WarioWare: Get It Together! (Switch)

The WarioWare series has always been about presenting a rapid series of short minigames, and over the years it has sought to vary these “microgames” up by embracing different hardware features. WarioWare: Twisted! had you turning the game system around to play, WarioWare: Touched! had its games controlled through the touch screen, and WarioWare: Smooth Moves utilized the Wii motion controls and pointer function for its microgames. However, the Nintendo Switch mostly just carried over old hardware innovations and it’s main feature of being able to play it on the go or on a television didn’t have much room for minigame fun, so instead WarioWare decided to push forward something that has been with the series since the start. Whatever the game’s particular gimmick was, WarioWare always presented them by way of hosts who bunched the games together under specific themes. They’d often have little cutscenes as framing devices, but save for a few cases like the egotistical Wario loving to slap his mug into many microgames they were never truly part of the action. WarioWare: Get It Together! though fully embraces the eccentric cast the series has built up since the first game in 2003, with the characters actually entering the microgames to complete them themselves.

 

Usually WarioWare games depict the microgames as a series of games developed by Wario and his employees at WarioWare, and this game is no different. The money-hungry and somewhat gross CEO Wario has finished the new game his team has been working on, but when it doesn’t work, Wario hurls it at a wall and awakens the sentient bugs inside that have made their way into the code. Suddenly everyone in the room is pulled into the game and separated, Wario needing to beat the microgames inside the game system to help rescue his employees and wipe out the bugs keeping them in the game. The areas within the game are divided up into thematic sets like Sports microgames or ones based on things like food, nature, or even previous Nintendo games. To clear an area you need to reach the boss minigame which you do by trying to beat enough of the consecutive rapid fire microgames without losing three times. The more substantial boss challenges include longer trials like juicing grapes into moving containers, helping a rock climber reach the summit by dragging his limbs around, or protecting swimmers while an angry Poseidon tries to take them away.

 

Both in those bigger minigames and the regular single-screen microgame challenges you will be playing as one of the colorful characters from the WarioWare crew. Each of them has some unique aspect that alters how you can use them within the context of a microgame, and depending on which one you are playing they may be such a great fit that they can beat the game no sweat or such a bad fit that you have to try extra hard to beat the microgame before the short timer ends. The timer is more lenient than previous WarioWare games because you need to not only consider the game that has just been thrown at you but also how you’re going to interact with it as a specific character, but it still feels like a very tight time limit that keeps up the game’s frantic pace despite giving you the required room to make your moves.

Therefore, the most important aspect of WarioWare: Get It Together! will definitely be what its cast is capable of. A character like the teenage gamer 18-Volt might seem like a bad pick for your team since he literally can’t move save with an odd grappling maneuver, but he can fire beams from his visor that means he can quickly break objects like the egg you help hatch in Egg It On. However, characters with flight are almost universally superior to ones who can’t move around so easily, so while giving the mad scientist Dr. Crygor the ability to swim through the air is quirky, you’ll almost always want to choose a character like the serious witch Ashley or karaoke robot Mike who can both fly and fire projectiles. On the bright side, when you do encounter a character like Mona who has a weird downside like moving automatically regardless of your inputs, you aren’t often required to use them beyond the level you’re going to unlock them in. On the other hand, Mona also is given a boomerang you can move anywhere on the screen so usually the game doesn’t try to give you someone who will be doomed to fail and many microgames do make sure you won’t have your character immediately ram into some danger and lose if you picked a stranger choice.

 

For most of the adventure you’ll be able to pick most of your team so you can quickly learn whose play style you like best, and while people who can fly almost always are the wise pick, characters like the martial arts apprentice Young Cricket with his high jumps are fairly no-frills low-risk choices for when the game starts asking for bigger teams. Levels can be tackled under different conditions though, such as one where you go through the microgames for as long as you can survive while constantly swapping between the entire cast of 20 characters and those can make for some more intense challenges as you might find yourself needing to figure out how to make things even work, and in these longer full team challenges you also beat the boss stages to erase one of your failures so losses don’t sting as badly so long as you put in the effort for the bigger challenge. You can also play singular microgames as one character and try to set high scores for most consecutive wins, this being the place where less flexible characters can really shine as they can instead excel in those few games they’re perfect for. Multiplayer can also add more room to experiment with the stranger abilities as you can all work together in the same microgames and thus can cover each other’s weaknesses, but there are also many competitive multiplayer modes where certain characters could even be seen as handicaps if you want to play with players of different skill levels. Some of the multiplayer modes will randomize who you play as though and perhaps overcomplicate the fun of quick microgame competition, but there are enough odd variations to find something that could click with your group.

 

As for the game’s batch of 222 core microgames, they do fit in the required mold well enough. A microgame starts with an on-screen and spoken prompt, things like “Squeeze!” preempting a game where you need to empty a toothpaste tube by pressing your character into it, attacking it, or otherwise finding a solution to that challenge. Some can be a little less clear, a microgame based on Super Metroid asking you to “Guide!” as you’re meant to help the character from that SNES title head to an exit, but if you aren’t familiar with the game it might be hard to parse that intention on first play. You’ll encounter these microgames again and again though, either by replaying them deliberately or playing remix modes and specific challenges, so you can usually get a good handle on them by the time they’re appearing in more strict setups. Microgames also get faster and more complex as you get deeper into the levels or modes that are hosting them like a game where you need to realign the pieces of a magician’s sawed in half assistant and the pieces become more out of line on the higher difficulties. The added pressure definitely adds to the frenetic and exciting pace of playing through the microgames and that need to be swift and responsive is where a lot of the enjoyment of the games comes from even if they’re sometimes so simple they wouldn’t normally pose a challenge.

