One of my personal highlights of the GameCube and a real Underrated gem in my book. Treasures always been an underdog developer from Gunstar Heroes, to Mischief Makers, and more. It's a very easy pick up and play 3D Platformer with Beat Em Up style elements to it that just really clicks regardless of skill level. Not to mention that the soundtrack in this game is probably my favorite soundtrack period in any Wario game. Every track in this game is a bop AND YES THAT INCLUDES THE PAUSE MENU MUSIC. Even more impressive is that the games 13 levels all include a boss in which every single one of them is incredibly unique and has a fun gimmick to their fight. I feel it's hard enough to make a handful of boss battles for any game, let alone just absolutely nailing it for every single level of one. The few things that keep this game from being perfect for me is the fact that the game is surprisingly short with only 4 worlds of 3 levels each, and because of that the game does have somewhat of a sudden difficulty spike halfway through the game, that I feel does even out a bit afterwards, but can be a bit frustrating. Also the final boss for all the build up is kind of a wet fart. Far too easy with only one specific attack pattern that you have to hit 8 times, and with really no change up or phases it gets really dull. Still, this is one of my all time favorite Wario and GameCube games and I couldn't recommend playing it more. You could easily get through this in one sitting. It's Warios World and we're just living in it.

It's better to judge Wario World as a Treasure game more than a Nintendo game because besides the game having Wario as the main character everything else about it is Treasure to the core.

Wario World is one of the weaker games by Treasure for sure but it's still a good romp that has a lot of incentive for completionists but also doesn't overstay its welcome.

Like other reviews on this site have mentioned, the main issue holding this game back is its lack of focus. Wario World tries to carry itself on its beat em up style combat but the enemies and bosses are too basic and rigid for this approach to really work, and the mandatory fights that the game sprinkles throughout the levels feel tedious more than anything else. Wario World should have either been a fully-3D collectathon platformer or an entirely linear beat em up with more in depth combat mechanics and enemies to get closer to reaching its potential.

A very underlooked and pretty fun Wario 3D platformer!
Your classic Wario stuff, greediness and all. I'm really starting to think how funny it is throughout all these games with whole societies seeing Wario as this hero, when he's just a greedy son of a bitch who's just in it for the money. I love it!
This game was way more fun than I thought it would be. It only has 8 levels, but the levels are BIG with tons of things to collect in them. Each have 5 Spritelings which give you useful tips and different endings depending on how many you collect. There's also red crystals which allow you to fight bosses of levels (not WORLDS, there are like 13 bosses it's wonderful), gold statues which get you half a heart per level, and treasures! Apparently, all treasures in a level allows you to send some microgames from the original WarioWare and demo them on your GBA with the Link Cable, which is neat! Besides all the collectables, the game just feels good. Wario controls nice, there's no health or anything, and if you fall down a pit you get into a purgatory-like zone where you can lose some of your coins, which felt more annoying than anything but overall the game is pretty fun!
The music is pretty banging, all things considered. Especially the first few levels, which I can remember the music the most from, are wonderful. It was so good that Greenhorn Ruins' theme was remixed as Glittertown in Wario Land Shake It!
And thus concludes my Wario journey (so far). I'm very glad for it to end on a good note, as this game was much better than I expected! I hope this game gets some type of rerelease or sequel soon, I feel like if given the chance this game could go far for our favorite man, Wario.

this was legitimately my least favorite gaming experience of all time.

awful level design. terrible, unfun enemies. the stupidest level clear requirements ever. 300 different collectibles, with only one of them actually being necessary. bosses with terribly easy move patterns that take ages to actually learn. an awful AWFUL final world & final boss. i legit spent over an hour on 4-2, and another 30 minutes on the final boss for 3 attempts. a nonsensical story that feels even less fleshed out than a normal mario story.

the only way i finished this game was in a VC with a friend of mine because playing this on my own would make me want to smash my TV with a hammer. thank you crynn

i hate this game. do not play.

Wario World is great!! It nails the transition of Wario Land’s gameplay style into 3D with an expanded beat ‘em up moveset that feels crunchy and powerful. Using enemies as tools to bang and throw against the environment feels so “Wario” and never gets old. While the game is very short, its only true downside, each level and theme is so varied that they all set themselves apart with their own gimmicks so well. This is legit a great game, I would highly recommend to anyone who likes 3D platformers with a focus on finding secrets.

For a personal anecdote, I first played this game in high school when a close friend challenged me to beat this 100% without a guide. Her and I swapped games to borrow over the winter break. She loaned me Luigi’s Mansion, this game, and Viewtiful Joe. That was the last time I did a full play through of this game but I would love to return to this one some day. (I did successfully complete 100% all three games without any guides as challenged btw, I was so proud.)

Wario World! What a trip. Treasure and Wario are two names I usually associate with 2D platformers, but this 3D platformer really shines, despite some complaints.

I'm finishing this one just having beaten Wario Land 4 a few months ago. This has given me a chance to appreciate Wario as a character. I honestly find his character more interesting than Mario, in that being Mario's negative counterimage, he carries more of a presence to him. I say this because I feel as if, personality wise, Mario is a faceless entity in some ways. He is the faceless hero, who responds exactly as you expect him to respond (he shows the most personality in the Mario and Luigi series, I'd argue).

