Wario World Bosses
Wario World Bosses, from Worst to Best
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters discussed in the following article. They all belong to Nintendo. Black Diamond video by Dangerless on YouTube. Red-Brief J gif made from video by Goldfire64 (also on YouTube). Other images retrieved from the Super Mario Wiki.
This list contains spoilers for Wario World, so turn back
if you don't want a good ol' Wario clobbering spoiled for you.
This list is ranked, among other reasons, by the level of creativity, tedium (to the effect of whether it impedes on ones enjoyment), aesthetics, etc. I got the idea to make this when I wanted a way to describe my utter disappointment with the Black Diamond boss, and then I got the idea to go ahead and make an entire list of the bosses, based on how well-made I believe them to be.
• The formatting for each number (excluding Black Diamond, who is fought in the Hub) will be "(Ranking) (Boss Name) (Level Name)"
• "Excitement Central", "Spooktastic World", "Thrillsville", and "Sparkle Land" are the names of the four main areas, respectively.
#13: Black Diamond
This is one of the most disappointing Final Bosses I’ve ever dealt with. After all that buildup and literally all of the cooler bosses preceding it, we get this. A floating chaos emerald with hot dog legs…and to think he has the nerve to destroy the (infinitely better) rest of the game. He spawns these crystals with the 40 Spritelings you’ve already rescued inside, assuming you played through 100% (which is the only way to play, I feel. The game lasts 3 hours otherwise).
You have to break the 5 crystals for each of his whopping 8 health wedges. Unfortunately for you, he’ll shoot these lasers which catches that part of the ground on fire. He’ll try to trap you between two of these flame pillars, which is easy to avoid using the dash attack. If he somehow does trap you, he’ll do one of two things; if the two flame walls are close together, he’ll lower himself to the floor and shoot waves of consecutive rainbow color at you, or, if they’re more spread out, he’ll shoot homing fireballs out of his eye. All of these attacks are easy to dodge if you just keep moving.
Now, this would be fine on a normal boss (the bosses seen in all main stages), but keep in mind that he has a whopping 8 health pegs, and not only that, but he doesn’t gain any new attacks as the fight goes on, and he doesn’t even speed up his old attacks, so it becomes very monotonous, very quickly. Not to mention, he’s the final boss, which makes the situation a bigger travesty.
(Fun Fact: Apparently in the Japanese version this boss fight is a bit more enjoyable, albeit still pretty easy. It has new music, attacks, and a different weakness for the 2nd phase, due to the developers having more time to flesh his fight out.)
Before we move on, I’d like to mention that, now, at least he will cease to threaten the world with his mediocre attacks, since unlike the last time, he was utterly destroyed, not simply defeated and imprisoned. Now we can enjoy our new treasure-filled castle! ...that is, assuming you saved all 40 elven people, anyway. Anything less, and you end up with something lesser than you’d hoped…depending on the scope of your ambition; did you want to live in a tent?
#12: Ironsider (Pecan Sands)
This guy is kind of the opposite of Black Diamond in terms of length, given how easy it is to beat him, but the other similarities are still there. Pecan Sands is my favorite level for its challenging puzzles and platforming mini-sections. This, and the fact that this guy has the coolest boss name in the game, sets up a feeling of foreboding and coolness. As in, “I wonder if he’ll be a large bronze knight, or some sort of sphinx?”…No. It’s a head, made of metal, on a chessboard. The little arena, suspended from the ceiling with chains on each corner, above a mystery light source, presumably lava or something natural that provides indoor light.
He summons these stone hands that ball up into fists and stuff to try and whack you. 
They may have more attacks than that, but I beat them into submission too fast to find out. They also do this cheeky little thing when you make them “dizzy” (i.e. birds fly around them), where they form the ‘peace’ sign with their fingers, yeh, y’know, the 2-fingers up thing. The iron pig head himself kind of just hops around, and occasionally spits fire at you, simple stuff.
It feels good killing him in less than 5 minutes with his 3 stone-hands (yeah, I don’t know why they picked three over two). I personally like to think that this and one other boss (more-so the latter; you'll see why later) are paying homage to another boss fight from the original Wario Land on Gameboy, so that’s cool. I just wish they had maybe done something with the platform, making the chains go up and down, tilting the platform a la MediEvil’s Enchanted Earth boss. Anyways, moving on.
