Topic: My Favorite Nintendo Character Part 1: Wario

[NWR_pap64]

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blogArt.cfm?artid=18935

  Ask a Nintendo fan to mention one of the reasons they love Nintendo and it's very likely they will say that it is the characters. Simply put, Nintendo is unrivaled when it comes to video game characters. Even if they lack the development and exposition of a Final Fantasy character, they are able to win over people's hearts with just their charm, looks and attitude. It also helps that Nintendo believes that the players are the characters themselves. In other words, they are Mario, Link, Yoshi, Little Mac and many more.    

For my first character, I decided to choose the one and only Wario.    

“So admit it..... Don't I look cool in the game screens? Those long, muscular legs on my sturdy toned frame.... I'm the perfect specimen of a man..... What!?!? You say I look fat and my quadruple chin looks like a waterfall of flab? Shut up! That's just because you have your television set up on widescreen display!” —Wario

   

Wario is very unique among the Nintendo staple of characters. He's not a villain, yet he isn't a squeaky clean guy. If he saves the princess it's likely because the king offered a huge reward. He will cheat anyone out of their money, no matter if it's an old disco dancer or a pair of adorable ninjas. Yet you will likely never see him hit or bully anyone weaker than himÂ…unless it's the enemy and it's preventing him from getting the treasure.    

My first exposure to the character was through Super Mario Land 2. It was one of the first Game Boy games I ever played and I loved every minute of it (as a tangentÂ…NintendoÂ…Virtual Console Game BoyÂ…DSiÂ…make it happen). Once I worked hard and completed the game's worlds I finally gained entrance to Mario's castle so I could battle the bad guy. That's when I first met the anti hero we know and love.    

   

It was very weird. He wasn't Bowser, but he still managed to grab my attention. He looked like Mario and used Mario's powers, but he was large and disturbing. Once I beat the game Wario's image was burned in my mind as one of the weirdest Nintendo villains yet. So imagine my surprise when I learned that he got his own game in the form of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Game Boy.    

Of course I HAD to have it, and once I did, I started playing and never looked back. I wanted to play it because it looked like a Mario game and for the most part, it played like a Mario game, but with enough unique elements that made it a Wario game.    

So from that moment on, Wario became one of my favorite Nintendo characters. And just in time, too. Just as Mario was expanding his gameplay horizons with parties, kart races and other sports he needed more friends to join him. Wario was always the first to attend, creating even more awareness of the character.    

My interest for the character, however, was intensified in the Gamecube and Gameboy eras. With technology being able to make more colorful worlds and make characters even more alive, Wario truly became an unforgettable character. He was more in your face, greedier, and cartoonier than ever before. The differences between him and Mario were even more apparent. The advanced sprite capabilities of the Gameboy Advance made Wario very noticeable in Wario Land 4. It was truly the pinnacle of what could be done with the characterÂ… until Wario Ware: Mega Micro Games was announced.    

   

With WarioWare, Wario became an even greater character for me. He became one of the few Nintendo characters outside of Mario to have dual roles as both a treasure hunter in a fantasy world and a greedy businessman and game developer with some very original characters in each setting.    

As I already explained one of the reasons I love Wario is because he is unique in both the Mario universe and the whole Nintendo canon of characters. Nintendo characters are either nice, squeaky clean, and well intentioned heroes, or are very evil, nasty, and very dark bad guys. Wario is stuck in between. He is not quite evil, yet he is not a good guy. He is ugly, fat, and obsessed with money and anything of value, but seems to have a bit of an honest side to him since he is rarely seen done anything truly evil. He might cheat, steal, and gross everyone out with his nuclear farts, but not to the extend of say Bowser or Ganondorf (as an FYI I realize that he was one of the primary bad guys in the story mode in Brawl, but since that isn't considered canon I conveniently toss it).    

Wario is currently voiced by Charles Martinet, who also does Mario, Luigi and Waluigi. That's another reason why the character is so likable. Mario is the nice guy; Wario is the greedy guy meaning that Charles has more material to work with when he's Wario, especially when he is playing the character at special events in the Nintendo World Store in New York.    

