Games - Wart

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	Games - Wart

Wart is a fictional character most commonly recognized from the American version of the video game Super Mario Bros. 2, which is known as Super Mario USA in Japan. Wart is the game's final boss and appears in the last room of the Level 7-2. Wart looks like a regal, fat frog, with a crown on his head and a robe that can scarcely conceal his big belly. Technically, the character's first appearance was in Doki Doki Panic, the Japanese game from which Nintendo created the American Super Mario Bros. 2.

Wart is the only character besides Bowser and Bowser Jr. to appear as the final boss of one of the mainstream platform-style Mario games—that is, in the main franchise, as opposed to the Super Mario Land games or the RPGs.

Characteristics

According to the instruction manual to Super Mario Bros. 2., Mario has a dream in which a voice pleads for his help. The voice explains that Wart has taken over Subcon, the land of dreams, but that Mario can defeat him by taking advantage of Wart's severe allergy to vegetables. As the game progresses, however, Mario and his friends see nothing of Wart until the final room. There, Wart challenges Mario — or Luigi or Toad or Peach — by moving back and forth on his small platform, occasionally stopping to spew forth bubbles that can cause damage.

To Wart's detriment, the room also contains a strange contraption that has three funnel-shaped pipes that shoot out vegetables — both turnips that appear throughout the game, but also rare vegetables sprites like tomatoes that Nintendo presumably created for this level alone. Mario — or whichever hero the player chooses — must catch the vegetables, then throw them into Wart's mouth. If the vegetable hits the bubble, it evaporates.

Once Wart is force-fed seven vegetables, he will blow a few puffs of smoke, turns gray then dies. In the game's finale, the player will see the freed denizens of Subcon — a small, red-suited, white-faced fairy folk that the game's credits also refer to as "Subcon" — pass his battered body off screen, presumably where it is disposed of.

Finally, the game ends with a shot of Mario sleeping, indicating that the entire adventure may have been a dream. The game's entire cast of heroes and villains then scrolls across the screen, ending on Wart, who laughs suspiciously before fading away. Despite that suspicious exit, however, Wart never appeared again in a Mario game, excluding remakes of Super Mario Bros. 2, such as Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario Advance or Super Mario USA. In Super Mario Advance, Wart could speak, and did so in an angry, grumbly voice.

Appearances in other series

In Doki Doki Panic, Wart's name is "Mamu" — Japanese for wart. In this game's storyline, Mamu abducts the youngest brother and sister from an Arabian family by snatching them away through an enchanted storybook. This game's heroes — siblings Imajin and Lina and parents Mama and Papa — fight Wart in the same manner, however. And again, killing Wart frees the mysterious red fairy folk in this game as well.

Curiously, Mamu appears as a helpful character in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. The sprite is nearly identical, in fact. He teaches Link a new song to play on the ocarina, "Mamu's Mambo." Also note that Link's Awakening, like Super Mario Bros. 2, takes place inside what is presumably a dream.

Though quite possibly not related, a miniboss in the Nintendo 64 game The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask named Wart (who appeared in the Great Bay Temple) would spew damaging bubbles which the player would have to avoid to damage Wart's eye.

In the Nintendo GameCube title Animal Crossing, one of the possible residents players could have live in their town is a frog named Wart Jr. The nod to this Wart is a small one, for Wart. Jr. is a fairly kind neighbor.

Non-game appearances

Strangely, Wart never appeared in the Mario cartoons, yet his many minions were regulars during the first season. However, he did appear in one comic story published for the Nintendo Comics System. Titled "Cloud Burst", this story has Princess Peach's father, King Toadstool, looking to buy a new mattress, as his current one is too lumpy. Disguised as a bed salesman, Wart takes the King up into the clouds and advertises a bed-shaped rain cloud as a Cloud Nine mattress. As the King rests up on that cloud, it causes rain all over the Mushroom Kingdom, but is quickly patched up by the Mario Bros. Although this was Wart's only comic appearance, one particular line of dialogue from Mario seemed to suggest that Wart frequently kidnapped the King in that continuity. Oddly, his character design resembled a crocodile rather than a frog.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Wart (Nintendo) ]

Games - Wart

Characteristics

Appearances in other series

Non-game appearances

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