Wario (Super Smash Bros. Brawl)


 * This article is about Wario's appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. For other uses, see Wario.

Unveiled at E3 2006, Wario (ワリオ) makes his first playable appearance in Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Wearing his WarioWare outfit, Wario has an attack where he builds up flatulence over time and later releases a deadly fart called the Wario Waft, which was highly exaggerated in the trailer by making it a bigger explosion of fart than it is in the actual game, similar to the exaggeration of Dimensional Cape. Wario moves with a Mr. Game & Watch-like stop-motion gait (similar to his movement in WarioWare cutscenes).

Wario currently ranks 5th on the tier list (the second highest ranked sub-series Mario character) due to his unique attributes as a fighter (e.g. small size, heavy weight, and great horizontal directional influence), great recovery when all recovery options are present, good approach game, amazing air game/mobility combined with an amazing air dodge, unpredictability, great matchups, very low amount of weaknesses, and his amazing Wario Waft KO move.

Attributes
Wario is a unique, unorthodox addition to the Smash Bros. series. He is a heavy character, so he is hard to KO, but he has amazing mobility in the air, possessing the third-fastest lateral air movement (behind Yoshi and Jigglypuff), arguably the fastest air speed acceleration, almost no loss of speed when changing direction and with a solid set of aerials to go with it. His air speed combined with his great air dodge (both fast and still moves very fast at the same time) allows him to be a great camper despite his lack of a solid projectile. He can even run out the timer against certain slow characters. However, this requires him to take the percent or stock lead to force the opponent to approach. His fast air speed makes up for his slow dash speed and roll. Some of Wario's moves are laggy, but this is not severe, as Wario's overall attack speed isn't bad, especially on his aerials. Wario is one of the few characters in the game that can punish low lag moves, due to his amazing air mobility, often with dair that is also hard to not get punished with. His recovery is deceptively good when all options are available, thanks to his Wario Bike, Wario Waft, and his aerial movement. On the other hand, Wario's recovery is extremely situational, because he can't recover with the Wario Bike if it's lying on the ground, the Wario Waft has to be charged to give Wario good recovery distance, and Corkscrew is a poor recovery move in general, due its mediocre distance and inability to auto-sweetspot the ledge until near the ending of the move.

Wario thrives on surprise and deception, and he can vary his approaches like few can. One of Wario's most notable attributes is his size (about the same size as Mario, but a tad wider), which is rather small for a heavyweight (the smallest), meaning he is relatively difficult to hit. Wario can also crawl, although it is not entirely useful for dodging attacks, so it is usually used for landing down-tilts while approaching the character.

Wario boasts one of the best Smash Boosts in the game, which allows him to cover great distances and string together attacks in a relatively short amount of time, often effective after a Chomp at lower percentages. His dacus is also very useful for retrieving tires at a distance that he's bounced off the ground. Other abilities include his ability to juggle with his Up aerial, KO opponents at low percentages with his forward smash or even lower with an almost fully charged Wario Waft which at that point can KO as low as 50% with start-up of only 5 frames, and use Chomp to stop projectiles and interrupt certain moves, many of them powerful, commonly used approaches (e.g. Jigglypuff's Rollout), because Chomp behaves like a grab. Chomp is one of his better moves. It has very fast start-up, goes through any spot dodge due its extreme duration, goes through shields because it's a grab and beats any non-disjointed move and non-invincible moves (certain moves makes him take full damage, but still let him grab the opponent). It can also be reversed (although it cannot be used to change momentum), as well as be used to eat items, and doing so to an explosive makes him take slight damage, but also creates a hitbox that deals decent damage with fairly high knockback. His Wario Bike, when thrown at an enemy, is the only projectile in the game that can spike (with the exception of the pitfall item), and it is quite large (and thus hard to avoid). Because of his limited KO moves, Wario should not use them too much for racking up damage (although they are all very good KO moves when fresh). He has also a very good grab game: his forward throw does 13% damage and also KOs lightweights in the edge at about 150% if they have good Directional Influence. Also, he can chain grab with his down throw on several characters until high percentages.

He only has a few main weaknesses. For one, Wario has poor range on his attacks (except his jab, his grab and more noticeably, his Forward Tilt), especially with his smashes, which is not a big problem unless the opponent has long range, priority, and speed like Marth. This is compensated for by his unpredictable and fast approach, and the fact that attacking his motorcycle breaks it up to yield temporary projectiles, which, with his glide toss (and the unusual bouncing properties of the wheels), makes up for his poor range. One of Wario's more daunting flaws is the very long ending lag in many of his ground attacks (especially his forward and down smashes), and the long start-up time in other ground attacks (especially his forward and up tilts). Because of this problem, aspiring Wario players should concentrate on his aerial game. Another problem, though minor, is that Wario has poor get-up rolls and get-up attacks, making him fairly easy to tech-chase when on the ground. Another problem would be that his unusual jump break animation coming out of a grab leaves him extremely vulnerable to attacks and infinite grab releases; however, to compensate that lag, his dominantly aerial fighting style makes him one of the most difficult characters to grab due to characters being completely safe from grabs in midair. While these issues aren't overly crippling, and not all characters have a grab release option against Wario-including Meta Knight-and many of those with one have trouble grabbing Wario, a Wario player has to stay very deceptive and slippery to avoid getting nailed by his poor range and getting grabbed by those who have a grab release option on him.