For me it's hard to pick a favorite Wario game since nearly all of them are very solid and even fantastic in their design. The only stinkers would be Wario World on the GameCube, which was still a fun and solid title, and Wario: Master of Disguise on the DS. Every Wario game has something about it that make it great among the titles in the series. For example, Wario Land 2 introduced the "no death" mechanic, which made Wario turn into a different form (such as a snowball and a zombie), and the different paths that lead to a different ending each time (my favorite to this day is the path you take if you decide to not get out of the bed in the first stage). Wario Land: Shake It! on Wii had a stunning 2D look with some solid motion controls and a balanced level of difficulty. Finally, the WarioWare games shine because even if they are the same the concepts change. So one minute you are pushing buttons (Wario Ware), twisting the GBA around (Twisted) or dancing like an idiot (Smooth Moves).    

   

There are many other reasons why Wario is a great character (to me at least), but it would be a very, very long article due to the fact that his story is very complex and filled with some incredible and fun games.    

So what do YOU think? Do you have a soft spot for Bizarro Mario or think he should be burned alongside the other supporting characters? What is your favorite Wario game?

[Mop it up]

This is a good article Pap64, nice job! But it is too short... you can never write too much about a Mario character so you should have written about those other reasons!

Wario is one of the best Nintendo characters ever conceived, and his games are more than just a useless Mario platforming clone like some have said before.

My first Game Boy game was Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land so I never saw his debut in SML2 until much later. Nostalgia makes me place this above all other Wario games but I'm not so sure that makes it the best. Wario Land II might be the best. Some might complain about how easy it is but I found it fun to search every nook and cranny for treasure. Wario Land 3 went in a bit of a different direction by having you revisit levels to find treasure with newly learned abilities; I suppose that makes it a bit like Metroid. But it wasn't as fun because there weren't really any coins to collect and you didn't lose anything when you were hit by an enemy. I have yet to purchase Wario Land 4 but it's on my list!

You say Wario World was a stinker but I really enjoyed that game. The only problem I had with it is how short it is. I think that a stinker would be Wario Blast Featuring Bomberman. What kind of game is that?

What I think is interesting is which characters Nintendo choose for spinoffs. Look how fast Wario got his own series, even faster than Yoshi did. What is it that makes these characters a hit? Was it their popularity in the games they appeared in? If that were the case, then why did it take Luigi so long to get his own game? Why doesn't Zelda have a game yet? These characters got their own games because Nintendo pushed them there, they made them into what they are. If they attempted this with some of their other characters, especially the less-popular ones, then they could make them into something more as well.

I don't like Wario so much anymore though because he's become sort of a disgusting creep. He disappointed me in Super Smash Brothers Brawl and Mario Strikers because he just seems entirely different. I'll always remember him from his platforming days and his antics in the Mario spinoff games, especially when he's paired with Waluigi. These two need to star in a game together!

When can we expect a video showcasing the top ten reasons why Wario is awesome?

[NWR_pap64]

I would have easily done a long, long article about Wario. I didn't even mention that Gunpei Yokio, the creator of Metroid and the Gameboy had a hand in his creation. But then people would have complained about how its "tl:dr", so I stuck to the basics.

[King Bowser Koopa]

I loved Wario World, but hands down the best was Shake Dimension/Shake It for Wii. The smooth, beautiful artwork and animation, the incredibly jazzy soundtrack, the sheer fun of shaking coins out of enemies and money bags when you pick them up, and the long, long awaited return of Captain Syrup, one of my personal favourite villains.

Wario has indeed changed over the years, I particularly like how in each generation his mental stability seems to have gone down a notch. Starting with Warioland 4 on the Gameboy Advance, his personality took a turn towards the bizarre - and those collectible music CDs seemed to be a nod in the direction towards the sheer weirdness of the Warioware series.
Could this be attributed to the live cockroach lodged in his brain, of whom he named Roachie (see Warioland 4 story in the manual)? Then on the Gamecube, his face nervously twitches and spasms endlessly when you leave the controller alone. It was a hilarious touch.

