SBC #40 Chrom & WarioWare Gold

Was Wario worth it?

Wario was introduced as a potential persistent rival for Mario, but this anti-Mario had just as much of a chance as being the next Bowser as Tatanga or Wart. Wario persisted, though, and before anyone knew what was happening, he was karting and swinging around a golf club with the best of ‘em. Wario was the antithesis of Mario, and that was all we needed for an anti-hero. Bowser had goals and schemes, Donkey Kong had an almost heroic love of family and bananas, and Wario was… “smelly Mario”. He was as greedy as Mario was heroic, and… That’s all we got. There was never much to Wario beyond the obvious.

Now he has had his name on the marquee of 22 different games. But are they any good? Let’s do some microreviews!

Mario & Wario
1993
Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The first time Wario wedged his name into the title was back on the Super Famicom. Fresh off the Gameboy, Wario was now menacing Mario again with… a bucket. It is surprisingly effective! You play the part of Wanda the Fairy, and you must guide Mario (or Peach or Yoshi) across several hazards to reach a waiting Luigi. At the end of each world, Wario appears, and you get to bother him for some coins while Mario just stands around like an idiot. As the story goes, this was originally envisioned as a Super Scope title, but was switched to a Super Nintendo Mouse jaunt when the Super Scope was found to be about as precise as a stick of dynamite. So, while some “permanent escort” games are more puzzle based, this one is mostly just testing mouse dexterity. And we will never recognize that as a skill, so this one may as well stay in Japan. The fact that it did not make a return during the Reign of the Wiimote is telling.
Rank: Fail

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3
1994
Gameboy

Wario’s first playable role is a banger. While we acknowledge one esteemed streaming colleague who believes Wario moves too slow compared to Mario in Super Mario Land 2, Gogglebob.com officially identifies this as a feature, not a bug. The Gameboy’s gnat-sized viewing area does not lend itself well to speed, so Wario taking a little more time to toss around pirates is appreciated. And the collectibles! And ridiculous ways you can transform ducks into coins! Dare I say it: with all the weird little secrets in Wario Land, it is a predecessor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night just as much as future Wario games. Unmitigated success all around.
Rank: Winner!

Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!
1994
Gameboy

It’s Bomberman with Wario. Under normal circumstances, this could be the greatest idea since the invention of the Acme novelty bomb. However, the gameplay is simply a series of Bomberman versus matches powered by Gameboy AI, so it gets old fast. There is a smattering of bosses across the game, but this is otherwise a mediocre Bomberman adventure. There was far better available going back to the NES…
Rank: Fail

Wario’s Woods
1994
Nintendo Entertainment System (and others)

A puzzle game with an interesting playstyle vaguely based on 2-D platforming. You are Toad, and you have to juggle monsters and bombs to clear the playfield of malcontents. Birdo seems to be helping with bombs, and then Wario arrives to ruin your day and rain monsters on your silly mushroom hat. It is hard to call this puzzle game “bad”, as it does get kind of fun as speed/monsters ramp up in later levels; but Wario’s Woods is completely forgettable. As it appeared on the same systems as Tetris and Dr. Mario, it is pulling a failing grade by virtue of not living up to its own legacies.
Rank: Fail

Virtual Boy Wario Land
1995
Virtual Boy

Arguably more of the same from Wario Land, Virtual Boy Wario Land is one of the few reasons to have ever played a Virtual Boy. This would also be one of the last times we would see “straight platformer” Wario collecting hat powerups and taking hits like a normal (anti-)hero, so enjoy it while you can. Oh! And there are the Virtual Boy mandated 3-D background and foreground areas. It is cool and unique and hip and poppin’ fresh. Go to your local Virtual Boy dealer and give this Wario a go.
Rank: Winner!

