WarioWare: Move It! gives audiences unsatisfied with 2021’s WarioWare: Get it Together! a proper entry into the long-running microgame collection series featuring Mario’s money-hungry antithesis Wario his just due with over 200 microgames that feel right at home with previous iterations of WarioWare titles.
WarioWare: Move It!, like previous entries into the series, is relatively light in the story, with the plot revolving around the eponymous Wario winning a seat for him and 20 of his friends to a tropical island getaway on Caresaway. Interestingly, with Kevin Afghani taking over for Charles Martinet’s voice, Wario has never been more vocal, with the character now stringing together full-on sentences, which takes some time to get used to but adds some depth to the otherwise cartoon character.
Single player mode in WarioWare: Move It! consists of the player making their way across Caresaway, gradually getting to play as all 20 of WarioWare‘s extended cast in a wide gamut of 3-second microgames that all utilize the Joy-Con in some novel way.
If you’ve ever played a WarioWare game in the past, you’ll feel right at home with WarioWare: Move It!‘s offerings, with the main draw of the latest entry relying on using both Joy-Cons while standing up in various positions that seemingly exist to make you look silly as possible. Crucially, as someone who uses a wheelchair, I found the movements required to play the game still completely doable, even sitting.
“WarioWare: Move it!, like previous entries into the series, is relatively light in the story…”
Unfortunately, this also highlights some of the limitations of the Joy-Con controllers, as many of the full-body gestures the games tell you to do only really register the position of the Joy-Con controllers in 3D space rather than the acute movements of the player’s body.
Saying all that, it would have been nice if Nintendo included some accessibility options for those with limited mobility or motor skills, as the majority of the microgames present in WarioWare: Move It! are straightforward and can easily be translated to work with traditional button presses, even if that would ultimately take away from the silly nature of the game.
The gestures themselves include everything from holding the Joy-Cons to your sides, holding them vertically like a sword or bat, fisting them like gloves, and dangling them using the included wrist strap, in addition to other variations that all encourage out-of-the-box operations that add to the overall charm of WarioWare: Move It!.
“Completing the story mode unlocks additional multiplayer modes, which are easily the best part of WarioWare: Move It! and where the game truly shines…”
Despite having over 200 microgames, after a while, you will start to see repeating games or minimal variations on existing games, but thanks to their 3-second runtime, they don’t tend to feel too repetitive, which keeps the games feeling fun and engaging.
Completing the story mode unlocks additional multiplayer modes, which are easily the best part of WarioWare: Move It! and where the game truly shines, offering everything from your usual selection of microgame versus challenges to a mode called Thrill Ride, which gives each player a single life to get through as many games as possible, making for a fun and brisk mode to play with friends.
“…if you’re a fan of WarioWare, then WarioWare: Move It! is a return to form for the series and feels like the true successor to WarioWare: Smooth Moves!…”
Graphically, WarioWare: Move it! looks the part, with vibrant, cartoony art juxtaposed against the often bizarre and lo-fi polygonal aesthetic of the microgames, which all contribute to the overall strangeness and appeal of the series in a way that many other games fail to capture, outside of perhaps the Rhythm Heaven series.
WarioWare: Move It!, like previous games in the series, takes advantage of its target hardware, delivering a unique experience only possible on the Nintendo Switch, but if I were to pick favourites from recent memory, Game & Wario, which, albeit being a spinoff, featured some of the most unique games in its collection of minigames that truly utilized the potential of the Wii U gamepad, where WarioWare: Move It!, while good, feels limited by the simplicity of the Joy-Con controller, which ultimately limits what is possible on screen.
Even still, if you’re a fan of WarioWare, then WarioWare: Move It! is a return to form for the series and feels like the true successor to WarioWare: Smooth Moves!, which was released all the way back in 2006 on the Nintendo Wii.
