage), is the brightest and best of them all. You’ll run from flying skeletons, run on platforms sinking into a sea of fire, and run betwixt falling magma sent your way by a distant volcano’s wrath. Suddenly, Wardner seems very Adventure Island-like. A magical twist is available to keen adventurers, found on the wondrous wingspan of a very special bird. In keeping with the fire theme, the appropriately named Fire Dragon has a date with you. He wants to take you somewhere cozy, and warm. Like Hell. Tell him you’ll meet him there someday, and send him on his way. A maze level with rock creatures that spring from the earth, as well as headless zombies patrolling the narrow hallways, is next on your itinerary.

Flames that touch the ceiling, and flames that walk the floor, make your climb to the confrontation with the Grocko creature a difficult one in level five. Finally, the last stage has you fighting (take a deep breath) all the bosses you’ve faced before, with a few new challenges thrown in for good measure. It’s pretty tough, and in between each onslaught of reborn bosses and tricky enemy attacks, you’ll have to ascend to a new level in the underground area. This involves some painstaking platform jumping, where a miscalculation sends you plummeting downward to begin again.

And ultimately: ''Mr. Wardner, I presume?'' And you'll barely get the utterance out before the old pervert fries your arrogant ass. Manage to pound some fireballs into his frail, bony behind and realize that he’s got more up his blousy sleeves than you might have given him credit for. In short, the final confrontation is no laughing matter - it will take a good eye for figuring out boss patterns, and some expert jumping skills to pull you out alive.

Wardner plays very well. The control is excellent, and once you get used to our boy’s dodgy take offs to begin his jumps, you’ll feel that it’s perfect. There’s just nothing new here is all - parts will seem like Miracle World, parts will seem like Adventure Island. The game’s ideas are a bit dry, but that’s not what hurts it most. At the very least, Mentrix could have given us some decent tunes to listen to, or brightened up the backgrounds for our colour-deprived eyes. But they didn’t. So the presentation is as dry as the concept. But, for all creativity and polish that didn’t go into this game, it’s still fun to play, even after it’s thoroughly beaten. The challenge hits the novice gamer immediately, and doesn’t fold and fall away completely when the more experienced Wardner player takes his turn. For its cowardly grip on the ordinary, you’ll relegate it to the pile of dusty games you will never play again - but for the subtle, simple enjoyment it brings, you really shouldn’t.

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