Our podcast is finally finished!
Welcome back to the podcast! Today, we’re going to be talking about WarioWare: Get it Together, the first WarioWare game to come out on the Nintendo Switch. Unlike previous entries in the franchise, this is releasing on a console with few major hardware gimmicks that can affect gameplay. Yes it has motion controls and whatever intense IR, HD Rumble Joycon technology they used in 1-2-Switch, but this game doesn’t take advantage of those specifically and the result is maybe the first game in the series that really plays a lot like the original. However, the main difference comes in the form of multiplayer and character selection. This entry features a huge roster of playable characters to choose from (and cycle through in each level) who all have a unique mechanic set and play at least a little differently from one another. This is a cool idea, and some of them really stand out as inspired designs, but it does have one drawback. The games can never be designed around the mechanics of a particular character, which means they have a sort of homogenous air around them. This doesn’t suck all the fun out of the game by any means, but it is a pervasive sense of missed opportunity that follows it throughout its runtime. The multiplayer main story mode does make up for this somewhat, as throwing another person into the mix creates chaos and can provide fun social moments the game doesn’t have solo, which is a good thing, but this also comes with a host of pros and cons. We’re going to be talking about the challenges imposed by having multiple people playing a microgame at the same time, the various factors that you have to consider when choosing who to play, and we celebrate the return of Guy Who Drinks Water Too Fast from Smooth Moves.
Thank you for listening this week, and I hope you didn’t notice we did all Nintendo games this month. We did it as a sort of theme, but as it has spilled into December a bit, now it just seems like we’re being massive fanboys. If you’ve played this title, how do you think it stacks up against other titles in the series? Is the lack of a major control gimmick holding the game back, or did the multiplayer aspect save it for you? Let us know in the comments or over on our Discord server! Next time, we’re going to be talking about the puzzle game Gorogoa, which is considerably less chaotic than this game, but does still get a bit weird in its own way, so we hope you’ll check it out with us!