Apparition

Across the conspiratorial corners of the internet's gaming discussion centers, rumors have circulated in regards to every copy of Super Mario 64 being personalized. More specifically, they claim that each copy contains extremely subtle differences - to the point of being wholly unnoticeable by all except the original developers themselves, in some cases - that make each one unique. As opposed to all other Nintendo 64 titles, the theory states that each and every copy of this game in particular finds a way to bond with its players; the more they play, the more personalized the game becomes.

More shockingly, at least one evidence-backed case of the "Wario Apparition" anomaly - or "Wario Head," as he's also known - has been recorded. The footage has been confirmed to have been undoctored, and appears to show a giant, floating Wario head chasing Mario down the hallway in front of what was supposed to be the player's second encounter with Bowser - the star door hallway in the castle basement. As it chases towards the player, a loud thumping noise can be heard coming from the walls near the t.v. being recorded.

An unaired advert from 1996, that Nintendo has not denied or confirmed the existence of, appears to show the apparition. This is the only official capacity in which Wario Head exists, and - according to anonymous sources at Nintendo - he was scrapped from the game's coding before release.

That is a lie. I couldn't capture any screenshots of Wario Head because he... materialized. Sort of. You're not going to see anything about hyperrealistic blood, creepy in-game messages, or twisted level design from me. Every gaming horror story I've ever read sounds like a walk in the park compared to what I went through. If you thought Sonic.exe was bad, Wario Head makes him look like Princess Peach by comparison. The following account happened to me this summer, and - though no one I've privately told this to believes me - I'm hoping that someone, somewhere, will.

I live in an area that gets hot and humid in the summers. With my complex's pool shut down due to Covid-19, I spent a decent portion of the free time I had playing video games. Around the time that the rumors of Wario Head first surfaced, I found myself dangerously curious about whether such an anomaly could exist - I mean, the classic "haunted game" tropes must have been nothing but a giant, outdated collection of internet folklore, right? This sort of thing wasn't possible, I had always thought. Demons didn't actually possess video games, just dolls or people.

As it turns out, I thought wrong. Had I taken these theories even a little seriously, I could have saved myself some of the most mentally, spiritually, and emotionally daunting hours of my life. This all sounds pretty asinine given that it's over a video game, but that's the problem; the copy I had played perfectly normally.

At first.

One particularly sweltering evening just after I had finished eating dinner, I opened up my laptop and decided to test the personalization theory out myself. I wanted to see if Wario Head would appear, or if my playthrough of Mario 64 would be just as ordinary as it had been for the dozens of playthroughs that I had conducted before.

Once the computer was at full charge, I opened up my N64 emulator, plugged in my PC controller, opened the game, and kicked back. To maximize my chances of encountering this anomaly, I deleted all of my previous saves and started a new game.

Everything about the opening cutscene, down to the last minute details, pixels, and sounds, was normal. Peach read her letter and the camera panned down to Mario jumping out of his pipe. As I ran around, I found that nothing about the environment had changed at all. I figured that, even if this copy were personalized, I had one of the boring ones.

Upon entering the castle, I found that all of the dialogue boxes and signs were completely unaltered. Toad still gave advice, and the signs still gave playing tips. Feeling daredevilish and a little bored, I hit pause and chuckled a little.

"Hey, Wario Head," I said into the screen. "Show up if you're not a coward."

As I unpaused and blazed through Bob-Omb Mountain, nothing happened. Not one glitch, change, or "creepy moment" plagued my experience until I reached the Chain Chomp star challenge; instead of their characteristic black irises, the creature's eyes were an empty white. Though his behavior was unchanged, this made me hopeful that the Wario Apparition would appear to me when the time came. After getting enough stars to face Bowser for the first time, I defeated him on my first attempt and continued to play through to the castle basement.

