Wario was planned to be in Smash Bros. 64, then Melee...?

Boris Carloft's Car Loft

strange chameleon man 3000
I was looking at Wario's article on the Smash Wiki when I found this:

Wario was actually going to be a playable character in Super Smash Bros, but was cut for unknown reasons.

Now, I've heard rumors before that Wario was planned for Smash Bros. 64, but I didn't actually believe it. It didn't really make sense--Wario Land II had come out so recently that the only games that they had to go off of for Wario's character and moveset were Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (I'm not counting sports spin offs). That right there alone seems very unlikely what with the fact that, despite Wario Land's huge success, the treasure hunting brute didn't really seem like a popular enough character to make it in over someone like Bowser.

So, I don't believe this is fact we're looking at here. But wait! There's more...

On the Super Mario Wiki, there's an article I found about Super Smash Bros. Melee's beta and unused elements. According to the Wiki, Wario was originally intended to be a fighter, but was scrapped during development! Here's a direct quote:

Wario was also originally going to appear as a playable character containing a Wario Land universe, but was replaced by Dr. Mario because Nintendo needed to have Wario as the lead character for Wario Land 4.

First off, this is awesome. If this is really true, then Sakurai evidently doesn't have anything against the Wario Land series like some speculate. But where's the source? I've never seen or heard this anywhere else on other Wiki's, and Smash Wiki itself didn't state this either for Melee. Wario could've been fantastic what with Wario Land II and 3 being released around Melee's time, but not too recent.

So, does anyone believe this? I, for one, really don't think it's legit because there's no source or interview that states this officially.

Any thoughts?
 
Great find, @Glowsquid! I feel dumb for not knowing that existed, being the Smash fan I am. :confused:

Anyway, we now have proof that Wario was strongly likely to be playable, but in the end, Sakurai didn't want too many Mario characters.

Then why did the Wiki state that he was going to have his own universe...?
 
As someone who has edited the Super Mario Wiki for close to seven years, cherish it and has achieved the highest achievable rank, I feel more than qualified to say the following:

Never take any unsubstantiated statement from it at face value. Especially if it's from a "beta" page.
 
"Wario was briefly considered as the Mario clone, with low speed and high attack power, but Sakurai felt that Wario deserved better."

"Wario deserved better"

So... "deserving better" means getting a fart attack, being mainly used for comic relief and being called a living embodiment of gross?
 
Hey guys, I'm the guy that did the research into Wario/ the other characters.

Wario is my main in Brawl/ Smash 4, and is easily one of my favorite characters in the Nintendo universe.

I have confirmation that the entire Neogaf post that claims that "Wario deserved better" is 100% made up. Sorry guys.

I'm planning on doing some additional research into Wario in the near future. I have a couple of other projects to finish before I can fully dedicate my research time to it.

For example, Wario's fart attack may have been suggested by a fan...in Nintendo 64. They told Sakurai that Wario's big butt was perfect for Smash.

You guys can always hit me up on Twitter (@PushDustIn), or through my blog which Glowsquid kindly linked.
 
Hey guys, I'm the guy that did the research into Wario/ the other characters.

Wario is my main in Brawl/ Smash 4, and is easily one of my favorite characters in the Nintendo universe.

I have confirmation that the entire Neogaf post that claims that "Wario deserved better" is 100% made up. Sorry guys.

I'm planning on doing some additional research into Wario in the near future. I have a couple of other projects to finish before I can fully dedicate my research time to it.

For example, Wario's fart attack may have been suggested by a fan...in Nintendo 64. They told Sakurai that Wario's big butt was perfect for Smash.

You guys can always hit me up on Twitter (@PushDustIn), or through my blog which Glowsquid kindly linked.
Welcome to the forums PushDustin! Nice to have you here.
 
Hey guys, I'm the guy that did the research into Wario/ the other characters.

Wario is my main in Brawl/ Smash 4, and is easily one of my favorite characters in the Nintendo universe.

I have confirmation that the entire Neogaf post that claims that "Wario deserved better" is 100% made up. Sorry guys.

I'm planning on doing some additional research into Wario in the near future. I have a couple of other projects to finish before I can fully dedicate my research time to it.

For example, Wario's fart attack may have been suggested by a fan...in Nintendo 64. They told Sakurai that Wario's big butt was perfect for Smash.

You guys can always hit me up on Twitter (@PushDustIn), or through my blog which Glowsquid kindly linked.

Woah, that's unexpected! I'm not really big on Smash but I very much appreciate what you're doing at Sourcegaming ^^

Can I ask you a question relating another Wario/Smash, um, thing?
 
Go ahead Im all ears!

So this is a shot in the dark: Sakurai did a big video interview after Smash 4's release and apparently, he said something among the lines

Ashley's star continues to grow and is now seen as a series regular. characters such a Crygor and Jimmy T.'s family got a long way to go and can rely on luck to appear.


but.... the statement (or at least, SMashboard's translation of it) doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

-"Is seen as a series regular" Because she already wasn't? Or is he talking about her as a Nintendo character in general?
-"Characters such a Crygor can rely on luck to appear." No matter which way you look at it, it doesn't make sense. If he's talking about Warioware, why would he opine about a series he's not involved in? If he's talking about Smash, then why Crygor is one of the few WarioWare characters to get any sort of exposure in S4WiiU?
-What was he responding to, anyway?

So yeah, I totally understand if you didn't/don't want to sit through a Xbox-hueg video, but on the oft-chance that you did... ^^
 
So this is a shot in the dark: Sakurai did a big video interview after Smash 4's release and apparently, he said something among the lines


but.... the statement (or at least, SMashboard's translation of it) doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

-"Is seen as a series regular" Because she already wasn't? Or is he talking about her as a Nintendo character in general?
-"Characters such a Crygor can rely on luck to appear." No matter which way you look at it, it doesn't make sense. If he's talking about Warioware, why would he opine about a series he's not involved in? If he's talking about Smash, then why Crygor is one of the few WarioWare characters to get any sort of exposure in S4WiiU?
-What was he responding to, anyway?

So yeah, I totally understand if you didn't/don't want to sit through a Xbox-hueg video, but on the oft-chance that you did... ^^


Haha, that's funny! I'm the translator that posted in that thread. On SmashBoards, I only hung out in the leaks thread, so any information from there is 70% likely to be from me (I originally posted the emblem references there, for example). The group was private, and that's why you couldn't access it. However, the group got too large to moderate so now it's moved to a public part of the forum.

I only pulled the quick information of that as I was incredibly hung over that day... I believe I was the first English poster to point out that Takamaru was considered for Smash 4. So I can 100% confirm that I never said that. I'll asked Masked Man (who was the person who first posted about Ayumi Tachibana being considered for Melee) if he ever posted such a thing as we are friends/ work together on translations. I think we are the only people that have talked about this video, so it makes confirming/ deconfirming this real easy :). Either way, I'll add a transcription/ translation of the video to the translation project list for Source Gaming, as there's actually quite a bit of information here (mainly about music and the lack of Goku :p) We have a lot of translations to go through, so don't expect it anytime soon!
 
I expect it to be faek then. Bitter dissapointment is par for the course for Walio fans ^^.


Thanks for humouring me.

Btw, the person who posted it called a "translation thread" when it's very clear it's a "leaks" thread. We mainly talked about leaks. Furthermore, the last statement has awful grammar so it's definitely not a direct translation. I messaged Masked Man to be 100%, but I'm 99% it's fake.

No problem!

Let me know if you need anything else verified. I enjoy researching this kind of information, and it'll come useful whenever I write my Wario post!
 
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