Wario

Concept and creation

The character Foreman Spike, a possible inspiration for Wario, first appeared in the 1985 game Wrecking Crew. Spike is a construction foreman who bears a slight resemblance to Wario. Game artist Hiroji Kiyotake designed Foreman Spike, whom Kiyotake imagined as "the Bluto to Mario's Popeye". Wario's first named appearance occurred in the 1992 game Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins. Wario's design arose from Super Mario Land's design team's distaste for making a game based around someone else's character. The creation of Wario allowed them their own character to "symbolize their situation".

Wario was designed to be a malevolent-looking caricature of Mario: he has a large head and cleft chin; thickly muscular arms; a wide, short, slightly obese body; short legs; a large, pointy, zig-zagging mustache with similarly-textured hair; a pointed nose and ears; light blue bags around his eyes; and a bellicose cackle. He wears a plumber outfit with a yellow-and-purple color scheme, which is a short-sleeved yellow shirt, purple overalls, and an indigo "W" on his hat. He also wears green pointed shoes and white gloves with indigo "W" symbols. In his early appearances, Wario wears a yellow, long-sleeved shirt and fuchsia overalls. His exact humanoid species is unclear. The name "Wario" is a portmanteau of "Mario" and the Japanese adjective warui (悪い), meaning "bad", hence "bad Mario", which is also symbolized by the "W" on his hat (an upside-down "M"). Wario was planned to be a temporary name, but it proved popular with the staff. Waluigi was created to be the tennis partner of Wario in Mario Tennis, and early material from Nintendo of Europe portrayed them as brothers, but their relationship has since been ambiguous. When asked whether Wario was a brother to Waluigi in 2008, voice actor Charles Martinet stated that while he did not know, he felt that they were just "two nice, evil guys who found each other".

Nintendo originally considered making Wario a German character before he developed into an Italian like Mario. Wario was intended to be German at one point; German translator Thomas Spindler gave him German lines when he was brought on to voice Wario. This part of Wario was eventually dropped; Martinet's Wario voice did not have any German influence. During his audition for the part, Martinet was told to speak in a mean-and gruff-sounding tone; he said voicing Wario is a looser task than voicing Mario, whose speaking manner and personality are freer-flowing, rising from the ground and floating into the air, while jealousy is one of Wario's characteristics.

Appearances

Wario Land series

Wario first appeared as a villain in the 1992 Game Boy video game Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, in which he captures Mario's castle. Tatanga, the villain of the first Super Mario Land game, is a henchman of Wario in the second, implying Wario is responsible for the events of both games. Wario also serves as a villain in the 1993 Japan-only puzzle game Mario & Wario, in which Wario drops a bucket on the heads of Mario, Princess Peach, or Yoshi. This was followed by the first game in the Wario Land series, Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994), a platform game that marks Wario's first appearance as a protagonist and introduced his first villains, Captain Syrup and her Brown Sugar Pirates. In his next appearance in Virtual Boy Wario Land (1995), Wario plays similarly and has the ability to move in and out of the background. A sequel to the Game Boy game Wario Land II (1998) features Captain Syrup's return as the antagonist. This game introduces Wario's invulnerability, allowing him to be burned or flattened without sustaining damage.

In 2000, Wario Land 3 was released for the Game Boy Color; it is another sequel that uses the same mechanics and concepts as its predecessor. The following year, the sequel Wario Land 4 (2001) debuted on the Game Boy Advance and incorporates Wario's ability to become burned or flattened and reintroduces the ability to become damaged from standard attacks. In 2003, Wario World, the first console Wario platform game, was released for the GameCube. It has three-dimensional graphics and gameplay and does not incorporate major elements from previous platform games. Wario: Master of Disguise (2007) for the Nintendo DS introduces touch-screen control of Wario and incorporates puzzles into the gameplay. The series' most recent release, Wario Land: Shake It! (2008) for the Wii, reintroduces Captain Syrup. The game uses a hand-drawn animation style; Wario's design required more than 2,000 frames of animation.

WarioWare series

In 2003, the Wario franchise introduced a new series of games, the first of which was WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! for the Game Boy Advance. The game's premise involved Wario's decision to open a game development company to make money, creating short "microgames" instead of full-fledged games. The game's gameplay focused on playing a collection of microgames in quick succession. Mega Microgames! was later remade as WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Games! (2003) for the GameCube; it featured the same microgames but lacked a story mode and focused more on multi-player. In 2004, two sequels were released for the game. The first was the Game Boy Advance game WarioWare: Twisted!, which used the cartridge's tilt sensor to allow microgames to be controlled by tilting the handheld left and right. The second was the Nintendo DS release WarioWare: Touched!, which incorporates the DS's touch screen and microphone into its gameplay.

