I got this as a beloved childhood favorite of mine (I would play it in Animal Crossing on the Gamecube) on the Japanese Wii U VC as something to just play to destress in between other games. I ended up REALLY getting into it, and playing all the way through to the end of the "story" mode A, something I thought I'd never do as a kid. I mean I was right in a way, since the only way I beat it was using the VC's save states to effectively have infinite lives, because you either need to be super lucky or a combo GOD to get through the last dozen or two stages, but I did it in the end! The game does technically have more levels in A mode after the first 99 that you see the credits after, but I saw the credits so I'm counting this game as beaten (not that I could even beat those levels in the first place)
While the game DOES have incremental level select ever 5 levels you reach, it doesn't have saves, so you do effectively have to beat it in one sitting. The VC also helped with that, because with its save state I could just set it down and come back to that same "session" later. However, you also only get one life when you do a level select (whether it's level 1 or 100), so it's no small feat to get through those final stages with the game's normal save system. Level 88 and 98 in particular took me AGES and dozens of tries each, and there's no way I ever could've beaten this on the actual hardware without a Game Genie or something.
Wario's Woods is a puzzle game made by Nintendo, was the last officially licensed game to be released for the NES in North America, and also had a SNES port. I'd describe it as something like "Orcs Must Die meets Puyo Puyo." You play as Toad in a playing field and need to run around it to manipulate the monsters and bombs yourself as the character. Make lines of 3 or more of the same color with at least one bomb, and it destroys everything in that line. Destroy all the monsters on the field and you progress to the next stage. The board also has two modes it switches between. While Birdo is out, you only receive bombs from the top of the screen, but when the timer fills up and Wario comes out, you'll receive both bombs AND new monsters from the top of the screen, and Wario will make the top of the board lower. You can only raise the top of the board back up again by making matches quickly, and you can even make Wario go away faster and Birdo stay longer by making chains.
Additionally, you can make matches with anything Toad is carrying in his hands, and given the way you can pick things up whilst running up a stack to pull it out of the stack, you can even make matches in mid-air in fairly clever ways, so there's a lot of thinking that needs to go on when the stacks get high if you wanna navigate all the different colors you need to destroy. Add on top of this how some monsters can only be destroyed by diagonal matches and how making a match of more than 5 pieces gets you a colored diamond that can remove every monster (but not bomb) of that color if matched with, and things can get REALLY hectic on later stages.
The controls are also pretty complex for a puzzle game too, being that it's somewhat like a platformer. You can run left and right, but also up walls of pieces and the walls of the board itself, but you can't jump. A picks up a whole stack in front of you (if there's room) and will put down the entire stack you're holding. B picks up the single item in front of you, and puts down the single thing lowest in your stack. Finally, pressing Down on the D-pad will move you to the top of the stack you're currently carrying. HOWEVER, in the Famicom version, pressing Down does nothing, and you need to simultaneously press A and B to move to the top of your stack. This makes that move FAR harder, as the timing to do that is very precise, and I died a TON from accidentally putting down what I was holding instead of moving to the top of my stack. 100% avoid the Famicom version of this game, because that little nuance makes the game far harder in a way that is not fun at all.
The game has a very different dynamic than something like Tetris or Puyo Puyo, since you're controlling a character who manipulates the pieces instead of controlling the pieces like in Tetris or a cursor like in Tetris Attack. I really like this, because it means there's more of an emphasis on what you can do in your immediate surroundings, and less emphasis on making giant chains to KO an opponent or something (although the game does have a vs. mode), which I am very very bad at. It means the game ultimately has less competitive depth than something like Puyo Puyo, and the complex controls means it has less ease of play like Tetris, but it's still a fine puzzle game that I find very satisfying to run through casually.
Verdict: Recommended. While I absolutely cannot recommend the Famicom version of this game due to the control issue I mentioned earlier, the NES or SNES versions of this are well worth picking up if you're looking for a different kind of puzzle game. It's far from the best puzzle game out there, sure, but it's certainly one of the more competent Tetris wannabees to come out in the NES and SNES eras.
While the game DOES have incremental level select ever 5 levels you reach, it doesn't have saves, so you do effectively have to beat it in one sitting. The VC also helped with that, because with its save state I could just set it down and come back to that same "session" later. However, you also only get one life when you do a level select (whether it's level 1 or 100), so it's no small feat to get through those final stages with the game's normal save system. Level 88 and 98 in particular took me AGES and dozens of tries each, and there's no way I ever could've beaten this on the actual hardware without a Game Genie or something.
Wario's Woods is a puzzle game made by Nintendo, was the last officially licensed game to be released for the NES in North America, and also had a SNES port. I'd describe it as something like "Orcs Must Die meets Puyo Puyo." You play as Toad in a playing field and need to run around it to manipulate the monsters and bombs yourself as the character. Make lines of 3 or more of the same color with at least one bomb, and it destroys everything in that line. Destroy all the monsters on the field and you progress to the next stage. The board also has two modes it switches between. While Birdo is out, you only receive bombs from the top of the screen, but when the timer fills up and Wario comes out, you'll receive both bombs AND new monsters from the top of the screen, and Wario will make the top of the board lower. You can only raise the top of the board back up again by making matches quickly, and you can even make Wario go away faster and Birdo stay longer by making chains.
Additionally, you can make matches with anything Toad is carrying in his hands, and given the way you can pick things up whilst running up a stack to pull it out of the stack, you can even make matches in mid-air in fairly clever ways, so there's a lot of thinking that needs to go on when the stacks get high if you wanna navigate all the different colors you need to destroy. Add on top of this how some monsters can only be destroyed by diagonal matches and how making a match of more than 5 pieces gets you a colored diamond that can remove every monster (but not bomb) of that color if matched with, and things can get REALLY hectic on later stages.
The controls are also pretty complex for a puzzle game too, being that it's somewhat like a platformer. You can run left and right, but also up walls of pieces and the walls of the board itself, but you can't jump. A picks up a whole stack in front of you (if there's room) and will put down the entire stack you're holding. B picks up the single item in front of you, and puts down the single thing lowest in your stack. Finally, pressing Down on the D-pad will move you to the top of the stack you're currently carrying. HOWEVER, in the Famicom version, pressing Down does nothing, and you need to simultaneously press A and B to move to the top of your stack. This makes that move FAR harder, as the timing to do that is very precise, and I died a TON from accidentally putting down what I was holding instead of moving to the top of my stack. 100% avoid the Famicom version of this game, because that little nuance makes the game far harder in a way that is not fun at all.
The game has a very different dynamic than something like Tetris or Puyo Puyo, since you're controlling a character who manipulates the pieces instead of controlling the pieces like in Tetris or a cursor like in Tetris Attack. I really like this, because it means there's more of an emphasis on what you can do in your immediate surroundings, and less emphasis on making giant chains to KO an opponent or something (although the game does have a vs. mode), which I am very very bad at. It means the game ultimately has less competitive depth than something like Puyo Puyo, and the complex controls means it has less ease of play like Tetris, but it's still a fine puzzle game that I find very satisfying to run through casually.
Verdict: Recommended. While I absolutely cannot recommend the Famicom version of this game due to the control issue I mentioned earlier, the NES or SNES versions of this are well worth picking up if you're looking for a different kind of puzzle game. It's far from the best puzzle game out there, sure, but it's certainly one of the more competent Tetris wannabees to come out in the NES and SNES eras.