The game definitely puts a lot of thought and variety in both the art styles of the microgames and the way the hosting framework is presented. When you play the Nature focused microgames you’re not just trying to beat a bunch of quick challenges in a row, you’re helping two kindergarten ninjas fight back against another ninja who has hypnotized all of the wildlife, and when you drop by to tackle the High Tech games, your performance is helping an inventor judge if his Flatterbots who are meant to show support when people do well are functioning properly. Despite the narrative though, when you’re in a microgame anything goes. You have the Nintendo-themed microgames using the graphics from the game they’re based on, a giant smooth 3D nose in a white void you need to plug up, an overly detailed game where you need to dodge a huge boxer’s punches, and a deliberately poorly drawn waiter you need to deliver food to in The Waiter Awaits. You’ll have a creative concept like being inside the spokes of a bicycle and needing to move your character to turn them to help the bike move in one game and another where you help a statue of a Greek god pluck his armpit hair. You’ll be preventing aliens from reaching Earth in one microgame only for another to ask you to pick the right compliment on a tea date, and the wild and wacky disparity from one game to another not only gives the game a lot of charm, but it makes it easier to remember at a glance what you’re entering into. No two games truly look alike, so when the game cranks up the speed and you need to react more quickly, you have the command and appearance to go off of before you take control and can then swiftly complete a seconds-long challenge with ease.

 

There are definitely enough good microgames in the bunch to make up for some less exciting ideas like one where you need to stop a board game spinner on the right number, the concept not working too well in a game where fast movement with a wide cast of varying characters can sabotage such a patient game easily, but the main modes usually pack in a good set of games provided you use the flying characters to prevent unnecessary frustration. A few side modes like a battle mode between the characters exist to dabble in, the Wario Cup is an online competition to set high scores within a set of changing parameters, and you can even customize the playable characters quite a bit. As you play WarioWare: Get It Together!, you earn coins that can be used as continues during the regular microgame sequences but also can go towards buying Prezzies. By giving Prezzies to your characters you can start to unlock concept art, alternate colors, and new ranks for them that add to your score if they’re used in Wario Cup. On top of this the game has many milestones or unique conditions you can try to hit to earn more coins for this feature, so you can start to get goodies for the cast members you like to play as most. A bit of direction for your microgame play definitely helps the game overcome the fact its story is over fairly quickly, the longevity meant to come from playing the many modes that recontextualize the microgames or reward you for tackling them in more difficult ways.

THE VERDICT: While the characters who can fly have an almost universal edge in WarioWare: Get It Together!’s enjoyable and eccentric mix of microgames, they also avoid any frustrations that could have come from being forced to play too much as the less reliable members. Less mobile and capable characters instead are there to add extra challenges to the game after you’ve wrapped up its short story, many extra modes presenting the quirky minigames in new ways that make them more enjoyable than the individual acts involved in beating them. A solid set of multiplayer ideas and microgames that mostly work well within the frameworks meant to make them more exciting or challenging, WarioWare: Get It Together! executes its character-focused concept without the cast’s range of abilities ever truly diminishing the fun.

 

And so, I give WarioWare: Get It Together! for Nintendo Switch…

A GOOD rating. There was always going to be a little bit of awkwardness in making 222 minigames possible to beat with 20 different ability sets and the microgames that do need adjustment for certain less capable characters do receive such changes when needed, but WarioWare: Get It Together! mostly pulls off the concept rather fluidly. Some games like the board game spinner one would be a better fit for a WarioWare game where the controls were more consistent and you do get quite a handful of games where you just move your character to the right spot, but simplicity doesn’t wound a microgame that much since the thrill of them comes from consistent speedy performance. A few more creative designs would definitely make more microgames stand out as uniquely interesting but they do fit within their function really well while still having the odd characteristics that give the whole experience its quirky charm. Having to lift a dog’s tongue to help it drink, save some elves from a giant spinning flower, or push a person’s arms to make them do the Wiggle Dance are all silly and fun ideas for speedy play, microgames mostly stripped down to a fairly clear task with some fun graphical directions to give it more flair. If you didn’t have to accommodate the cast then maybe there could be a lot less pushing focused games too, but within the space it decided to make, WarioWare: Get It Together assembles a fitting set of miniature challenges and recontexualizations of those challenges to keep you interested and entertained, extra features like the multiplayer, Prezzies system, and special modes making this a fine game to come back to for quick fun with some clear direction if needed.

 

While some of the cast does get slightly shafted by having to carry the more gimmicky abilities, WarioWare has almost always been about gimmickry so if some characters like the young gamer 9-Volt who can’t stop skateboarding left and right had to take the bullet so the game could be delightful and quirky, then it was a worthy sacrifice. Even the worst characters can potentially find perfect fits in certain microgames though, and it adds another difficulty system on top of the many other modes that present the microgames at you in interesting and varied ways. Getting a game more focused on the delightfully absurd and varied cast of this series was a treat either way even if WarioWare: Get It Together! couldn’t always embrace its full creativity because of it, and it seems like the developers had a good sense on how to ensure the experience isn’t too simple while accommodating the various abilities. It may not be a fully even experience, but that’s practically the reason WarioWare has worked in the past, the mixture of the simple and the hard with the ever-shifting conditions part of its DNA from the start and the character system just the latest way to keep that blend fresh.