Man, Nintendo was REALLY leaning in hard on these pointless puzzle games for the Mario franchise, weren’t they? They had something going there with Dr. Mario, I’ll give them that, but then they made Yoshi, a fine enough puzzle game, but one that isn’t engaging enough to where I wanna play it for more then five minutes, and Yoshi’s Cookie, the one that will probably give Yoshi diabetes while also STILL not being engaging enough to make me wanna play for even more than five minutes! There comes a time when, after trying time and time again, you gotta take a step back and realize you have already peaked, and you will never be able to reach that success again. But nonetheless, that didn’t stop them from trying, so for their next attempt, they decided to give the green dino a break, and instead use their good ol’ yellow fat man instead for another experiment, and thus, they created Wario’s Woods.

Like with Yoshi and Yoshi’s Cookie, I never had any real interest to give this game a proper shot beforehand, primarily because it was another Mario puzzle game from the NES, and I wasn’t really wanting to try it out for fear that it would just be another mid puzzler with nothing to show for it. I have been curious about it for a while though, not just because it is a Wario puzzle game, but also because it is the last officially licensed NES game ever released for us in the states, so I wondered how exactly were they going to end off the legacy of such an industry-changing console. Well, now that I have played it, let me tell you then that, they ended it off with… another mid puzzler with nothing to show for it. For what we got here, I would say it is a good game, and you could have some fun with it with the right people, but it does fall into a lot of the same problems that both Yoshi and Yoshi’s Cookie had, with not much else to show for it.

The story is appropriately simple, where Wario takes over the all-too-perfect Peaceful Woods and turns all of the creatures that inhabit them into sinister beasts, so it is up to some random Toad from the Mushroom Kingdom to go in and stop anymore destruction from happening, which is an incredibly stupid premise, but I feel it fits right at home with the game as a whole. The graphics are pretty good, having plenty of great sprites and animations for all the characters and enemies, all feeling like a good way to send off the system it was made for, the music is good enough, having cheery and sinister tracks for whatever is going on at the moment, but none of the tracks are all that memorable, the control is a bit different from what you usually expect in a puzzle game, and it does take some getting used to, which I never really did at the end of it all, and the gameplay is simple enough for a puzzler, taking elements from other puzzle games and sprinkling them all together, for a perfectly average experience.

The game is a mostly typical puzzle game, where you take control of that random Toad that I mentioned earlier, go through plenty of different rounds through plenty of different tree trunks, match up plenty of different monsters together while trying to connect them to the falling bombs, gather up plenty of the coins that will fall down when you win so you could feel better about yourself, then turn off the game and go back to playing Tetris, because why would you bother playing this when Tetris is right there. It is a very simple puzzle game with some neat ideas, and its got the visuals and music to back it up for a good while, but like I mentioned before, not only is the game not really exciting or rewarding enough to where you wanna keep going for hours on end, but there are also somethings in general that are just holding it back.

Unlike many other puzzle games, where you take control of either the pieces or some other aspect of the game to get the pieces to match up, you actually take control of Toad himself, running around in these tree trunks and matching up all of the monsters and bombs yourself. This, in all honesty, is actually a pretty neat idea, and it does make you think differently about how to approach this type of game, since before things start falling down on top of you, you can actually move around the monsters that you are trying to clear out so that you can get rid of them pretty quickly, which is very helpful at times. It also helps that you can also do several things with Toad that you wouldn’t be able to do in other puzzle games, like climbing up columns of monsters to get to the other side of them, or kicking certain pieces across the board, which is neat. And of course, like any good puzzle game, there is a two player vs. mode, where you and a friend can battle it out to see which one of you is the best monster exterminator of them all, and while I myself didn’t try out this mode, I imagine it is the best way to experience a game like this.

Unfortunately, just like with some of the other Mario spin-off puzzle games I have covered on this website, there just isn’t that much here for me to really call this a bonafide classic puzzle game for the NES. It just doesn’t have that same kind of addicting and engaging feel that other puzzle games like Tetris or Dr. Mario has, and as such, it once again can’t keep me really all that interested or excited to play it for more than five minutes. Not to mention, while the idea of controlling an actual character in a puzzle game like this is neat in theory, but in practice, it is kinda sloppy. Sure, you can pull off a lot of maneuvers you wouldn’t be able to otherwise, but you also get plenty of restrictions, like not being able to climb up monsters while you are holding something, which makes the gameplay even more tedious, and the direction in which you pick up things can also take some getting used to. It isn’t impossible to get a handle of, but it is just a little frustrating to do so.

Overall, despite some neat ideas and having all of the elements present for a great time, Wario’s Woods is yet another incredibly forgettable puzzle game from the NES, doing the bare minimum for a title from this genre, and providing a good amount of fun for the time that it lasts, but there just isn’t enough there to keep the average puzzle enthusiast entertained for too long before wanting to move onto something else. I would recommend it for those who are fans of puzzle games, as well as those who were fans of games like Yoshi or Yoshi’s Cookie, but other than that, you would be much better off sticking to much better alternatives that were already out by this point. Not only that, but Wario should also stick to platforming, as he just isn’t cut out for the puzzle lifestyle. I mean, what other kind of weird, out of pocket shit could he pull off other than that? I guess it will remain a mystery… anyway, I wonder what Bomberman is up to?

Game #534

Reviewed on Mar 21, 2024


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