“I just helped a princess go to the toilet!” — now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.
WarioWare: Move It! is an unbelievably fun party. As the latest instalment in a long line of WarioWare games, players will need to shake, dance, wiggle, and ultimately move their way through lightning-fast microgames and tropical holiday mishaps.
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Prior to Move It! I had played 2021’s WarioWare: Get It Together on Switch, and 2006’s WarioWare: Smooth Moves on the Wii. Smooth Moves in particular was my first foray into the WarioWare series, and its fast-paced nonsense had me at hello. Forever the GOAT of WarioWare games in my heart, could Move It! live up to Smooth Moves?
The Guest List
A colourful cast of crazy characters return from previous WarioWare titles to join Wario on the trip of a lifetime! After entering a lottery, Wario wins a holiday for himself and all his friends (who mostly invite themselves along despite Wario’s displeasure) to Caresaway Island. Each of the guests encounters trouble in paradise that gives way to completing microgames in order to overcome them.
With a cast of over 20 vibrant characters, there would be too many to list here, but I would like to highlight two of my favourites.
The award for my favourite level goes to 9-Volt. His microgames are all themed around other Nintendo IP. Whether it’s digging for fossils in Animal Crossing, pulling Pikmin from the ground as Captain Olimar, or even petting Nintendogs and Nintencats, there’s something to bring joy to the hearts of hard-core Nintendo fans.
My favourite character of them all is Disco Stu- I mean, Jimmy T. His moustache is as impeccable as his moves – need I say more?
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Party For One (Single Player)
The main story campaign takes about 1.5-2 hours to complete, depending on your ability. While the story mode is short, it offers plenty of replayability as the microgames of each level are often randomly selected, and each individual microgame itself can have multiple variants.
The WarioWare games are best known for taking advantage of each generation’s gimmick – from touch screens to motion controls. Move It! takes advantage of the duality of the Joycons in the form of Form Stones, supposedly sacred stones that resemble Joycons in almost every single way and are used to interact with the world.
Each microgame requires the player to assume a certain position, or form, by holding the Joycons in a certain way while holding a specific stance. These forms are introduced through splash screens, described by a narrator, and demonstrated through visuals. The humour throughout the game is fantastic, but it’s the humour in these splash screens that really solidify WarioWare’s whacky brand.
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The WarioWare games are Nintendo’s chance to get ‘spicy’ – or, as spicy as they are allowed. How many Nintendo games ask you to stamp something with your rear? Or make you work a poison apple through the digestive tract of a princess and ultimately help her poop? These microgames are the spice of Nintendo’s life.
Combine the chaotic fun of each minigame, its spiciness, and the weird forms one must assume, and you’re in for a fun time. I played this game on a Discord call with my friends, both streaming the game and with my webcam pointed right at me. The laughs that ensued from my chaos as I punched, danced, jumped, and moved my way through Caresaway Island brought joy to my heart.
Enjoy a compilation of me doing weird things in WarioWare: Move It!
Party For Two (Multiplayer)
I roped my brother into playing the party mode with me. This is the multiplayer section of the game which differs from the main story. It is essentially WarioWare‘s attempt at Mario Party (attempt being the keyword). We played Galactic Conquest, a board game where players must be the first to reach the spaceship. It was mediocre at best.
The charm of the fast-paced microgames is lost when it takes 30 seconds in between each game to roll a dice and move across the board. The essence of what makes Mario Party great, and the essence of what makes the WaioWare games great, does not equal a multiplayer mode that is enjoyable.
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Furthermore, the motion controls did not register as cleanly as they did for the single-player campaign. For some reason, the Switch struggled to register the finite movements of multiple Joycons. This led to many frustrations.
When I asked my brother what he thought of the mode overall, he said, “Rubbish.”
Party For Able-Bodied People
Wario Ware: Move It! is a great game for people with full, uninhibited range and movement of their bodies. If, however, you have a condition that prevents you from being able to do this (say, oh I don’t know, rheumatoid arthritis) then this game may not be for you.
As someone with said condition, I struggled to play this game. Having loved WarioWare: Smooth Moves as an able-bodied child, it became another disappointment to add to my long list of things I can no longer enjoy thanks to my disability. However, I would argue that it shouldn’t.
WarioWare: Get It Together was a great step in the right direction. This instalment required players to use buttons and joysticks to complete microgames and save the day. The change from using motion controls on the Wii to buttons on the Switch meant that I could lay in bed on a bad-knee day and enjoy the wonderful whims of Wario and his pals.
It seems to me that Nintendo has the ability to create a WarioWare game that could enable players to choose between button pressing and motion controls, or between sets of microgames that use either function. Such an ability would make the party open-invite.
We live in an age where accessibility is becoming the norm across many aspects of our culture. Why, then, does it feel like Nintendo refuses to allow everyone to come to the party? For many of their games, not just the WarioWare series, Nintendo seemingly refuses to provide options or settings that enable more people to enjoy their fantastic library. It’s not as if people haven’t been talking about their lack of accessibility for years now, so why is it that they continue to ignore this?
If this review is an open letter to the company that made my childhood great; dear Nintendo, please listen. Allow me to continue to enjoy your games for years to come. Consider accessibility in your future games.
Time To Go Home
A great party for 1, a mediocre party for 2, and a party exclusively for able-bodied people. Its lackluster board-game mode and infidelity with multi-player joy-cons, combined with its inaccessibility, make WarioWare: Move It! a less-than-perfect experience.
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Overshadowing its shortcoming is the incredible guest list of B-star Nintendo celebrities (though they are A-star in my heart), and of course, the fantastic microgames.
It may never dethrone WarioWare: Smooth Moves in my heart, but it would sit right next to it as a great title in its own right.
Quest Daily score WarioWare: Move It!:
8/10
Quest Daily was supplied with a review copy of WarioWare: Move It! by Nintendo for the purpose of this review.