#11: Brawl Doll (Horror Manor)
It’s a possessed doll with a creepy child’s laugh, in a stylized children’s nursery from 1983 (it's walls are even made of those large gravelly blocks); I gotta hand it to ‘em, they didn’t fail to poke fun at horror tropes. It shoots little quasar beams at you, kind of like Chauncey from Wario World’s sister game Luigi’s Mansion. Makes sense that a child’s toy would take after its master. It also swings its little wings at you, but this attack does little damage. As a whole, this boss only takes time. It’s not that difficult.
#10: Big Scorper (Greenhorn Ruins)
There’s not much to this boss. It’s not too original (neither is the creature's actual name: "Sand Worm"), but the song is one of my favorite boss tunes. It’s also enjoyable to fight, unlike the first couple of bosses. As to be expected, it’s not much of a challenge. His (it’s?) attacks start out slow and stay mostly the same, but get faster as the fight progresses, unlike the first two on our list. It’ll burrow around underneath the sand, occasionally coming up to spit spike balls at you. Beat it up a couple times and it’ll flash red, revealing some huge scythe-like arms to chop you up with. This freaked me out when I first saw it as a kid, how it’s chopping gets faster to the point where you can barely outrun it during its last stand. It’ll sometimes go to the center of the downwards sloping arena and suck up the sand towards itself while firing spike balls in random directions. Also, I forgot to mention, this is also one of very few bosses that doesn’t get picked up at all throughout.
#9: Reptilian Goliath (Greenhorn Forest)
This boss has the coolest fighting theme music in the game, or at least I think so (though the fact that his name is 'Greenfist' is a step down from 'Reptilian Goliath'). As for the boss, it kind of looks like a reptilian with boxing gloves. It walks slowly towards you, speeding up after you punch it a few times. If you get it down to its last heart, when it moves the fastest, you can stand over by the edge. When it does the super-speed flurry of punches, and when he gets close, move slightly, and he’ll fall right off. “Waa, brains over brawn, my deceased friend.”
(Bit of trivia for you, I’m fairly certain this is the only boss that has less health than you regardless of how many hearts you have.)
#8: DinoMighty (Excitement Central)
In this boss, you fight some sort of T-Rex Marilyn Monroe, inside of a treasure vault, with liquid gold surrounding the main platform. You have to avoid DinoMighty as it gallivants about, and jump on the “glue globe” that makes up the tip of its tail. It’ll lift you up at which point you can jump off and ground pound its head in. Give ‘er a spin on the last hit for good measure.
#7: Winter Windster (Shivering Mountains)
In this fight you’re on some sort of iceberg floating on a sea of stalagmites, and there’s some weird floating blue guy that looks like he’s been laid up with a crippling cold for 2 months; he’s got bed head, a red nose, and his muscles are so atrophied, they’re a quarter the size of his head. Anyways, about the fight itself. He floats around surrounded by bubbles that he uses to ‘swim’ through the air, dropping circular stones on you. Oh, and sometimes he also uses wind on occasion.
Another thing about him is when his eyes glow red, you can’t look at him, or he’ll pull a Dig Dug on you, turning you into a balloon or something to that effect, and tries to float you over to the spikes to pop you, I guess. Just look away and you’ll be fine. To beat him you grab those stones I mentioned and throw them in these little magma craters. It’ll cause the pressure to build, launching magma into the air and burning the Windster if he’s currently above it. Unfortunately, he can use this magma to kill you as well. He’ll drop the bubble suit and skitter (in a slightly unsettling fashion) over to the lava, and do a wave attack, similar to Black Diamond. As he does this, since he’s not in the air, if you can get close enough, you can get another hit on him. That about does it for him, moving on.
#6: Spideraticus (Beanstalk Way)
It’s a big spider…that’s it.
Nah, I’m just fooling with ya. In all seriousness, this boss is cool (he wears 4 pairs of combat boots!). He rests on a large circle of webbing, I don’t know what else to call it, really. Anyways, this webbing is sticky, so it’s best to stay out of it unless you want to get unneeded hits. He’ll occasionally do the ever-popular wave attack, but he also occasionally spits out lasers, and he also does this neat little attack where glue globes on attached to web strings for Wario to jump on get spat out. Hop on one, and he’ll start sucking them back up. Jump off at the right moment and ground pound on his back to get him. This will get faster, but not much changes. Kill that punk, and move on.