After finally having accumulated enough stars to reach Bowser's Sub in Dire, Dire Docks, I played through it and rubbed my hands together a little as the wave of water pushed back to behind the entrance to the Koopa King's second encounter. Facing Mario in front of the entrance, I felt a hopeful smile stretch across my face. "Come on out, spooky head," I taunted, slowly walking towards where he appeared in the aforementioned video.

The hallway darkened and there the Wario Apparition appeared, coming out of thin air, into transparency, and quickly forming into a solid head - the very same one I saw in the video, aside from a few subtle differences. His mustache wasn't as long or thick as it is in contemporary titles, and a bright red glow emanated from his outline. A spotlight shined upon Mario as the disembodied head of his evil clone begin to speak.

"You want fun? Wario show you fun!"

I continued to grin as he chased Mario. I had done it, I thought. I got lucky this once and confirmed that the legend was true. I took a quick screenshot of him and then kept running.

Suddenly, the walls of my bedroom began to thud with so much force that it shook the nearby window pane in its frame. It wasn't fun for me any longer, and my smile faded whilst the stone and brick walls of the castle's basement hallway became covered with the red carpet of Bowser's Final Encounter hall. The endless stairs music began to play, progressively getting louder as I ran. My laptop's volume begin to increase itself to play the music louder, and I winced in discomfort as Wario sped closer and closer towards Mario.

When he flew past the red plumber, I watched him leave the emulator window and phase through my screen. The sound of raw, static power flooded my ears as the apparition flew past me, and I dropped the controller on my hardwood floor. It landed with a crash as I watched Mario die, going through the gas inhalation death motions that are seen in Hazy Maze.

The emulation program went silent not long thereafter, and Wario's Head illuminated the darkened room with an eerie glow. His yellow and purple hat cast a pale haze on the walls behind him, and his red outline allowed me to see around him sufficiently well.

"You call Wario 'coward,'" he shouted in an enraged voice. "You want coward?! Wario show you coward!"

I know Charles Martinet’s voice by heart, but this wasn’t it. It was similar in accent and characteristic delivery, but had a warped, guttural backing that was impossible for a human being to naturally produce.

Without warning, I felt my head fill with the prickling sensation of pins and needles. My left side went numb, and my attempts to respond to his lunacy only resulted in desperate whimpers. My facial muscles wouldn’t form the words I wished to, and I felt my left eye droop downwards. Having become effectively paralyzed, I felt my flight-or-fight response trigger and heaved my weight forward until I unceremoniously fell onto the floor. I managed to drag myself forward across the cold floor feet at a time, the sound of his barking laughter deafening as I desperately attempted to get away.

Despite this sensory overload, I was still able to focus my intentions on survival. I felt sorrow and regret rush through me while the endless stairs music resumed with a maddening fervor, the xylophonic notes blaring so loudly that my own cries of anguish were drowned out in the cacophony. I managed to slowly drag myself up the stairs to the second floor of my split level, but he effortlessly pursued me. His eyes, bulging with sadistic glee, seemed to bore into my very soul as I made my ascent. I eventually reached the carpet flooring of my upstairs hallway and defeatedly laid there for hours. Wario Head’s ceaseless laughter and the endless stairs music blared so loudly that I feared that my eardrums were liable to rupture, and I was surprised as to why my neighbors hadn’t either knocked on my door to complain about the din or called the police to deal with it. In any event, I endured the torment for what felt like hours before the Wario apparition finally dematerialized. As he faded away, I heard him issue a final taunt in the same garbled, sinister tone.

“Wario play even meaner next time!”

Seconds after the sinister red glow cast by his presence left the apartment, I felt my left side regain feeling. My burning headache was gone, now, too, and I felt the overwhelming urge to rehydrate my fatigued body. After going downstairs and getting a refrigerated bottle of water, I looked at my dead laptop and contemplated the situation I had gotten myself into.

Charles himself has gone on record and stated that he’d never use his talents to make his characters do or say anything that would be overly frightening to children, so the idea that this was a sick, elaborate prank left my consideration pretty quickly. Nintendo would send me a cease and desist for emulating their i.p., not use state-of-the-art sensory tech to induce stroke-like symptoms. It couldn’t have been them, and the file would have eaten my laptop away years before if it were modded, hacked, or tampered with to enable this abomination.

