Wario’s Woods NES

Wario’s Woods is Nintendo’s 1994 puzzle game, developed by Nintendo R&D1 and Intelligent Systems for the NES, notable as the last Mario-universe game and the last NES title Nintendo itself ever released on the platform. You play Toad, tasked with clearing Wario’s monsters out of the Peaceful Woods by grabbing enemies and bombs, arranging them into matching groups, and detonating them before the stage fills up.

Its release came late enough in the NES’s life that it’s also the only officially licensed NES game to carry a real ESRB rating (K-A, the era’s all-ages label), a detail that reflects just how far past the console’s mainstream lifespan it arrived. Toad’s starring role here is unusual for the Mario franchise, where he’s almost always a supporting character rather than the protagonist.