5/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Wario World.

System: Nintendo GameCube Started: 2004 Ended: August 24, 2010 Flashback Review Wario World was a one-of-a-kind GameCube game and I remember playing this at a demo kiosk at a local Sam Goody Music Store inside of a mall. I never played any of the Wario Land games in the early 2000s but I was aware of this character thanks to Mario Tennis and the Mario Party games. This game is considered to be my first Wario game before I played WarioWare: Twisted for the DS. However, I did not finish Wario World at the time for either playing other games or I was stumped on a level and couldn’t progress. 2010 was the feeling of me going back into these old GameCube games like Mario Sunshine and Resident Evil 4 that I couldn’t beat as a child. And now I decided to beat Wario World as a redemption arc and it was a way to end the summer before going back to school. Excited to know that Wario World was developed by Treasure. The same company that made Ikaruga, Sin and Punishment and Gunstar Heroes, Definitely feel comfortable that Wario World is another great game in their catalog and it deserves better since it never got a re-release. I really love the Level and Gameplay Design in Wario World. Having Wario go from 2D to 3D is surprisingly good with a tad of side-scrolling and fixed camera approach to add to the challenge in this Action Platformer. Wario can do almost anything in combat. Punch baddies, Flashy Piledriver, Ground Pound, Shoulder Tackle, Toss them, Spin Trick and even sucking all those coins like Kirby with his big mouth. There is variety to spice up this game such as going into these floorboards and you get to do a 3D platforming like in Super Mario Sunshine and the best part you can leave anytime and control the Camera stick from the GameCube controller. as it has puzzle platforming segments and If you fall into a pitfall, you are trapped in a Lair with these horned creatures called Unithorns that will steal your money, so you have to break these crates to find a jump spring to transport you back to the surface. That part always creeped me out as a kid. The Level Design, Hub World and Gameplay is simple and perfect enough as you go straight into the game with no extended cutscenes like most games do. However, If I really love this game, I would finish this game long ago because this game can be pretty cryptic at times as the only problem I had for this game is lack of any tips or vague hints on how to solve a puzzle or progress. I even remember stumbling a bit on that rotating mechanism gate at the second level and that Bunny looking contraption that you are supposed to Ground Pound on it to give you an extra jump. Wario World is the kind of game that does not want to hold your hand and sometimes troll you thanks to that Pause Menu theme and to me, that is a good thing. Besides, its a surprisingly short game that you might beat in one day. I’m sure the Treasure dev team left out the hand-holding in order to make this game longer to sit through. There are collectable items and treasures for 100% completion as well. A short game and wanted more of this. But a high possibility of going back to this game as a replay value. Wario World is a Hidden Gem in the GameCube catalog and I think the final review score for this game was harsh and it needs a second take. If someone asks me if they are starting their GameCube collection and give me a list of great exclusive titles that were never officially ported to future consoles, I would throw in Wario World on the pile. I even wished there was another Wario Land game. After all, there hasn’t been another Wario title since 2008, but somehow, we got a lot of WarioWare games lately. Would love a sequel to Wario World and Nintendo calls up Treasure to work on it again.