Wario

Wario
is a character in Nintendo's Mario video game series that was designed as an arch-rival to Mario. Wario first appeared as the main antagonist and final boss in the 1992 Game Boy game Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. His name is a portmanteau of the name Mario and the Japanese word warui (悪い), meaning "bad". Hiroji Kiyotake designed Wario and Charles Martinet voiced the character from 1993 to 2023, as well as other characters in the series, including Mario, Luigi, and Waluigi.
Wario is also the protagonist and antihero of the Wario Land and WarioWare series in handheld and console markets. In the handheld market, he is usually portrayed as a greedy treasure hunter while console games follow his exploits as a video game developer. Wario has also appeared in spin-off games in the Mario series, in other Nintendo properties such as in the Super Smash Bros. series of crossover fighting games, and in other media such as the Super Mario Adventures graphic novel. The character has received a largely positive critical reception.
Concept and creation
The character Foreman Spike, a possible inspiration for Wario, first appeared in the 1985 game Wrecking Crew; Spike is a construction foreman who bears a slight resemblance to Wario. Game artist Hiroji Kiyotake designed Foreman Spike, who Kiyotake imagined as "the Bluto to Mario's Popeye". Wario's first named appearance occurred in the 1992 game Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Wario's design arose from Super Mario Lands design team's distaste of making a game based around someone else's character. The creation of Wario allowed them their own character to "symbolize their situation". Nintendo originally considered making Wario a German character before he developed into an Italian like Mario.
Wario is portrayed as a caricature of Mario: he has a large head and chin; huge muscular arms; a wide, short, slightly obese body; short legs; a large, pointier, zig-zagging mustache; and a bellicose cackle. He wears a plumber outfit with a yellow-and-purple color scheme, which is a short-sleeved yellow shirt, purple overalls, and a blue W on his hat. He also wears green shoes and white gloves with blue W symbols. In his early appearances, Wario wears a yellow, long-sleeved shirt and fuchsia overalls. The name "Wario" is a portmanteau of "Mario" and the Japanese adjective meaning "bad", hence, a "bad Mario", which is also symbolized by the "W" on his hat, an upside down "M". Official Nintendo lore states Wario was a childhood rival to Mario and Luigi who became jealous of their success.
Wario was originally intended to be German; accordingly, German voice actor Thomas Spindler, who played the character in japan from 1996 to 2001, gave him several German lines. This ended when Wario's voice actor for markets outside Japan Charles Martinet, who has also voiced Mario since 1995, started voicing Wario on all markets. During his audition for the part, Martinet was told to speak in a mean-and gruff-sounding tone; he said voicing Wario is a looser task than voicing Mario, whose speaking manner and personality are freer-flowing, rising from the ground and floating into the air, while jealousy is one of Wario's characteristics.
Wario is often portrayed as a villain in video games in which he makes a cameo appearance. The development team for Wario Land: Shake It! stated he was not really a villain and they did not consider him one during development. They focused on his behavior, which alternates between good and evil. Etsunobu Ebisu and Takahiro Harada, producers of Shake It!, considered Wario to be a reckless character who uses his strength to overwhelm others. Tadanori Tsukawaki, Shake It! design director, described Wario as manly and said he was "so uncool that he ends up being extremely cool". Because of this, Tsukawaki wanted Wario to act macho rather than silly and asked the art designers to emphasize his masculinity. During an interview with Kikizo, video-game designer Yoshio Sakamoto, who was a member of R&D1 since its early days, has stated the project centered around Wario because the team "couldn't think of anyone else best for the role", and he was then described as "unintelligent" and "always idiotic", which is the reason he was chosen as the star of the WarioWare series. According to an early 1990s Nintendo guide, Wario was Mario's childhood friend, which Kotaku later contested in a parody article. Afterward, it was stated they were not related to each other and were considered childhood rivals.
In his earliest appearances in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and Wario's Woods, Wario displays considerable magical power, using spells on the population of islands to turn them into his minions, create duplicates, and grow very large. These traits were discontinued starting with Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, in which he is rejuvenated by garlic in a similar manner to Mario being powered by mushrooms. In the WarioWare and Super Smash Bros. games, consuming garlic transforms Wario into "Wario-Man", a superhero with powers relating to garlic-induced flatulence and bad breath. In other games, he uses farts as his special attack. Wario often uses bombs as tools and weapons, for example in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, Wario Blast, and Mario Kart: Double Dash. The WarioWare series prominently uses bombs as a visual motif to represent the time limit of a microgame.
