Wario: Master of Disguise [DS]

Nintendo has a veritable cornucopia of franchises to draw on, and the company has been tapping several for DS remakes as of late. However, games like Kirby Squeak Squad, Yoshi's Island, and Diddy Kong Racing have stayed close to their predecessors' formulas rather than innovating with the technology at hand. Leave it to Wario to do something outrageous when it comes to his platforming premiere on DS.

Before there was Wario Ware, the portly anti-hero was yin to Mario's yang -- a greedy, selfish polar opposite of the beloved hero. In Master of Disguise, you control Wario as he makes a mad dash at anything and everything of value. With the help of a magical talking wand he "borrowed" from the game's rival, Wario is capable of changing costumes and abilities with a few swoops of the stylus.

Each of his eight disguises serves a purpose, and can be linked together in clever fashion. For example, draw a square with a line through it to change to Artsy Wario. As him, draw a block and it'll materialize into a tangible object. Scrawl a check-mark next to morph into the high-jumping Thief Wario to hop atop the block and reach new heights. Cosmic Wario (draw a helmet on Wario) blasts wherever you tap onscreen, while Sparky Wario (draw a lightning bolt) can light up dark rooms and kick-start electrical equipment. These powers can even level-up over time.

Changing costumes with the stylus is innovative, and the gameplay itself facilitates this mechanic. This is a platformer, to be sure, but you can play without touching the face buttons of the DS. However, at times it's difficult to draw instead of executing an action, and you'll encounter times when the game mistakes one costume's scribble for another. As in-game activity never pauses during these transitions, that can spell trouble. Maybe requiring players to hold the L-button while drawing would've fixed this problem.

This is not a laid-back, kid-friendly platformer, a la Super Princess Peach or New Super Mario Bros. Wario: In fact, Master of Disguise is one of the toughest 2D games to come down the pipe in a while. You won't die so much as be stumped by the numerous puzzles you'll encounter. Whether the difficulty is a positive or negative depends on your patience level: It's tough, but there is a sense of achievement when you figure things out.