Wario World is a weird game. It is thus far the first and only 3D installment in the Wario Land series. To be technical, I don’t know if it’s officially part of the series, but it shares all of the usual staples, such as the focus on finding treasures and the multiple endings based on the aforementioned treasures. And speaking of treasures, this game was developed by Treasure, the devs behind Gunstar Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, and Ikaruga. Oh, they also made Astro Boy: Omega Factor, which is another game I need to revisit at some point. Point is, Treasure typically makes 2D shooty bang bang games, which they didn’t do here.

I recently decided to revisit Wario World after having played the crap out of it in my childhood. There were a lot of negatives that I only noticed upon a replay, and I have overall mixed feelings, but I do still think the game is worth a look.

One of the game’s stronger points is its story and presentation. Wario World opens with a narration about an entity known as the black jewel, which brought destruction upon the land until it was sealed up, yada yada until Wario digs it up. The premise is about as unoriginal as you could get, but the tone and atmosphere to this game that is rarely seen in Nintendo titles. And I don’t even mean “atmospheric” in the sense of immersion or feeling real. Wario World is much more surreal in its nature. There are some areas, such as the Wonky Circus and Mirror Mansion that remind me of the liminal spaces trend.

This trend continues with the boss fights, which can vary from your usual Nintendo fair, to oddly creepy. Anyone who thought that the dragon boss fight from Super Mario Odyssey was out of place have never made it to the Brawl Doll or the Winter Windster. The latter quite literally looks like it could pass for a Bloodborne boss for fucks sake. And the music also sounds Souls-esque as well. Meanwhile, in the same world, you fight a muscular, anthropomorphic bull that looks like a male stripper.

This was part of trend in early 2000s Nintendo games where shit just got edgier in an attempt to blend in with the direction of gaming at the time. Luigi’s Mansion was released just two years prior to this, and Nintendo had published both Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Eternal Darkness a few years prior to this game. I should note, I have no idea if the other Wario Land games were anywhere near as weird as World World, but it certainly makes this game interesting.

The music is especially noteworthy in setting up this odd atmosphere. While I wouldn’t find myself listening to most of the soundtrack casually, there are a number of tracks that stick out. The Treasure challenge 2 theme, particularly those first few notes, turns a typical bonus stage into a weird dreamlike setting. Similarly, the music for the Unithorn’s lair is both menacing and whimsical, fitting the setting perfectly.

What helps Wario World stick out so much is the sheer amount of personality it has. For instance, the aforementioned Unithorn’s lair is an area you land in if you fall into a pit. Rather than simply receiving a tick of damage, you land in the lair of these ghost like beings that will deplete your coin count, and you need to find the escape spring while not landing in the water (which also causes you to lose coins). This is not only fitting Wario’s money obsessed personality, but it also is an adequate punishment since you lose coins upon death, which means you want to have enough to not get a game over. It’s unique in both gameplay and setting.

Wario’s personality is also in full display with his humorous voice clips. I crack a smile every time I hear him yell “have a rotten day!” and the childish mocking noises he makes on the pause screen, which he will apologize for and remain silent after 50 minutes, brilliant!

The gameplay, unfortunately, is a mixed bag. Wario World deals with a problem that I often see present in indie games by less experienced devs, a lack of difficulty curve. The first few levels of the game are easy, as one would expect. Enemies are easy to manage, and it’s generally possible to obtain all collectables without use of a guide. I enjoyed the first four levels of Wario World without any issues. Then I got to the Thrillsville section, which contained the two most frustrating levels in the game.

The Shivering Mountains stage, for example, chooses to put multiple items in areas that you can’t backtrack to, and that are easy to miss. Certain collectables will literally be placed midway down a slope that you slide down automatically, and that are easy to miss even if you know its location. The game will then place a checkpoint immediately after this slide, even if you fall into the pit before the checkpoint. There are also some areas that can only be accessed via jumping from this slide at a certain point. This is complicated eve further by the fact that most treasures only appear if you hit a button that makes them spawn, and you will often need to backtrack to find the treasure. Oh, and if you leave the stage, the buttons don’t stay pressed. The following stage, Beanstalk Way, isn’t as bad, but I still had to replay it more times than I wish.

Things were not as bad in the following world, Sparkle Land. I quite enjoyed the Mirror Mansion stage. The Pecan Sands stage had it’s ups and downs. I thought it was clever to have the stage 2 boss re-appear as a mini boss for instance. However, it also has the issue of requiring a bunch of running around to find treasures and such, though it’s not as bad as the two I talked about last paragraph.

Someone may be thinking “well, why not just do a casual playthrough without 100%ing it?” The answer to that is that this game would be even shorter than it already is. This game’s combat and platforming is NOT strong enough to carry the game on its own. There isn’t one specific element that could carry this entire game, and it’s at its best when all these elements work together. Unfortunately, due to the amount of backtracking, the crappy levels take up about twice as much time as the good ones, which drowns out the overall quality of the game.

Because of this, I can’t say that Wario World is worth the steep costs to get an original copy. The plus side is that, since the Switch 2 Online now features Gamecube games, there’s a good chance that this will eventually be put up on the service… or you could just emulate it.

–

If you would like to support me or this site, then please pledge to my Fanbox or make a donation to my Cashapp ($AnniegaIIa) or Venmo if you would like to see higher quality content with more resources to put towards it. If you don’t want to spend any money on me, then you can also help by sharing my blog on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, or anywhere else where others will see it. You can also follow this blog if you would like to be kept up to date on my stuff.