Platform: Super NES

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Release Date (NA): December 10th, 1994

Genre: Puzzle

Rating: 8 out of 10

Wario. What a shady fuck, but the perfect villain. He’s so scummy. He rocks the porn stache almost better than Mario. Wario’s Woods has to be one of my favorite puzzle games. The concept is, well, I don’t know what to compare it to. I mean, it has Tetris-like traits, but the falling pieces are individual items that don’t have to “fit” like the odd shapes in Tetris.

The pieces are color-coded and have different effects when mixed with the other items. The color-coded monsters that are on the screen have to be blown up by matching at least two of them with a bomb of the same color. The player controls Toad, who runs around trying to move the monsters and match them up correctly. You start off each level with a fairy (Wanda, whom I never heard of), who uses her wand (get the reference to her name?) to drop bombs down. This seems pretty straightforward, until you take too long and the meter on the side of the screen fills up, Pidgit starts dropping monsters and Wario starts bashing the side of the tree, or castle, or whatever receptacle you are in, and the Thwomp at the top of the screen begins lowering (for some reason, he is dropping bombs, too). You can force him to go back up by getting diagonal matches or long straight ones. If you make a huge match, I think four monsters or more, and a bomb, you create a diamond. Then, when you match that diamond in a three-color match-up, you remove every monster on the screen that was that color. It gets more intricate and complicated, some monsters require a diagonal match, some require multiple matches, yada yada. There are 99 levels that you have to complete to “beat” the game, but after the credits, you continue and it gets harder and harder. I think I topped out at level 134. It’s super fun, though. This is the “round game” mode, though. The real fun is in the VS mode.

VS mode is fantastic in so many ways. It is the equivalent of two players but without another human. The enemies you start against in the beginning that suck donkey dicks end up becoming a challenge. I don’t remember the buttons to press, but you can also enable even more difficult enemies when selecting VS (I think you have to hold select while choosing VS but I’m too lazy to look it up). Oh, and remember that diamond thing? Yeah, ultimate scum gem now. You match that in VS, you still eliminate all monsters of that color, but now you turn EVERY bomb of your opponents’ into a monster. This really can make or break a match. There are also cool things like making a bomb blow up monsters in multiple directions which produces an egg that drops on the other guy’s side. If he doesn’t pick up that egg and drop it back down within a few seconds of it landing, it “hatches” and a steady line of the mystery monster inside drops from the ceiling. You make big matches, the Thwomp on their screen goes down, and vice versa. Also, when you get a chain of matches, an entire column of monsters pops up on the opponents’ screen. This also gives you more time with Wanda, or takes away time from Pidgit, depending on who is floating around when you perform this action. The latter happens in solo, as well. The same rules apply when playing against a human player, but I have nobody to play with so the AI is good enough. They’re always around.

Overall, I can’t help but love Wario’s Woods. It doesn’t require any skill to get into it, but if you want to get far in it, you have to be quick with your actions and be able to make smart decisions on what your best move would be. I have to say that this is one of my favorite puzzle games. It is so different than any other one that I’ve played, and it’s well done. They also made an NES version with some minor differences, but I never played it. It was the last officially licensed game that was released for the NES if I remember correctly, and if that version is anything like this one, they went out with a bang.

 Reviewed by Doobs