Anime Forum Games Links Movies Music Profiles Survivor TV Shows Ah, Wario. I've always been a fan of Wario since he first appeared in Super Mario Land 2 for the Gameboy. His own Gameboy games have always been fun and always seemed to have slightly altered game mechanics each time. Wario World is the first console game starring Wario, does it live up to the name? Wario has come into possession of a black gem, only this gem is alive and decided to turn all of Wario's treasure into monsters! Now Wario must kick some monster butt to get his money back. So the story isn't very good but it's never been that good in Wario games. Normally I have a problem using the Gamecube controller while playing games but it feels natural with this game. Never got buttons mixed up which is a good thing but I did find that the jump button was a little unresponsive at times. Other then that small problem, the control is fine. The sound area is one of Wario World's biggest flaws. Now the music is nice and fun and fits the theme of each level. The sound effects and voice acting is where things fall apart. Wario just doesn't sound right, thankfully you rarely hear him speak. The sound effects are good in the levels as long as Wario isn't making the sound. For some reason he has these horrible sounds that make you almost want to mute the game. Oh and when you pause the game, Wario taunts you over and over until you unpause the game. Graphics are far from mindblowing but they hold their own. Everything seems bright and colorful and I actually enjoyed the forest themed levels more than the others because they felt more full of life. There is a few problems with the frame rate, it tends to drasticly drop when the action gets semi-heavy. The fine folks at Treasure made this game and it shows. Treasure is one of the few developers who make quality games most of the time, excluding Stretch Panic of course. Now the game has four overworlds, made up of 2 levels each plus a boss level on each and the final boss battle. The levels are large and you can spend a good hour or so just finding everything in a level. The levels feel 2D but they are 3D. I really liked how this was done, it makes exploring a lot more fun. Wario has a few moves that he can use like punch, butt bounce, piledriver, spin, throw and ram. You pretty much need all of these throughout the game and most are needed for solving puzzles. Enemies are rather dumb and they respawn but they do know how to group attack. There are a few things you collect in this game. Coins are find laying about and enemies drop them. You can buy garlic which heals you or continues with the coins. You can also find statue pieces which give you more health, gems which are used to find sub-bosses and complete levels and you also find treasure which you get mini games for. You also find Spiritlings which give hints. The puzzles in the game are very well done. There are two types. Normal puzzles take place in a single room and are normally really simple. The other type can be gotten to by using enemies to break open the doors and these take place in large open areas on blocks and stuff that float and move about. These actually remind me of the annoying red coin goals in Super Mario Sunshine but these are fun and make you think. Bosses all have weaknesses and they are easy to figure out for the most part except the guy in the red underwear, he was a pain. The game is really easy since continues bring you right back to life, exactl where you were, even during boss battles. Plus they don't cost a lot and coins are easy to come by. The game is on the short side and can be beaten on the first day of a rental but it's a lot of fun. The game play would be a lot better if there was a few more levels and maybe a few more moves for Wario. Otherwise, the game play is pretty solid. Using a GBA-to-Gamecube cable and a gameboy Advance you can play the minigames you unlock during Wario World. They are just demos of games from Warioware which came out a month or so ago on the Gameboy Advance. The minigames are about 5 seconds long each and just repeat themselves but they get harder. Replay value is kinda low and I don't really think this game is worth buying at full price but if you see it for cheap, pick it up. This is one of the funnest Gamecube games out there. Control: 9 Gameplay: 8 Graphics: 8 Replay Value: 6 Story: 2 Sound: 5 Score: B- or 83/100 Reviewed by: Americanpieflute Reviewed on June 30th 2003