This game has a story?!
As you switch on your GBA, you are presented with a short pre-titles story sequence, where the anti-hero Wario concocts his latest money-making scheme: getting into the highly-lucrative games business. This immediately sets the strong ironic tone of the game. You then see a flash of supporting characters who supposedly make the 200+ mini-games for Wario, president of Wario Ware Inc. It's all highly Japanese, quirky, kooky yet very appealing.
The actual game starts with an introduction stage. You act as a games tester, trying to beat the first selection of mini-games created by Wario himself. These initial tests are the simplest of the lot and like with the rest of the game, the only controls you use is the D-pad and A-button. That's it. You have a few short seconds to both decipher the challenge in front of you and then do what is expected of you. If you succeed, you move on to the next game. If you fail, you lose a life and try again the process continues until you reach the boss stage, or you use up all four of your lives.
The boss stage comes after your first ten mini-games. The bosses are still mini-game by nature, but there is no set time limit so instead you must try not to die. It sounds oh-so simple. So far.
Once you've disposed of the tutorial stage you move on the next one of ten-plus levels in total, each hosted by one of Wario's eccentric friends. These guys ranger from a Discoing Developer by the name of Jimmy, to and Alien Artist called Orbulon who specialises in mental challenges. Each and every stage has a certain theme to it, so the gamer can at least expect some sort of uniformity about the mini-games.
Blissfully ignorant.
Actually though, knowing that the next mini-game will be about sport doesn't help one bit since these mini-games are so weird and unpredictable! The first time you play this game, you just do not know what to expect EXCEPT that you will only be asked to use either the D-pad, A-button or both. Without spoiling too much, games range from jumping some moving cars, to shaking a dog's paw, to picking the odd-one-out, to brushing some teeth, to catching some toast ejecting from a toaster to...you get the idea. Some games are harder than others.
When advancing through a stage, a string of six or so successes in succession will result in an increase of speed. You now have less rest time between games. Then another half dozen or so go by and it gets faster still, until you reach a boss, defeat it and move on to the next stage and a fresh new group of mini games. repeat this eight or nine times and you've beaten the game. But no, for there are a plethora of extra goodies to unlock. To do so you must go back to completed stages but this time, try and beat a number of games, say 25 of them, without losing all your lives. It's here that Wario Ware really gets good. Not only will games increment in speed, but every single game has a secondary factor in increasing the difficulty. Maybe that car you had to jump before will be a larger shape. That single dog's paw has suddenly become two dog's paws, both of which are moving in circles. The odd-one-out is very similar to the other three objects. Those teeth have more plaque on them and so, it takes more brush strokes to clean. The toast you have to catch has a bite out of it already, decreasing the margin of error you once had. Every mini-game in Wario Ware has its own special way of making you its bitch. Isn't that nice?
On the long, hard (yet enjoyable) road to total completion of Wario Ware, you are treated to some very strange art indeed. The graphically splendorous moments are few and far between, but the insane design makes up for it. Pictures of crying dogs! Picking a nose! Guiding a monochrome paper plane down a tower! Very simple, very effective.
Plinking away in the background are some creative sound effects and a catchy selection of music. A golf-related mini-games features the best Wario cackle in known history, this is a fact.
Pleeeaaaasssseeeee ccooommmpllleeeettttteeeeee meeeeeee...
Playing through once will not unlock all of the stuff in the game. It won't even unlock all of the mini-games available, more like 70% of them. Each time you subsequently play through each stage, new games will keep cropping up. At the same time, upon meeting certain score targets for stages, you'll unlock extra, expanded mini-games as well as 4 multi-player games where two people share one GBA, using the L and R buttons only. If that's not enough, a full-version of Dr. Mar...sorry, Dr. WARIO is yours to find!
Sadly though, the final unlockable is disappointing. Not giving anything away but to get it you must beat the target score for EVERY SINGLE mini-game. That's over 200 high-scores you have to beat and some of them are not easy.
Other major criticisms with Wario Ware is that certain games seems to run into one another. You'll find that mini-game A requires you to time your jump perfectly while mini-game B asks you to do the same thing, only to a different background and sprite set. This kind of crossover doesn't happen that frequently though, but it brings the true total of mini-games down to around 150+, being honest.
Some potential has also been lost in terms of linking GBAs together, since Wario Ware doesn't support it at all. Would have been nice to have the multiplayer games as link-up play or even a sort of 'marathon' challenge where gamers pit against each other trying to go the longest without losing all their lives.
Nintendo should be commended for making such an original game. It is full of character and longevity and the hilarious mini-games will entertain for hours on end. The ease of accessibility helps a lot too since you don't have to navigate pages and pages of menus and text to play and the controls are as simple as can be.
Buy this now and get ready for the GameCube instalment set for release Q1 2004 at the latest!
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