6 Sinister Wario Facts!

Today we are investigating everyone’s favourite Garlic eating Mushroom Kingdom villain, Wario! Since his humble inception, this anti-hero has spawned 2 of his own successful game series and has made cameo appearances in at least 50 other games! The moral of this story? Greed is good. Or at least gets you in Nintendo games. So hold onto your coins and Join me if you will as we delve into 6 facts about the mischievous Wario!

Number 6

Many of WarioWare’s intense micro games are actually re-used from another game! Mario Artist: Polygon Studio was released in Japan only in 2000 for the failed Nintendo 64DD, this weird Mario Paint like game allows players to create 3D polygons and then texture and paint them. It also featured a “Sound Bomber” mode which contained these original Microgames, later to be used in the WarioWare series!

Number 5

Wario’s official debut wasn’t until 1992. For the sake of filling you in, he is a short retelling of The Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden coins story line from the instruction manual:

DANGER! DANGER!
While I was away crusading against
the mystery alien Tatanga in Sarasa
Land, an evil creep took over my
castle and put the people of Mario
Land under his control with a magic
spell. The intruder goes by the name
of Wario. He has been jealous of my
popularity ever since we were boys,
and has tried to steal my castle
many times. It seems he has
succeeded this time.
Wario has scattered the 6 Golden
Coins from my castle all over
Mario Land. These Golden Coins are guarded by those under Wario’s
spell. Without these coins, we can’t get into the castle to deal with
Wario. We must collect the 6 coins, attack Wario in the castle, and save
everybody!
IT’S TIME TO SET OUT ON OUR MISSION!!
?The 6 Golden Coins are the coins needed to open the
gate of Mario’s castle.

This story reveals a few interesting bits, 1) Wario is a magician of some sort? 2) Mario and Wario apparently grew up together and 3) Was Mario just killing friendly Mario Land creatures that were under a spell? Yikes.

Number 4

Many people have speculated that the inspiration for Wario’s character actually comes from the 1985 game Wrecking Crew. The classic game features a construction foreman named Spike who actually looks a little bit like Wario and the two even share the jerk trait and give Mario and Luigi a tough time. In fact, Foreman Spike is often thought of as the prototype for Wario and or Waluigi, much the same as Pauline from the original Donkey Kong was for Princess Peach.

Number 3

Regardless of the resemblance to Spike, Wario’s design actually comes from the epic game artist Hiroji Kiyotake! Apart of Gunpei Yokoi’s R&D1 team, this design team was rumoured to have grown frustrated working with someone else’s character design after the first Super Mario Land game. Luckily for them their chance arose to create a new character of their own for Super Mario Land 2 and thus Wario was born! Some sources even claim that Wario’s character “symbolized R&D1’s situation” within Nintendo, suggesting perhaps a little bit of a rivalry between development teams!

Number 2

Whilst Wario appeared as a baby in “Yoshi’s Island DS” and Mario Land 2’s back story did hint at Mario and Wario hanging out as kids, Wario’s origins in the Mario universe still haven’t really been explained. Despite not really being acknowledged by Nintendo there are a few officially licensed comics that do attempt to explain how Wario came to be!

The German comic “Super Mario: Die Verwandlung” which translates to “Super Mario: The Transformation” tells the story of Wario Merging from Mario after a Dr. Light tries to cure Mario of his Pixelation.

The comic “Mario Vs. Wario” shows the pair were again friends as youngsters, whilst playing as kids Wario is often left injured, humiliated or both. As a result Wario believes Mario is the cause of his bad luck.

Another German comic titled “Wario’s Weihnachtsmärchen” which translates to “Wario’s Christmas Tale” was a mock Christmas carol. The comic featured a flash back to Wario and Mario as Babies building sandcastles but due to Wario’s ill nature, Mario was the favourite. The comic also goes on to show a graduation ball where Wario wants to dance with the princess however because Mario is much nicer so she dances with him instead. I guess nice guys don’t always finish last!

So what can we conclude about Wario’s origins? Not much, it sounds like they were probably just Mushroom school buddies.

Number 1

Most people just assume that Wario’s name comes from simply turning the M in Mario’s name upside down. This isn’t the full story though! The Japanese adjective for bad is “warui”, when paired with Mario this literally translates to “bad Mario.” Since these two words already were quite similar the genius that is Hiroji Kiyotake, combined the two to produce Wario!