Appearances
Wario Land series
Wario first appeared as a villain in the 1992 Game Boy video game Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, in which he captures Mario's castle. Tatanga, the villain of the first Super Mario Land game, is a henchman of Wario in the second, implying Wario is responsible for the events of both games. Wario also serves as a villain in the 1993 Japan-only puzzle game Mario & Wario, in which Wario drops a bucket on the heads of Mario, Princess Peach, or Yoshi. This was followed by the first game in the Wario Land series Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994), a platform game that marks Wario's first appearance as a protagonist and introduced his first villains, Captain Syrup and her Brown Sugar Pirates. His next appearance in Virtual Boy Wario Land, Wario plays similarly and has the ability to move in and out of the background. A sequel for the Game Boy game Wario Land II (1998) features Captain Syrup's return as the antagonist. This game introduces Wario's invulnerability, allowing him to be burned or flattened without sustaining damage.
In 2000, Wario Land 3 was released for the Game Boy Color; it is another sequel that uses the same mechanics and concepts of its predecessor. The following year, the sequel Wario Land 4 debuted on the Game Boy Advance and incorporates Wario's ability to become burned or flattened, and reintroduces the ability to become damaged from standard attacks. In 2003, Wario World, the first console Wario platform game, was released for the GameCube; it has three-dimensional graphics and gameplay, and does not incorporate major elements from previous platform games. Wario: Master of Disguise (2007) for the Nintendo DS introduces touch-screen control of Wario and incorporates puzzles into the gameplay. The series' most-recent release Wario Land: Shake It! (2008) for the Wii reintroduces Captain Syrup. The game uses a hand-drawn animation style; Wario's design required more than 2,000 frames of animation.
WarioWare series
In 2003, the Wario franchise introduced a new series of games, the first of which was WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! for the Game Boy Advance. The game's premise involved Wario's decision to open a game development company to make money, creating short "microgames" instead of full-fledged games. The game's gameplay focused on playing a collection of microgames in quick succession. Mega Microgames! was later remade as WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Games! for the GameCube; it featured the same microgames but lacked a story mode and focused more on multi-player. In 2004, two sequels were released for the game. The first was the Game Boy Advance game WarioWare: Twisted!, which used the cartridge's tilt sensor to allows microgames to be controlled by tilting the handheld left and right. The second was the Nintendo DS release WarioWare: Touched!, which incorporates the DS's touch screen and microphone in its gameplay. One of the Wii's launch games in 2006 was WarioWare: Smooth Moves, which used the Wii Remote's motion sensing technologies in a variety of ways. The Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi have offered two new releases, 2008's WarioWare: Snapped!, which can be downloaded with the DSiWare service and uses the DSi's built-in front camera in its gameplay, and the 2009 Nintendo DS game WarioWare D.I.Y., which allows players to create microgames. Game & Wario for the Nintendo Wii U was released on June 23, 2013.
Although it does not use the WarioWare name, it incorporates gameplay and characters from the WarioWare series. The game also pays tribute to the original Game & Watch games. In 2018, the Nintendo 3DS game WarioWare Gold was released, featuring 316 microgames and combining elements from Twisted and Touched. He also appeared in the 2021 Nintendo Switch game WarioWare: Get It Together! with 222 microgames.
Other appearances
In Wario's Woods (1994), Wario is the main antagonist who wants to take over the forest and is defeated by Toad. The same year, Wario appeared in the video game Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!, a remake of a Bomberman game for the Game Boy that includes Wario as a playable character. Wario is a playable character in the Mario Kart series starting with Mario Kart 64. Wario has also appeared in 30 Mario sports games, including Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Baseball, Super Mario Strikers, and the Mario & Sonic series. Wario has also appeared in all installments of the Mario Party series except Mario Party Advance.
Wario is a playable character in two platform games for the Nintendo DS: the remake Super Mario 64 DS (2004) and Yoshi's Island DS (2006) as an infant version of himself and the 2001 puzzle game Dr. Mario 64. The character wears his traditional attire from the Wario Land series and Mario series, and the biker outfit from the WarioWare series. Wario also appears as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and its follow-ups Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Wario's cameos include aiding protagonist Starfy in the video game Densetsu no Stafy 3 and his presence in the scenery of Pilotwings 64. Wario also appears as Baby Wario in Dr. Mario World. The graphic novel Super Mario Adventures, which is a collection of comics originally serialized in the video-gaming magazine Nintendo Power, features Wario in two of the stories, one of which focuses on Wario's past and explains his rivalry with Mario. In the comic, it is revealed Wario was Mario's childhood friend and Mario was his idol. Interested in many things Mario did, Wario endured abuse to find out how to become like Mario until he became disheartened with the process and swore revenge.
In other media
Jack Black has stated his interest in a potential sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie in which Pedro Pascal, who played Mario in a Saturday Night Live sketch, would voice Wario, the film's main villain.