Wario Land 2
1998
Gameboy

The comparison to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night was spiritual in regard to Wario’s first adventure, but his second land has more than a little metroidvania DNA spliced into the proceedings. Wario has grown fat and wealthy off the loot from his previous adventures, but when Captain Syrup returns to steal all Wario’s gold, he must venture through his own well-earned castle and beyond to reclaim his millions. Unlike in the previous adventures, though, Wario does not have “health” or lives, and failure states or based on getting knocked around and delayed by opponents (and potentially losing coins, of course). Similarly, powerup hats are dropped in favor of “transformations” that often allow Wario to find and unlock new areas. It’s new! It’s exciting! It’s Wario! And it is a success on every level.
Rank: Winner!

Wario Land 3
2000
Gameboy Color

Sorry, have to cut the love for 2-D action platformers short here. Wario Land 3 took pretty much all the best parts of Wario Land 2, and made them bigger. Unsurprisingly, this made the game overly bloated. It’s a good game! On a good system! It just fails to be a significantly better game than its forebearer, and it tosses in an inordinate amount of backtracking to promote its new features (like making Wario care about the time). The worst I can say about Wario Land 3 is that it is misguided… but we are grading on a pass/fail system here, and Wario Land 3 fails to make this player ever want to traipse through his music box land again.
Rank: Fail

Wario Land 4
2001
Gameboy Advance

Back on track! For better or worse, the whole “transformation” based gameplay has been deemphasized, and we are back to “regular” Wario dashing and butt smashing around challenging stages. But the time parameters and treasure hunting have been retained from the other Wario Land games, and we have a bevy of unusual challenges available across eclectic stages. Wario Land 4 was not quite a Gameboy Advance launch title, but it was definitely the first and best reason to stop playing… Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure? Why the heck did anyone buy that? Didn’t they know Wario Land 4 was coming?
Rank: Winner!

WarioWare, Inc: Mega Microgames!
2003
Gameboy Advance

The start of the WarioWare franchise, and unquestionably still a classic today. Wario is now managing his own game company to cash in on the success of a non-flappy bird, and you get to playtest multiple “microgames” that all last for about ten seconds. You can either see this as gaming as we know it being distilled into its purest form, or the ultimate in placating attention deficit disorder. Whatever the case, it is a good time for anybody that ever had difficulty with nose picking.
Rank: Winner!

Wario World
2003
Nintendo Gamecube

The rare game that feels really good 10% of the time, yet the rest is Wario’s rank overalls. When this 3-D Wario is twirling his opponents around a world where everything works, it is straight fire. But so much of the Wario World experience is fighting your way across faux-platforming segments that do our portly protagonist no favors. It is never truly bad, it just feels like the designers had a great idea for how Wario should feel, and then kept him from doing that at all times.
Rank: Fail

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Games!
2004
Nintendo Gamecube

Following in the footsteps of Pokémon, it initially appeared like this portable-based game would only see console visits with recycled content from the “main” game. Mega Party Games! had all the same microgame content as its Gameboy Advance buddy, but those challenges were repurposed for four player head-to-head action. In other words, we got Wario Party. And it was good! While Wikipedia and other authorities treat this as a meager port, Mega Party Games! is worth a spin if you ever find yourself transported twenty years in the past with exactly three friends.
Rank: Winner!

WarioWare: Twisted!
2005
Gameboy Advance

Let’s go ahead and claim that Mega Microgames completely exhausted any and all microgames that could be played with one button and a crosspad. In the early 21st Century, where do you go next? To pseudo-motion controls! WarioWare: Twisted! included a special gyro sensor in the cart, so you could go topsy-turvy with twisting your Gameboy Advance around to complete challenges. It didn’t always work exactly as intended (please never make me “fight” that final boss again), but it was overpoweringly fast and frenetic. Not a bad sendoff for a system that started with a Wario platformer. And as for the next portable system…
Rank: Winner!

