Really Ilini
#2 Captain Syrup Apologist
(You might want to get cozy for this one... prepare for a LOT of text!!)
Welcome back to another issue of "Ilini played a Wario platformer that isn't called Land and has something to say about it"! Quite possibly the last issue, unless Nintendo decides to go the Bananza route for a Wario platforming comeback. Today, by process of elimination, I wanna talk about Wario World... not quite as black of a sheep as Master of Disguise perhaps, but I would put its wooly coat in a more grey area.
As implied by the title, most of what I have to say involves the ending of the game, but for any passerby I might as well run it down and offer some general thoughts first. Wario World is to date Wario's only 3D platformer, and it sticks out among the entire Mario catalogue even for being strange even to his standards. On top of being released during the rather experimental GameCube era, development was completely handed off from Nintendo to another company: Treasure... how fitting for a Wario game. This company was known for being different in their design philosophy from other studios, not assigning any lead developers to their projects and often presenting some truly bombastic ideas in a lot of their catalogue. Wario World is not an exception to their work ethnic... for better and for worse.
While Wario World took inspiration from the previous Land games, it very much veers into its own thing. Wario retains his iconic shoulder charge and ground pound, but also gains a new array of moves that put the game along the lines of of beat-em-up: along with close-range punches, he can pick up KO'd enemies and unleash "Mad Moves" that regularly cause screenwide destruction, all while he laughs and tells his poor opponents off. The main plot is that Wario is flung into a pocket dimension composed of his own treasures, only distorted by the main villain to uncomfortable levels: while the game starts with little dinosaur mooks running around, each level rapidly throws new enemies into the ring before doing away with them for the next: evil skeletons, clowns, snowmen and possessed puppets to name a few, with character designs evocative of Selick-esque nightmares. This especially applies to the frequent bosses, who are often the highlights of each level and where you can tell the developers had the most fun concocting crazy monsters for Wario to mash. His only friends to find along the way are the Spritelings: little forest elf creatures he has to resuce that wouldn't look out of place in a Don Bluth movie, and who celebrate Wario's victory with a dance party. If there's any praise Wario World deserves, it's that there's truly no game like it, which I would say makes it worthwhile for any player to check out at least once. I heavily doubt Nintendo themselves would develop a sequel that lives up to half of its crazy ideas; I can't think of another game where my player character fights an anthro-bull in a speedo on an arena over an active volcano.
However... barring those crazy character designs, settings, and Wario's humorous apathy torward his situation, there's not exactly much more to discuss, is there? Beyond what's been covered, Wario World is an incredibly simple and linear game. While the enemies themselves have delightful designs, their behavior couldn't be more basic, often giving you plenty of time to attack them before they can get one poke in. This makes the combat rather redundant, which incentivizes simply evading the enemies instead, which is likely why the developers implemented multiple types of recurring enemies that trap you in an arena and force you to fight. The game also tries to be a collectathon of sorts, littering treasures and gold pieces throughout the levels and requiring you to venture into isolated puzzle rooms to gather diamonds, but with how linear the level design is, it leaves the collecting feeling obligatory, like it was only here to invoke the feeling of Wario Land. Having this element of collecting feels more like its distracting the developers from further fleshing out the combat aspects of the game, so we're left with both elements feeling underbaked, and outside of the unique boss battles, there's not really any other "highlights" so to speak. Nowhere else is this greater displayed during the game's final stretch, and our main subject of this thread...
Even the most hard-pressed fans of Wario World tend to unite in agreement on one thing: the final battle against the main villain, the Black Jewel, STINKS! It's easy to see why: the fight is incredibly repetitive, only requiring you to charge around the arena to break some crystals before delivering a Mad Move on the boss, 8 consectutive times! All while the difficulty does not scale at all as you whittle down its health: no new attacks are introduced and you deliver the final hit the exact same way as the other seven. It's an incredibly sour last hurrah of the game, and in a journey stacked with unique boss fights, the finale being this dull does a little more than stand out.
