Smooth Moves is a solid entry in the WarioWare series, but having only beat Twisted a month ago... I can't help but feel a bit underwhelmed and frustrated. That is not to say that Smooth Moves is a bad game, because when it works, it's still pure euphoria; quickly reacting to what's on screen and performing the necessary motion control inputs in response to the audio and visual stimuli to successfully progress is a proven formula that Twisted had already gotten down pat. However, while I feel Twisted took a seemingly simple control scheme (a gyro sensor in the GBA cartridge that required rotation alongside the use of the A button occasionally), Smooth Moves seems to take the exact opposite approach, in that it throws in so many wrinkles so quickly through its various "forms" that the game almost becomes too chaotic and unrefined for its own good.

How this works is that the game exposes you to various control schemes through preparation of the initial orientation of the controller as methods for setting up how each microgame should be played. So for instance, one particular microgame requires a "Samurai" pose where you "unsheath" your sword/Wiimote from your waist and slash an object as soon as it is exposed, while another microgame may require you to balance the Wiimote in the palm of your hand and tilt it carefully to tilt a ball on screen into a hole, and so on so forth. There are two that problems I have with this. The first is that a large portion of the battle becomes not so much properly executing the motion inputs + A rather than scrambling to properly set up the Wiimote into the correct form/starting position; because initial orientation often decides the direction of the motion inputs from a still motion bar, it is very difficult to recover if your initial orientation does not match that which is necessary to complete the microgame. It's not as problematic on regular speeds, but as the game speeds up, so too does the interval in which you spot the orientation image that loads right before the microgame as well as your preparation time to get into position. So included in the overall package is this frenzy of constantly readjusting the Wiimote (with a "neutral position" essentially irrelevant because you'll be constantly shifting between forms with the Remote form as its own style of microgame and not always appearing between the other forms) and picking your poison between having the Wii strap on and being more restricted in adjusting the Wiimote's position or not having the Wii strap on and potentially throwing/dropping the controller. I take particular issue with this because it shifts a good chunk of the difficulty away from the main gameplay and rather, towards the "downtime" inbetween the gameplay (that is, I would argue that it does not make the game harder, but rather make it harder to play).

The second, and perhaps most obvious drawback with Smooth Moves over Twisted is that at the end of the day, you are still working with emulated motion controls via a motion sensor bar over a physical gyro sensor in Twisted. There were a few notable microgames that I could not get to work or detect any inputs properly no matter how closely I followed the initial forms required or the inputs required, and some of the microgames felt a bit unintuitive in how to immediately approach. This I stem to both the game not always making it obvious what motion inputs are required (for example, it took me a few tries + looking it up online to get in my head that the papers microgame required me to hit the bottom of the Wiimote on my palm instead of performing a rotation motion with the bottom of the Wiimote to spin and centralize the papers together, as silly as that sounds) and that some of microgames just didn't function properly for me (i.e. I could not get the shredding microgame to work no matter how much I emulated the necessary motion by moving my Wiimote in my grip like that of a crankshaft). It's unfortunately most likely an limitation of the system from emulated over direct motion controls as well as pointing back to the design philosophy of expanding the Wiimote's usage via different initial forms, which both complicates the game by having you memorize different types of motion inputs and also not really fleshing out each of the forms' overall usage if there's only six microgames for a good chunk of them.

I don't have too many other thoughts that haven't already been stated by Pangburn. The minigames with the motion controls are fine as extensions of the original concepts presented in the relevant microgames, the postgame "exercise" mode with Crygor is a cute little gimmick but ultimately doesn't add much new functionality other than extending the length of some of the more physical microgames like doing squats and giving you an imaginary calories burnt figure to look at, and the postgame Orbulon microgames with the nunchuk Balance Stone are an interesting wrinkle but ultimately not fleshed out enough; they generally revolve around the motion sensor in the nunchuk and don't try and experiment with the joystick, which is a bit of a missed opportunity in my opinion since movement/directional aiming is one of the easier concepts to grasp in games in my opinion. Also, they don't explain what the A/B/C variations mean in their Form Baton explanation of the "Diner" even though it's actually more simple than it sounds; A means your nunchuk and Wiimote should be pointing up, B means they point towards the screen, and C means they point towards each other. Otherwise, it's classic WarioWare but in Wii form; the presentation's just as poppy and cartoony as before, the story's this absurd series of vignettes detailing how Wario & his lovable and hapless friends stumbled upon the mystical Wiimote and somehow successfully navigate their wacky lives, and the backing soundtrack and excellent sound effects provide excellent feedback for your inputs and responses. Love the overly earnest voiceovers & descriptions of the Form Baton states alongside the sumi-e visuals by the way! It's no Twisted 2.0 but hey, it'll get the job done if you want a nice way to demonstrate Wii motion controls to friends in quickfire action form! If I do end up getting friends to play this with me in multiplayer by the way, I'll make sure to include a follow-up review with my thoughts on that.

PS: In case you're wondering, I do play without the Wii strap. No broken monitors or Wiimotes yet though!