Retronauts Volume III Episode 2: Wario Land

Retronauts 2 cover art

If you're not familiar with the Wario Land series, I completely understand your possible skepticism over this week's episode topic. But Nintendo's weird little offshoot platformer series houses some amazingly subversive and impressive ideas, some of which would be stolen wholesale for Mario's future adventures. In fact, there's so much to talk about, we unexpectedly went over our planned recording time with barely a mention of Wario Ware! (That's for another podcast -- but no promises.) Our past episodes of Retronauts have done a fine job of covering a most of the major topics, so we're hoping to both surprise and impress you with the unassuming importance of Wario Land.

Libsyn (1:33:41 | MP3 | 64.3 MB) | SoundCloud | YouTube (coming soon)

Special thanks go out to Kat Bailey, who's making her return to the world of podcasting with this very episode. Look her up on Twitter, if you're so inclined.

This episode's description:

"Wario's been adventuring solo for nearly twenty years, though Nintendo's evil answer to Mario is mostly known for his micro-game legacy. Join Bob Mackey, Jeremy Parish, Ray Barnholt, and Kat Bailey as they peer back a bit further into this character's past to examine his highly revolutionary and subversive series of Game Boy platformers."

This episode's breakdown:

  • 2:17 | Digital download discussion
  • 10:06 | Musical Interlude: Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 "Stage Theme 1" (Kozue Ishikawa)
  • 10:35 | Intro to Wario
  • 20:02 | Musical Interlude: Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 "Stage Theme 10" (Kozue Ishikawa)
  • 20:31 | Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land
  • 36:31 | Musical Interlude: Wario Land 2 "Factory Escape" (Kozue Ishikawa)
  • 37:01 | Wario Land 2
  • 48:39 | Musical Interlude: Wario Land 3 "Out of the Woods" (Kozue Ishikawa)
  • 49:09 | Wario Land 3
  • 54:51 | Musical Interlude: Wario Land 4 "Toxic Landfill" (Ryoji Yoshitomi)
  • 55:19 | Wario Land 4
  • 1:07:30 | Musical Interlude: Virtual Boy Wario Land "Area Theme" (Kazumi Totaka)
  • 1:08:00 | Wario Land platformer spin-offs/important questions/wrap-up
  • 1:31:18 | Musical Interlude: Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 "Credits" (Kozue Ishikawa)

Here's a Wario Land livestream I did a few weeks back on our Twitch.tv page, just in case you need a visual aid:

Watch live video from retronauts on TwitchTV

And if you haven't heard enough of me this week, I guested on a recent episode of both Laser Time and VGMpire, two podcasts you should love if you willingly download ours. Special thanks to Chris Antista, Henry Gilbert, and Brett Elston for letting me breathe all over their microphones.

NEXT WEEK: If you enjoyed my Movie Month episodes of Retronauts, you're in for a treat. If not, you're in for some... mild poisoning?