Wario

Wario (ワリオ) first started off as an antagonist in the Mario games, but since then has appeared in his own games such as the WarioWare series, and Wario World for the GameCube. He quite often makes playable appearances in spinoff Mario games, like the Mario Sports series and the Mario Kart series. Typically wearing purple overalls and a yellow shirt, Wario sports a spiked and suitably tweakable mustache, large gut, muscular arms and wicked cackle.

Wario essentially embodies the antithesis of Mario. Whereas Mario is kind, altruistic and brave, Wario is shown to be greedy, cruel, and exploitative of others. Where Mario's motives are based in selflessness and heroism, Wario's motives are based in personal gain and jealousy. Sometimes in his treasure hunting endeavors he will coincidentally help others for example in Wario Land 3 and 4. He's also famous for his bizarre behavior, which is much more exploited in games themed after him like the WarioWare series. Wario is extremely vain in spite of his less-than-photogenic appearance, emblazoning his castles and Mario Kart racetracks with his image and even working his signature nose-and-mustache combo into all of his WarioWare games. Wario's games often have a more madcap and surreal sense of humor than Mario's, reflecting the comic nature of the man himself. Unfortunately for Wario, his money-grubbing schemes tend to end disastrously.

Other key attributes of Wario include his immense strength and surprizing jumping prowess(in spite of his obesity and sedintary lifestyle) such as in various games where Wario has demonstrated his ability to smash through walls and hurl enemies many times his size. He is also depicted as being tougher and more durable than Mario as evidenced in the Wario Land games. For example: being frozen, crushed, zombified, burnt, or stung by a bee merely prompts Wario to temporarily transform and usually use the ill effects to his advantage. The Wario Land 3 manual makes it clear that Wario isn't happy with Nintendo's game designers for putting him through all this punishment.

Wario also made his Super Smash Bros. debut as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii. Wario's special moves include the Chomp, the Wario Bike, the Corkscrew, and the Wario Wraft. The costume he wears is either his costume from WarioWare Inc. or his traditional overalls outfit depending on the player's choice.

Wario's name is chiefly a portmanteau of the Japanese word warui, roughly meaning 'bad', and Mario's name, thus forming 'B bad Mario'. In addition 'W' and 'M' resemble each other when inverted, further making Wario's name indicative of his nature as Mario's 'evil twin'.

History
Wario's first game was Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins for the Game Boy. In this game, you learned that when Mario went off to save Princess Daisy from Tatanga in the game Super Mario Land; Wario, in his immense jelousy of mario, went and took over Mario's Castle and its surrounding island. Wario then gave the 6 gold coins containing the power of the castle to 6 trusted allies of his, including Tatanga. When brought together these coins granted mario access to the inside of the castle where he would then defeat Wario.

After Super Mario Land 2, Wario started to become very popular, so he starred as a boss in another game titled Mario and Wario, a Japan only game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. In this game, Wario would throw a bucket on top of either Mario, Yoshi, or Peach's head, so Wanda the Fairy would then have to guide them to stop Wario. This is one of the few games to use the SNES Mouse.

Soon after Mario and Wario, Nintendo released Wario's Woods, a game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Nintendo Entertainment System. In this game, Wario attacks the Mushroom Kingdom, so Toad had to stop him. In the NES version, Wario was the only boss, though the SNES version had multiple bosses including Wario. Wario's Woods is the only game on the NES to have an ESRB rating.

Soon after Wario's Woods, Nintendo gave the rights to Hudson to a Bomberman game with Wario as a guest. The game is called Wario Blast: Featuring Bomberman!. It's unknown whether or not this game was the influence for Wario to always use bombs in games after that, but it is expected by some.

Wario also starred in his minigame collection, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! for the Game Boy Advance. The game also had a GCN spinoff called WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$!, both starred the characters Orbulon, 9-Volt, Wario, and other various new characters. Further titles in the series have included WarioWare: Twisted!, WarioWare: Touched! and WarioWare: Smooth Moves (on the GBA, DS and Wii respectively). In the original WarioWare, Wario decides to exploit the burgeoning video game industry for profit in a piece of self-satire from Nintendo. To save money all of his games are to be micro-sized, while development duties are mostly handed out to his friends in Diamond City. Unbeknown to them, Wario fully intends to keep all the profits. Further games have involved other loose plots and madcap humor, with microgames appearing apropos of nothing.

