Wacoon Jump! - Super Land Platformer Review
PROS
- From the slow build of the level music to the fun, cartoony sound effects, the sound design is excellent.
- Backflips, butt-stomps, different hats; it's a cuter version of Mario.
CONS
- Controls are a little fiddly and unresponsive.
VERDICT
A cute platformer with a lot of personality. It borrows heavily from the Mario playbook, but in the right way, only being let down by some control issues.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
The heyday of the platformer was the 16-bit era of the early 90s. At this time many games tried to emulate the success of those on top of the genre, but few really came close to understanding what made the Marios and Sonics work so well. Lately on the iPhone we've seen a small resurgence of the 2d platformer, and Wawa Land is the latest entry. What we have here is a game that has a lot of great ideas wrapped in good presentation. Why are these good ideas you ask? Well because most of them were lifted from Super Mario himself.
Wawa is a cute little bat-raccoon-thing, we're not really sure. What we do know is he's on a quest to rescue the kidnapped royal jelly and he has many tools in his arsenal to help him do so. Like all good platformers, stomping is his greatest asset. Jumping on enemies will incapacitate them, and pressing down in mid-air will unleash the dreaded butt-stomp. Wawa can wall jump to reach new heights, and holding down while pressing jump will unleash a very Mario-esque backflip.
There's also hats. For instance the tornado helmet allows you to unleash the dreaded tornado attack, and other hats grant bonuses such as the ability to throw bombs. All of this is handled by on screen buttons and a d-pad, and here's where everything falters a bit. Platformers need solid, responsive controls, especially platformers with as much effort put into them as this. The controls aren't bad, but you will find yourself not pressing the right buttons at times, and maybe that spin or jump didn't work when you needed it to. It won't impede your progress at all, but it makes the journey a bumpy one instead of the smooth ride you'd be expecting.
And everything else is excellent. The music and sound design is a highlight, with the level and character design being vibrant and full of secrets. Wawa land feels like it would be right at home during the 16-bit days and it would do quite well for itself. Unfortunately, it lacks the solid control available from that era, and that hurts this otherwise recommended game.
Screenshots
$0.99
