Wario's Woods

"Solid for the most part, but not without flaws"

Intro
This game's pretty solid. By this, I mean it does pretty much everything it's supposed to do. If you own it too long, it'll get boring, but many games are like that...

This game has only a few problems, but they may become glaring once you've played it a lot.

Playing the game
This'll be brief, but I feel a basic understanding of the game is required for a review to be interpreted. This is a basic puzzle game at first glance: you have your classic 'blocks' falling into a pit, some of these are bombs, some of these are monsters, and you have to line up at least three monsters/bombs of the same color (but at least one of them MUST be a bomb), and they are all eliminated. The goal is to destroy all of the monsters.

Where we deviate from the norm is that you don't control the falling blocks. Instead, you actually control a versatile little guy (Toad) who's running around in the puzzle land place thing, and he's the size of one of the 'blocks'. You have to make HIM do the work. Now let's look at how well the game plays...

Evaluation: Gameplay
You have several different modes. Unlike what some guy who wrote another review of this game says, you are NOT always in a split-screen VS. mode. You do have a VS. CPU mode (I haven't beaten it yet, but I've been close), and a two-player VS. mode, but there are TWO one-player modes without any CPU opponents in sight. How these were overlooked by the reviewer is beyond me, since they're right on the main menu. The main one-player mode has 100 or so levels...I got to level 74, but you can only save every five levels, so I'm stuck at level 70.

The other one-player mode is a classic Time Attack. It gives you a mess of monsters and you have to clean it up as soon as possible, and if you're fast enough, you're rewarded with a medal. Not too fun in my experience, but some people out there will have to like it.

It does its job well no matter how you play it (except maybe the time attack). The major problem I have is that the VS. CPU mode and in the 'standard' one-player mode are long and drawn out. Even if you start VS. CPU on the ''Hard'' difficulty, you're quite a ways from the end of the game. As I said, the 'standard' one-player mode has 100 levels, and I got to level 74. It's pretty impossible around there, too. :)

Which leads to the other problem - it gets too hard sometimes! This game DOES get frustrating when you get far into it, often you're trying to run up a column of bombs/monsters or maybe a wall, and you keep getting stuff dropped on your head causing you to start to fall to the bottom...so you quickly tap X to jump on top of it, and it happens again...argh! That's the major weakness of having to control a character. :(

I'd give the gameplay a seven out of ten. Bonus points for originality, I suppose.

Evaluation: Play control
Toad is versatile. It's particularly useful how he can kick the bombs and monsters, and hop to the top of a stack that he's carrying. It's not perfect, but how much more versatility could I ask for? Only problem is that it's frustrating to get stuff dropped on top of you while you're running up something in the difficult parts...

In general, eight out of ten.

Evaluation: Graphics
Typical SNES fare. Most of the graphics are basic sprites. Since the graphics are about nondescript due to the nature of the game, I won't waste time describing them. :)

All factors considered, however, I'd give them about a ten out of ten - this IS a puzzle game we're talking about.

Evaluation: Music
It'll get a little irritating after a while, but it's okay. Not a whole lot of tracks, though. I'd say it's average. It does have stereo sound, though, but I don't consider that a factor, myself, because I don't think stereo sound is THAT much better than mono.

Six out of ten.

Evaluation: Sound FX
Most of the sound effects are bleepy NES-like sounds. They're not NES-like to the point you'd pull your hair out, though. Aside from these, there is the explosion sound, and quick voice samples (''Cool!'', ''Breakfast!'', etc.) The voices aren't the best I've heard, and the sounds are pretty nondescript.

Pretty average. Five out of ten.

Should I buy this game or what?
If it's cheap enough, go ahead. It'll entertain you a while if you're a puzzle game kinda guy. Don't expect the fun to last forever, though.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/30/01, Updated 09/30/01