I'm surprised of any Wario Land-esque game being called linear, that'd probably be reason enough for me not to get it. Excusing the first Wario Land which was essentially "get to the end, pick up a treasure along the way" (Wario Land II was the same way but had much smarter level design), the Wario series has always been a mix of re-exploring previous areas to find new treasures and powerups that lead you to areas you couldn't get to before, plus the smart level design meaning you can't really cheat your way around anything. But I like the Wario series more for the Metroid mechanic of being able to get at that thing you saw two hours before. If that's gone... well, if it has Wario Land 1's atmosphere I might give it a shot, but otherwise pass.
I don't understand why Wario Land 1 still has so much appeal for me when the later games are much better in gameplay. Probably the same reason I still prefer the first Turok. Other than they being my introduction, they both have great atmosphere. Rice Beach was great. Teapot Mountain was awesome with the water areas and waterfalls which gradually changed to lava. Sherbet Island, ice everywhere - and the whole place is optional. The lava area... well, ok, I want to forget that one ever existed. S.S. Tea Cup is awesome. The forest was my favorite of all for the... well, the forest overworld music for one, so mysterious, but also those train levels. And then of course there's Skull Mountain or whatever. It also helps that I had Super Game Boy at the time, so I was spoiling myself with fiddling around with the colors. Basically, Wario Land 1 really went places. The later games went places too, but somehow they all felt too similar. Maybe I also prefer the first for the cool hats. Jet Wario, man.
I guess I'm saying that the later Wario games had Wario doing more mundane stuff and shifted his powers to stuff that was purely for puzzle reasons, thus the non-linear levels and revisiting areas were a must to keep me interested. The first Wario Land game had these cool hats and levels going on so that I was happy with a more linear design. If Wario's not doing crazy stuff in this new game and it's linear, then I'm not interested. I mean, I felt that way with Wario Land 4. I liked it, but nowhere as much as the other games, because Wario had a lifebar again and it was "get the key and get out." The
Crescent Moon music was legendarily awesome though.
No factory you say? Awesome. I kind of like 9-Volt just for his nostalgic microgames, and I liked the toilet dude in the first Warioware game for his music, but other than that I never cared for any of Wario's "friends". WarioWare was fun the first time. But it seems like it's going into Mario Party territory (even though I never played any of the other games) in that I'm wishing for a game that combined all the previous microgames. 200 microgames is NOT ENOUGH. You need, like, 2,000 microgames. And not themed either.
Oh, actually, I lie. Dribble and Spitz were cool.
