Shout Out / Pizza Tower

The game is a love letter not only to the Wario Land series but all other sorts of media as well.

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References in the final game

• To the game's chief inspiration, the Wario Land series:
  • Peppino's design and abilities are a close match for Wario himself, his color scheme even resembling Wario's black and white overalls in his Wario Land 3 sprites.
  • According to bonus lore, Peppino was previously the villain to Pizza Boy/Pizzahead in the fictional Game Boy game Pizza Boy Tower. If this story is sounding familiar to you, it should.
  • In a very subtle shout-out, the game's entire color palette is directly color-picked from the Game Boy Color version of Wario Land II.
  • The secret rooms resemble The Really Final Chapter from Wario Land II, being pink-colored Eldritch Locations with disembodied facial features strewn about.
  • Additionally, the secret rooms have many similarities to the puzzle rooms found in the levels of Wario Land 4, which were strange rooms with geometric pink backgrounds that often each featured a central gimmick and rewarded the player with bonus treasure, accessed through special pipes that were often hidden or off the main path. The music for Pizza Tower's secrets also bears some similarity to that of the puzzle rooms, with similarly playful instrumentation and tone.
  • The "YOU SUCK!" Final Judgement screen is a reference to the "PERFECT!" screen in Wario Land 3, with the text flashing in rainbow colors above Peppino imitating Wario's double-thumbs-up.
  • The Golf stage is one big homage to a very similar minigame from Wario Land 3, where Wario would play mini-golf by violently tackling an enemy across the green. While Peppino is at least nice enough to actually use a golf club if you get close to the "ball", you're very much encouraged to do it Wario-style in quite a few courses.
  • Several instruments and vocal samples, such as the "dow" when Peppino skids and the "Hello there!" in "It's Pizza Time!", are pulled from Wario Land 4.
  • The Toppins and Gerome both serve very similar purposes to the recurrent collectibles in Wario Land 4, the jewel pieces and Keyzer. Toppins and Jewel Pieces are both required to unlock the boss door at the end of each world and are occasionally hidden behind secrets or puzzles, while Gerome and Keyzer are both characters who follow behind the protagonist once touched and are both required to unlock a door (the door to the next level in 4, and the Tower Secret Treasure in Pizza Tower).
  • The overall concept for Peppino's Mach Dash is almost exactly drawn from the Dash Attack in Wario Land 4, where running for long enough powers it up to a form that glows, makes a specific noise, and can break harder blocks than a standard attack, with the wall-climbing and drifting mechanics added. Peppino's ground pound also behaves identically to Wario's in 4, in that falling far enough powers it up into a form that can break harder blocks and stun enemies on landing.
  • Peppino's extensive moveset of grabs seems to be inspired by Wario World, down to the Spinning Piledriver.
  • The ghost that appears in the Combo meter is almost identical to the witches in Mirror Mansion from Wario World, outside of coloration.
  • Pizzahead's running animation in his second phase also heavily resembles the Mean Emcee's walking animation in Wario World.
• As well as quite a few to other games from the Super Mario Bros. series:
  • The way the dash meter fills up, and can be charged by running short distances and quickly changing direction, is very similar to how it works in Super Mario Bros. 3.
  • Gustavo seems to be the Mario to Peppino's Wario. His build and personality greatly resemble the red plumber, and Brick is a rideable animal sidekick like Yoshi.
    • One of his jumping poses straight up copies Mario's jump with a fist up.
    • His hurt pose is an explicit reference to the Super Mario World death sprite, with similar posing and shadows over the eyes.
    • Jumping on an enemy's head as Gustavo will kill it outright, while doing the same as Peppino will simply stun it and make it able to be picked up more easily, mirroring the mechanics seen in Mario's and Wario's 2D platformers respectively.
    • His taunt animations have him do a V sign on a rearing Brick or wear a head mirror while inspecting Brick's mouth. Another taunt sees Brick briefly replaced by Snick, who Gustavo seems none too pleased to see, while yet another has Gustavo and Brick standing back to back with their arms crossed, referencing a mid-2000s render of Mario and Luigi doing the same.
  • Pizzaface's final boss fight is similar to Bowser's in Super Mario World.
  • The doo-wop vocal samples that you hear before each level starts are straight from Super Mario Sunshine, namely from the secret level Shines.
• Peppino's name may be a reference to a brand of pizza sauce called "Don Pepino".
• A core movement ability for Peppino is the Shinespark, except it only lets him go straight up.
  • In addition, the Satan's Choice Pizza power-up in Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator functions like the Screw Attack, allowing infinite Not Quite Flight, the ability to destroy blocks and enemies on touch, and even the constant spinning.
• The Pepper Pizza powerup in Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator is branded as "Satan's Choice". The brand it's parodying is Sam's Choice, the in-house store brand used by Walmart for a variety of grocery products, including frozen pizza.
• The poses adopted by each character when pressing the Taunt button reference a number of sources and memes. Peppino's include the box art for Sonic Adventure, Peter Griffin, Daffy Duck's "literally me" and Dr. Robotnik's "diploma dope".
• One of the first levels is a medieval fantasy-themed level called Pizzascape.
• Mort the Chicken slows Peppino's descent when holding him, much like a Cucco.
  • Mort himself is from another game and used with his creator's permission.
• The Don't Make a Sound level is one to Five Nights at Freddy's; Peppino has to traverse a decrepit pizza restaurant while being hunted by animatronic monsters who Jump Scare him if they catch him. They even temporarily turn him into an animatronic after catching him, a similar fate to what happens to the guard in the first game should they fail.
