Nintendo has just added a new game to its collection of GameCube Classics for the Switch 2’s Online + Expansion Pack subscription: 3D platform game Wario World.
I’ve always loved the very existence of Wario. Antithesis villain characters are woefully underused in the realm of video games, despite those that we’re familiar with being so bloody brilliant. Wario, Shadow the Hedgehog…um… See! Oh wait, there was that Evil Crash Bandicoot that one time, right? But where’s a goatee-wearing Joel Miller who sides with the infected? Or a mirror world of mustachioed Pokémon, looking to capture human trainers in silver, spiky balls? (You know what the real problem is? In trying to think of examples for this dumb joke, I realized that nearly all video game leads these days are already antiheroes, which sucks.)
Wario is the perfect platonic example of an antithesis character, the result of flipping an ‘M’ upside down and the pure evil that results. Yes, I have enormous love for Waluigi, but Wario is the OG. And let’s be honest, “Waluigi” is a semantic stretch. “Wario” is so clever not just because it invokes a Mario from the Upside Down, but because warui (悪い) literally means “bad.” No notes.
Wario World was the gold-loving monster’s first outing that wasn’t on a handheld. (Wario jokes at the start of the game that “I’ve always been stuck in those liquid crystal displays, but not anymore!”) While not made in-house at Nintendo—instead by Treasure, the team that brought us Gunstar Heroes and Bangai-O—it was clearly inspired by the design of Mario 64, albeit with a fixed camera, but with a much greater focus on combat.
And it was good! Not great, not a Mario-like game-changing event, but a good, solid and extremely busy action-platformer. However, the concerns on its original 2003 release are somewhat lessened with the passing of time, not least the contentious nature of its brevity and price. Wario World was a premium game, but over in eight hours, and that sucked. But in 2025, when it’s the latest addition in a subscription pack you most likely pay for so you can play Switch games online, that issue becomes far less important. The retracing your steps and over-reliance on boss fights will still irk, but hey, it feels like it was free.
Wario World joins The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, F-ZERO GX, Soulcalibur II, Mario Smash Football, Chibi-Robo! and Luigi’s Mansion in the GameCube Classics collection. Still to be added but said to be coming soon are Super Mario Sunshine, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness and Pokémon Colosseum.