Super Mario has become a worldwide known name, I haven't met a
soul who doesn't know who the red and blue clad plumber no matter the
generation. From his original outing in Donkey Kong lots of new characters have
joined Mario and the Mushroom Kingdom universe, some good, some bad and some
plain old greedy. While yes Mario has his archenemy King Koopa he also has an
arch rival in the form of Wario.
Wario artwork Provided by MarioWiki
At first glance you might see Wario as a copycat but he is
completely different from his Super counterpart. While Mario has proved to be
a great icon you probably wouldn't want Wario as a role model. He's much more
rude, greedy, manipulative and hot-tempered (Though he's not evil and has
actually helped Mario and his friends on a few special occasions)... that
doesn't mean he's not a great character though. He was originally created by
Hiroji Kiyotake as a "bad" Mario (Wario being named after Warui , the
Japanese word for bad) and he was slated as the antagonist of Super Mario Land
2: 6 Golden Coins, which Hiroji Kiyotake directed. In Super Mario Land 2 Wario
takes over Mario's castle (No idea how Mario got his own castle, then again all
those coins Mario collected in his previous adventures must of went towards
this.) and acts as the final boss in this slight departure from normal Mario
games, in the sense of having a different final boss then the average Bowser.
Wario ended up becoming so popular he was spun off into his own
adventure, Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for the Gameboy. Wario decides to go
off on his own treasure hunting adventure after his defeat at the hands of his
rival Mario in order to get his own Castle. This game was similar to Mario's
outing in the fact it was still a platformer game but Wario proved to be a much
different kind of adventurer. Wario can jump, bump and grab enemies which
proved to be a fresh change of pace for Nintendo platformers. I've never played
this game sadly (Though I do own Super Mario Land 2) and Wario came into my
life through a later installment. Yes Wario has become one of my all time
favorite Mario characters and despite not being the nicest character he's
absolutely hilarious and has some really fun games under his belt. My favorite,
and only Wario game I own would be Wario Land 3.
Wario Land 3 released back in the year 2000 for the Gameboy Color
and was one of the first Video games I've ever played. (Super Mario 64 still
being the first.) Unlike Mario's normal platforming the Wario Land games,
especially this one, are more on the adventuring Metroidvania side (Meaning it
plays similar to Metroid and Castlevania who were also adventuring platforming
games.)
In Wario Land 3 our Yellow Clad not-really-a-plumber Wario is out
flying his plane when sudden it stalls and crashes into a nearby forest, who
even gave Wario a plane in the first place?! Though he seems to know what he's
doing as he comes out uninjured and discovers a hidden cave holding a
mysterious music box. Of course Wario being the treasure hungry man he is tries
to grab the music box when suddenly he's sucked right in!
What Wario comes across inside this magic music box is an entire
world filled with treasure. After meeting with this mysterious figure in the
wall he sets out (Only after being told he could bring all the treasure back
home.) to find the many treasures of the world as well as the five music boxes
to restore the hidden figure's power and restore peace. This game has a LOT of
treasure hunting and really differentiates itself from previous Mario and Wario
games. This game has 25 levels total with 4 keys and four treasure trunks in
each (Wario's Power Ups and the Music Boxes are included in this.). The keys and treasure trunks are only found after manipulating your
enemies and environment using Wario's abilities such as the shoulder bash and
ground pound. The first level you have unlocked is Out of the Woods, which
probably has the best music in the entire game. You'll only be able to get the
silver key at first but after progressing the game and unlocking more of
Wario's abilities through other level's treasure chests and Boss fights. A lot
of exploring is needed to find every key and treasure but the face in the wall
that talked to you in the beginning of the game always tells you where you need
to go next, of course it's your job to find the keys but knowing where to go
helps. Each level has a night time and day time version with some slight
differences, so some keys might not be accessible in the day and vice versa.
