Money turnin' funny

Wario shares the same philosophy with Gordon Gecko, believing that "Greed is good."
As the game's story begins with Wario finally completing construction of his castle, where he wallows in a stockpile of gold and jewels hidden deep within his fortress. Yes, Wario is feeling pretty fine.

Unbeknownst to him, hidden among the treasure is a strange, evil black jewel plotting to build a kingdom of its own and it turns Wario's treasures into monsters. Wario goes from riches to rags and now must fight his way through to reclaim all his loot.

Wario World is divided up into four distinct worlds. A world is composed of three stages: two adventure stages and one 'world boss' stage. Each world must be completed before the next one opens up and each level must be completed before progressing on to the next one. It's completely linear, unlike the options one is given in Mario Sunshine.

The regular stages of Wario World play very much like a platformer crossed with a beat-em-up. Wario will face many enemies, none of which are particularly smart, which he'll have to dispose of. Instead of stomping on their heads or squirting them with a water gun, Wario resorts to his fists and other brawling tactics. The 'B' button throws punch combos; holding it or the 'R' shoulder button performs the charging dash attack. The big 'A' button is the jump button that you'll be pressing many times through this game. Hitting 'R' while in the air will perform the butt-stomp that Mario made famous first on the Nintendo 64. The 'L' and 'Z' shoulder buttons make Wario perform his best Kirby impression by opening his mouth WIDE and sucking in the coins around him. The size of his gaping black-hole mouth is tied directly to the analog shoulder -- definitely the most hilarious piece of character animation in Wario World.

I'm the king of the world!

Just one of the whacky levels you'll play

Wario taking on the mob

Taking a page from the WWE

The real fun begins when you knock down one of the monsters and hit 'B' to grab and pick them up. Pressing and holding 'B' will throw them, best used to toss enemies into another group of monsters or off a cliff. Or you can have Wario do his best Zangief impression and perform a spinning piledriver by jumping in the air and hitting the butt-stomp. The impact from landing will also hit anything nearby and is very useful for taking out a cluster of enemies. You could rotate the control stick a few times to initiate a wild spin that rotates around over 20 times (think Wolf from Virtua Fighter on steroids). Aside from clearing away everything around you, the "wild swing-ding" tornado move is used to spin platforms and switches.