  • At the same time, the gameplay of the level is reminiscent of the chase sequences of Metroid Fusion and Metroid Dread and the Pirate Ship section in Metroid: Zero Mission, spending most of the time hiding or running away from a threat which you eventually gain a weapon capable of defeating.
• Picking up a shotgun causes the TV to react by showing Peppino as a large muscular action hero with sunglasses, a reference to Duke Nukem.
• One of the We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties screens has Peppino doing a pose similar to the "death pose" from Family Guy.
• The pizza-based title used for the game's Space Zone level is Deep-Dish 9.
• In the game's sewer level, one of the unique enemies available to it are ninja pizza slices wearing differently colored bandanas as masks. Some of them even disguise themselves as Pizzaboy cardboard cutouts. To accentuate this, a Chef Task involving them is called Food Clan, a play on the name of Shredder's faction the Foot Clan.
• The first BGM in The Pig City features a bassline that's near-exactly the one from Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust", and is even called "Bite the Crust".
• The secret treasure earned in The Pig City is a riceball filled with jelly.
  • Likewise, the treasure for Pizzascare is the famous "wall chicken" from the Castlevania series.
• The TNT boxes and stone blocks in the Oregano Desert level function remarkably similarly to Bomb Blocks.
• Chef Tasks:
  • A Chef Task involving a difficult feat of maneuvering in Deep-Dish 9 is titled Turbo Tunnel.
  • The icon for Blast'Em Asteroids from Deep-Dish 9 is based on the arcade game, Asteroids.
  • Destroying all the Peppino robots in Peppibot factory awards you There Can Be Only One. The icon for it also looks like a reference to the iconic The Terminator poster.
  • Refrigerator-Refrigerador-Freezerator has a Chef Task called Ice Climber.
  • Killing ten Ninja Slices in "Oh Shit!" is called Food Clan, a reference to the Foot Clan from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
  • A Chef Task involving the shotgun in Don't Make a Sound is called And This... Is My Gun On A Stick!
  • Defeating The Vigilante without getting hit awards you The Ugly.
  • Defeating Fake Peppino without getting hit awards you Faker.
• Pizzahead's previous name, Totino, is a reference to the Totino's frozen pizza brand. Considering the pizza humor the game engages in, the choice to use that character to reference it also makes it a shout-out to the "TOTINO BOY!" sketch in Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, one part of which has Tim calling himself "Totino the Pizza Boy".
• The fight with The Vigilante has two references to Kirby's Adventure. It starts with him offering Peppino a weapon and refusing to start the battle until he picks it up, like Meta Knight; it ends with a Showdown at High Noon that plays identically to the Quick Draw sub-game.
• There is a sign on the outside of Fake Peppino's decrepit pizzeria that is formatted similarly to the memetic "Don't dead, open inside" graffiti in The Walking Dead.
• Fake Peppino's rebounding 8-way projectile "super taunt" attack is a nod to Chiko, an infamous creator of Mega Man ROM hacks where most bosses fire off similar patterns.
• Peppino's Angry Dance on a high combo as well as on the final boss is directly pulled from Moe's "give 'em one of these" dance from The Simpsons episode "Secrets of a Successful Marriage".
• Peppino's frenzied beatdown attack during the final boss rush is a nod to Akuma's Raging Demon/Shun Goku Satsu from Street Fighter, especially in the cutscene where the screen fades to black before he first demonstrates it on Pepperman. Also, one of his taunts is Akuma's infamous back-turned victory pose.
  • The way that Peddito deals with The Doise when playing as The Noise is also a reference to the Raging Demon, albeit the beatdown is performed offscreen.
• During the credits, there's a picture of the cast at a Halloween party. The Noise is wearing a cartoon rabbit costume that makes him look even more like The Noid than usual, while Pizzahead is dressed as Ronald McDonald.
• The ghost ability in Wasteyard makes a noise similar to the ghosts in Pac-Man when moving. It sounds even more similar when eating the ghost chili peppers.
• Swedish Monkey, an enemy ape dressed in a Viking helmet and pants with Swedish flag patterns, is a clear reference to Vinesauce Joel; McPig previously submitted fanart to Vinesauce's official Image Booru after another Vinesauce member, Vinny, played demos of Pizza Tower in 2018 and 2019. Swedish Monkey's defeat animation is also quite similar to the one Donkey Kong has in Donkey Kong Country.
• "The Death That I Deservioli", the theme that plays when attempting a second lap during Pizza Time, is titled after a meme surrounding the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Imitation Krabs", in which fans parody Plankton's line "ravioli, ravioli, give me the formuoli."
• The parry sound effect is an altered version of the WOW! sound effect that plays when you start the game in EarthBound (1994).
• The sewer level “Oh Shit!” Contains graffiti in the background of a shorter and stubbier Peppino holding a much smaller Greaseball, while flashing a Slasher Smile. This makes him look like Anton from Antonball Deluxe. Notably, this has gone full circle, as Peppino was playable in that game as a Guest Fighter.
• The Noise's dance taunt where he swings his belly area is based on Squidward "bringing it around town".
• The character select screen in Swap Mode portrays Peppino and the Noise elbowing each other in a similar manner to the equipment screen of Superstar Saga.

References in previous builds

• Snick is a playable character in the SAGE 2019 demo. Also in the demo, there's Snick's Challenge, featuring a bloody-eyed version of Snick that slowly floats to Peppino and causes damage. When playing as Snick, the collectibles of the levels are replaced with onion rings.
  • Snick's poses in particular are references to Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog YTPMVs by iteachvader. The poses he takes show him riding in a submarine (Getaway Submarine), sitting in a stew pot (Hedgehog Stew), deploying a parachute (Skydiving), or holding a trophy while riding in a go-kart (Win the Race).
• The art for the GOLF April Fools demo is a Peppino-fied version of box art from Doom.
• One of the room epithets in the Pinball UFO level reads "STARCRUST SPEEDWAY".

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