Why wasn't Wario more popular?

[jess_and_luigi]

I played tons of gameboy games growing up but I never logged more hours on anything than the original Wario Land. It's like a grim, artsy, hipsteresque version of Mario that came way before its time. But people never seem to know about it. Have I just been meeting the wrong people? :3

If you've never played the original Wario, go play it! There are free gameboy emulators on the web that have it, but the cartridge itself isn't that hard to find either if you have a gameboy or super gameboy that's still in working order. (Which of course is the best option. Nothing beats the feel of those old controller buttons

Mario is cool and everything, but Wario's aesthetic is undeniably pretty awesome.

 

[CarpeNemo]

I just never liked Wario games, to be honest. I always felt he was just a sideline thing to grub more money up. I suppose he has his place in the world, but really, I just don't like him.

The WarioWare games were entertaining to some extent, and suited his character better though. I do wonder why you never really see WaLuigi much though.

 

[Jessi]

He shows up in a bunch of games. I always found him to be quite annoying, though. So maybe it's because others didn't really like him either. There are plenty of 'villains' for people to "love to hate" but I think people just hated Wario in general.

 

[jess_and_luigi]

I don't know anyone who legit hated Wario.

I know a lot of gamers with sort of weird taste though, so who knows. Maybe he's just a niche thing. Well Wario I'm your niche -_-
Also I personally really like the whole "love to hate" think you're talking about with villains. I guess heroes just get boring after a while. I want to be the greedy bad guy.

 

[GGovan]

I played tons of gameboy games growing up but I never logged more hours on anything than the original Wario Land. It's like a grim, artsy, hipsteresque version of Mario that came way before its time. But people never seem to know about it. Have I just been meeting the wrong people? :3

If you've never played the original Wario, go play it! There are free gameboy emulators on the web that have it, but the cartridge itself isn't that hard to find either if you have a gameboy or super gameboy that's still in working order. (Which of course is the best option. Nothing beats the feel of those old controller buttons

Mario is cool and everything, but Wario's aesthetic is undeniably pretty awesome.

I played it! And I actually loved it!
And yeah it was this weird version of Mario that I ended up loving and playing again and again.

 

[shdws]

He wasn't that appealing, at least to me. He was kind of fun to play as, but is just very annoying. Just my two cents.

 

[AurelioLeo]

I think Wario to kids is a bad guy and kids want to be the good guy. To many kids in my opinion deemed him uncool and bad. I think he was more receptive towards adults in which I think he is cool. He is the alternate bad guy from Browser in my opinion and it opens it up for more storylines.

 

[Sizzle]

I guess they made Mario to look more like someone kids would look up, rather than Wario. He always had this weird grin that may not seem very appealing to children. Growing up playing Mario games, I always thought of Mario being the star of the show, and a bit of Luigi being his sidekick. Wario never really seemed like the heroic type that kids would look up to. He looked more like a sneaky little greedy man but maybe that's just me.

 

[BTCGuru81]

I loved Super Mario Land 3 and all the subsequent sequels. None of them quite lived up to the first for me but I consider it one of the better platformers among it's peers. That says a lot for it, being on the poor little first run gameboy with it's limitations. ( I love that little grey brick )

I think my favorite part of the game isn't so much the game itself, but the feeling of having a "Mario" game that wasn't quite a Mario game so I could compare and contrast the in game mechanics. It's tricky to explain, but I think it was best in it's time and place. I don't know if kids would get why it was so refreshing today, having not been through the early platformer days on 8 bit consoles. Being able to break the blocks...FROM THE SIDES?! Amazing!

Wario gets a hat? WOW!

haha. SImpler times in video games but well worth a play through today if you haven't tried it. There's even some hidden content if you dig through the game long enough.

 

[Esperahol]

Kids like good guys? Weird. Anyway I like Wario and his games because he was hilarious in many ways. Also there wasn't this emphasis on being Mario Hard. It was just platforming and some level of randomness. So yeah I enjoy Wario well enough.

 

[Amanda Jorgensen]

Oh dear I always viewed him as ugly Mario and no one wants to be ugly... especially us pretty girl gamers haha.

 

[JoanMcWench]

Mario was never a favourite of mine. Given a choice between the two: I'd always choose Wario. Never considered him a villain though. I guess just less of a do-gooder & more of a selfish character with jokes. I'd choose Luigi over Mario. Mario is clearly not on my list of best characters.

 

[joshposh]

Character personality aside, he was a carbon copy of Mario. Nintendo could of gone and did a few more game on Wario, with new adventures and alternate universes, opposite of Mario. There are the possibilities, it was there. That was ultimately Nintendo's decision, or perhaps it was never on the table to be discussed. We don't know and a bit too late. He is reduced to kart games now.

 

[Demon_skeith]

I personally really enjoyed the wario world games greatly, wish they make another since he had a fun style to play with and collecting all the different treasures. I would play the game for hours just to figure out some of the hard stuff in it.