WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!

"This! Game! Is! Great! And! Has! So! Many! One! Word! Sentences!"

Why no fractions, GameFAQs, why no fractions? I was itching to cast aside your note and give this game a 9.75. Of course I couldn't give it a ten, that would mean that it's Super Smash Bros. Melee level, but come on, this game deserves more than a 9! Why? Why must I give it a plain old 9? WHY!?

Ah, forget it, you get the idea. On with the review.

WarioWare Inc.: Mega MicroGame$, aside from having an obnoxiously complicated-to-type title, is, simply put: a great game. Any wonder why it's such a popular GBA game? But what makes it this way? Pure innovation and weirdness, my friend. Stuff that far too many games are lacking. Some people may hate it, mainly for the fact that it has 3-second games (more on that in a second), but the amount of fun you can have by just playing ONE of these games makes you feel like you've just played a truly bad-a** game for about 5 minutes. Yep, 5 minutes of pure fun in just 3 seconds!

Okay, by now you're probably thinking What the heck? 3 second games? A dollar sign for the letter "s?" What's going on here? I can't blame you. So, with no further ado, you'll find out the answers to the questions you had when you first clicked on the tagline!

Basically, in a very short version, Wario has thought of a way to make a whole lot of money. Make hundreds (yes, hundreds) of games in one package... but make them all ridiculously short! But apparently, the quantity outweighs the size, and the games don't seem that short at all, after you've played through all of them. Anyway, when you, the lowly consumer, starts, your mission is to get through all of the games! But Wario isn't you only opponent. You have to also get through games of his semi-unknown friends! All of these friends have different likings, so you'll have to go through Nintendo games (or snippets of them), Weird games, Sci-Fi games, and then, at the end, a boss game for each of Wario's friends, that actually exceed the length of 3 seconds!

However, it's not that simple. The only instruction you get on how to complete a game is one word flashed very quickly about half a second before you're thrown into the actual game. The rest you just have to figure out for yourself. See where the 3-second part comes in? Your brain has to be working full-speed if you want to get through 10-to-25 consecutive games without messing up.

Graphics: 10/10

This is kind of hard to explain. But the graphics get a 10 because they're APPROPRIATE. Sometimes, the graphics are incredible, and sometimes, they're horrible- but ON PURPOSE. For example, when playing a snippet of Balloon Fight, they don't purposely enhance the graphics- it's all in Nintendo's 8-bit glory! But when cutting steak, you get very realistic steak!

It's kind of surprising the graphics of the good-graphics games are so... well, good! Play just about any game in the realistic Genre and you'll see how good these graphics can get. And the default bright and cheery color scheme doesn't hurt either.

Sound: 9.5/10

You'll be hearing Wario grunts (WAAAAAH HAHA! IT'S A ME! WARIO! YEAH!) a whole lot. That's what took the point off. But still, sometimes I'm surprised what comes through that tiny GBA speaker. These sounds can get very detailed and high-quality. Well, as high-quality as the GBA can make it.

But one thing I liked were the imitation tunes. You'll be hearing the themes from Mario and Zelda a lot- and they even made it sound EXACTLY like it did on the NES!

Story: 8/10

Yeah, Wario's greedy, comes up with this big plan, I already explained it. Pretty average. However, some of the character introductions and epilogues are... FUNNY. That;s what gives it the edge. There are also a few references to Wario Land 4 in there.

Gameplay: 9.5/10

One of the main characteristics of this game is that you only need the A button and D-pad for the regualar short games. Yep, that's it. Surprised? Enraged? Well, you shouldn't be. The things those buttons DO change a whole lot during each game, although some games are carbon copies of the other. But still, that shouldn't be a problem.

As stated in the introduction, the basic gameplay has you selecting Wario or one of his unlockable friends and playing the games they throw at you. Each friend has a different genre of games. The Genres are- Introduction, Sports, Remix, Weird, Sci-Fi, Reality, IQ, Nature, and Anything Goes (I think I got them all). Don't tell me there isn't something in there that you'd like.

Once you've selected a friend, watch out! After an intro, the games start coming at you, and fast! You only get one verb flashed on the screen, and you have to figure out what to do, with a short time limit to do it! And there are a lot of things you CAN do! For example, if the verb is "spotlight!", (wait, that's not a verb!) you have to keep wario in the spotlight for the amount of time. If the verb is "dodge!", you have to dodge the incoming object. It kind of gets interesting in the IQ genre, where you have to think about what you have to do THEN think while doing it!

But it's not that simple! After every game, the speed slightly increases, like those old brick/block games. So, at 0 games, the speed is kind of slow, and at 100 games- wait, it's not humanly possible to be fast enough to get to 100 games.

And that's not all! After 10 to 25 games, you'll get a boss game thrown at you. This usually has no time limit, and can get really challenging. But it's a much-needed break from what you went through to get there... mostly.

And that's STILL not all! If you repeat a game, it isn't as easy as the first time. Besides being faster, the game also "levels up..." so now, instead of dodging a shark, you'll dodge a giant potato... or maybe IT will try to intercept you in mid-jump! There are up to 3 levels, 3 being the hardest.

After finishing, you can replay and do as many games as you want, or go on to the next person.

As stated many times before, some of these games are funny... or downright weird. The one where you are a barber and shave your patient bald... laugh out loud! But the one where you have to fly through two stones so you can give a baby bird a worm and which, as a result, makes the stones crash down for a woodland creature to use as a bridge... wow...

But, overall, the gameplay is fresh enough for me to totally love it.

Replay Ability: 9/10

With over 200 games, as the box states, you'll spend some time unlocking them all. Though I didn't think there were that many, there are still A LOT. And, for all of your hard work unlocking micro-games, it's possible to unlock... gasp... REGULAR games! Some are 2-player, but you can play them on ONE GBA with one player using L and the other R (that's so cool!), and some are remakes of classics like Sheriff and Fly Swatter (if you'd call that a classic.) And some are entirely new genres, like easy, hard, all bosses, and Thrilling. You can even unlock credits! How cool is that!? I know, not very.

But the only gripe I have is that, to unlock micro-games, you have to play the genre the game is in, over and over, with bosses and all, until the new game RANDOMLY comes up in between all of the other games. It just has to appear once and you unlock it, but it's so frustrating when you know that you have one... last... game... and you keep going up to 50 games and then failing without that game appearing ONCE in your entire playthrough.

However, the feeling that you still have a whole load of stuff to still unlock will dull most of this pain.

Overall: 9/10

The review explains it all. Innovation is the key, and pure insanity just cements it all together.

Buy or Rent?

Buy, dang it, if you have any sense of humor. If you have a few screws loose, then buy. If you think innovation is mandatory in ANY game, even remakes, then steal. Average gamers: buy. But if you hate innovation and don't want your games to show how totally insane games can be, then don't even think about buying or renting.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/04/04