Even if it were, what kind of mod brings a cursed game anomaly to life? There isn’t a line of code in existence with that kind of power, so I could only draw one conclusion that I felt lied within the borders of possibility and reality: demonic possession.

It wouldn’t have been the first time a demon had possessed an otherwise unremarkable thing. Antivirus software isn’t programmed to block out dark forces, and there’s no holy or cultist writing that explicitly states that demonic spirits cannot inhabit digital spaces or take digital form. Though a demon often follows the sin-branded soul of a weak-willed individual, I was neither weak-willed or spiritually weak. I’d never participated in any rituals that would bring this upon me, but I had soon theorized that the digital anomaly is what allowed the Wario apparition to inhabit demonic power

.Since Nintendo hadn’t programmed his behavior beyond the line he says upon manifesting in-game, they couldn’t have done any of this. He doesn’t even appear in over 99% of playthroughs, giving credence to the theory that the apparition acts as a digital doorway of sorts to whatever seeks to inhabit it. Given that Wario was established as a villain at the time, a maleficent force would feel at home inhabiting his presence.

In horror, I realized that every copy of Super Mario 64 with this particular anomaly has the potential to act as a magnet for demonic possession.

It sounded absurd, silly, and laughable, but it was the only way he could have that much power. My game file wasn’t corrupt, just anomalous in that he appeared in it at all. There are no known code-based indicators that tip off his presence, making him - and by extension, anything that gives him power - impossible to detect in the game’s code. The only way to cast out a demon is to exorcise it, so that’s exactly what I set out to do.

The following morning, I purchased kosher salt for the purpose of making holy water. No priest would believe this wild tale, leaving this battle up to me and me alone. I filled a large bowl with spring water and began the blessing ritual. Once the water was made holy, I brought it to a table and set it behind my laptop. Plugging a flash drive into one of its ports, I then started to charge it and immediately got back to work.

As soon as the Windows home screen loaded, the disembodied head that had haunted me the night before reemerged. The sunlight filtering in through my living room blinds turned to a bright red, and he began to maniacally laugh once more. His voice was just as evil as it was before, its volume vibrating the walls of my unit.

“You want suffering? Wario show you suffering!”

Turning away from my computer, I immediately and violently projected the contents of my stomach onto the floor. I felt my nose bleeding while the same dreadful music blared, but I retained control of my body long enough to transfer the game file to my drive. Ejecting it from the laptop, I weakly got to my feet and dropped the drive into the water.

It instantly began to boil, steam, and change color, prompting me to close my computer and step away. The red light that had filled the room went away along with the endless stairs music that accompanied his arrival. The apparition glared at me, violently shaking his head. “Why?” I shouted, unable to hear myself above the noise. “Why did you make me suffer?”

“Suffering,” he guffawed. “Wario loves suffering! Wario... never... die!”

His denial of his fate didn’t save him from it. As the steam from the bowl of holy water cleared, his sinister, glowing visage dissolved while his demented laughter faded away into peaceful silence. Peering into the bowl, I saw that the drive’s plastic had melted and warped. The water was a bright shade of purple, and the steam had filled the room with a pungent odor of rotting flesh.

After all of this transpired, I apologized to my nearby neighbors for the noise. They all claimed that they hadn’t heard a thing.

Does this mean Super Mario 64 is unsafe to play? Not exactly; as long as the Chain Chomp’s eyes aren’t white in your playthrough, you’re safe. If they are, you need to quit the game and dispose of your copy immediately or he will come for you.

Mario 3d All-Stars on the Switch contains the game in its bundle. I shudder to think how many young, curious players who have heard of the Wario Head are itching to make him appear.

If you find him in front of the entrance to Dire, Dire Docks, know that you’re playing with your life - and you just might lose.