Wario's Woods

Overview

Wario's Woods is a match-three puzzle game developed and published by Nintendo for both the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Released in 1994, the NES version has the distinction of being the very last game published for the platform in North America.

The game's plot follows Toad, who is walking through what he assumes to be Toadstool's Garden. It is revealed, however that he has wandered into Wario's Woods and become lost, whilst Wario's monsters invade the Mushroom Kingdom. Wanda, Birdo and Toad all fight the monsters.

Gameplay

The game plays similarly to Puyo Puyo. Toad is the main hero, with Birdo providing encouragement and Wanda helping Toad by giving him bombs to destroy the monsters. Monsters must be lined up with at least three in a row of a color with at least one bomb to be removed. Toad can pick up and drop monsters and bombs one at a time, and he can also run up the walls of the tree.

If Toad takes too long to complete a level, Wario grabs Birdo and replaces Wanda with a Pidgit, both of whom throw more monsters at Toad.

Enemies

• Wario
• Fuzz
• Spud
• Squeak
• Beaker
• Scram
• Dovo
• Spook
• Akuman

Multiplayer

The game includes a two-player versus mode. Monster types, initial height, and drop speed can be adjusted before the match. The first player to clear the playing field of monsters or crush the opponent wins the round. A best-of-five system decides the overall winner. Wins and losses of the two players are tracked persistently with four save files available.

Tactics

• Clearing diagonal lines causes the big block to rise on the player's side. A line of three causes it to rise by one row, a line of four by two, etc.
• Clearing lines of four causes the opponent's block to drop by one row, five by two, etc.
• Clearing a line of five or more causes a crystal of a color (possibly the one with the least monsters on screen) to appear. Destroying the crystal causes all the monsters of its color to disappear.
• Chain reactions cause the big block to rise on the player's side and cause a column of monsters of a color to appear on the opponent's side.
• Clearing two (or more) lines simultaneously causes an egg (or more) to appear on the opponent's side. If the egg hatches, a row of monsters of a specific color will appear.