I love this game!!!
Wario World is a very fun platformer that combines 3-D elements with 2-D sidescrolling gameplay similar to the views found in Arcade style beat 'em up games.
The controls are amazing! They respond very well and always do what you expect! I really like the hurricane throws! Spin the control stick with an enemy in your hands and you start spinning around like Mario with Bowser in Mario 64 and destroy everything that comes in your path.
The graphics are quite good and at times are very amusing to look at like when Wario stands there and his face starts twitching around which I found pretty funny. Everything looks well drawn, the environment is very nice to look at. Some of the special effects like fire weren't as good as they could have been, but with how often you move around, it doesn't make much of a difference unless you stare at it. The camera took a while to get used to, but it works very well for this game. In the underground areas, you have full 3-D angles to play with.
There's not much to say about the sounds other than it's nice to hear them and fit well. The music is pretty good, especially for the ghost and ice levels.
The overall gameplay is quite fun. This game works a lot like Wario Land Virtual Boy, so you look for treasures. You find 5 little characters hidden in the stages, a number of red crystals to open the boss doors at the end, 8 treasures per level, and pieces for the Wario statues that give you extra hearts for hit points. The stages are for the most part linear, so you go one way for the most part. Some levels like in the circus stage, you go all over the place, up, down, left, right, everywhere. There's a ton to explore! There are 4 world, each have 2 stages, each with bosses at the end, and an end of world boss. If you find all the secret treasures, you get to unlock the special chest found in the world select screen which is pretty interactive.
All in all, this is a quite addicting game and a hard game to stop playing. Some of the stages can take pretty long to play, but that's OK because of all the exploring you get to do. I rarely play a game for extended periods, but this one is an exception. I spend about 30-45 minutes per level exploring every little bit I possibly can. I was never a fan of Wario until I played Wario Land Virtual Boy which I thought was an amazing game. I was looking for another game and saw this game was on sale and decided to get Wario World. Whatever free time I have usually goes into this game.
If you are considering getting a Wario game, this is one you should definitely get. I would say starting with Wario Land Virtual Boy first seeing as how that game is a little easier to play and a little more straightforward than this one. This is definitely one of the Gamecube's better platformers made by Nintendo.
