- "You Know there's no I in team but there's M and E that spells me Wario Wahahaha"
- —Wario
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Wario (ワリオ|Wario) is an obese, greedy, hot-tempered, determined, mad-man who has been Mario's longtime rival. First seen in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins as a boss, he became quite popular, acquiring his own game titled Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3. Wario's defining features include his long, jagged mustache, and his nose large mouth and belly, and his massive strength. He is greedy, rude, and supposedly dim-witted though his Mario Party 2 description states he is of "Unmatched strength and wits!!" indicating that Wario may actually be, or was originally, an intelligent and clever man. He is also quite fearless as he is often seen before a boss fight in his games taunting or confidently prepping for the fight in front the ridiculous creatures he has faced. That being said, Wario is, despite being greedy, obese and such, strong and a great fighter. He has defeated many different monstrous beings that, though usually comical, are often of very large size and power, ranging from a huge Genie to a revenge driven pirate captain to a giant rabid venus fly trap monster to floating robotic clown heads and gust blowing giant plants, etc. Wario has two different costumes. One of them looks similar to Mario's, though Wario wears a yellow undershirt with purple overalls and a yellow hat. The hat and gloves for this costume have a W on them. His other costume is from his more recent appearances in his WarioWare games, where he wears pink pants, a biker helmet and goggles, a blue undershirt and a jean jacket. It was once stated in the Nintendo Power Magazines that Wario is the cousin of the Mario Bros. but this is has never been confirmed, however. He also shares a mysterious relationship with Waluigi, likely theory is that he is his brother, though not confirmed. Wario also appeared, along with Waluigi, Mario and Luigi in Super Mario Advance Games as a palette swap of Mario. Wario is voiced by Charles Martinet.
Reputation & Moral Standing
Despite some of Wario's past attempts and actions, he may actually not necessarily be a bad guy but instead neutral, just driven by greed or his own goals. This is notable through his adventures starting in his first appearance in Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, he had attempted to take over Mario Land and steal Mario's castle. Greedy and villainous indeed, however also clever as he intentionally drew Mario out of mario land to do so and proceeded to hypnotize the inhabitants. After defeated, he is homeless and proceeds to actually find Princess Peach's stolen statue of her to return it for the reward to be able to obtain his goal/dream of owning a castle, or just to have a place to live. The statue was unfortunately taken from him by Mario, ironically making Mario seem rather underhanded and slightly villainous as Wario did all the work and Mario carried the statue off with his plane using a magnet. Wario still got his home in the end depending on how much money the player made in game (as a bonus, if the player got 99,999 coins and all the treasure and completes all the levels, Wario obtains his own planet. This isn't canonical as this is never referenced in any other games but rather the second best ending of Wario receiving his own grand castle does appear to be the canonical ending.) and Wario lived relatively peacefully until Wario Land 2 where his castle was raided by Captain Syrup's goons, thus he was not causing any harm. After defeating her as well, he also does nothing wrong in the third game but misfortune has it that Wario's plane crashes and he is tasked with supposedly freeing a magical sealed being who will return him to his home with any treasure he obtains along the way. In the end after defeating the actually malevolent clown Rudy who tricked him, Wario is returned to his world with his treasure as promised by the beings that had sealed Rudy away. A victorious outcome for Wario having played the heroic role by unintentionally saving the land. He had not caused problems for anyone. In fact he had saved possibly many people. This also goes into the next game where Wario had simply gone excavating for treasure after hearing of an uncovered pyramid ruin. He ended up trapped in the pyramid and had to fight his way out, collecting plenty of treasure and defeating the spirit of a greedy old woman. Ironic yet fitting in that Wario, from his own greed, overcame another greedy spirit. He then took the treasure and escaped the pyramid, even earning a kiss from a princess of beauty varying on how well you did. The worst being a short rather ugly princess, the second worse being a princess with the same facial features as Wario himself, (both of those endings showing Wario's obvious discomfort/disappointment at the reward.) the other endings being of actual beautiful princesses (with Wario having a big grin in contrast to the 'bad' endings). Wario then drives off in his car with treasure in tow as the sun sets and the background begins showing images of Wario's adventure and possibly aftermath. Wario: Master of Disguise has Wario finding out about a thief namer "The White Zephyr" who has the ability to change his form and disguise himself perfectly. Wario, out of envy, shows off surprisingly advanced technologic capabilities by creating the telmet to enter the television and teleport directly to The White Zephyr. This is a surprising show of Wario's resourcefulness and intelligence when drawing from his great determination caused by his greed. This helps to prove that he is not necessarily evil, just greedy and determined. Wario World features Wario finding an ancient gem treasure that turned out to be an evil spirit that launched him to its world. Wario simply did what he does best and blast his way through it, collecting treasure and defeats the evil gem and returns to his world. Wario Land: Shake It! is much of the same with Wario being sent a globe by Captain Syrup and getting sucked into the globe to some strange new dimension that he is then, with promises of a great treasure to make it worthwhile to him, tasked with saving it from the shake king. Syrup suspiciously enough acts like an ally in this game despite previous run-ins with her, however ulitimitely she gets her revenge by betraying him and stealing the infinite coin bag from Wario at the end of the entire journey. This is the second time he's left with nothing out of the whole ordeal. Of all these games, Wario has only once been the villain, and every other occasion has been the hero, saving worlds and dimensions from great evils and profiting off of it, though he has never started any of these adventures willingly without some ulterior motive of his. As such, Wario is more of a neutral character than anything else. He just looks for what he'll gain out of the ordeal.