Reception
Since his appearance in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, Wario has received a largely positive reception and has become a well-established mascot for Nintendo. James Troughton of TheGamer said Wario is the best Mario character who is an icon of fashion and villainy. Computer and Video Games found the levity of Wario games "liberating" compared to big Nintendo franchises such as Mario and The Legend of Zelda. The writer could "empathise more with the hopelessly materialistic Wario than goody brown-shoes Mario. Deep down, we'd all rather chase pounds over princesses." IGN editor Travis Fahs said while Wario is not the most-likeable character, his strong confidence overshadows his flaws and makes him entertaining. Audrey Drake of IGN said of Wario; "all this weird dude seems to care about is amassing as many material possessions and shiny things as possible", Wario was also described as one of the best video-game villains. while KhalidEternalNigh of Destructoid praised the character, describing him as a "fat, lazy, greedy and a cheater", and said: despite all of this I can't help but love him. Wario is, in my humble opinion, the most perfect 'evil twin' in the history of video games. During Wario's career he has worn many hats – a game designer, a biker, a treasure hunter, and a hat that spits fire for some reason. Yet no matter what he does, no matter how mean he is, somehow Wario manages to charm his way into our hearts while picking our pockets. Ryan Gilliam of Polygon described Wario as the "ultimate Italian American" and said the character "captures so much more of the Italian personality that resonates with me". He also said, "Wario trumps Mario as my family mascot, born with a crucial, relatable need to be louder and larger than life." According to Mike Scholars of Kotaku, "Wario Isn't Evil, He's Honest". Sholars concluded, "Wario was conceived out of a desire to put a twist on the familiar, but his creators tapped into a powerful, universal constant: The Unrepentant Asshole". Edwin Evans of Eurogamer praised Wario for being "repulsive" and "brilliant", and said; "in general, Wario isn't the star he used to be, but he remains a crucial component of the Nintendo pantheon, the counterbalancing touch of malevolence and cunning without which Mario's star wouldn't shine quite so brightly". William Hughes of The A.V. Club described him as "Nintendo's stinky, cheating genius", and said the character: captures the split at the heart of Nintendo. All we know if that Wario would have loved the possibilities the smash hit console presents, and that the absence of a new WarioWare game on the handheld remains a real shame to the legacy of all the things—good, bad, flatulent, weird, and more—that he means to the company," while Cass Marshall of Polygon said he "was institutionalized as a teen, and Wario was my only friend", and that he "find[s] Wario kind of soothing. He's just got a friendly face." In the book A Parent's Guide to Nintendo Games: A Comprehensive Look at the Systems and the Games, Craig Wessel described Wario as a "sinister twist" on Mario. In Icons of Horror and the Supernatural: An Encyclopedia of Our Worst Nightmares, Volume 1, S. T. Joshi cites Waluigi and Wario as archetypal examples of alter egos.
Magazines have also praised Wario's outfit, particularly in Mario Golf: Super Rush. In September 2021, Peter Nguyen, a professional stylist of "The Essential Man", commented on a Hiking Wario outfit in Mario Kart Tour, calling it "stylish" and saying; "I think this is the most wearable and strongest appearance for Wario". He was also described as a "fashion icon". A screenshot of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 showing Wario in swimwear appeared to depict him without nipples, leading fans and video-game website Polygon to speculate about his lack of anatomical features.
In the Super Smash Bros. series, Wario has received mixed reviews. Den of Geek noted: "It would have been so easy to make Wario just another Mario knockoff in Smash. "But Nintendo didn't do that. Instead, he's much wilder in the fighting series, a gross psychopath who runs over people with motorcycles and chomps down on people". Jeremy Parish of Polygon lauded the character and stated, "Wario is great because his maniacal lust for gold has led him to become Nintendo's greatest and most creative entrepreneur". Ian Walker of Kotaku also said Wario is one of the "decent" character to play in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
In popular culture
Wario appears in South Park: "Imaginationland Episode III" as one of the characters from the "dark side" of Imaginationland. The television series MAD makes multiple references to Wario, most notably in Season 3, Episode 16, in which Wario chases three orphaned lemmings. In May 2021 in an episode of Saturday Night Live, host Elon Musk starred as Wario in a sketch in which he was put on trial for murdering Mario in a kart race. In 2010, Charles Martinet's Wario voice was used in an advertisement promoting WarioWare D.I.Y. for British supermarket chain Tesco.
Merchandise
Outside video games, Wario has been featured in a large variety of merchandise, including plush toys, clothing, and action figures. Wario has also received several of his own Amiibo, which can be used in a wide array of games, including his own.
Further reading
References
Characters designed by Hiroji Kiyotake
Fictional bullies
Fictional businesspeople in video games
Fictional criminals in video games
Fictional explorers in video games
Fictional Italian people in video games
Fictional treasure hunters
Male characters in video games
Mario (franchise) enemies
Nintendo protagonists
Super Smash Bros. fighters
Video game bosses
Video game characters introduced in 1992
Video game characters with superhuman strength
Wario (series)