Pros: ADHD heaven: the Game. It's creative gameplay, it's funny and stupid, it's visual variety, it's wonderful colorful characters, and it's an incredible novel concept of playing five second "micro-games" in succession one after another. It just works.

Initially, I couldn't wrap my head around what this game was when it was first announced... I thought... A minigame collection? Well, no, there are minigames, but that's not what this is. It's like... if video games were Flash Cards that test your gaming abilities, performance and reaction time, and keeping you on your toes, not knowing what five-second-game will come next. Well, there are multiple categories, though no game goes beyond the simple controls of d-pad and A button only, so you're never put in a place of too much confusion. There's also always a single prompt that appears when a microgame is introduced, and I feel it's just enough to suggest to the player what to do in the microgame. And these categories help separate the games into different modes so it's not too much unexpected in one place, and in WarioWare here, there are different characters that are keepers of these different gaming categories.

Firstly, Wario, the mascot who's used perfectly for this game and eventual franchise, as he matches the silliness and chaotic energy of the style of gameplay found here, even though it practically has nothing to do with the Wario games that've come before. But he's used great as a mascot here, and his likeness benefits the success of the product. And to differentiate him from his prior appearances, they've dressed him up in a wildly colorful biker outfit, and even given him a hog of his own to ride around town. Other characters are all brand new, and they're all fantastic too, yeah, all of them. Jimmy, the disco dancer, hosts sports themed games, Mona the fashionable ice cream shop worker hosts "weird" games, 9-Volt the nerdy kid hosts retro Nintendo themed games (which, was the huge draw for a Nintendo nerd like me), Kat and Ana host animal themed games, Orbulon hosts "thinking" games that take slightly longer than five seconds, Dribble & Spitz are a dog and cat duo and they host sci-fi games, and Dr. Crygor hosts "photo real" styled games, and then one final category is a Wario remix, where Wario is featured in new microgames that can fit snuggly into any of the above categories. It's a fun journey with a TON of variety, and little microgames that are so goofy and fun, that often you'll wish they were full-blown games all in their own right. And with these characters also comes great presentation, as each have their own little story intros and outros, as well as unique visual and audio storytelling, with some great music as well.

In addition to the main campaign, there's other modes where you can play each microgame for highscores, as they get faster and harder the more they loop. As well as "hard" and "thrilling" modes, as well as Boss Rush and such. Speeding things up, setting things to maximum difficulty, only giving you one life, etc. And then there's also unlockable minigames, separate from the microgames, little high score games like jump rope, skate boarding, and paper airplane, but also "multiplayer games" where one player uses the left side of the GBA and its L button, and another player uses the right side of the GBA and its R button, these minigames are frenetic and exciting, and a blast to play with a friend (Vs. Chiritorie and Vs. Dong Dong are favs of mine).

Cons: Some of the visuals can look rather janky, but I kinda chalk it up to charm, honestly, so much of this game is weird, and some moments that look off model, actually add to the quirkiness. Otherwise, I don't see any real issues here, some Microgames are more difficult than others, and sometimes you wish a prompt would clue you in more or less, but it's never to the point where you feel cheated, it works, and if they didn't throw you for a loop every now and then, it wouldn't have that chaotic energy that you want out of this game, which is a huge part of the fun factor!

What it means to me: Like stated above, when I first saw the announcement of this game, I didn't know what the heck I was looking at, thinking it was a minigame collection, but I remember seeing some of 9-Volt's NES games, like Zelda and Duck Hunt and such, and wanting to try this game out just for that... But... Once you try WarioWare, that's it, you're in, it was like no other game before it and especially if you're into highscore games, this one will keep you playing for a long long long long long time.

I've had this installed on my Miyoo Mini for months but thought I'd give it a go after it did so well in Back Page Pod's recent Best Games of 2003 draft. Not having played a Wario Ware game before, but knowing vaguely what to expect, I thought it was great fun. The daft animations and funny little noises made me laugh out loud frequently, and the creativity but also accessibility of each of the microgames was impressive - it's remarkable how immediately you know exactly how to do, often just from a one word prompt, like 'Dodge!', 'Find!' or 'Praise!'. Favourite games include the one where you have to shake hands with the border collie, and the one where you have to use scarab beetle Wario to guide a golf ball into a hole, after which he laughs maniacally.

I will say, however, that I completed the 'campaign', for want of a better word, in about sixty minutes one Sunday afternoon and then went back to the endless mode to play all of the games in each level, which only took a few more sessions. It's a very short game, then, but I guess this is missing the point: anyone looking for a rich single-player experience should look elsewhere; this is very much a game to have a quick blast on while you're waiting for the kettle to boil, or cooking dinner, or, as Wario would probably have wanted, when taking a dump.

