In Which Densetsu No Wario

Observant Super Smash Bros. Brawl players already know that Starfy, the starfish-like non-starfish star of the Legendary Starfy (Densetsu no Starfy) series has met Wario in one of his games, but since the GBA title in question never appeared outside of Japan, this major cameo of our favourite garlic-powered glutton is not very well-documented in languages that utilize the Latin alphabet. I have gotten my pale nerdy hands on Densetsu no Starfy 3 to witness Wario's water voyage in person, however, and survived the onslaught of Japanese text to tell about it.

First, a very brief introduction to the Starfy series. There's the yellow hero-tagonist whose name I won't repeat now - he is the prince of a cloud kingdom thats most remarkable feature is floating blobs of water. In a most original, not-stolen-from-Mallow twist, he falls from the sky and has to get back home. His best friend is the very easily angered yellow clam Kyorosuke, who spends his time hiding in the ground giving advice and screaming at random people. Together, they fight crime. No, literally, they go around helping everyone they meet for no obvious reason, even if it would be 100 times faster to just go and defeat the main villain, an exceptionally ugly... mutant fish or something, it could be a seahorse/Mudkip hybrid for all I know. Oh, and also, in the third game, Starfy gets a token sister named Starpy out of nowhere who is only there for the sake of faux variety and stupid puzzles.

The games can best be described as a mix between Kirby and Super Princess Peach - the design is very Kirby-inspired, but some level features like isolated rooms where the control scheme is altered due to some gameplay mechanic or the semilinear levels remind a lot of SPP - which is probably why it had a cameo of Starfy as an unnamed enemy. Starfy (why not Scarfy? A game where you turn into a cyclops and explode, now that's family fun!) and his tag-along fun-strangling sister learn a few moves along the 10-world quest, but it's really regular, classic, half-underwater platforming action.

In World 8, the 2-stars-1-clam party comes across underwater ruins filled with treasure, and who's the first person to snatch any riches from any Nintendo game even if he has to break dimensions to do it? Correct, it's evil yellow Mario! Right in the first room, he appears out of a Wario Land 4-styled warp portal and announces his plans to plunder the place. Since the heroes have to progress through the ruins, too, they end up helping him gather the four diamonds to open the boss door in the golden chamber (yes, it's just one big Wario Land 4 reference - except for his theme music, which is inexplicably remixed from Wario Land 3.)

Wario uses different powers in each of the 4 levels of the world - in the first one, he needs to be set afire by Starfy and then runs back and forth, controllable by the bouncy platforms he passes. The player has to hit the logs with the right timing so that Wario jumps into the direction of the Fire Block that's barricading the area exit - mistakes result in him jumping a step back. It's not difficult at all (as is the entire game, actually), but it's fun watching him just run around aimlessly, somehow never burning out completely like he does in his own games. After finding the first gem, Starpy and Kyorosuke annoy him for some reason and he shoulder-charges them away for a part of the story. That's Wario at his best!

The second level sees Wario in sub-surface action, trying to get to the bottom of a well and out another well a few times. Yet his allergy to bubbles proves to be a little problem - he can't swim down without getting helplessly caught in one of them. How lucky that Starfy is there to pop all bubbles about to "endanger" the treasure hunter. Wario's AI isn't the best, either - he seems to instinctively swim towards places bubbles come out, like he's being paid by the developers to prolong the playing experience. A twist on the concept makes up for all of that, though: when re-surfacing, Wario HAS to be in bubble form to get through otherwise impassable currents, and Starfy is supposed to PREVENT it from popping by gently pushing it away from spikes. I realize both uses of the bubble transformation come from Wario games, but putting it from another perspective worked very well here.

In the third level, the otherwise unfriendly anti-hero is being nice for a change and teaches Starfy how to do the height-boosted ground pound, after demonstrating it himself. Of course, that's not all - later in the stage, Wario finds the last jewel and Starpy, who by this time catches up with the group, activates a Frog Switch. Yes, the effects-comparable-to-Majora's Mask type. (The name "Starpy", on the other hand, reminds me of "Scrappy". You know, Scrappy-Doo? The one everyone hated?) Cue rumble and rubble, and an autoscrolling part, after which it all comes down to...

...the golden chamber, where for some reason, one of Kyorosuke's older relatives just randomly assaults Wario and takes away the gems just when he was about to open the boss door. How original, how point-having. (On the plus side, that old clam dies in the last part of the story.) You have to do four more few-area parts to get them back again - and here, the celebrity guest's last power is introduced - Puffy Wario! An enemy stings him and he is used as a lift by Starfy - see it here:
And all this ends highly anticlimactically when Wario, after obtaining the keys for the second time, just gets kicked out by the boss enemy, who is an absolutely disappointingly non-Wario-related armored octopus. Boo. And he doesn't reappear until the end, where he just provides the help in places you cannot reach by yourself on your post-completion run. Well, it was fun while it lasted... oh yes, and the costumes he leaves you.
...Yes. In conclusion: don't play this game just because of Wario.

~Waluigious: How about a Waluigi cameo in a, say, Elite Beat Agents game? Why not THAT?