From Mario Land to Wario Land: How a Villain Stole the Series

Every good hero needs a rival, but few video game villains have ever been so successful that they walked off with the whole franchise. Wario did exactly that. He began as the final boss of a single Game Boy game, a fat and greedy mirror image of Mario, and within two years he had bullied his way into the title role of his own series. It is one of the strangest career paths in gaming, and it happened almost entirely on the small grey screen of the Game Boy.

The Villain Who Arrived in 1992

Wario made his debut in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, released in 1992 as the sequel to Mario's Game Boy launch adventure. The setup was personal in a way Mario stories rarely are. While Mario was away in Sarasaland, a jealous rival had seized his castle, hypnotised the locals and declared himself the new master of the land. To get back in, Mario had to hunt down six golden coins scattered across the game's world and unlock the door to his own home. That rival, waiting at the very end, was Wario.

Super Mario Land 2 was a huge leap over the original. Gone was the tiny line-art look; Mario was now big and expressive, and the game offered a free-roaming overworld and a battery save, so you could explore its themed zones in almost any order. But the thing everyone remembered was the boss. Here was a character who looked like Mario had been left out in the sun too long: broad, scowling, moustachioed and dressed in yellow and purple. Players had never seen anything quite like him.

The six golden coins of the title were guarded by six bosses across six themed zones, from a giant mechanical Mario statue to a haunted house and a space-themed level, each hiding one coin. Collecting all six was the only way to breach the castle door. It gave the game a clear sense of purpose and quietly introduced the kind of hub-and-spoke structure that later Mario platformers would lean on heavily.

What Is in a Name

The design is a masterclass in visual shorthand. Wario is Mario turned sour in every way. Where Mario is red, Wario is yellow; where Mario is kind, Wario is greedy; and the bold letter on his cap is simply Mario's "M" flipped upside down into a "W". The name works the same way: it fuses Mario with the Japanese word "warui", meaning "bad". Wario was designed by Hiroji Kiyotake at Nintendo R&D1, the same studio that built the Game Boy and the Super Mario Land games.

There is a delicious piece of trivia behind his creation. R&D1 was not Mario's home team; that was Shigeru Miyamoto's group. According to Nintendo lore, the R&D1 staff felt little affection for having to build games around a character they had not invented, and Wario was born partly out of that friendly resentment, an outlet for a team that wanted a Mario of their very own. The bad guy, in other words, was a little bit autobiographical.

From Boss to Star: Wario Land

Nintendo clearly sensed they had something special, because Wario was promoted with startling speed. Just two years later came Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, released in 1994. The title tells the whole story: it is officially the third Super Mario Land game, yet Mario is nowhere to be the star. Wario is the one you control, and his motivation is pure greed. Rather than rescuing a princess, he is out to steal enough treasure to buy himself a castle bigger than Mario's.

That single change in motivation reshaped the gameplay. Wario is slower and stronger than Mario, shoulder-barging blocks and enemies rather than nimbly hopping over them, and every level is stuffed with coins and hidden treasure to hoard. The amount of money you finish with even determines the ending you get. It was a platformer built around avarice, and it was a hit, spawning a long-running Wario Land series and, later, the chaotic WarioWare games.

A Different Kind of Hero

The collection follows Wario's rise across several cartridges, including the Japanese release of Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 and its sequel Wario Land 2. Wario Land 2 pushed the antihero idea even further with a famous twist: Wario could no longer die. Enemies would flatten him, set him on fire or turn him into a spring, but he always bounced back, because losing his coins hurt him far more than losing a life ever could.

Wario never looked back. The Wario Land series ran through the Game Boy, Game Boy Color and beyond, and in 2003 the character reinvented himself again as the host of WarioWare, a frantic collection of five-second microgames. From a single scowling sprite on a monochrome screen, Nintendo had built one of its most bankable comic villains, a greedy counterweight to Mario's earnest heroism.

Wario in the Collection

From a throwaway boss to the face of his own franchise, Wario is proof that the Game Boy was a place where Nintendo took risks. You can trace the whole arc in the museum, from Mario's Super Mario Land 2 through the Wario Land games, right down to oddities like a packet of Wario Land branded tissues and a period Wario Land advertisement. Not bad for a character who was only ever meant to be beaten and forgotten.