Mario & Wario is definitely an oddball, a puzzle game that exclusively relies on the SNES Mouse. However, its combination of charming Mario visuals and fast but never unfair puzzle gameplay is a very rewarding challenge.

Within a magical forest lives a fairy named Wanda, who must help Mario and friends find Luigi after Wario drops buckets and other objects on their heads. The character that Wanda must help is not directly controlled - rather Wanda must click on the environment to guide them as they blindly move forward toward the goal. The player can control mouse speed and select characters with various speeds for easier/harder pace. At the end of a world (10 stages for 10 worlds) Wanda can click on Wario's plane as it flies by for extra coins.

The puzzle designs start out nice and straightforward but ramp up into fiendish gauntlets near the end - blocks, blocks on timers, fireballs and fireballs that stick to walls, springs, ladders, etc - the player is led into plenty of situations that have them intuit mechanics on the fly, never stuck for long but never given too much time to dawdle as levels are on a timer. The player can also give themselves an extra challenge by hunting for stars in a level that give them an extra life and go for coins. They'll need them during the latter levels.

The visual design is very familiar if you've played a Mario game, and although it's extremely charming and cute can feel a bit odd not being a pure platformer. Even then, music is peppy (and REALLY catchy at times) and level design is creative and fun to look at. The player can also behold the entire level before they start, a very fair way to plan things out.

Mario & Wario seems like a strange use of the Mario label at first, but puts a mostly unused peripheral to extremely good use in one of the best puzzles on the system.