G.G Series: Wonder Land

Genre: Bullet Hell Shmup

Players: 1

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Review:

Wonder Land is a Bullet Hell Shmup released on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2015, as well as being made available on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. This game has players flying around as Alice blasting away at enemies based on the Lewis Carroll novels while dodging a screen full of bullets.

The presentation here is far better than I ever expect to see in a game that only costs $2. Everything here is represented by 2D pixel art visuals, but both enemies and Alice animate fluidly, and the world below is colorful and interesting. And of course all of that is before you factor in a screen absolutely filled with glowing bullets. This is all backed by some great energetic music, with themes like the Stage 3 Theme and Boss Battle Theme. Suffice it to say, this game looks and sounds excellent in a way that more expensive games often don’t.

As for the gameplay itself, Wonder Land doesn’t try to re-invent the wheel, but it does have enough fun mechanics to make things interesting. Players can fire two types of shots, a spread shot that does minimal damage but covers a wide area, and a focused shot that does more significant damage in a straight line, but slows your movement down to a crawl. This is fairly common in Bullet Hell Shmups because it allows you to make more precise movements among swarms of bullets while continuing to fire on a primary target. In addition, you have a special move you charge up over time that clears the screen of bullets.

Really, the only issues I have with this game are that it’s a tad on the easy side but has a huge difficulty spike when you encounter the final boss. Also, that final boss comes… at about ten minutes into the game. After that point, the game cycles back to a more challenging version of the first level. While this still leaves some room for players wanting to aim for as high a score as possible, it’s a shame that a game that’s otherwise so good could be so short. However, again, for $2, this is still well worth playing.

Yeah, other than the issues noted above, Wonder Land is just an all-around excellent Shmup that’s a blast to play. And while it may be short and have some issues with uneven difficulty, it’s still absolutely well worth the $2 price tag. If you like Shmups at all, do yourself a favor and pick up this game before the Nintendo 3DS eShop closes permanently in March 2023 (later this month!).

tl;dr – Wonder Land is a Bullet Hell Shmup where everything has a Alice in Wonderland theme. It’s very short, and the difficulty level is somewhat uneven, but overall this is an outstanding entry in the genre with great gameplay and an excellent presentation, absolutely worth the low $2 entry fee. If you like Shmups, you need to be sure to grab this game before the Nintendo 3DS eShop closes in March 2023 (later this month!)

Grade: B

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