WarioWare: Touched!
2005
Nintendo DS

This was almost too clever for Wario. The Nintendo DS was new, and its initial releases were either games you had played on other systems (like Mario 64) or little more than tech demos (Yoshi Touch and Go). WarioWare: Touched! could be considered another simple tech demo, but marrying the “new” touch moves to the always kinetic WarioWare microgames was a stroke of genius. You are learning about all the fun ways you’ll use your stylus, and occasionally playing Balloon Fight. Marvelous! Maybe the most fun and topical Wario has ever been.
Rank: Winner!

WarioWare: Smooth Moves
2006
Nintendo Wii

Once again, Nintendo used Wario as an ambassador for its new hardware. The WiiMote was fresh and novel, and Wario got his team to create all sorts of minigames that would showcase exactly how you could pick, flick, and remote your way across Nintendo’s newfound success. And it could even be a lot of fun with nearby friends with the easy to understand “poses”. And this is all immaterial to our rankings, as Smooth Moves was always going to earn a “Winner!” entirely because of it kicking off with, “It’s-a Wii, Wario.”
Rank: Winner!

Wario: Master of Disguise
2007
Nintendo DS

WarioWare Inc. was released in 2003. If you had to pitch that game to an executive back before the concept of “microgames” existed, said boneheaded executive would likely interpret the end result as Wario: Master of Disguise. This is a tepid 2-D platformer that sucks Wario into a minigame every time he needs to unlock a treasure chest. These minigames are the exact experiences that have given minigames a bad name over the years, so it is nonsense like “color within the lines”, “slide the blocks”, or that one dumb thing where you have to draw a line from Wario to a goal. You know that silly thing that appeared in bonus stages in Mario Land 2? That nonsense. It wasn’t fun then, and it wasn’t fun in 2007, either. The titular disguises are never more interesting than a single different verb, and the whole enterprise relies on touch controls despite a perfectly good series of buttons right there. This is a Wario game so bad, it is completely justified that we did not see another 2-D Wario for… uh… a year? Hmph. Weird.
Rank: Fail

Wario Land: Shake It!
2008
Nintendo Wii

This one somehow becomes a Wario gestalt that is not better than the sum of its parts. We have the basic Wario 2-D gameplay back in full force, a few transformations from the middle Wario Land games, Wario Land 4’s “recontextualize the level in a thrilling escape sequence” mechanic, and even the new “shake it” and ground-punch mechanics that are spiritually straight out of Wario World. And there is even a delightful cartoony style that is reminiscent of the American Wario commercials of the 90s! Unfortunately, even with all these good ideas working in concert, the whole package is weightless, and stages feel sparse and lifeless. The Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS were bringing back 2-D titles with a vengeance during this period, and Wario Land: Shake It! did nothing to make an impact like New Super Mario Bros. or Mega Man 9. Doubly disappointing when you consider that this is the last we have seen of (official) Wario 2-D action for the last sixteen years…
Rank: Fail

WarioWare: Snapped!
2008
Nintendo DS

Snapped! was one of the first games released for DSiWare, Nintendo DS’s exclusive online shop. Now that it is nearly twenty years later, it is completely unavailable. Because Nintendo should be punished for this deed, we have an automatic fail here. Do not tell me your dog ate the assignment, Nintendo.
Rank: Fail

WarioWare D.I.Y.
2010
Nintendo DS

The original microgames that founded WarioWare initially appeared in Polygon Studio, a part of the Mario Artist game suite that was meant to continue the Mario Paint franchise on the Nintendo 64DD. The Nintendo 64DD itself never left Japan, though, so many Americans never had any clue that WarioWare and Mario Paint both had ties to a Nintendo 64 upgrade from 1999. But anyone that had been waiting since 1992 to see more Mario Paint might have been tipped off to a connection in 2010, as WarioWare D.I.Y. is a not-so-secret sequel to that founding creative experience. And, bonus points, Wario can fart all over your creations! Create music, comics, and games with the help of your stylus, and the only drawback is that any and all WarioWare D.I.Y. microcreations are now permanently cut off from peer review thanks to discontinued servers. Net boo, but cheers for the game we had.
Rank: Winner!