But I know what some of you are thinking: Ilini! The fight was improved in the Japan version, which was released later! Well to that I say... you're absolutely right. The beginning of the battle is mostly the same, but once the Black Jewel is beaten half to death, the fight suddenly shifts into something much greater. The boss employs many more aggresive attacks, and rather than break crystals to damage it, Wario simply has to get his hits in directly whenever he can, leading to a much more frantic fight with better player expression. The music matches this mood perfectly, even being invocative of the battle falling in Wario's favor due to the instrumentation closer resembling the Greenhorn themes. I won't deny it that this boss fight is much improved in the newer version...
... but it still feels like something's missing, to me at least. For one thing, due to how the game is structured, ending the game with three back-to-back-to-back boss fights feels repetitive regardless of the version, and doesn't give a chance for the final battle to stand out more. And while the meat of the fight itself is improved, none of the surrouding potatoes are changed, which leaves the Black Jewel with another problem: it's simply not that interesting of a villain. Conceptually it's amazing: personifying the very treasure Wario steals is a great idea for a villain that punishes our flawed antihero's hubris. However, after it enacts its evil plan in the opening of the game, it hides away in another chest until the final battle, leaving very little character to be seen. The opening text crawl implies it to be a trickster that almost takes pity on its victims, calling Wario a greedy sap before taking control of his treasure, but no greater reasoning is given for why it wants to do this beyond it simply being evil, reasoning that completely vacuums all chance of personality from a character.
Some players may not care about this lack of character from the villain of an action-based game; after all, it just needs to be fun, right? To me though, the Wario platformers generally havevillains that at least feel interesting enough for their respective stories, whether that be because they are consistent presences (Syrup and Rudy) or that there is a twist behind them that may be implied at earlier points of the game (Syrup, Rudy, Golden Diva). The Black Jewel has none of this, but what makes it more irritating to me, is that they were really close to developing it more to put it along these other big bads' reputations. It's not like the developers didn't care for this villain either: according to a Treasure interview from an issue of Retro Gamer magazine published in 2021, the reason the boss was improved in the Japanese version was because the main programmer of the game was attached to it. I'm happy to know my desire for this villain's improvement isn't exclusive!
So, with all of these grievances gone over, it's time to answer the statement I titled this thread with... how would I have ended Wario World, and improved the Black Jewel as a villain in the process? Well before I discuss, I should say this isn't something I'm disappointed in the developers for not doing. Games published under big companies like Nintendo are not given unlimited time to push out their products, so I don't blame Treasure at all for the finished product we have. This is more of a "what-if" scenario tailored to my ideal version of the game, that others may find interesting. With that out of the way... finally... here's my spin on Wario World's story.
As pictured in this crude mockup I made: rather than the Black Jewel hiding away in a chest after transforming all of Wario's treasure, I would have it construct a castle of its own, only darker and more twisted. You would still unlock it the same way: assemble a giant key from four fragments, but the castle itself would be the final regular level of the game, before the final battle. This would isolate that boss fight better from the others, as well as be a much more interesting setting for the finale than another giant floating arena. Best of all, it further strengthens the other thing the Black Jewel already has going for it besides its concept: its parallel to Wario in Super Mario Land 2. Remember that game? Where Mario lost his own castle to Wario, and had to fight him to get it back... déjà vu, anyone? I've always found that parallel of Wario losing his own castle in Wario World very delightful, even if it isn't explored so much in the existing game, so this would be a great way to further than connection. I would also make the stage itself a pure platforming gauntlet, as difficult as that Mario Land 2 stage, and the music would be a remix of the castle theme from that game, only up to scuff with Norio Hanzawa's quality... imagine that tune with those deep baritone saxophones!
Would this save the entire game? Obviously not. It is still playing tug of war between that combat and treasure collecting, and the level design and enemy types are generally still generic beyond their look. I do think this idea for a finale would be a massive improvement over the existing game however, because I think the biggest fumble of Wario World is its failure to stick the landing. It is a delightfully weird game, which lets me forgive much of its gameplay shortcomings, but it goes out on such a low note compared to the rest of its runtime, so this idea is something I think about every time I give it a playthrough. Still, I wanna know some others' thoughts on the Black Jewel, and Wario World as a whole. Do you think the villain and story could be improved like this? Would you go a different way than I? Does my ideal Wario World sound like nonsense? Either way, thanks for reading all this possible nonsense!!
