To the point of joining a Wario forum? There are many interesting Nintendo series that capture fans, but we chose to have Wario either as our favorite series, or one of them. What attracted you to Wario in general?
Back in the Land days, I liked Wario and loved playing his games, but I liked many other series as well, and liked many Mario characters as a whole. He only became my favorite when WarioWare came out, because it was so creative and fun, and the idea of Wario being a CEO and having friends to interact with him made his personality really shine, so that's when Wario ended up becoming my favorite Nintendo character.
Hm, I'm not really sure. But when Haiko (aka 356) "lent" me Wario Land 3 it was the only game I had, besides Super Mario Bros Deluxe (I had three, but one of them had fallen behind the piano and I would only find it years later).
I had pretty much 100%ed SMBD as much as I could already, so I played Wario Land 3 a lot. And I liked it, so I bought Wario Land II. And then the original. So, it was really the only thing I knew of. I knew there were more Wario Land games for the gameboy, but I didn't know of any super mario bros games for gameboy or color(which there aren't).
And when I got my GBA SP, and started accumulating more and more games (I had also got Wario Land 4 only few years after my GBA) Wario has always stayed my favourite series. It's pretty much what I grew up with. I don't really know why I didn't buy super mario land or super mario land 2 though, after my first game, SMBD was so great.
I've joined lots of Mario-universe related communities, but Wario stands out as worth discussing simply because of how fleshed out his character is. I feel like we really get to know who Wario is, what he's like, and how he thinks.
It's just kinda ironic that a corrupted doppelganger character, created as a parody, ended up becoming a far deeper character than the original.
1. It's the most original, downright quirky series I've ever seen. Especially in terms of series taking place in the Mario universe. I like how crazy and bizarre the levels, transformations, treasures and bosses are.
2. Wario is the kind of character we need more of in fiction. Aka a blunt, somewhat rude jerk who stops faffing around and gets to the bloody point. And that's reflected in his games. They don't mess around with pointless crap like tutorials. Nor lengthy unskippable cutscenes. Or over the top attempts at being 'deep' or 'meaningful'... they just like to be fun games, where 'logic' and 'art' is thrown out of the window in exchange for awesome insanity like this:
Forget your silly 'deep' indie games with 'morals' and crap, I prefer dancing cats, flying fish chefs, pinball themed levels and basketball playing rabbit bosses. Whereas stuff like Braid seems to be made by boring people acting miserable in a hipster filled coffee shop, the Wario series is kind of like the person who goes break dancing on the tables while disco music plays and all heck breaks loose. It's what games were about, and probably should be about; fun.
I liked the older Wario Land games, but it was Wario Land 4 that really made me love the series. It's still one of my favorite games ever.
Then, sometime later, I played the WarioWare series, and that's just so brilliant I couldn't help but want to play more.
Also, Wario himself is the entertaining kind of jerk, which isn't terribly common where I stand. Heck, it wouldn't be Wario without his jerk tendencies and his greed.
