I remember first hearing about Wario’s Woods, and honestly I had no idea what type of game it would be. Look at that title. Wario’s Woods? It’s not exactly descriptive. This was the very final licensed game to be released on the NES in North America, and also the only one to receive an ESRB rating. It’s historically important for those two facts. I later discovered that this is actually a puzzle game. That’s one of the genres Nintendo has on lockdown. It has to be good, right? It is. Today we’re going to talk about Wario’s Woods, and why you should be play it. Let’s get started.
It’s fair to say that I went into this one fully expecting to play as Wario. No, that’s not the case. You play as Toad. Wario is just the villain. In this case he has taken over a forest with his army of minions thus kicking all of the once peaceful creatures out. It’s up to Toad to save the day. The big question is where is Mario in all of this? Why did Nintendo decide on going with Toad here? I don’t even think he and Wario had been in the same game up to this point. In the grand scheme of things this doesn’t matter, but it does seem like it would have been more marketable as a Mario title. I suppose it’s just Nintendo being their typical quirky self.
The first thing you should know is that Wario’s Woods is not your traditional puzzle game. On the surface it looks like it could be. You’re dealing with falling blocks (or in this case, enemies and bombs) after all. The thing is you don’t control them. Your job isn’t to guide these as they fall. Instead you play as Toad who runs along the bottom of the screen micromanaging their placement. Toad can catch falling items, pick them up off the ground, and put them down. His goal is still typical in that you want to line up three or more same colored ‘blocks’ together either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. It’s just the methodology that’s different. It may sound insignificant on paper, but this makes Wario’s Woods extremely play unlike any other puzzle title.
Right out of the gate this one takes some getting used to. Thankfully there’s an educational and highly useful practice mode available right from the menu. The game is played from a side view in a single screen setting. Toad can move both left and right, but he cannot jump. He can however run up the sides of stacks of blocks to get to the top. This mechanic ensures he can’t get trapped. Your goal is to eliminate all of the monster blocks on the screen. You do so by lining up at least three of them in the patterns I mentioned earlier, and then connecting a bomb of the same color. When you do so they go boom, and are eliminated from play. It’s a pretty basic puzzle game mechanic, but because you’re on foot it plays remarkably different.
By default Toad can catch falling blocks. He can also pick them up, but only the ones downward and diagonal to where he’s standing. You’re given two options for this. By pressing B he grabs just one block, but with A he snags an entire stack. You can run left and right carrying these blocks, and place them back down either one at a time or all he’s carrying. It depends entirely on which face button you use. Unfortunately Toad cannot run up blocks while carrying anything. If you need to gain elevation with them you’ll have to place them in a higher spot, climb up the stack, and then pick them up again. It can be a repetitive process, but sometimes it’s unavoidable.
Gameplay has you doing a lot of different things at once. You have a screen full of block stacks to deal with, and you’ll constantly be guiding Toad back and forth across the screen to set them up appropriately. Periodically Wario will appear in a small window near the top of the screen, and when he does the ceiling will start dropping down. It does this only a little at a time, but when it reaches the top of any stack it’s a game over. What’s neat is that given the nature of this game it’s possible to shorten any of your stacks quickly, and if you’re fast enough you can buy some additional time even though you’re making no forward progress.
Wario’s Woods is absolutely fantastic. Gameplay, while following the same basic tried and true premise, is entirely different from most puzzle games. That’s this one’s strongest point. Controlling a character directly instead of guiding falling blocks switches things up remarkably. The game does have a steeper learning curve, but the difficulty ramp is perfect. After you’ve got the basics down Wario’s Woods does a fantastic job of easing you in with progressively more difficult situations and faster blocks. There are seven different colored enemies and bombs, but the game throws just a few your way until you’ve got everything down. By the end there’s so much to manage it will make your head explode. It’s definitely more skill based than something like Tetris. Wario’s Woods is easily one of the best NES puzzle games.
Wario’s Woods also has several different game modes and as well as options to tweak the experience. Round Game is the main way to play. This has you playing through each stage as they get progressively more difficult. There are two game types to choose from; either A or B. A is the standard option sending you through 99 different stages. B is largely the same thing, but with some boss battles mixed in. These are fun and change the mechanics a bit with a boss character blocking the path and summoning additional blocks. I prefer B. Then we have Time Race. This is just a mode where you play endlessly competing for a high score. It’s fun, but Round Game is better.
I’m happy to report that there’s even multiplayer. Two players can compete at the same time, and they play endlessly until one of them is defeated. It’s fun, but has one issue. Unfortunately the play field has to be shrunk to fit two different player areas. In something like Tetris this didn’t really matter, but it makes a world of difference in Wario’s Woods. This is because of the nature of the game and character movement. It feels very restricted. I like multiplayer, but in this case the main game is more entertaining. Unfortunately I don’t see any kind of solution they could have used to improve this. The NES hardware was just too limited to scale everything appropriately, and even then it would be a struggle to actually see Toad and the blocks.
Wario’s Woods is a really good looking game. It better be; it was a late release for crying out loud! Toad’s avatar is really small on the screen but it’s always easy to tell where he is located. Additionally I had no problems telling the different enemies apart, nor did the bomb icons confuse me. Everything is really easy to make out. There are also some fun animations for Wario that play out during gameplay. These add some definite character to it all. The soundtrack is okay. The music is somewhat catchy and it’s all inoffensive. There’s just nothing in it that grabs me. I don’t have to fight any songs from getting stuck in my head. What’s there is decent though.
