WarioWare: Smooth Moves

"Lacks the charm of its predecessors"

It's a source of personal pride for me to consider myself one of the very first fans of what is now one of the most popular series to grace any -- or in this case, many -- Nintendo consoles: Wario Ware. Admittedly, it all happened accidentally; I don't remember what I did ask for that birthday, but I got Wario Ware: Mega Microgame$ instead, my mom insisting that this is the game the guy at the toy store most recommended. I was a bit let down -- until I played it, that is.

Before Mega Microgame$, minigames and Mario Party were completely synonymous. However, Wario Ware really does bring new meaning to the idea “minigame” -- each little sequence lasts about five seconds. Needless to say, I was absolutely hooked. I blew through the unfortunately short but awesomely fun game and anxiously anticipated more iterations in the series. The GameCube remake was poor, but both Touched and Twisted were incredible. It was fairly apparent to me, though, that Smooth Moves for the Wii would easily be the best Wario Ware game to date. Alas, how wrong I was…

It's hard to pinpoint, exactly, what makes Smooth Moves such a flop, but I'll give it a shot. In short, Smooth Moves just is not what the previous games were. Think back to what you liked about the previous Wario Ware games: the crazy humor, the addictiveness, the replay value, and most of all, the variety of completely insane minigames. Well, while Smooth Moves does retain some of the positive aspects of previous games in the series, it drops the ball on many others.

To begin with, Smooth Moves does have the wacky humor that's been the trademark of every Wario Ware game. Naturally, the story begins with the greedy protagonist, Wario himself, looking to make a few quick bucks. The rest of his gang quickly gets involved and each have their own set of minigames. Each character is completely over the top and quite funny -- humor is derived from their names (for example, two ninjas-in-training named Kat and Ana) and their personalities. It's quirky, weird, and kind of hard to describe. But most importantly, it's funny.

Actually, though, much of the game's humor comes from the minigames themselves. Minigame collections like Mario Party had you doing some pretty crazy stuff, but Mario and Co.'s antics pale against those of Wario and his crew. Games in Smooth Moves are funny largely because they just don't make sense -- for example, you'll hold the Wii remote like a rod out in front of you and attempt to make sure a giant hippo on a beach ball keeps his balance. Or, you'll slide the Wii remote around to line up a finger with a nostril so the subject can successfully pick his nose. It's all pretty crazy and nonsensical, but it's also quite entertaining.

Admittedly, while the package in general fails to impress, the Wii controls are surprisingly well done. In the game, the Wii Remote acts as a magic baton called the Form Baton(by the way, some of the game's funniest moments come from a calm, collected voice reading hilarious descriptions of the various poses) which you use to complete the many minigames. The game is divided up into sections of minigames, grouped based on the position that you'll hold the Wii Remote to complete them. Each set of games has you holding the Remote differently -- maybe you'll hold the Remote around it's middle, place it on the table, and grab it when you hear a ring to pick up the phone. Or, you'll hold up the Remote to your nose to imitate an elephant. The variety of poses is impressive -- however, the variety of minigames is not.

See, one of the great things about the previous Wario Ware games is that every single minigame was so unpredictable. Yes, if you were playing for fifty points, you'd encounter several minigames multiple times over the course of your play session. But the difficulty would be ramped up or there would be significant changes (usually additions) to the game. However, such is not the case in Smooth Moves. Far too many times you'll see the same games over and over again, with miniscule changes that don't affect the difficulty or gameplay at all. The games start to get stale and boring all too quickly, which is a huge problem for a game that's so short to complete and relies so much on replay value to warrant the title's fifty dollar price tag.

That said, the first time that you play the game, you'll probably have quite a bit of fun with the games. The repetition of certain stupid games won't be that big of a problem, and you'll instead have fun with the different themes of minigames. Each character's games will feature many different uses of the Form Baton, but the general theme remains the same throughout -- for example, one character's games are all related to sports, while another (my personal favorite) features a bunch of Nintendo-themed games. In terms of this variety, the game is nice, but within each individual theme, there are too few games.

Naturally, this pretty significantly hurts any replay value that this game may have had. I played Mega Microgame$ for hours, despite the fact that I beat it rather quickly. Why? Because the games were still fun. That's just not the case with Smooth Moves. It's almost as if they're too simple, and when that is combined with the fact that there are far too few games, you've got a big problem on your hands. You can easily breeze through the game in just a couple of hours, and in so doing experience about everything that the game has to offer. And because the games feel stale and, frankly, aren't that fun, you'll have very little reason to every pick this game up again. Is a couple hours of game play really worth 50 bucks? I certainly don't think so.

In terms of both graphics and music, Smooth Moves yet again fails to impress. In terms of style, it's nearly identical to the original Wario Ware. And even worse, it's very comparable just in terms of technical graphics. I know that the visuals weren't the focus of the development team, but they clearly could have made a better effort in this department. I'm not one to demerit a game just because the visuals aren't jaw-dropping, but it's pretty pathetic that so many aspects of this game are poorly done. The music isn't bad, but nor is it all that great. It's forgettable, to be honest, and really doesn't contribute much to the game. There are some minigames that rely on sound (for example, the telephone one that I mentioned already) but aside from those, the sound seems to be another wasted outlet to somehow redeem this game.

Smooth Moves has been criticized for its unimpressive multiplayer, and I see no reason to disagree. There are few games that I've played that have somehow managed to pull of a successful multiplayer mode in which you simply pass around the controller, and Smooth Moves does nothing to change that. You can play most of the minigames that you've played in the main mode with some friends, but it's just not that fun. Of course, there's the fact that the games themselves aren't that good to begin with, plus there's no real feeling of multiplayer -- it's like everybody is just taking turns playing single player. Admittedly, it's pretty funny watching your friends perform some of the crazy poses that the game requires, but there are better (and less expensive) ways to laugh at your friends.

So, the verdict? The hype was great surrounding this game, so you've got something of an excuse if you picked up this game around its launch. But if you're reading this now and considering purchasing Smooth Moves, I'd warn you not to. Honestly, you're shelling out 50 bucks for what the developers would like to think is a good “idea” -- even if it is, the execution is terrible. If you really want to play it, this would be an idea rental, as you can mess around with it and try out the multiplayer in a weekend. But otherwise, I'd say you're making a good move by trying to distance yourself as much as possible from this disappointing title.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/14/08

Game Release: WarioWare: Smooth Moves (US, 01/15/07)