Games you should have played – Wario World

Wario-World-Box-Art

The Super Mario Bros. franchise may have a mighty menagerie of characters with awesome spinoff games, but none are as pungent a powerhouse as Wario.

Whose classic titles go underappreciated constantly, even getting an amazing Gamecube game no one ever seems to talk about. Here’s why you should have played Wario World.

Nintendo as a company has a plethora of lovable and unforgettable characters in its repertoire of games.

Most, if not all, fall short of meeting the same level of cultural relevance as Nintendo’s memorable mascot Mario himself.

However many of the cast of characters from Marios’s games have received their own spin-off titles, including Luigi with Luigi’s Mansion, Yoshi with Yoshi’s Island, and Toad with Captain Toad.

Wario World Gameplay
Credit: Nintendo

Wario, Mario’s evil garlic loving cousin, has appeared in a wide variety of games from traditional 2-D platformers like in the Wario Land games, sidescrolling puzzle games like Mario & Wario, his own Mario Party-Esque WarioWare series, as well as every Mario Kart since 64 and all the sport spin-off games (even making an appearance in a Bomberman game).

But one gem has been hidden amongst this treasure trove of titles not so much as ever getting a remaster, Wario World. Wario World was a criminally underrated Gamecube exclusive 3D platformer beat-em-up, and our titular treasure-seeker Wario’s first console release.

Wario World’s simple plot, which begins with an evil gem called the Black Jewel turning Wario’s treasure into monsters and transforms his castle into various worlds, allows the focus to shift from any real narrative to instead the strong gameplay elements where Wario World shines.

Wario World To Do List
Credit: Nintendo

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Wario World’s combat was fun and constant as monsters would constantly spawn forcing players to stay on their toes.

The evil villain had a basic punch-combo, a grab that gave him access to a variety of different throws, and his iconic shoulder-bash, letting him mow through his money-turned-problems, turning those chumps back into change with ease.

The game also had a major focus on exploration, as the players had to traverse the 4-worlds solving puzzles and re-collecting Wario’s various treasures.

Each of the four worlds has two stages with accompanying mini-bosses, and one main boss, and was usually tied to some specific theme that influenced the sort of enemies you would face and the kinds of puzzles you can expect to come across.

Wario World boss fight
Credit: Nintendo

Every one of the well-designed stages in Wario World was packed with collectibles giving them a degree of replayability and in order to progress from one stage to the next, players would need to collect a certain amount of Red Diamonds before unlocking the next stage.

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Wario World was a charming and quirky game that while undeniably short, really showed the potential that Wario has for more standalone games comparable to the likes of Super Mario: Sunshine.

Wario has mostly been focused on running his business as we’ve only seen WarioWare releases over the past few years, and since the last Wario platformer Wario Land: Shake It was released all the way back in 2008, we probably won’t be seeing our fiscal fiend Wario in anything other than micro-game management any time soon.

With no re-releases at this point or in the near future, it’s certain that this treasure will remain buried and so you should have played Wario World when you had the chance.

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