Game & Wario
2013
Nintendo WiiU

It worked for the Nintendo DS, it worked for the Nintendo Wii, why shouldn’t it work for the Nintendo WiiU? Well, maybe because some jackhole forgot that these are supposed to be microgames. Game & Wario is a showcase for all the neat asymmetrical things you can do with the WiiU pad, but it only includes the trademark Microgames in 9-Volt’s Gamer stage. Everything else is a (comparatively) long “full” game with multiple levels and challenges. At that point, why not just play Nintendo Land? At least that one has Samus Aran! A Wario game that is not necessarily bad, it just misunderstood the assignment.
Rank: Fail

WarioWare Gold!
2018
Nintendo 3DS

All the best of multiple Microgame titles smooshed together into one awesome and rapid collection. It’s gold, baby! We will offer no further explanation for why The Most Wario™ is the most winning.
Rank: Winner!

WarioWare: Get it Together!
2021
Nintendo Switch

Game & Wario gave us the basic concept of playing “as” the iconic directors of WarioWare titles, so WarioWare: Get it Together! goes the extra mile of putting these little dudes and ladies into actual microgames. Wario and his buddies all control differently, and the greatest challenge here is quickly discovering what the heck you are supposed to do with a variable verb that might be “dash attack”, “boomerang”, or “for no reason, always jumping”. This limits the scope of some minigames, and Get it Together! does feel smaller than some of its ancestors; however, this is also an excuse for something best described as microgame 2-D platforming (complete with a boss stage that is just Super Mario World), so you’ll see no complaints from this retro microgamer.
Rank: Winner!

WarioWare: Move It!
2023
Nintendo Switch

And we reach our most recent release with something from last Fall. The concept here is appreciated: Wario uses both of the joycons and their remote capabilities to create microgames that encourage movement like Wii Fit or Just Dance. That is fun!… When it works. Unfortunately, ten second microgames are not the best for properly positioning your body, discovering what you are supposed to be doing, and then actually doing it while the joycon properly registers your movement. Or maybe I just have the kind of body that confuses a gaming console? I do not know. Whatever the case, Move It! has a great idea here, but the actual implementation falls short of the potential.
Rank: Fail

Okay! That’s everybody! Let’s tally up the scores here… Oh! Looks like Wario comes out ahead with a score of 2 more good games than bad! Hooray! Wario has justified his existence! Free garlic for everybody!

SBC #40 Chrom & WarioWare Gold

Chrom in Super Smash Bros Ultimate

• He any Good? Chrom is technically a clone of Roy, which seems vaguely insulting. Roy barely even had his own game! Chrom deserves better! And speaking of deserving better, the differences between Roy and Chrom make Chrom the worse fighter, as his recovery is not as effective as our favorite Melee swordsman. So, sorry, Chrom, but you are the number one reason no one gets excited about Fire Emblem characters in this franchise.
• That final smash work? Chrom’s Awakening Aether is conceptually different from the other FE Critical Hits, but still works effectively the same. A significant difference here is also that Chrom will dash off the damn stage if he misses, and has about a 10% chance of surviving such a whiff. Bro cannot catch a break.
• The background work? There are not enough Fire Emblem stages for all the FE characters, so Chrom is going to be showcased with Wario’s Gamer for article cohesion. This stage has random configurations and a random mom laser, so it is ideal if you want to drive your tournament-based friends insane. I am not a big fan of Gamer, as the ambiance often calls for the background music to be quiet. When you have as many amazing musical tracks as Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, silence is a crime.
• Classic Mode: Fight as One is an homage to the Pair Up system introduced in Chrom’s home game. Forgiving the daughter recruitment fight at the start, Chrom fights a series of duos who mostly include clone characters. Only Donkey and Diddy are wholly separate characters, and, considering Mario & Luigi could have easily subbed in there, it is yet another situation where Chrom feels like a character that missed the mark. The hand bros. are your obvious final encounter.
• Smash Trivia: Palutena was part of Pit’s Final Smash in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but Pit had to find his own support when Palutena returned as a playable character in the next game. Chrom was originally only part of Smash through Robin’s Final Smash, and… he still participates as Robin’s partner while a playable character. He will even homi/suicide himself when facing Robin. Not like Robin doesn’t have any other partners available…