Like mentioned before this game does have enemies but what's
different about this game is... Wario is invincible. Yup you can't get a Game
Over in this game. The enemies in this game instead give reactions such as
stunning Wario, making him fat(....Fatter) or setting him on fire (This guy
goes through a lot trust me.) these reactions can actually come in handy and are
even essential to some of this game's puzzles such as setting Wario on fire to
light torches, going invisible to get past a wall or even turning into a zombie
or vampire, yeah that's a thing in this game. The boss fights in this game are
all about how you react to the boss, whether you're butt stomping or throwing
something (Both power ups you get later on.)
After receiving certain treasures, as well as finishing certain
treasure pairs (Yeah lots of treasures intertwine with each other and you
sometimes can't open new levels until you get all the pieces.) you get these
pretty cool cutscenes. Actually this game has a quite a few cool cutscenes for
being a Gameboy Color game. Overall this game is pretty awesome and will give
you HOURS of adventure treasure hunting.
Oh yeah! There's a completely unorthodox Golf minigame, with Wario using his shoulder as a golf club. They turn up in levels every so often and eventually you can unlock the Golf minigames to play them whenever you want. Speaking of replay-ability you can replay any of the levels and get any of the keys whenever you want, which is pretty awesome.
Really cool thing is that if you
didn't grow up playing this game like I did, or no longer own your old GameBoy Color version, the Nintendo 3DS eShop has this
game up for a download sale of $4.99 USD which is a pretty good deal. I've put
a lot of hours into this game over the years but I have to admit something...
I've never beaten the game. Yeah this is another one of those games I've always
owned but never beaten. I mean I'm currently replaying it on my 3DS in my spare
time so eventually I will beat it, I don't actually even know what the final boss
is like. I only have 35 of the 100 treasures. Hey I never said this game was
easy, it's become a bit easier over the years... especially when I remembered
that the hidden figure actually tells you where to go next. I refuse to look up
any kind of walk through for the game. Despite this I absolutely love this
treasure hunting adventure game. (Eat your heart out Uncharted.)
Wario would then go on to star in tons of games, Mario Kart,
Smash Brothers, two more Wario Land titles and his Warioware series. Wario Land
3 is the only Wario game I own, I've played the Warioware titles in the past
but never owned them. He's not really had a new adventure since 2008 with Wario
Land: Shake It! Who knows maybe the Nintendo Switch will mark Wario's dive back
into the life of treasure hunting. Until then he'll continue causing his rival
Mario some trouble with his partner in crime Waluigi (Its always Waluigi time.)
and making his Warioware games with his Diamond City friends.
To end this blog off I really wanted to find a knitting pattern
related to Wario but all I could find was a pattern I technically already
featured a week ago on my Mario Day blog. So if you didn't already read that
blog, we're featuring it again!
I've been really loving Carolyn Leslie's Nintendo Dishclothpatterns ever since I discovered them. She has dishcloths of a lot of Mario and
his friends. I'm currently working on a Princess Peach dishcloth from her but
the pattern I'm featuring today is none other then a Wario dishcloth!
Photo Provided by Carolyn Lislie
Yes this was the only Wario knitting pattern I could find but
it's a great one nonetheless. This will Knit up to be 25 cm x 25 cm / 10 inches
by 10 inches (As do her other dishcloth patterns, so linking them all together
is possible!) and will be easy to knit with some worsted yarn and US 7 needles
(4.5 MM). It's made up of just Knits and purls and comes with a knitting chart
and a written version of the instructions. This pattern as well as her other
patterns can easily be converted to non dishcloth patterns, I even saw these
patterns turned into a pillow case!
I want to knit all of Carolyn's patterns at some point so stay
tuned to see my progress on that! Speaking of progress... here's my current
progress on my Princess Peach dishcloth!
You can just start to see the pattern forming. I'm getting used
to reading from a chart (I'm still a newbie, sorry.) and I'm surprised how well
this pattern is showing. I figured a multicolored yarn would wash the pattern
away but it's popping out nicely, actually better then it would if I had
actually used white yarn. Now I just gotta convince myself to let this be used
as a dishcloth, haha.
That's a wrap folks!
I'm a Wario! I'm a Gonna win!
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