Why were older Wario Game ice levels so bleak?

[CM30]

Seriously. If AlphaDream seem to hate ice levels the most in their games, then the old school Wario Land developers weren't far behind.

I mean, you got Sherbet Land, with a hostile atmosphere and enemies frozen in ice. The extremely dreary Frigid Sea in Wario Land 3. Forty Below Fridge in Wario Land 4...

It's interesting, but you have to wonder whether some icy catastrophe killed one of the designer's families or something given how the early games seemed to make ice levels as depressing as possible...

 

[Dumribble]

I'd like to know as well... I usually enjoy ice levels. Maybe they just hate the cold. Well, I enjoyed their bleak ice levels regardless: Frigid Sea had awesome chilling music in my opinion.

 

[warelander]

I always wondered about that myself, I think it's a cool (insert Beavis laugh here) take on an classic trope.
Most ice worlds/levels are very jolly and peppy, so I find this more sinister version to be quite endearing.

 

[ShyGuyXXL]

I'd like to know as well... I usually enjoy ice levels. Maybe they just hate the cold. Well, I enjoyed their bleak ice levels regardless: Frigid Sea had awesome chilling music in my opinion.

Frigid Sea had awesome chilling music in my opinion.

chilling

 

[Bubba]

Well the cold can be a deadly place. I can imagine the switch in WL4 is just counting down to drop the temperature where Wario would be frozen forever in a fridge. Wario didn't dress for the occasion pretty well either so this might be the stage from Wario's point of view and these levels are his fantasies. Would Fiery Cavern be considered an ice level?