One of the Wii's launch games in 2006 was WarioWare: Smooth Moves, which used the Wii Remote's motion-sensing technologies in a variety of ways. The Nintendo DS and Nintendo DSi have offered two new releases: 2008's WarioWare: Snapped!, which can be downloaded with the DSiWare service and uses the DSi's built-in front camera in its gameplay, and 2009's WarioWare D.I.Y., which allows players to create microgames. Game & Wario for the Nintendo Wii U was released on June 23, 2013. Although it does not use the WarioWare name, it incorporates gameplay and characters from the WarioWare series. The game also pays tribute to the original Game & Watch games. In 2018, the Nintendo 3DS game WarioWare Gold was released, featuring 316 microgames and combining elements from Twisted and Touched. He also appeared in the 2021 Nintendo Switch game WarioWare: Get It Together! and the 2023 Nintendo Switch game WarioWare: Move It!, with 223 microgames.

Other video games

In Wario's Woods, Wario is the main antagonist who wants to take over the forest and is defeated by Toad. The same year, Wario appeared in the video game Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman! (1994), a remake of a Bomberman game for the Game Boy that includes Wario as a playable character. Wario is a playable character in the Mario Kart series, starting with Mario Kart 64 (1996). Wario has appeared in Mario sports games, including Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Mario Baseball, Super Mario Strikers, and the Mario & Sonic series. Wario has also appeared in all installments of the Mario Party series, except Mario Party Advance (2005).

Wario is a playable character in two platform games for the Nintendo DS: the remake Super Mario 64 DS (2004) and Yoshi's Island DS (2006) as an infant version of himself, and the puzzle game Dr. Mario 64 (2001). He is also a playable character in the fighting game series Super Smash Bros. and has appeared in every game since being introduced in Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008). He then reappears in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U (2014) and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018). Wario's cameos include in Mario's Super Picross (1995), Pilotwings 64 (1996), Densetsu no Starfy 3 (2004), and Dr. Mario World (2019).

Other media

The 1992 graphic novel Super Mario Adventures, which is a collection of comics originally serialized in the video-gaming magazine Nintendo Power, features Wario in two of the stories, one of which focuses on Wario's past and explains his rivalry with Mario.

Wario appears in South Park's "Imaginationland Episode III" (2007) as one of the characters from the "dark side" of Imaginationland. In 2010, Charles Martinet's Wario voice was used in an advertisement promoting WarioWare D.I.Y. for British supermarket chain Tesco. In a May 2021 episode of Saturday Night Live, host Elon Musk starred as Wario in a sketch in which he was put on trial for murdering Mario in a kart race. In February 2024, Homer Simpson portrayed Wario in an episode of The Simpsons, "Lisa Gets an F1". Wario has also received several of his own Amiibo, which can be used in a wide array of games, including his own.

Reception

Since his appearance in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, Wario has received a largely positive reception and has become a well-established mascot for Nintendo. Several gaming publications described Wario as one of the best video game villains. Computer and Video Games found the levity of Wario games "liberating" compared to big Nintendo franchises such as Mario and The Legend of Zelda. The writer could "empathise more with the hopelessly materialistic Wario than goody brown-shoes Mario" and added that "Deep down, we'd all rather chase pounds over princesses." IGN editor Travis Fahs said that while Wario is not the most likeable character, his strong confidence overshadows his flaws and makes him entertaining. Audrey Drake of IGN said of Wario, "[A]ll this weird dude seems to care about is amassing as many material possessions and shiny things as possible",

KhalidEternalNigh of Destructoid praised the character, describing him as "fat, lazy, greedy, and a cheater" and said: "[D]espite all of this I can't help but love him. Wario is, in my humble opinion, the most perfect 'evil twin' in the history of video games. [...] During Wario's career he has worn many hats – a game designer, a biker, a treasure hunter, and a hat that spits fire for some reason. Yet no matter what he does, no matter how mean he is, somehow Wario manages to charm his way into our hearts while picking our pockets." Ryan Gilliam of Polygon described Wario as the "ultimate Italian American" and said the character "captures so much more of the Italian personality that resonates with me." He also said, "Wario trumps Mario as my family mascot, born with a crucial, relatable need to be louder and larger than life." According to Mike Sholars of Kotaku, "Wario Isn't Evil, He's Honest". Sholars concluded, "Wario was conceived out of a desire to put a twist on the familiar, but his creators tapped into a powerful, universal constant: The Unrepentant Asshole." Edwin Evans of Eurogamer praised Wario for being "repulsive" and "brilliant" and said, "In general, Wario isn't the star he used to be, [...] [b]ut he remains a crucial component of the Nintendo pantheon, the counterbalancing touch of malevolence and cunning without which Mario's star wouldn't shine quite so brightly." William Hughes of The A.V. Club described him as "Nintendo's stinky, cheating genius" and said the character "captures the split at the heart of Nintendo. [...] All we know if that Wario would have loved the possibilities the smash hit console presents, and that the absence of a new WarioWare game on the handheld remains a real shame to the legacy of all the things—good, bad, flatulent, weird, and more—that he means to the company", while Cass Marshall of Polygon said he "was institutionalized as a teen, and Wario was my only friend", and that he "find[s] Wario kind of soothing. He's just got a friendly face."