 SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS SDRUNK When I made a video about Super Nintendo games compatible with the SNES mouse a few years ago, there were a surprising number of people in the comments that did not know that the mouse even was compatible with any other game other than Mario Paint. And yeah it most certainly is, there's all sorts of interesting games like She ends Revenge, Trottlers, Tinstar, as well as Mario and Wario, a puzzle game that for whatever reason never got released outside of Japan. Not only that, this game was developed by Game Freak, and the project was headed by Pokemon creator Satoshi Tajiri. That's right, a freaking Mario game made by Game Freak that stayed in Japan. And that's too bad, because this game is pretty solid, and it helps that the story is actually pretty amusing and something a little different. Well, different for a Mario game, anyway. So Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Yoshi are all exploring a forest looking for this fairy named Wanda, because why not, I guess. Anyway, Luigi gets lost, of course he does. So the rest of the gang has to go looking for him. But that dastardly Wario shows up and drops stuff on everyone's heads, which promptly gets stuck and impairs their vision. Wanda shows up and decides to help them out, to try and find Luigi, and of course Wanda can't simply help take Mario's bucket off, because I don't know, I guess it's above her fairy pay grade or something. But that brings me to the gameplay. You control Wanda, and you're tasked with guiding Mario, Yoshi, or Peach to the perpetually lost and confused Luigi. Yup, this is one of those escort games, where one character is constantly moving and it's up to you to remove all the obstacles in their way within the time limit. I reviewed another game like this a while back, Rocco's Modern Life, Spunky's Dangerous Day, but this game is a great deal better than that one, and that's mostly because this game is much more polished, with more clever puzzles to get through. Plus, the mouse control definitely helps as well, and I should mention that this game only works with the SNES mouse, it doesn't recognize the controller. But really, for me, using the mouse here wasn't that big of a deal, because the Wanda sprite is big enough to cover plenty of ground, and the hit detection for activating blocks is reasonably forgiving. Plus when a character is about to fall, they have a short animation that gives you an extra split second to act. There's 110 levels in this game, and you only start with two lives, but you have plenty of chances to get more. There's three different difficulty settings, so to speak, if you play through as Peach, that's the easy setting since she moves the slowest. Mario is medium, and Yoshi is hard, and man, oh man, this game really gets hard if you pick Yoshi, so I would definitely recommend starting with Mario at the very least. What's cool here is that you can pick a different character at the beginning of each level, so you're not stuck with the same one throughout your playthrough. I'd also recommend setting the mouse speed at high, the game just plays much better that way. The game also gives you the option to start at whichever level you want via this menu screen, so if you want to skip the super easy level one, you can do so, so that's pretty cool. There's 10 different puzzles in each level, complete all 10 and you get a fun little bonus game, where you crash Wario's plane, and that's always fun. You start out with just basic blocks that you have to activate, then more elements get introduced the more you play. There's timed blocks that deactivate after a few seconds, there's blocks you have to break, blocks that alternate with other blocks, there's springs that launch you upward, there's coin blocks you can hit, and of course 100 coins grants you an extra life, there's stars you collect and four of those grant you an extra life, and there's enemies you eventually have to avoid. Thankfully, you can click on the item on your character's head and make them change direction as well, and there's some enemies that you can just zap with the mouse to make them disappear. But yeah, there's a lot going on in these puzzles, and a lot you have to try and manage, and it makes for a stressful playthrough. It boils down to clicking blocks in the right order either before or just as your character gets there, and that is easier said than done. It is a real challenge to figure this stuff out on the fly, but the game never feels convoluted or unfair. The puzzles for the most part all make sense. Well, they all make sense eventually. Some of the later levels are huge and feel overwhelming and take multiple tries to figure out, and you don't get much of a chance to explore either thanks to the time limit. And then there's enemies like these bats. But yeah, Mario and Wario is a fun game, but it's definitely a challenge, and I understand that this kind of game isn't for everyone. Not everyone likes games centered around escort missions. It's frustrating not being able to directly control one of the characters, but I will say, as far as puzzle games of this nature go, this one is well made featuring some clever design, and there's almost always more than one way to get from point A to point B. The game doesn't expect you to follow just one singular path, so I really appreciate that. Even better about this game is that there's no English patch necessary. Everything's already in English, which makes it even more confusing as to why this never got a release outside of Japan. Oh well, either way, if you dig puzzle games, then you gotta play this one any way you can. Alright, I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.