In the world of Super Mario Bros. characters, Wario has always been a little wacky. Although he's usually portrayed as the antagonist for Mario and his friends, he does have two series of his own: WarioWare and Wario Land. Unlike WarioWare, which is a party game focused on strange minigames, Wario Land is more akin to the typical 2D, side-scrolling Mario games that fans have adored since the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Of course, since it's Wario, the Wario Land games still have their own quirks. The games are often vibrant, full of color and more exotic environments than Mario's usual Mushroom Kingdom. However, most of the Wario Land games are on Game Boy, and Nintendo seems to have put the series on hold since the last game, Wario Land: Shake It! launched on Wii in 2008.
Wario Land: Shake It! had a pretty interesting marketing campaign before its release in 2008, though. In the early days of YouTube, Nintendo posted a trailer for the game that specifically messed with the webpage, knocking down boxes on the screen and scattering coins across the "Related Videos" section. Luckily for those interested in gaming history, the YouTube channel videogameclipcollect posted a video in 2018, showing off the trailer and how viewers could interact with it.
How Wario shattered YouTube
The trailer for Wario Land: Shake It! starts off normal enough with Wario jumping from platform to platform for the first scene. The first sign that something's a little different happens when the trailer jumps to the next scene, however. Wario does a move that targets the ground, shaking the video box on YouTube. It's a slight enough movement that it could be easily missed.
And then an explosion happens, knocking down a few small boxes that change the display settings for related videos. As Wario shakes the bag of coins that fell because of the explosion, the coins leave the box dedicated for the game's trailer and are scattered throughout the comments section.
As Wario's actions get more and more extreme, the effects on YouTube become even more pronounced, ultimately ending with the various boxes, such as the related videos, ratings and even the comments section, titled and in disarray. There's a fun little Easter egg for those viewers who were patient enough to make it through the whole video and mess around with Wario's damage - they could even move the boxes themselves, interacting with them in a way akin to a physics based video game.
While the trailer's content itself is pretty straightforward - Wario jumps, runs, and defeats enemies like Mario - the inclusion of special effects, both visual and sound related, are quite interesting, making it one of the most unique video game trailers since the move to online marketing.
Source: Videogameclipcollect/YouTube