[NWR_pap64]

Regarding Wario's gross attitude you have to remember that each director has his or her vision of the character. Mario Strikers Charged was done by Next Level Games, which had a crazy vision of the Mario universe. Brawl was directed by Sakurai which brings yet another vision to the character.

Frankly, this is one of the reasons why I love the character so much. He can get away with being loud, gross, greedy, obnoxious and insane where as Mario always has to play the straight man, be cute and charming.

I personally loved how when you leave Wario alone in Shake it he starts to mutter under his breath "come on come on pick up and play!".

[TheYoungerPlumber]

I love Wario, but his image was tarnished in the WarioWare era in my mind. Thank God for Shake It!

[Mop it up]

Ah never mind.

[NWR_pap64]

Ah never mind.

I read what you posted before you edit it and believe me, I sometimes don't agree with it. But remember that this is how each studio views the character. I mean do you see Wario farting up a storm in the Mario Party and Kart games? Wario stayed pretty normal in Shake it, but the core elements of his personality still remain.

What I meant to say before is that he is the kind of character that can get away with these odd behavioral problems because Wario has, from the very beginning, been the anti hero. Now, if you tried to, say, convince people that Donkey Kong can fart on enemies then it might be weird and too gross.

Wario just has that versatility and flexibility that the other Nintendo characters don't have, not even the villains.

[King of Twitch]

Flipping the M into a W and creating a new antihero was the greatest moment of the 90s. Wario was pretty different for an end boss in SML2, and I thought Nintendo were geniuses for giving him his own game that borrowed the best mario elements instead of acting as a clone; He is truly Nintendo creativity personified. His greatest game was obviously Wario Kart 64 in which everyone literally wanted to be him. He is also hilarious in Brawl, mowing people over in his motorcycle or 'eating' them, and his taunts in the sports games are still memorable.

[NWR_pap64]

My favorite Wario moment was when he couldn't die but instead could transform in Wario Land 2. It was a very unique mechanic that I am surprised Nintendo nor any other developed used again in other games. Combine this with the different path mechanic and Wario Land 2 was something special.

Wario Land 2 was also one of the first Gameboy Color games released, though it was a color re-release since the B&W version already existed.

[Luigi Dude]

After playing all the Wario Land games over the last year (except the Virtual Boy one since I don't own one), I can easily say the Wario Land series is the second best Platforming series behind only Mario himself, which really does make Wario the perfect rival to Mario.  This is thanks to the fact that Wario Land 2, 3 and Shake are three of the greatest games I've ever played.  Each of these three games is as close to Platforming perfection as you can get.  Everything about them is just amazing, from the level designs to the amount of platforming variety.

Of course the first Wario Land is also a great game as well.  Even though it's pretty much a Mario clone, it does the job quite well and delivers another great experience.  Then there's Wario Land 4 which is my least favorite of them, but even it manages to be a good game.

Seriously, any one here that's reading this and hasn't played any of the Wario Land games, get to your local used game store or ebay and by them ALL now.  If it has Wario Land in the title, you can't go wrong.  Of course remember it has to have LAND in the title or else you can go wrong.  Wario World is rather mediocre and is short in a bad way, and Master of Disguise will just make you want to cry.

[Jonnyboy117]

Nice post, Pedro! I love Wario too. (The immortality thing was repeated in Wario Land 3, by the way.) I also really like Waluigi and wish Nintendo would give him more to do.

[Ian Sane]

Ask a Nintendo fan to mention one of the reasons they love Nintendo and it's very likely they will say that it is the characters.

It bothers me to hear this but it probably is a major reason why most of today's Nintendo fans love Nintendo.  It didn't used to be this way.  I remember when Nintendo was praised for being an original developer that didn't have to rely on sequels the whole time and when they did do sequels they were usually a huge step up from the previous game with all sorts of unique ideas.  They made new games or they made sequels that counted (not 100% of the time obviously but it sure felt that way).  For the only Nintendo characters that seemed to always have been there are Mario and Donkey Kong (and associated supporting characters like Luigi).  Every thing else I can recall when it was brand new (that's mostly due to my age though).  Seemed like that was a common Nintendo thing: to introduce new characters on a regular basis that instantly became iconic.  With so many fans associating Nintendo with their characters it's no wonder they're so sequel and spin-off happy these days.  They know most fans associate Nintendo in this way and the Gamecube era "Who are you?" campaign was when they really started to exploit it.  I really wish the old view I used to have of Nintendo was a more common view held by Nintendo fans.  We'll be stuck playing the same thing again and again until we associated Nintendo with innovative game design and not a collection of intellectual properties.