Taunts
Up: Belly-laughs so hard (as heard by the Wii-mote when selecting Wario), his jaw unhinges, so he has to manually put it back with his hands. If he is holding the back tire of his bike, it looks as if he is biting it.

Side: Accompanied by a "wiggly" sound similar to the one heard while using Corkscrew. Wario wiggles his butt at the screen with his hands extended in each direction, and he teasingly snickers. Wario seems to float as the bottoms of his shoes are touching each other. His shortest taunt.

Down: Wario faces the screen, holds up three fingers with his left hand that seem to form a "W" for Wario, and then does the same with his right hand after putting away his left hand. Then, he holds them both out at the same time. Wario utters "Wah!" three times for each time he holds up a hand, the third "Wah!" having the most enthusiasm.

While riding Wario Bike (in any direction): Wario faces to his right and does his signature "W" sign at the screen with both hands and then picks his nose with his left hand. Another trick considered a taunt is when Wario does a wheelie by gently holding up on the control stick, where he stands on the back of his seat and flaps his right hand based on how fast he is going up and down.

Role in The Subspace Emissary


After Kirby does battle with Petey Piranha to free the princesses, one of the cages in which Petey holds either Princess Zelda or Princess Peach will break, depending on which cage the player damaged more while battling Petey. The Princess who the player saves will escape with the player; the other will be injured and trapped beneath their wrecked cage. Wario drops heavily into the stadium with a Dark Cannon. Blasting the princess, Wario traps her in the form of a trophy and takes off with the trophy on his shoulder. He is revealed to be a member of the Subspace Army.

Wario then hunts down Lucas in an abandoned zoo, dispatching Porky to corner him and weakening him. Porky is defeated by Lucas with the help of Ness, but Wario appears and captures Ness, who is hit defending Lucas.

Upon finding the trophy of Luigi, Wario lets his guard down and picks up the trophy. Wario is ambushed by Waddle Dees and then loses his trophies to King Dedede, who steals his Cargo. Wario tracks Lucas and his partner, the Pokémon Trainer, down and fights them. Wario is defeated and left behind. When Galleom's Subspace Bomb detonates, the area of Subspace expands and absorbs Wario's trophy. Wario confronts King Dedede later on the steps to the Great Maze, and he is stunned to see Luigi and Ness beside him. King Dedede, Luigi, and Ness point to the Great Maze to show it to Wario, who thinks that they are pointing to his nose (Wario was standing between King Dedede and the Great Maze). Thus Wario starts to pick his nose. Realising that he can't fight all of them, he instead drives his bike to the top and beats them there. He also aids the heroes in their battle against Tabuu.

Although he works for the Subspace Army, he had no specific allegiance to Master Hand, only following his orders because he enjoyed doing so.

On-Screen Appearance
Crashes in sideways on his bike while laughing, jumps off, and his bike explodes while he dusts himself off.

Idle Poses

 * Crosses his arms, fists clenched.
 * Scratches his bottom.

Victory Pose
Victory Theme: Wario Series Theme
 * He does a donut on his bike, makes a "W" sign with his hand, saying "Yes!", then pulls on his mustache and makes the "W" sign again, process repeats.
 * He laughs gloatingly and then falls over, rolling on his back.
 * Pats his belly, releasing a fart that after smelling, results in an "Oooh..." from Wario.

Wii Remote Choice
Wario does his signature belly laugh, also heard when initiating his upward directional taunt.

Credits Music

 * WarioWare, Inc. Medley

Cheer

 * "Wario! Cha-Cha-Cha!"

Trivia

 * Due to his dodgy walking animation, if he is walking backwards on conveyor belts in custom stages, he cannot walk onto another conveyor belt.
 * Wario is the only character to have a move based off of a game that was released after the release of Brawl: Wario Land: Shake It!. Wario's crawling animation is also based off of this game.
 * Despite Wario Land being an action-based game series, most of Wario's moves don't come from any of his games, but are unique to Brawl, much to the disappointment of many fans.
 * Wario never blinks. In fact, the only times his eyes are closed are when he is asleep, stunned, or being hit.
 * Wario is the only playable villain not to be seen revived in The Subspace Emissary.
 * Biker Wario's buttons show a W, and underneath it says "Made In". This is a reference to the Japanese name for the WarioWare series, "Made in Wario". Also on the back of his WarioWare outfit, it reads "Hurry Up!".
 * Wario is the only character in the Super Smash Bros. series to have two sets of costumes.
 * If Wario is weilding a Hammer/Golden Hammer and stays in one place, he will be floating and swinging instead of standing. This is similar to his side taunt where he sticks his butt at the screen and laughs and acts like a metronome.
 * Although Wario still has the same voice actor (Charles Martinet) as in his own games, in SSBB, it is somewhat less cartoonish than in said games - the same applies to Luigi and Mario.
 * Wario is also the first (and so far, only) Mario side-series character that is a playable character to be human (in contrast to Bowser).
 * Wario is the only character in Brawl with more than 3 taunts.
 * Wario is the only character to have two poses when selecting him. When he's in his biker outfit, he has his hands in a position of clapping with his mouth open. In his classic overalls, Wario has his arms out while making his signature "W" with his fingers