Game Over — WarioWare Inc.: Minigame Mania

I have recently had the opportunity to play through WarioWare, Inc.: Minigame Mania (WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! If you are in North America). This title is now on the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack service, but if you haven’t been checking to see what new games have been added regularly, you may have missed it. WarioWare was the first title that I had for my Game Boy Advance SP, and I played an insane amount of it. Seeing that this title was now available to play again on the Switch, I decided to play through it once again to see if it was still as good as I had remembered or if it had aged poorly. It took me a couple of hours to play through the full game, and I am happy to report that it is still a great title that you need to check out if you have the online service.

Upon starting the game, we see Wario hanging out at his place in Diamond City. He turns on the local news to see a report about a game called Pyoro that has become super popular and made a tonne of money. Wario instantly starts dreaming of all the cash he could bring in if he created his own game. His house is instantly renovated and becomes the headquarters of Wario’s new company, WarioWare, Inc. Making a game isn’t as easy as he had expected, especially since our “hero” is quite lazy. So instead of doing it on his own, he calls all his closest friends to get them to help — aka do all the work — on this project.

The first “friend” that you meet is Mona. She is running late and is speeding on her scooter to get to work. The police are in pursuit, so her monkey has to throw bananas at them, and the way to do that is to win a crazy mini-game. You have four seconds to figure out what to do and how to win the game. One challenge has you trying to line up a finger with a nose to shove it in; one has you catch toast popping up into the air out of a toaster; and another shows a beautiful girl who is crying and has a large trail of snot that you have to sniff up. All the games are bizarre and usually take a couple of attempts to figure out how to win. Every time you fail, you will lose a banana. You can only fail four times before you get a game over and need to restart that section. If you manage to successfully complete 14 different tasks — the number of games you need to complete will vary depending on who's stage you are in, and you will fight the boss for the final challenge. This one has you trying to hit a nail with a hammer, keeping it straight and not hitting the hand of the character tasked with holding it.

Once you beat the boss battle, you will see the end of that stage character's story. Mona evades the police and gets to work on time. We see all these main characters that you have beaten all hanging out together at the Gelateria — looks like a large townhouse. The next stage that you challenge is unlocked for you to beat on your quest towards Wario. Each of Wario’s friends has a theme for the kinds of games you will challenge; some are sports, others are nature-themed, and my favourite are the retro mini-games that you play when you challenge 9-Volt.

Some of the characters, like Jimmy, you will challenge multiple times. But since you played his earlier stage, you will be familiar with the games that pop up. The best part of this is that if you complete his challenges, you will unlock side mini-games like Jump Forever, where you try to jump as many times as you can without getting hit by the jump rope; or Paper Plane, where you try to control a paper aeroplane as it slowly glides down through a level full of obstacles. The side game that I played the most was SkatingBoard. My boyfriend (now husband), who bought me the GBA SP along with this game, and I were constantly trying to beat each other's score to be called the champ. It is so ridiculously addictive (think Flappy Bird), and these side games add a tonne of replayability to this game. Do you duck, or can you jump over the block obstacles in your path? Oh crap, a bird just showed up…

The graphics in the game are on par with what you would expect from a Game Boy Advance title, with some of the games you challenge feeling like they were created in a program like Flash. For playing these challenges, you have the option of using the thumbstick or the D-pad. I felt selecting the latter option was more precise while I was playing the mini-games. I'm assuming this is because this title was originally released on the Game Boy Advance, so the games were created knowing the gamer would be using a D-pad.

This game does not take a long time to beat, but it's so random and silly that you will smile at the ridiculous stuff you are doing, like avoiding the large potato on a skateboard that comes towards you ridiculously fast or brushing the teeth on screen to make them sparkling white. This is the perfect game to play handheld or with a couple of friends when you have your Switch docked and hooked up to the TV. There are a few two-player titles that you unlock that you can challenge a friend to, like Chicken Race, or else you can take turns trying to get a high score on some of the other mini-games that you have unlocked. If you have a subscription to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, this is a must-play title!

If you check out the Paper Plane or Skating Board mini-games, post your high score in the comments!