#5: Mean Emcee (Mirror Mansion)
In this fight, you fight a cowardly bald man (his "hair" is a wig) with a big nose, big ears, and extremely round dark shoes. How familiar sounding. Anyways, he starts off tip-toeing around while hunched over. Beat him for a bit, and he’ll hide in one of those “Guess which cup the ball is in” games. You’ll know you’ve guessed correctly when nothing comes out of the cup (monsters appear from the cup if you guess wrong). Jump up and punch the cup to make Wallace fall down in a surprised manner and beat him up some more. Repeat. Occasionally he’ll say something in Q-Bertese and swing around his cane while doing a little smug dance. I find it’s best to dispose of the enemies he summons while you're waiting, then run up and whack ‘im when the time has come. “How’s this for your whimsical cup game!”
#4: Clown-a-round (Wonky Circus)
This is one of the more creative bosses in the game. There’s this weird fat Lego person who summons a striped with Glue Globes on it and throw it to the opposite side. It’s best to hop on a globe while it rides over so you aren’t caught in the blast. If you’re left behind, run over to a circular alcove off to the side, away from the blast zone. Once you beat it up enough, you’ll realize the weird Lego head is a fake, and that it’s actual face is also it’s body, a la Pac-Man. Eventually it’ll also throw explosive fake heads at you as well as the Lego person heads. There’s not much else to it other than that, but I personally think that this and the next boss are the #1s in terms of originality.
#3: Dual Dragon (Spooktastic World)
It’s Chinese New Year, everybody! Let’s celebrate! Oh…that dragon is neither Chinese nor in the mood for a par-tay.
Here we have Pisces on either side of this stone platform above the flowing rapids beneath, spewing Glue Globes and Fire. Alrighty, so, what you need to do here is, when one dragon starts drooling orange ashes, you need to either A: Get out of the way, or B: beat up the other head fast enough to knock it over. It will be incapacitated long enough to be unable to dodge its twin’s attack. You would think upon watching its brother fish fall over, dazed, it would cancel its attack. You could argue that it has to discharge its energy or risk self-damage, but it could easily just look skyward and fire that direction instead, because it’s not like their neck joints don’t work that way, just look at the way they dodge! Majestic. Alright, so after a few hits they’ll add another attack to their arsenal where one spits out a whole bunch of those Cereal piece-lookin’ (especially in this instance) Glue Globes, then the other vacuums it up. Just try to avoid them as much as you can by hopping around. Kill ‘em good to get the 2nd key.
#2: Captain Skull (Sparkle Land)
This guy is one of my personal favorites, tied with much of the top 5. If you couldn’t tell, I’ve been ranking the top 5 based on my personal opinion, since, to me, they’re all equal amounts intriguing and just plain dog-gone fun. Anyways, this dude is pretty cool. He’s sort of like an Anti-Wario. Anyways, in this fight, you’re on a Pirate ship that has conveniently been split evenly down the middle, by, I dunno, the Kraken, or freakin’ Kermit the Frog, there’s no telling with this game.
So, the fight starts out where he’s on one side, you’re on the other. You need to find your way over to where he is. You can either use the weird Smash Bros. trampoline, or jump down to a rock below and climb up the ladder on the other side. Once you’re there, beat him up. Occasionally he’ll launch a huge white sphere with his (literal) cannon arm that works just like Clown-a-Round’s circus ball, exploding on impact. Take cover by the Captain’s Quarters or climb up to either of the Crow’s Nests and jump down when it’s safe. You can punch him a few more times, but about half-way through, dude starts blocking your punches. That’s not supposed to happen! As if that’s not enough, he also uses a counter-attack by trying to spin-dash you to death like a certain blue hedgehog.
Fortunately, you can use barrels on either side of the boat and super-throw them at him to knock him down. If you run out of barrels, which is likely, since half of them are within the white sphere’s blast zone, he’ll fire a bunch of grapes with faces at you. Just pick one up and super-throw it at ‘em. Do this enough times and he’s down. Quick tip for you, if you plan on super-throwing or spin-throwing him, make sure he doesn’t hit the water before any other object, because he won’t get any blunt-force trauma from that weak-arse water! As if.
#1: Red-Brief J (Thrillsville)
Alright, we’ve reached the last guy. Remember how I mentioned that Ironsider and "one other" seemed like a throwback to, uh, friggin’... Taurus, or whatever his name was from Wario Land? 