Regarding Wario, he is one of my favourite Nintendo characters.  It's probably because he IS a character.  He has a personality and such.  Who's Mario or Link?  They're really just a visual image - the "character" is just Mr. Hero.  When I play their games I don't really think of them as characters at all.  They're just the little figure on the screen that I control.  But Wario actually is somebody.  When I play Wario Land I'm not playing "Ian Sane who happens to look like Link" but actually Wario.  The fact that he debuted as a villain is probably entirely the reason for this.  When you design a character to be the avatar of the player you can cut corners in character development and let the player make the character their own.  You can't do that with the main villain.

This is probably why Bowser was my favourite character in Super Mario RPG.

[UltimatePartyBear]

Wario is also cool because his name is a multi-level play on words.  Not only is it Mario with the 'M' flipped, but it's a pun on warui, meaning bad (I had to look up the exact word on Wikipedia, so be kind, Japanophiles).

[NWR_pap64]

Nice post, Pedro! I love Wario too. (The immortality thing was repeated in Wario Land 3, by the way.) I also really like Waluigi and wish Nintendo would give him more to do.

Thank you!

I know that the immortality feature was used again in 3, but I mainly stuck with 2 because that's the game I played the most in my youth.

And now that you mentioned Waluigi...

It always annoyed me how they have never tried to implement Waluigi in any of the Wario games. I had this idea for Waluigi a while back and how he could be used in a WarioWare game.

Waluigi wants to work in his brother's game developing company seeing that he wants some of the money Wario is making. Wario however says no and in a nod to Waluigi haters he says "NOBODY LIKES YOU!". Waluigi gets so sick and tired of being disrespected that he decides to form his own gaming company and hire his friends to rival WarioWare.

The first half would consist of Wario and friends, while the other half would star Waluigi and his friends. For the final stage we learn that they decide to release their game on the same day so the final stage is a crazy battle between Wario and Waluigi as their microgames grow crazier and crazier.

Or how about a Mario and Luigi type game with Wario and Waluigi? They could have a platforming game like Shake it and use the 2 character mechanic seen in games like Donkey Kong Country.

Really Waluigi can be used as a good supporting character.

[Ian Sane]

Wario is also cool because his name is a multi-level play on words.  Not only is it Mario with the 'M' flipped, but it's a pun on warui, meaning bad (I had to look up the exact word on Wikipedia, so be kind, Japanophiles).

Didn't know about the warui thing.  I just assumed, aside from the flipped 'M', that it was WARio.  You know, war, lots of death and destruction.  To me that just fit for a bad guy.

[Mop it up]

Wario just has that versatility and flexibility that the other Nintendo characters don't have, not even the villains.

I don't know, with how vague some of the other Mario characters' personalities are I think there are lots of things which could "fit" with them but wouldn't be the type of thing that would go over well for most people. I have some examples in mind but that's probably getting off-topic so I'll refrain from listing them.

[Jonnyboy117]

I've always heard that wa- is a prefix you can attach to many Japanese words to add the "bad/evil" meaning. If that's true, Waluigi would be the more standard form of naming a bizarro character. The genius of Wario's name is that they looked at the Romanized spelling and realized it could work on more than one level.

[NWR_pap64]

Wario just has that versatility and flexibility that the other Nintendo characters don't have, not even the villains.

I don't know, with how vague some of the other Mario characters' personalities are I think there are lots of things which could "fit" with them but wouldn't be the type of thing that would go over well for most people. I have some examples in mind but that's probably getting off-topic so I'll refrain from listing them.

I agree. For example, Luigi was always know as Player 2, or Mario with a green color. But games like Luigi's Mansion have shown him to be very shy, a coward but very loyal and caring. In RPGs Bowser has been shown to have a grander than life personality and you actually love the big guy.