I don't know that much about the series as a whole, but I understand that all of the sequels never quite captured the magic of this first game. That said, I'd be interested to know if people recommended either of the Switch games for multiplayer, as the formula feels like it could make for a great party game.

An absolutely awesome game, the characters are all freaks and we love them for it. The mini game collections are fun, I really enjoy the Nintendo throwbacks and the photorealistic challenges are really cute!

I like that a number of games are built upon into either longer form score attack or a two-person one-console format.

I can’t really fault it apart from perhaps some similarities between game objectives being same-y. For example, shoot the guy, catch the guy, stop it in place. Or maybe that’s the ingenuity of Wario’s wares.

WarioWare always felt understated, but really playing this in tandem with rounds of Game & Watch Gallery 3 solidifies the connectivity Nintendo has with simple gameplay objectives and hooks.

Warioware megamicrogames gets the job done and not a whole lot else. I love all the new characters this game introduces who later get thier personality's fleshed but thier all pretty cool. I really like the franchises style of gameplay it's addictive yet challenging sometimes when you don't know how a microwave works and then figure it out and go "oh." Other than that (and the visual style and music being bangers) that's it. I kinda wish there was a little more but all in all a very good game and I highly recommend becuase it only takes like what 2 hours to beat? (Also there's "don't go breaking my heart" in this game for some reason?)

(Note: I played this on the Nintendo Switch Online service, but I did not use any of the extra emulation features like save states or rewinds. Figured I'd clarify that.)

Its kinda crazy to think about how this little game started a series that gets new releases on every console since. That's not to imply anything about this game's quality, I just think its interesting and was probably quite unexpected, especially since its the only Wario related property that's still going after the 2000s. Wario's Woods, Mario & Wario, and Wario Land all died, but thankfully WarioWare survived. I think people playing this first game in the series nowadays will find it pretty barebones in comparison to any other WarioWare game; there's no special gimmick to this one, just the microgames. Its also very short, you can probably beat it in less than an hour. It took me just a few more minutes longer than an hour to get through. That's fine, though, since I don't really think stretching out the length of a game like this would be all that beneficial. Its surprisingly pretty tough near the end, the microgames can get very fast which really tests your reaction speed and ability to quickly understand what you need to do. The concept of the WarioWare series is pretty genius in my opinion and, of course, this game started it all. It makes for such a great party game, which is probably why the GameCube game is basically this one but focused entirely on multiplayer shenanigans. In comparison, this game focuses much more on single-player content, though it does have some multiplayer modes that I unfortunately won't be able to play. My familiarity with the GameCube game also meant that I knew every microgame in this one, but that didn't really sour anything for me.

I don't think there's anything left to cover for the gameplay section, since I just summarized my thoughts on it in the intro paragraph. I'll discuss the presentation, which I thought was really good and probably a big part of the draw here. The game is split up into different survival gauntlets (plus some side modes I couldn't play) that have a different amount of microgames you need to play and each one is followed by a series of cutscenes that are quite fun to watch. There's a sort of mini story given for each, whether that be Mona running away from cops for speeding or Orbulon trying to get to a rescue ship after his own ship got hit by a rock, and the visuals associated with each is tied into the story in a cool way. 9-Volt, for instance, has a retro Nintendo theme to his gauntlet, so before each microgame you see a parody of a traditional JRPG on an original Game Boy screen with 9-Volt as the protagonist and textboxes telling you that you defeated a microgame. The characters all feel really unique and charming in their own ways, ESPECIALLY for a Mario related title; aside from the aforementioned retro Nintendo levels, there's no sign of any traditional Mario stuff anywhere, so WarioWare's world really sticks out (which I personally think is a good thing). You can really feel all the soul, for lack of a better term, put into this game's presentation.

Usually, my reviews are longer than three paragraphs, but this game really doesn't give me a whole lot to talk about. Its a good game imo, if a bit barebones and very short. It doesn't take long for the microgames to start repeating. I think it's intended to be very replayable, which I would say is something that it pulls off well. The game does include a few little sidemodes that aren't the multiplayer stuff, but they're either endless versions of one of the microgames or a much longer version of the survival gauntlets you were already playing. Still, though, its nice content to have. Overall, I'd give the first WarioWare 3.5 stars; after so many other WarioWare games, I can't help but feel like there isn't much special about this one, and it can feel a bit too simple. But, at the same time, I think it is a good game overall.