I wasn’t kidding when I said that you know. I’m talkin’ about Red-Brief J. This STEER’s aiming to COOK your goose!
Bad puns aside, this guy’s fight is ON FIRE. You’re floating on a metal platform suspended on a river of magma by chains that keep it from going over the lavafall into the volcanic chamber below. 
This dude’s gotta have some real BEEF with Wario to want to fight him here. (Incidentally, I didn’t know he was a cow until recently. I thought he was a pig for the longest time, due to his incessant oinking, pink-orange skin and pig-esque snout.) J’s only got a few attacks, but, gosh-darn if he isn’t intimidating for a first-time player. He's invincible against everything you can throw at him, he sets the ground alight and vibrates the platform with every stomp he takes. The only thing you notice is he nearly loses balance when he dashes past you straight towards the edge. His attacks are fairly simple, and small in number, but we’ll go ahead and divulge the future flambé steak’s attack pattern for you.
For each of his attacks, he’ll glow a different color. For Pink, he’ll do about 6-7 pirouettes that have a bit of range. This is one of the easier attacks to dodge. Don’t be fooled, though. J leaves a trail of fire in his wake, and is hot to the touch, so don’t even bother with normal moves, let alone piledrivers and the like. When his hand takes in some pink laser-dealies, it means he'll raise one hoof and shoot a fire beam or two at you. If he glows purple, that means he’s about to somersault upward, fall back down and temporarily render most of the platform submerged, so once he's stopped spinning, try and dash to the center. This is the one attack you can’t dodge, so be careful where you’re standing when he begins his descent. One clue that he’s about to land is the camera may zoom out right before the particle-induced lag kicks in. Another attack that's similar to this one is his Blue Attack. The Blue Attack involves him somersaulting upward, taking in blue energy particles, then zooming right towards you (he essentially does Sonic's homing attack). Best to run around and try to dash out of the way. His last attack is the one you can use to your advantage, as well as the possibly intended homage to Taurus. He’ll glow red-orange, then speed past you, in a kind of a chest-first thrusting motion; looks like somebody playing Star Wars Kinect. Depending on how low his health sits at will tell you how many dashes he’ll do (and how many of the attacks I've listed will be at his disposal). I believe it’s the reciprocal of his health bar. So 5 health means 1 dash, 1 health means 5 dashes, etc.
This next part took me many continues to figure out as a kid. Remember the blue attack, and how you need to avoid the edges? As a kid, I was too dumb to realize it, but it’s a hint on what you need to do. When he’s off-balance, ground pound somewhere in the safe zone. He’ll let out some kind of weird baby condor-esque cry as coins fly everywhere. Careful, though. If you do it just barely too late, he’ll flip back up, intending on landing directly on you, so move when he does so. He also sometimes does this if you try to ground pound when he’s not dashing, but this only happens if he’s close enough to the lava to be affected. If he’s in the safe zone, I believe he just falls down in slow-mo like you do. Anyways, you know him into the lava enough times and he explodes. I think this boss’s death sequence is the doofiest, for sure. You knock him into the lava, and his arms still flail about as he caws loudly, yet his stupid Moblin face is still doing that thing where it's still in its neutral position, with only the jaw being more exaggerated, just like the previous 4 times you've done so. The next part is the best, though. He flips back onto the platform and does the flex, just like every time before now. Then, he instantaneously falls to the floor and "myaah"s one final time, slightly higher in pitch.
Fun Fact: If you look at the Japanese version, you'll find that the J stands for 'Johnny'.
Well, that was the Wario World bosses, from worst to best (in my opinion, at least).
Since this list is an in-depth analysis as well as a Top 10, I suppose it could also work as a walkthrough for the most part. If you think this video could be useful, feel free to show it to somebody you know who might be having trouble with the game. (As if anybody actually owns this game) Only show them the boss that they’re stuck on, though, you don’t want one of this game’s best aspects to be spoiled in any way, would you? Of course, In light of this development, it’d probably be best to let them figure it out, it’d help their self-esteem figuring out some of the more cryptic bosses, such as Mean Emcee, Captain Skull, and Red-Brief J. I know it made me feel good seeing J’s stupid face explode in a fantastical manner. Don’t let them look up the solutions to Pecan Sand’s puzzles, either! If you’ve played it, you know the ones I mean. Anyways, thank you for reading, please share this with your friends if you think they’d enjoy it, I’d be much obliged.