The most tragic time in my life was when my NES adapter went out when I was 10. Since I couldn’t find any extra adapters (and since I wasn’t smart enough then just to order a new one from Nintendo) I waited 3 years till I got one for my birthday. On my 13th birthday I also received a new NES game called Wario Woods.

Now I already knew Wario Woods has I seen it in an issue of Nintendo Power. I also knew it was the last NES game ever made, has well has the only NES game to get an ESRB rating. But it was also a puzzle and since I was 10 when my NES broke down and do stupid to realize what fun Dr. Mario could be, I let it collect dust on my shelf. Now 3 years can change a person and so with a lot of worry I popped this into my NES and set down to play the first NES game I played in almost 3 years. And what to do know this is the first puzzle game I ever really got into.

But since time is not really good on NES carts and there battery packs playing a game of Wario Woods in almost impossible on my NES and even then it won’t save. That was why I was over joyed when surfing the Internet for cheats for Animal Crossing I found a code for Wario Woods. Now I know the NES games aren’t Animal Crossing is about but I think it’s wrong to hide Wario Woods away (and I think not being able to unlock the original Zelda is down right criminal). I enter the code and started playing Wario Woods. Not much has change in the Animal Crossing version other then a cleaner screen.

Story.
Now Wario’s Woods was made back when Wario was still a fairly new character and basically just a back up for Bowser (besides Bowsers woods doesn’t have the same ring to it).

The fairy’s woods used to be a peaceful place. That is in till Wario and his monsters came and invaded the woods. With Mario making out with the Princess, and Luigi, well let’s just say you don’t want to know what Luigi’s doing. The fairy’s turn to help in Toad, and his large supply of bombs to clear out there monster invested woods.

Graphics.
Now in case your wondering which version the Animal Crossing game got was, it’s the NES version. I have not played the SNES version but I can tell just my the color Wario has that this is the NES version of the game. But despite not having has great a color or backgrounds has the SNES version of the game, Wario Woods is still fun. Besides you don’t need great graphics to play a 2d puzzle game.

With that said for being the last NES game around Wario Woods barley pushed it to the limit. While you do have large sprites of Birdo and Wario on top they don’t move much (especially birdo). Toad also appears small and almost has a red hue to him. The backgrounds for the outside a comments is some grass and shrubs, and since this happens in a tree the outside of the tree is also shown has well.

The monsters and bombs are rather large easy to see, and well animated sprites for the NES version. They each have there own dance in one place wating to be blown up animation which is nice to look at. The graphics aren’t exactly great but they don’t hold the game down either.

Sound.
Has you imagine like most NES games the sound is rather limited. You have a good theme for when Wario is not around, and a more nasty theme when Wario is not around, in the main mode. There is also 2 more similar themes for the time race mode. That’s pretty much for the music. Is does get a little tiring hearing the music over and over again, and it’s pretty much the only thing keeping this game back.

Gameplay.
So what makes up Wario Woods. Well take a bit from Dr. Mario, add in Pokemon Puzzle League Attack, stir a little Yoshi (the parts that don’t suck), and a pinch of Super Mario Bros. 2 and you pretty much have the blend that is Wario Woods.

The game play is easy to understand you have to group the same color enemies together in a certain group to destory them, while color bombs come from the sky. Sound like Dr. Mario, well a little but there’s a catch. You have no control over where the bombs land, instead you have to move monsters and bombs around controlling toad. Also you need bombs to destroy monsters. 3 monsters together will not go in till you have them connected to a bomb of the same color. What happens if you destroy more then 3 in a blast, then you get some very interesting things happen. For example 4 or more will raise the roof, destroying 5 or more will get you a diamond which will destroy all monsters on the field of that color, and getting chains of monster being destroy will either increase of decrease the bar on the right.

So what does that color bar on the right under the picture of Wario and Birdo mean. They tell you what phase of the stage your on. During the Birdo phase everything’s fine you get well place bombs from the fairy on top of the screen, the music is peaceful, and the ceiling stay’s where it is. But once the green bar that Birdo is pointing to fills up the king of all anti hero’s steps into make your life miserable. With Wario around your fairy turns into a crow that drops monsters instead of bombs, to make matters worse Wario will ram the tree and cause the ceiling to collapse on toad. If the ceiling collapses to where Toad can’t move then he’s dead. At first seeing Wario is more of a nuisances then a threat has in the first couple of stages he drops an enemy into your pretty much enemy field and then rams the tree and then leaves. But later has the enemies you original have to contend with rise, so will Wario’s threat. In the later stages Wario rams the screen several times and drops a lot more enemies faster. To make matters worse he’ll take coins you get at the end of stages that are needed. Wario is defiantly one ticked off plumber you don’t want to meet.

While this may sound fairly simple to make the challenge raise not all enmies can be destroy using the same tactics. Starting at level 10 you will start meeting enemies that change color when they get hit with a bomb. Then later enemies with diagonal attacks will only destroy them, followed by enemies that take 2 quick bomb blasts to destroy. The stages where you meet these freaks can be the most frustrating (especially the 2 in the row guys) in other words this game takes some serious skills to play.

Modes of play.
Not much here you get the main mode which comes in A and B. The only difference is in the 9th stage there is a boss in the B mode. Despite this the B mode is actually easy has the bosses are never really that hard, and the 9th stages they create for the A mode are tricky. There is also a time race mode in which you try to clear out stages in a certain amount of time to receive medals, it’s not a bad way to increase the difficulty mode, especially after you complete all 200 stages of both the A and B mode.

Final Recommendation
Wario Woods is one of the greatest Puzzle games around and if you have an NES and SNES you should look for it. If you have animal crossing then you should either hook or GBA up to your game cube and look for it on the island. Or get it the way I do and head over the www.gamefaqs.com and look up the code for it.


Recommended: Yes