Wario on the other hand, has selfish intentions from the start. He is greedy and will do anything for jewels, treasure, moolah. He is not as lightweight or gentle as Mario, in manner or physical approach. He is a weighty, muscly beast, who beats the living crap out of enemies that look like they're from the drawings of a disturbed child. Everything is expected yet totally unexpected in his world.

This oddly, is what makes Wario lovable and funny. His physical manner is what lends to sections of physical comedy, online with Buster Keaton, and we recognize the folly of his greedy quest from the beginning, invoking a kind of loving pity despite Wario's brazenness and strength.

I mention all this, because what really stood out to me about this game is how Treasure really took all these aspects of Wario's identity and successfully integrated it into a 3D space. Honestly, this game I think perfects the surreal aspects of the Wario Land series, and goes even beyond that. The enemy design is extremely clever, and sometimes random and a little uncanny, which fits the mood of the game perfectly. Although most of the enemy types are recycled throughout the stages, each one is reskinned to fit the theme of each level, with amazing creativity. I can't even explain some of the enemy designs, but wow, what crazy fever dream did they come out of? This doesn't exclude bosses, that ice stage boss...
Level themes also fit Wario perfectly, circuses, shady forests, halls of mirrors, ancient ruins. You feel like you are going through these kind of shady and surreal, trickster or mystical places.

It's not all glowing, however. Many times in the game, there is precision platforming, which does not work well at all with the Gamecube controllers extremely sensitive control sticks. Also, a lot of the game is just finding the right camera angle so you can do said precision platforming. It's exasperated near the end of the game, with the obstacle courses you go through.
The puzzles too, most of the time they were clever, but in the last sand stage, boy were they hell. We all know how fun block puzzles are (groans).

It is kind of a frustrating and difficult game, but it is made up for in spades by being just an odd and oddly endearing game, one that defines Wario's identity as a brazen goofball more than any other Wario game I know of. If you have a Gamecube or Gamecube-compatible Wii, give this one a shot if you can afford it. Otherwise, let's just pray that this gets some sort of modern port.

A bonafide classic - not only a quintessential encapsulation of Nintendo's GameCube-era magic, but just one hell of a charmer on its own. I feel this is underappreciated even by its supporters imo, the camera/level layout is incredibly unique and the combat is swift and satisfying - not to mention Charles Martinet's brilliant voice acting as Wario is always on full display here. If I have only one gripe it's that it could probably use a world or two more as it does run just a bit on the short side, but otherwise a tremendous 3D platform collect-a-thon.

My god now that is what I call a good transition to 3D!

This game is exactly how I would've imagined a 3D Wario Land game, honestly, this is one damn perfect game with little to no issues with it. Actually thinking about it this game suffers from the same fate as Wario Land 4, quantity over quality! All of the stages from Wario World are fun to go through and very memorable just like 4 and it makes me want to beg for more, just like 4.

Unlike 4 this time it's 4 worlds with 2 stages each instead of 4. That sounds pathetic since it's only a total of 8 stages but the stages are fairly long with a ton of treasures to find and a unique boss at the end of each stage so the small amount of stage is excused.

This game was perfectly crafted for completionists, it feels so great to grab all of the useless collectibles just for the sake of getting a nice 100%. each stage has 4 different types of collectibles, the first one is the 5 elves per stage which determine the ending. The 8 golden Wario parts per stage which when assembled gives you half a heart, and the 8 crystals are required to enter the boss of the stage but it's odd since the amount required depends on the stage it can go from 3 to 5 so I have no idea what collecting all of them do I just do it cause it's fun. Last but not least the 10 treasures chest unlocks GBA microgames if you plug in the GBA link cable.

So that's the whole gameplay loop for 8 stages and 4 world boss stages, and honestly, I think it's perfect as it is though I'll point out some of the bad parts of this game.

My first complaint would be the combat, It's fun at first but it gets old quickly though it isn't required to beat most enemies in your path thankfully they mostly just serve for puzzles usually but sometimes you are forced into a one-minute arena and you must kill as many enemies as possible to earn a good chunk of coins.

My other complaints would be about the snow stage since it's the only anti-completionist stage, a lot of items are a bitch to find and a bitch to grab especially with the sliding sections that you can't climb back other than with the end stage balloon which brings you back to the very beginning of the stage.

I guess that's all, just like Wario Land 4 I don't really have much to say about this one since it's just good, but not good enough for a 5/5 since this game is only 5 hours long... just like Wario Land 4... C'mon Nintendo I need more to play! But the insane replay value of these two games is already good enough.

Charles Martinet popped OFF on this one. Could’ve used another world or two, if only to help pad out the difficulty curve (the last level especially feels like an ultra-sadistic bonus stage), but Treasure keeps a steady flow of creativity running through these levels, which mostly manage to balance sprawling layouts with focused design. I actually think the game could’ve been even better if they’d leaned more into the non-linearity—each level is full of alternate paths and entire sub-areas that fold back in on themselves beautifully, but progress is often gated by annoyingly specific bottlenecks. (That is to say: required area A and optional areas B and C will all be fully interconnected, but required area D will only be accessible from area A. I’d like these levels a lot more if A, B, and C all led to D. U C?) Gloriously unhinged boss designs, too; shame the final one is such an anticlimax. Would’ve killed for a 3DS remake of this back in the day.