Nuts to Mario: How a ?10 discount made me a 'Wario Kid' for life

Long before Nathan Drake entered his first UNESCO Heritage site with a charming grin and an empty backpack, Garrett stalked The City’s shadows in Looking Glass’s Thief series, or Persona 5’s Phantom Thieves awakened their Personas (and a love of crime), Wario was guffawing and filling his pockets with ill-deserved loot.

He's been guzzling garlic and pilfering treasures across Nintendo titles since – would you believe it – 1992. In that time, his brash, irreverent brand of chaos made him an unforgettable figure in the Mario universe. For some of us, he’s become a renegade idol. Mario’s just a bit of a square, a bland normcore hero. Meanwhile, Wario couldn’t care less what people think of him; as a kid, I idolised him for that. His unapologetic gloating schadenfreude was a rude revelation for kids like me who’d been excessively drilled into meek obedience.

These days, as a far less polite adult, you may not think I’d applaud a brash treasure hunter with a Victorian ringmaster moustache and chronic halitosis. But if you ask me, Mario’s had more than enough screentime. It’s a crime greater than any Wario ever committed that he’s not the one on cinema screens, billboards, and bus adverts the world over. And I know I’m not alone in thinking that.

It was an East London shopping centre in 2000 that made me a “Wario Kid” for life. Going past street sellers flogging knock-off stereos and Cockney greengrocers bellowing “apples and pears, pound a bowl!” you’d find the games store that never failed to capture my imagination – or raking in most of my pocket money.

I wasn’t instantly drawn to Warioland 3. I was 10 – I didn’t know s**t about games, or anything else; I’d only just been trusted to handle a biro. But I did know there was something bright yellow on the game case, and it wasn’t Wario’s cap. What set Warioland 3 apart on the shelf from Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, Kirby’s Dreamland and Metroid II: Return of Samus wasn’t that trademark grin, it was a star-shaped sticker saying “£19.99”.

Five weeks’ pocket money was an unbeatable discount. So I slid a £10note and a pile of small change over the counter and left cradling my latest obsession. It quickly became clear that if anyone approved of my penny-pinching decision, it’d be my newfound hero.

I thought I wanted the Mario experience, but Wario turned out much better value. I expected to be gallantly hopping over Piranha Plants and roasting Goombas with fireballs. Instead, I found myself elbow smashing through bricks walls, crushing enemies with my hefty rear-end, and matching Wario’s grin as he manically trashed his surroundings like a demolition crew on a deadline. Sure, he was collecting music-boxes to rescue some enigmatic figure in theory, but his real motive was pure greed. Having been raised to be impractically kind, generous and polite, I’d now met the Game Boy’s Gordon Gekko.

Unlike his milquetoast, vanilla counterpart, Wario and his epnymous Wario Land had puzzles! Ones needing to be solved in a memorable, creative, and often rather cruel fashion. I loved turning Wario into zombified ooze, pumping him up with helium, setting his arse ablaze, and inflicting all kinds of humiliating indignities on him as he stumbled to riches. No matter how far you tested Wario’s limits, he wouldn’t die. My Game Boy Color’s 4x4cm LCD screen snuck me into an exciting world of mischief, mayhem, destruction – and oodles of cash.

I was a 'Wario Kid' now. After showing my cousin, I wasn’t alone. His exaggerated animations matched the best of the Looney Tunes and put us in stitches; we giggled about the victims of our latest butt-stomp and energetically practised our own whenever mum’s head was turned.

Wario Land 3 wasn't my only source of fantastic mischief, either. The Beano, home of the definitive Dennis the Menace – at least to us Brits – had been smuggled past my mum’s vigilant censorship by a pitying relative (unlike The Power Rangers, Final Fantasy and whenever Cockney soap-opera Eastenders got a bit snoggy or shouty). Wario joined Dennis, The Bash Street Kids, and Calamity James inviting me to a life of imaginary rebellion. A naughty kid’s club – No Marios allowed.

Not everyone saw the appeal of life as a Wario Kid. There was a reason his games were discounted: you couldn’t call him charming, you definitely couldn’t call him cool. My enthusiasm couldn’t persuade my indifferent classmates that he was more than an outrageous oddity. Mario had them all fooled. My lunchtime demos drew a crowd, even earning some approving titters, but Mario’s Super Stardom was impossible to outshine.

And that’s how it’s continued for decades since. While Mario enjoys his leisurely jaunts from one smash hit to the next, Wario went from treasure-hunting glory to a rogue career devising deliriously inventive WarioWare minigames. I’m sure he’s living his best life picking grotesque noses, trimming deformed toenails and finding ways to intrude on other Nintendo games with irresponsible abandon. But if anyone holds a grudge, it’s Wario and his devotees.

Wario’s opportunity for vengeance comes whenever he takes the stage in Mario spinoffs, beady eyes glinting as he revs his engines looking for Mario. The Wario Land series may be on ice, but whenever he hits the track on Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road, or squares up on Super Smash Bros.’ Delfino Plaza, he’s back where he belongs: cackling on his way to triumph or indulging the type of tantrums that’d embarrass a toddler. And I’m right there with him, punching my steering wheel whenever I’m overtaken by the Mushroom Kingdom’s boring good guys, cheering whenever I drift a feeble Mario Brother into the abyss.

Wario can't teach you how to live, but he’ll show you the thrill of indulging in honest, savage pettiness. Next time you consider loading up a Mario game or paying the extortionate cost to watch that cocksure chancer save the day in the cinema yet again, consider giving Wario Land 3 a go on the Switch instead. You might just meet your defiant inner 'Wario Kid' too.