Once again it all depends on who is working the character. If its Nintendo's EAD team and Miyamoto then they will be standard representations of the player. If is someone else they will be livelier than usual.

[King Bowser Koopa]

"Warui" isn't much of a pun, I think that's just a coincidence that someone thought of and went around claiming it as Nintendo gospel, since no staff actually ever confirmed it to be an intentional inspiration. Wario's name is simply that, a flipped M reversing the character, making him a negative version of the positive Mario.
It would be akin to someone saying "Toad was named because he's small and has a rough squeaky voice like the amphibious animal!", whereas everyone knows it's just a reference to mushrooms and Peach's original English name, Princess Toadstool. For the record, Toad's Japanese name is Kinopio, which actually *is* a pun on the word kinoko - mushroom". I never really liked Toad anyway.

[Mop it up]

For example, Luigi was always know as Player 2, or Mario with a green color. But games like Luigi's Mansion have shown him to be very shy, a coward but very loyal and caring.

Luigi provides another example of something which fits that I don't care for, and that is how a couple games such as Super Paper Mario and Super Smash Brothers Brawl portray him as having a lot of negative energy built up over the years of residing in Mario's shadow. Such a thought is surprisingly depressing for the cheery rainbow world of Mario.

Once again it all depends on who is working the character. If its Nintendo's EAD team and Miyamoto then they will be standard representations of the player. If is someone else they will be livelier than usual.

That's one thing I like about the spinoff games; you see a bit more of the personality of the characters, especially the more minor ones. Of course, sometimes this can go very wrong, such as what Next Level Games did, but that's the risk you take. The antics of Wario and Waluigi are particularly amusing, so much so that I'm surprised the two have yet to star in a game together.

Though I hope no developer ever tries to add too much depth to Mario and company. Mario characters are like silent movies: expressive enough to be charming but not overly complicated allowing certain things up to the imagination.

I never really liked Toad anyway.

How could you not? The adorable little guy is wearing a vest with no shirt, you at least have to admit that takes some courage.

[King Bowser Koopa]

Though I hope no developer ever tries to add too much depth to Mario and company. Mario characters are like silent movies: expressive enough to be charming but not overly complicated allowing certain things up to the imagination.

As much as I love Super Mario Galaxy (possibly the best game in the series yet? I'd like to think so!), I feel that the story in this game was somewhat confusing and felt kind of tacked on.
Who exactly is Rosalina? The game suggests she's hundreds, maybe thousands of years old. What is she to Peach? An ancestor? Did the vacuum of space turn her into some kind of goddess? Is she a ghost? Immortal? So much confusion...

That said, the story was charming to watch, and I'm glad it was an optional bonus and the player wasn't forced to watch the whole thing between worlds.

[Stratos]

The Rosalina side story was amazing. I loved it. The mystery and intrigue of her background were part of what made it so interesting to me. It is almost a sorrowful ballad of a lone soul, wandering the stars. I think the music in the game really lends to this because it has a melancholy tone in the main hub.

I remember reading the old Mario comic and there was a point where Wario debuted in it near the end of the series. He was referred to as Mario's cousin. He was portrayed as being like 4 times the size and girth of Mario in the comic or something equally ridiculous.

[NWR_pap64]

Agreed about Rosalina. What people don't seem to notice that even if she has a deeper story than the rest of the Mario characters she still employs the mysterious, "leave it to the player's imagination" mantra Nintendo believes in and thus why she is so fascinating. She's complex but fascinating enough that you care for her.

[Peachylala]

Pap: This I agree with. Considering that getting into writing is one of my future goals, examining Roasline's story was pretty fun to do. Why would I do that?

Simple, Yoshiaki Koizumi wrote this story as a fun little side-story. It wasn't jamed into our throats like other stories which shall not be named (*coughmgs4cough*) but it contained a sense of emotions that would be in any childrens book abou adventures, space, friendship and the loss of loved ones. If anything, the Rosalina book would've worked as a real life children's book.

While people may whine about the storybook element in SMG (y halo thr IGN), it was touching. Considering Koizumi's work in the Zelda series, he can make a story work.