Wario entered the Mushroom Kingdom fraternity proper in Mario Kart 64, his first appearance as a playable character in a Mario spin-off title. Quickly endearing himself with declarations that he was "gonna win", he has appeared in every Mario Kart title since, always as a heavyweight character. Appearances in Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Mario Party and an array of other titles followed, with Wario proving quite adept at sports in spite of his portly frame and disproportionately tiny legs.

He also appeared as one of the villains in Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix. Owing to his popularity as a comic anti-hero, Wario has starred in a number of solo platformer adventures over the years, mostly in the vein of Mario's earlier outings and mostly on handheld consoles. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, while trading on Mario's familiarity, marked the first Wario platforming adventure, in which the yellow archfiend set out to capture a massive golden statue of Princess Peach that had been stolen by the Black Sugar Pirates, led by Captain Syrup. Two further Game Boy/Color outings were to follow - Wario Land II, in which Wario's treasure was stolen by the Black Sugar Pirates, and Wario Land 3, in which Wario was abducted by a music box that he stumbled upon in a cave and was promised treasure for helping its apparent former ruler. Wario Land 4, on the Game Boy Advance, marked a departure from the previous two games in the series in that Wario was able to die, and saw Wario exploring an ancient pyramid in a quest, once again, for wealth. Wario: Master of Disguise has been his only Nintendo DS adventure thus far. Remarkably Wario even appeared in a title for the ill-fated Virtual Boy, the aptly-named Virtual Boy Wario Land.

To date Wario apeared in two home console action-style games. The first being a Game Cube title named Wario World. In Wario World a mysterious black jewel that Wario stole and added to his treasure horde came to life in the middle of the night and promptly set about transforming Wario's castle and all of his treasures into a parallel dimension populated by bizarre monsters. The second game, a Wii title called Wario Land Shake it!, starts with the return of Captain syrup. She starts the plot by stealing a globe from a museum and giving it as a gift to Wario. Wario then opens the large parcel in which the globe came in and reads the note that captain syrup left with it. The note reads "The real gift is inside. Enjoy!". Wario, not understanding the true meaning of the note, then proceeds to grab a sledge hammer. Before he can complete his backswing, a hole in the top of the globe opens up and steam rushes out. Startled by all this Wario ducks down and by this time a telescope apears pointed at the globe just above his head. Out of the steaming hole appears a creature called a murfle. As soon as Wario hears the murfle speak, he immedeatly jerks out of his defensive position and hits his head on the telescope. Angered By all this, Wario then grabs the murfle and draws his fist back to punch him and the murfle stops him by telling him the Shake King has stolen from his homeland a magical sack of coins that never gets empty. Wario is roused at the thought of endless money and travels to the murfle's homeland on the globe via the giant telescope in search of the endless coin sack'

The Many Transformations of Wario
Wario has become known over the years for his many and varied transformations, as brought about mostly by certain enemies in his platforming adventures. Notable examples include -


