WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 1/4/2023)

[Image from igdb.com]

WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Genre(s): Action

Platforms: GBA

Release Date: March 21, 2003

What is Wario’s relation to Mario, exactly? Is he Mario’s cousin with only a slight familial resemblance? Is he a crazed, deluded fan who dresses similarly to Mario to emulate his likeness out of both worship and a desire to vanquish him? He debuted in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and the grainy, mobile Mario series on the original Gameboy took some creative liberties with Mario’s properties in an attempt to discern it from the mainline series. Besides the setting of Sarasaland and having to rescue another princess that would later become Peach’s designated tennis partner for the end of time, Wario was one of the new villains the game introduced in lieu of not having Bowser at the helm. Nintendo’s intentions for Wario mirrored the same dynamic as Bizzaro Superman: an uglier, uncanny counterpart who also exhibits unsavory, villainous character traits as opposed to their heroic doppelganger. In Wario’s case, he’s greedy, lecherous, hedonistic, oafish, and about as unhygienic as a New Orleans hobo. Such negative qualities do not apply to Nintendo’s regal mascot Mario, so that’s why Wario exemplifies his “anti-Mario” role so splendidly. There is a concealed advantage to being Mario’s sleazy antithesis, however, and that is that Wario has more free will to do whatever he pleases. He’s the spare among Mario characters like Prince Harry and Billy Carter before him, a liberating role that Mario cannot fulfill, for he is too busy representing Nintendo’s wholesome brand to do anything out of his comfort zone. Sadly, Luigi can’t even run wild because he is tied too closely to Mario, so only Wario can be granted this freedom because he’s the disreputable wildcard. The Wario Land series was already a subversive take on Mario’s 2D platformers, but Nintendo went one step beyond what Wario was capable of. If Wario Land is the “anti-Mario” game, then WarioWare, Inc. (which is what I will be referring to because the full title is long and difficult to type) is an anti-video game in general.

The premise of WarioWare, Inc. is best experienced firsthand in order to fully wrap one’s head around it, but I’ll do my best to detail it succinctly. The player is presented with a litany of “microgames” that the player must complete in a brief window of time, represented visually by the shortening fuse of a bomb at the bottom of the screen. A single-word exclamation gives the player a cursory bit of context of what to do in the fleeting moments with a microgame. The games are ordered in no particular order in a lightning-fast fashion that gets even faster as the numbers accumulate. If the player loses all four lives, they’ll have to start from square one, and defeating the level’s microgame boss will net a completion. Playing the level again after completing it is an arcade endurance test where superseding the boss battle unlocks another faster tier of the same microgames with additional enhancements that increase their difficulty. The player will be granted an extra life if they’ve lost one along the way. I’ve often bemoaned games with arcade difficulties on consoles, but that pertains more to games unsuited for it, like platformers. WarioWare’s blazing onslaught of microgames works perfectly for the incremental arcade format. Some may argue that the game doesn’t give the player enough leeway to complete the microgames due to the hasty window of opportunity the game provides to complete them without fail. I often struggled with microgames that I hadn’t experienced before. However, the game wouldn’t feel as zany and exhilarating without it. None of the microgames are very punishing or require a steep learning curve after initially encountering them, so I can only fault my lack of experience and not the game’s design. That, and most microgames are integrated often as they pop up often enough to practice, and the mechanics usually only require the player to press A with timing and slight D-pad maneuvers.

Then there’s the matter of describing what the micro games consist of. Using the word “random” is an understatement, and likening the five-second flashes of the microgames to a fever dream would be a slight cliche. Still, I can’t think of anything else as a more suitable comparison for the tense, baffling rollercoaster ride that is experiencing WarioWare’s content. Many microgames feature pixelated graphics, while others exhibit more rudimentary Atari or NES-era pixels. Some microgames are drawn with crude animation, and some are beautiful enough to bestow in an art exhibit. It seems like Nintendo had freelance artists submit anything they could come up with, and they chose the best ones to feature in the game. As for what the player will experience, let’s do an old-fashioned highlight reel. A disembodied hand must wait for his toast to pop from the toaster, and the player must catch it before it hits the ground. A cute girl stares at a nightfall landscape with a lighthouse, or at least she would be cute if she didn’t have a viscous strand of snot the length of my arm hanging out of her nose that the player must suck back up (you killed my boner, Nintendo). More realistically, humanoid versions of Mario and Bowser wrestle and shoot energy balls at each other. An umbrella protects a pixelated cat from rainfall, a blocky, dinky character named Fronk must evade being stomped on, and a barber cuts too much from his customer's head to the point where he’s rendered a cueball, and the customer literally fumes red with anger. Accuracy-oriented boss microgames involve timing hammer bashes to a nail, a quick round of Punch-Out, and a minimal RPG duel that reminds me of Earthbound. I will not detail any more microgames, for I didn’t even scratch the surface with the few I mentioned; there are so many. Hilarity ensues every second in WarioWare from the bewildering mix of the microgame’s content in relation to the split-second reaction time needed to pass. Even if I fail a microgame, I’m still entertained by the absurdity. Digging through the levels after completion is optional, but I still wanted to see the full extent of wackiness the game still offered.

WarioWare Inc. is supported by a new slew of eclectic characters totally removed from Mario’s universe. How someone as physically and emotionally repugnant as Wario made so many friends is a mystery. Still, every level in WarioWare is themed around one of Wario’s new compatriots and their stories or a pair of them in the case of Dribble and Spitz and Kat and Ana. Preppy, teenage Mona is late for work and is caught speeding by the cops. Instead of submitting to their authority, a monkey flings bananas at them from the seat of her moped. The player must stave off the police’s pursuit of Mona by completing the games, with a banana peel toppling over a cop car at every successful completion. Dribble and Spitz run a cab company and escort a man who is a merman hybrid to the shores, and he doesn’t even pay them the fare. Some character’s levels coincide with a more concise microgame theme like Orbulon’s memory matching and fan favorite 9-Volt’s video game-themed microgames that involve tasks relating to classic Nintendo games like The Legend of Zelda and F-Zero. Wario’s final level is a demanding roulette of the hardest challenges at the swiftest of speeds, and all integrate himself in some fashion. I guess narcissism is yet another unsavory characteristic of Wario. WarioWare’s cast is not comprised of complicated characters, yet they work well for a game of this nature.

The true nature of WarioWare, Inc. is that it’s a scam. That’s right: Wario crafted this game with his friends for a quick rich scheme, duping all you suckers into buying a game for full price that consists of nothing but crumbs of content. Knowing him, he probably spent the rest of the budget on hookers and blow. It mirrors what the developers did in real life, and it’s probably a comment on how video games became so resplendent and complex in the then-recent years (and it’s only gotten more so in time). They delivered a game that contrasts the normal standard of modern gaming experiences with minimal silliness. However, playing WarioWare doesn’t make me feel cheated. Nintendo’s direction in making an “anti-video game” started one of the most refreshing, funny, and surprisingly invigorating series they’ve ever released. Who better to represent digital anarchy than the unscrupulous Wario? His new biker outfit is a badge of anarchy.