Welcome back to another issue of "Ilini played a Wario platformer that isn't called Land and has something to say about it"! Quite possibly the last issue, unless Nintendo decides to go the Bananza route for a Wario platforming comeback. Today, by process of elimination, I wanna talk about Wario World... not quite as black of a sheep as Master of Disguise perhaps, but I would put its wooly coat in a more grey area.
As implied by the title, most of what I have to say involves the ending of the game, but for any passerby I might as well run it down and offer some general thoughts first. Wario World is to date Wario's only 3D platformer, and it sticks out among the entire Mario catalogue even for being strange even to his standards. On top of being released during the rather experimental GameCube era, development was completely handed off from Nintendo to another company: Treasure... how fitting for a Wario game. This company was known for being different in their design philosophy from other studios, not assigning any lead developers to their projects and often presenting some truly bombastic ideas in a lot of their catalogue. Wario World is not an exception to their work ethnic... for better and for worse.
While Wario World took inspiration from the previous Land games, it very much veers into its own thing. Wario retains his iconic shoulder charge and ground pound, but also gains a new array of moves that put the game along the lines of of beat-em-up: along with close-range punches, he can pick up KO'd enemies and unleash "Mad Moves" that regularly cause screenwide destruction, all while he laughs and tells his poor opponents off. The main plot is that Wario is flung into a pocket dimension composed of his own treasures, only distorted by the main villain to uncomfortable levels: while the game starts with little dinosaur mooks running around, each level rapidly throws new enemies into the ring before doing away with them for the next: evil skeletons, clowns, snowmen and possessed puppets to name a few, with character designs evocative of Selick-esque nightmares. This especially applies to the frequent bosses, who are often the highlights of each level and where you can tell the developers had the most fun concocting crazy monsters for Wario to mash. His only friends to find along the way are the Spritelings: little forest elf creatures he has to resuce that wouldn't look out of place in a Don Bluth movie, and who celebrate Wario's victory with a dance party. If there's any praise Wario World deserves, it's that there's truly no game like it, which I would say makes it worthwhile for any player to check out at least once. I heavily doubt Nintendo themselves would develop a sequel that lives up to half of its crazy ideas; I can't think of another game where my player character fights an anthro-bull in a speedo on an arena over an active volcano.
However... barring those crazy character designs, settings, and Wario's humorous apathy torward his situation, there's not exactly much more to discuss, is there? Beyond what's been covered, Wario World is an incredibly simple and linear game. While the enemies themselves have delightful designs, their behavior couldn't be more basic, often giving you plenty of time to attack them before they can get one poke in. This makes the combat rather redundant, which incentivizes simply evading the enemies instead, which is likely why the developers implemented multiple types of recurring enemies that trap you in an arena and force you to fight. The game also tries to be a collectathon of sorts, littering treasures and gold pieces throughout the levels and requiring you to venture into isolated puzzle rooms to gather diamonds, but with how linear the level design is, it leaves the collecting feeling obligatory, like it was only here to invoke the feeling of Wario Land. Having this element of collecting feels more like its distracting the developers from further fleshing out the combat aspects of the game, so we're left with both elements feeling underbaked, and outside of the unique boss battles, there's not really any other "highlights" so to speak. Nowhere else is this greater displayed during the game's final stretch, and our main subject of this thread...
Even the most hard-pressed fans of Wario World tend to unite in agreement on one thing: the final battle against the main villain, the Black Jewel, STINKS! It's easy to see why: the fight is incredibly repetitive, only requiring you to charge around the arena to break some crystals before delivering a Mad Move on the boss, 8 consectutive times! All while the difficulty does not scale at all as you whittle down its health: no new attacks are introduced and you deliver the final hit the exact same way as the other seven. It's an incredibly sour last hurrah of the game, and in a journey stacked with unique boss fights, the finale being this dull does a little more than stand out.