 * Fiery Wario - Upon being set ablaze, Wario will dash back and forth uncontrollably, eventually being consumed by the fire and smoldering down to near nothing. While he smolders Wario slows down and can destroy torch blocks that he makes contact with. Remarkably, after being burnt to a crisp, he is able to reform himself an make a full recovery including his cloths.
 * Frozen Wario - Some enemies will try to freeze wario. If they succeed then Wario will freeze and be sent sliding across the screen in the direction of the freeze blast until he hits a wall. This ability is more of a hinderance than a benefit although wario is invincible and can slide through spike balls in certain places without damage.
 * Crazy Wario - Wandering around in a daze to jaunty theme music, Wario lost much control over his movements. An ability to knock out his enemies with a bizarre killer belch was removed after Wario Land II. This ability strangely resembles intoxication or some other form of imparement.
 * Snowman Wario - Another cold transformation that occurs when Wario gets snow droped on him from the cieling. Snowman Wario defeats enemies by walking into them and when on a slope he will roll until he hits a wall.
 * Fat Wario - Certain enemies in the Wario Land series will throw food at wario. When Wario comes into contact with the food he ingests it and instantly gains half his weight becoming Fat Wario. His jump is severely hampered along with his speed but in return for his loss of mobility he gains the ability to defeat enemies simply by walking into them along with the ability to perform a Ground Pound like jump from the ground making him able to destroy strong blocks with relative ease. Wario returns to normal after getting some exersize ie. walking a certain amount of steps or falling into water and swiming.
 * Tiny Wario - When Wario is hit by an enemy in Wario Land he shrinks much the same as Mario does in Mario games thus becoming Tiny Wario. This transformation robs Wario of the ability to use his signature shoulder barage attack although Wario did have the advantage of a faster runing speed and the ability to fit through narrow gaps. This transformation was also seen in WarioWare: Smooth Moves, when he was transformed into hundreds of smaller versions of himself, due to riding a motorbike given to him as a present by Penny Crygor.
 * Vampire/Bat Wario - In Wario Land 3 Wario donned a fetching cape and gained the supernatural power to defeat enemies by walking into them - by getting a bite from a bat. He could also transform into a bat himself. Regarding this as a rather cool transformation in the Wario Land 3 manual, he was no doubt disappointed by the decision in Wario Land 4 to remove the 'vampire' part. Also seen in Dr. Mario 64.
 * Wario Man - As seen in the WarioWare series first debuting in WarioWare Twisted!. Wario Man can do literally everything that regular Wario can, all while wearing an hilarious bright pink outfit. In WarioWare: Touched! Wario Proclaims that he's "stouter than an iron borito and tougher than cardboard" Wario can turn into Wario Man by eating 'funky' garlic.

In the Mario Kart series
Excluding Super Mario Kart, Wario has appeared in every mario kart game to date. He is always in the heavy class of drivers and usualy has a reletively high top speed acompanied by poor acceleration common to heavy drivers. Contrary to this though is his Wario Bike, fetured in Mario Kart Wii, that actually has the highest acceleration and lowest top speed of any heavy vehicle. In these games he appears to be very unsportsmanly and laughs if he passes another racer. In most instalments he is a playable character from the begining but in Mario Kart 7 he is an unlockable character. In Mario Kart:Double Dash!! Wario shares the special bob-bomb item with his default racing partner Waluigi.

Super Smash Bros. series
Wario never was a playable character until Super Smash Bros. Brawl, though he did appear as a trophy in the GameCube game Super Smash Bros. Melee.

In Brawl, Wario, as every other character, has a wide assortment of attacks that he is able to perform. He is a very hard character to predict when mastered and has one of the best aerial games because of his very fast lateral air movement and his aerial attacks are excellent comboing. He also is a very small character for a heavyweight. His most notable attacks are his Chomp, the Wario Bike, the Corkscrew, the Wario Waft and his Final Smash, Wario-Man. If he uses the Wario Bike, he will hop on a motorcycle and drive around the stage smashing into his opponents. He is able to get off of it, though other people can then pick it up (only Wario can drive it, but other Warios can also drive another person's Bike). The Wario Waft is a move that will shoot you upwards after Wario passes massive gas. Wario-Man is Wario's alter-ego and Final Smash. Wario's attacks have different properties as Wario-Man, and his special moves become more powerful as well. Use caution when using the Wario Bike, as it becomes much faster, and if you use it, Wario will move so quickly you might not be able to control him, and he could easily fly right off the screen (but it's easy to control when mastered)! Also, a fully charged Wario Waft becomes a One-Hit KO, and also charges faster but can't reach the max charging.

Trophy descriptions
Super Smash Bros. Melee
 * "An old acquaintance of Mario's. His failure to seize Mario's castle has fueled Wario's desire for a palace of his own. Wario has herculean strength and can do things that even Mario can't imitate. His unexpected skills include a talent with items and the ability to assume many roles, among them a snowman, a zombie, and a bat."

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
 * "Mario's self-styled rival. He loves money and gross humor. He often sets out in search of hidden treasure. His bold moves come from his superhuman strength and are completely different from Mario's moves. Aside from adventuring, he's also the chairman of game maker WarioWare, Inc. Its franchise game is WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$."
 * Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins
 * WarioWare Mega Microgame$