Attacks and Power-ups
Wario Land
In the Wario Land series, Wario could attack enemies or be attacked, resulting in strange "power-ups" that were necessary to beat the game. His main attacks were a body slam that make a "ch-ch-ch-ch" sound when being used and a ground pound that shook the earth beneath him. In Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 for Game Boy and Wario Land for the Virtual Boy, Wario could pick up different hats that gave him different powers. In Wario Land II and Wario Land 3, Wario was invincible to attacks health-wise, though they could affect him in other ways, such as turning him into a zombie, making his face swell up in order to float, or being frozen. Some of the "power-ups" were helpful (catching him on fire to break blocks with a flame symbol on them) and some were a nuisance (getting frozen and sliding away from his destination until hitting a wall). In Wario Land: Shake It! He is shown being capable of using all his standard attacks but is also capable of shaking enemies very fast to shake money and healing items (head of garlic) out of them. He is also capable of throwing enemies like previous games but much stronger and in various directions. One other new move he had was the ability to shake the world around him by striking the ground with unbelievable strength which could cause enemies all around him to be thrown into the air and become stunned or weakened when they hit the ground. It also cause blocks and pillars as well as parts of the world to shift, rise, or fall, set off any bomb blocks in the vicinity, or uncover secret maps. It is also in this game that wario obtained a life bar and therefor was capable of being damaged and defeated though this still doesn't seem to be an issue with when he is lit on fire or shot out of cannons or flattened, etc.
Wario World
Wario had a body slam and ground pound in Wario World as well as four new attacks. Wario gained punching abilities, which led to the other two attacks. When a larger enemy was punched into unconsciousness, Wario could either do a piledriver, a spin attack, or a throw attack to finish them off. All of the attacks hurt other enemies around him, gaining him a lot of coins which he could inhale to collect faster (the inhaling does not count as an attack, it's just a useful ability).
WarioWare
Wario has no real attacks in the WarioWare series, but he does use WarioWare themed special attacks in Super Smash Bros. Brawl including riding his motorcycle around on the stage to attack other players. However, in WarioWare he sometimes turns into a superhero named "Wario Man", which is also his final smash in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Wario with his WarioWare costume in Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Wario appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl as a default character. His role in Adventure mode is rather large. After Kirby battles with Petey Piranha, one of the cages in which Petey holds either Princess Zelda or Princess Peach will break, depending on which cage the player damaged more while battling Petey. The Princess who the player saves will escape with the player; Wario traps the other in the form of a trophy and takes off with the trophy on his shoulder. He is revealed to be a member of the Subspace Army. Wario then hunts down Lucas in an abandoned town, dispatching Porky to corner him and weaken him. Porky is defeated by Lucas with the help of Ness, but Wario appears and captures Ness. Wario then loses his trophies to King Dedede after he is ambushed by Waddle Dees. Wario tracks Lucas and his partner, the Pokémon Trainer, down and fights them. Wario is defeated and left behind. When Galleom's Subspace Bomb detonates, the area of Subspace expands and absorbs Wario's trophy. Wario appears at the end and aids the heroes in their battle against Tabuu.
Although he works for the Subspace Army, he had no specific allegiance to Master Hand, only following his orders because he enjoys doing so.
Other Game Appearances
Wario is seen in quite a lot of Mario games. He appears in all the Mario Party (except Mario Party Advance) games, Mario Kart games, and all Mario sports games. He also appears in Super Mario 64 DS, Densetsu no Stafy 3, New Super Mario Bros., Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and acted as main antagonist of Wario's Woods. He starred in Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman as well, and was one of the Mario characters who replaces Mr. Game and Watch. Baby Wario is a protagonist (though for selfish reasons) in Yoshi's Island DS.
Mario Kart series
Wario is always classed as a heavyweight in the Mario Kart games following Super Mario Kart (in which he didn't appear).
From Mario Kart 64 through Mario Kart DS, Wario's standard kart was purple. In Mario Kart Wii it has changed to yellow in light of his hat color.
Wario Returns in Mario Kart 7 for Nintendo 3DS. He is a heavyweight racer again and is now an unlockable racer for the first time in the Mario Kart series.
His Staff Ghost tracks are:
- Frappe Snowland (Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart DS)
- Choco Mountain (Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart DS)
- Wario Stadium (Mario Kart 64, Mario Kart DS)
- Wario Colosseum (Mario Kart: Double Dash)
- Diamond City (The Mario Kart Arcade GP series)
- Wario's Gold Mine (Mario Kart Wii)
- DS Delfino Square (Mario Kart Wii)
Mario Party series
Wario has been in the Mario Party series since the first game and has played a large role in the series. He has his own level in Mario Party which stands as one of its hardest. Wario's color is purple, and in Mario Parties 1-5 his sleeves are long, but in the rest, they are short. In Mario Party 2, Wario is the cause of the storyline, as he wants Mario Land to be named Wario Land. This starts the argument that develops the party. Wario introduced Waluigi to the rest of his "pals" in Mario Tennis. Later, he introduced Waluigi once again in Mario Party 3. In that game, Wario's battle partner is a Bob-omb. Wario is also revealed to have a "secret friend" bond with Toadette.
Mario Party 8 Tag Teams
- Wario + Mario = Big Starios
- Wario + Luigi = Green 'n' Greedy
- Wario + Peach = Sugar 'n' Spies
- Wario + Yoshi = Poached Eggs
- Wario + Daisy = Mischief-Makers
- Wario + Waluigi = Double Crossers
- Wario + Toad = Crazy Allies
- Wario + Boo = Double Dealers
- Wario + Toadette = Double Agents
- Wario + Birdo = Rotten Eggs
- Wario + Dry Bones = Dumb-Skulls
- Wario + Blooper = Drenched Stench
- Wario + Hammer Bro = Scammer Hammer