But I know what some of you are thinking: Ilini! The fight was improved in the Japan version, which was released later! Well to that I say... you're absolutely right. The beginning of the battle is mostly the same, but once the Black Jewel is beaten half to death, the fight suddenly shifts into something much greater. The boss employs many more aggresive attacks, and rather than break crystals to damage it, Wario simply has to get his hits in directly whenever he can, leading to a much more frantic fight with better player expression. The music matches this mood perfectly, even being invocative of the battle falling in Wario's favor due to the instrumentation closer resembling the Greenhorn themes. I won't deny it that this boss fight is much improved in the newer version...
... but it still feels like something's missing, to me at least. For one thing, due to how the game is structured, ending the game with three back-to-back-to-back boss fights feels repetitive regardless of the version, and doesn't give a chance for the final battle to stand out more. And while the meat of the fight itself is improved, none of the surrouding potatoes are changed, which leaves the Black Jewel with another problem: it's simply not that interesting of a villain. Conceptually it's amazing: personifying the very treasure Wario steals is a great idea for a villain that punishes our flawed antihero's hubris. However, after it enacts its evil plan in the opening of the game, it hides away in another chest until the final battle, leaving very little character to be seen. The opening text crawl implies it to be a trickster that almost takes pity on its victims, calling Wario a greedy sap before taking control of his treasure, but no greater reasoning is given for why it wants to do this beyond it simply being evil, reasoning that completely vacuums all chance of personality from a character.
Some players may not care about this lack of character from the villain of an action-based game; after all, it just needs to be fun, right? To me though, the Wario platformers generally havevillains that at least feel interesting enough for their respective stories, whether that be because they are consistent presences (Syrup and Rudy) or that there is a twist behind them that may be implied at earlier points of the game (Syrup, Rudy, Golden Diva). The Black Jewel has none of this, but what makes it more irritating to me, is that they were really close to developing it more to put it along these other big bads' reputations. It's not like the developers didn't care for this villain either: according to a Treasure interview from an issue of Retro Gamer magazine published in 2021, the reason the boss was improved in the Japanese version was because the main programmer of the game was attached to it. I'm happy to know my desire for this villain's improvement isn't exclusive!
So, with all of these grievances gone over, it's time to answer the statement I titled this thread with... how would I have ended Wario World, and improved the Black Jewel as a villain in the process? Well before I discuss, I should say this isn't something I'm disappointed in the developers for not doing. Games published under big companies like Nintendo are not given unlimited time to push out their products, so I don't blame Treasure at all for the finished product we have. This is more of a "what-if" scenario tailored to my ideal version of the game, that others may find interesting. With that out of the way... finally... here's my spin on Wario World's story.
As pictured in this crude mockup I made: rather than the Black Jewel hiding away in a chest after transforming all of Wario's treasure, I would have it construct a castle of its own, only darker and more twisted. You would still unlock it the same way: assemble a giant key from four fragments, but the castle itself would be the final regular level of the game, before the final battle. This would isolate that boss fight better from the others, as well as be a much more interesting setting for the finale than another giant floating arena. Best of all, it further strengthens the other thing the Black Jewel already has going for it besides its concept: its parallel to Wario in Super Mario Land 2. Remember that game? Where Mario lost his own castle to Wario, and had to fight him to get it back... déjà vu, anyone? I've always found that parallel of Wario losing his own castle in Wario World very delightful, even if it isn't explored so much in the existing game, so this would be a great way to further than connection. I would also make the stage itself a pure platforming gauntlet, as difficult as that Mario Land 2 stage, and the music would be a remix of the castle theme from that game, only up to scuff with Norio Hanzawa's quality... imagine that tune with those deep baritone saxophones!
Would this save the entire game? Obviously not. It is still playing tug of war between that combat and treasure collecting, and the level design and enemy types are generally still generic beyond their look. I do think this idea for a finale would be a massive improvement over the existing game however, because I think the biggest fumble of Wario World is its failure to stick the landing. It is a delightfully weird game, which lets me forgive much of its gameplay shortcomings, but it goes out on such a low note compared to the rest of its runtime, so this idea is something I think about every time I give it a playthrough. Still, I wanna know some others' thoughts on the Black Jewel, and Wario World as a whole. Do you think the villain and story could be improved like this? Would you go a different way than I? Does my ideal Wario World sound like nonsense? Either way, thanks for reading all this possible nonsense!!