• Amiibo Corner: Ness only has one amiibo, but Chrom has two. Terrible. Both Chroms have great capes, though, so I cannot get too mad. I prefer the “brandishing” pose of the Fire Emblem Amiibo, but the Smash version certainly seems to be posing like a true hero who salvaged his parent franchise.
• Does Smash Bros Remember Today’s Game? Given WarioWare Gold is a “best of” for the WarioWare series, the frequent WarioWare references in Smash Bros. either completely ignore Gold, or are constantly referencing Gold. Bit of a quantum puzzle there. However, references to Chrom within the WarioWare universe within Smash Bros. are limited.

Chrom in WarioWare Gold

• System: Nintendo 3DS, possibly the last system that could support so many of WarioWare’s little gimmicks.
• Number of players: Like (nearly?) every WarioWare title, two-player competition is encouraged.
• Maybe actually talk about the game for a second: What? That sentence or two up top wasn’t enough? This is a collection of all the best WarioWare minigames (as of 2018), which includes any number of “gimmicks” that were made for earlier systems, like Touch! and Twist! In fact, this allows the return of several of the microgames that hadn’t been seen since the nigh-impossible to emulate WarioWare Twisted! was released, so kudos on the return of universal gravitation fun. And the minigames are all organized by what gimmicks they will employ, which means you can still have a fun time if you only feel like pressing buttons for the next half hour. Great games organized in a great way is great. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
• Wait, this is the game you assigned to Chrom? Yes! There are way too many Fire Emblem characters on the Ultimate roster to the measly one WarioWare character (it’s Wario, by the way). Since Chrom does appear in his own microgame, we are transferring him to WarioWare. Besides, we already covered Fire Emblem Awakening back in the day, and it is not like he appears in that many other games…
• Story Time: This initially appears to be an absurd plot, as Wario starts a gaming tournament that is meant to fleece the population of their entry fees when he declares himself the champion… But that’s just every fighting game plot, right? The Mishimas have been pulling this nonsense for, like, eight straight games. Wario is allowed to do it once.
• An End: I think Wario became the Toilet Pope there for a little bit thanks to a new hat. Headwear is surprisingly omnipotent in the Mario universe.
• Gotta Catch ‘em All: You can earn coins between microgames, and these coins will buy you all sorts of garbage. This has been a normal part of the WarioWare experience going back to Twisted/Touch, but it is starting to feel a little gross now in the age of DLC. How long before Wario takes over Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball?
• Canon Question: What is up with Nintendo being a real thing in this universe, but every other WarioWare plot involves stones that happen to look like controllers? 9-Volt has been there right from the beginning, showing off his Nintendo system collection like a champ. Yet every time Wario so much as sneezes, some ancient civilization worshipping Nintendo controllers is discovered. Is this implying that the in-universe version of Nintendo is staffed with IP thieves? Just like Wario?
• Did you know? With Wario’s Woods being the final Nintendo game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and Mario & Wario being released in at least one region, the only console/portable ever released by Nintendo that did not have a marquee Wario game was the Nintendo 64. That is why it was a failure.
• Would I play again: The worst thing I can say about WarioWare Gold is that it was released on the Nintendo 3DS late in its lifespan, so it has not had the opportunity to be my “go to” game for playing when I have a few spare moments. Ironically, WarioWare Inc. being part of that Ambassador Program filled that niche for a long time, so maybe I don’t need WarioWare Gold at all? Whatever! I will play it again! I just need to get back in the habit of carrying around my Nintendo 3DS again.

What’s next? Piranha Plant is stationary, but they are going to be featured with a game that is all about going fast. Please look forward to it!