Mario's arch-rival's first 3D adventure is a bit of a disapointment, but it's still worth playing.
Story: As the name states, Wario World is a game starring Mario's arch rival Wario. The game does not tell much about the story except that once upon a time there was an evil black gem with magical powers and one day a treasure hunter found and stole it. I turned to the manual about halfway through the game and it stated that it was Wario himself who stole the jewel. As he always does, he threw the treasure into his cellar with the rest of his collection and called it a day. The jewel awoke in his basement and turned the rest of Wario's coveted treasure into monsters. Now Wario needs to travel across four worlds to get his treasure back.
Story: 7/10
Gameplay: The controls are simple Gamecube brawler/platformer controls. The analog stick moves Wario, the A button makes him jump and the B button makes him punch. There are also more interesting attacks like a spinning throw attack and a piledriver which you can learn how to do by reading the instructions. The platforming works well and makes jumping from one place to another very easy. There are also lots of enemies to beat up but the fighting is just too easy. Most bad guys can be taken out with one hit, meaning large crowds of enemies can be destroyed in seconds. Apart from a few tougher enemies and bosses, the enemy AI (or artificial intelligence for those not "in the know") doesn't get much smarter than "walk at Wario slowly and hit him". The combat is fun when there are about 3-5 enemies on-screen but when there are too many it's easy to get killed and the framerate drops quite a bit.
Speaking of getting killed, it's pretty much impossible to die in this game. Every time you defeat an enemy they drop coins on the ground for Wario to collect, and every time you die the game asks if you want to spend 200 coins to get right back up exactly where you died. Two-hundred may seem like a lot of coins in theory but since there are so many enemies you'll likely have over 2,000 coins in the first five minutes. The amount of coins needed to revive yourself increases later in the game but never exceeds 500. The most annoying part about this game's enemies is the immense amount of them. Even worse, after you kill a crowd of bad guys, if you walk away and come back they'll be there again! After accumulating about 5,000 coins I decided to fight enemies only when necessary.
One of the best parts of this game is the puzzle rooms. To fight each levels boss you need a specific number of red jewels (which increases throughout the game). To get you need to enter puzzle rooms. These rooms are similar to the jumoing challeges in Super Mario Sunshine (or just about any level in Mario Galaxy). The concept is simple. You are in a room and you need to get the red gem. The catch is, you have to accomplish some sort of task. The task you must perform is usually pretty obvious although later in the game there is no clear idea of what to do in these rooms. Another great part of the game is the bosses. Most of the bosses are really cool and unique, like a half-bull half-man in a speedo or a demonic clown. They all have specific techiques for defeating them but they can be beaten just by punching them out at certain times. There are two levels to each world and three bosses (kind of unbalanced),with a total of four worlds and one final boss. That adds up to 8 levels and 13 boss fights making Wario World a rather short game.
Now for the Unithorn Zone. Instead of just dying when you fall off of a ledge you are sent to an annoying minigame where you are forced to break boxes until you can find a spring to bring you back to the level. It's annoying because floating rhinocerous heads will attack you and steal your coins. It's made worse when they grab you and throw you across the room just as you find the escape spring.
P.S. The camera is fixed(mostly) and works perfectly so there is no need to discuss it.
Gameplay:7/10
+ Can't really die - Not much challenge
+ Perfect camera controls - Unithorn Zone
+ Great Platforming - repetitve combat
+ Most puzzle rooms - fourth quarter of the game
+ Simple menues
+ fun and weird
Sound: Charles Marinet returns as the voice of Wario and, as usual, gives a stellar performance. There is not much voice acting to speak of but during gameplay you'll often hear Wario exclaiming things like "excellent!" or "Have a rotten day!". A major irritation concerning the voice acting is that every time you pause the game you'll hear Wario singing a classic childhood taunt we all know well., but it gets VERY annoying after 10 seconds.
The music fits the game well but it's nothing special. It sounds like music out of a cartoon show but again, it's nothing special. The sound effects are good and make the game sound very cartoony as Wario should.
Sound:6/10
+ good voice acting + good sound effects
+ decent music - music nothing special
- annoying pause menu
Graphics: Wario's character model looks good along with the bosses but unfortunatley most of the environments look sloppy apart from the circus and pyramid levels. The environments aren't too bad but after seeing what the Gamecube could do with Super Mario Sunshine, I really wish Nintendo worked harder with Wario World. The water effects are awful. They just look like squiggly lines sliding on the ground that make splash noises when you step on them.
Graphics:5/10
+ Wario +Bosses
- envronments - water effects
Overall Score: 6.5/10
Story: 7
Gameplay: 7
Sound: 6
Graphics: 5
Special mention:
Manual: This does not effect the review but Wario World's instruction booklet deserves special mention. The whole booklet is narrated by Wario himself leading to alot of humorous comments. Definitley worth a look.