Developer: Nintendo, Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Switch
Tested on: Switch
WarioWare: Get It Together! – Review
Wario’s resumé might not be as impressive as that of Mario, but one area where our purple-and-yellow friend beats his rival is video game development. You already knew this if you’ve played a WarioWare title before, but for the uninitiated: whenever Wario isn’t out participating in sports tournaments or seeking treasure, he’s working at WarioWare, his game development company, alongside his trusty crew. The “games” this ragtag development crew puts together form the basic premise of the WarioWare series, which finally debuts on the Switch with WarioWare: Get It Together! It’s been a while since 2018’s WarioWare Gold on the 3DS. So, is this a welcome return, or should the series have remained dormant?
Story
The game’s opening cutscene sees Wario complete his latest video game creation, but things go awry when he boots it up. Wario and his crew are sucked into the game and must now beat it in order to escape. After the game’s initial stage -and the first boss battle- the world opens up, and you’ll find yourself exploring various areas that offer themed microgames, such as a Nintendo Classics area and an arena focused on sports games. This is where you encounter the appropriate crew members and see how they join the crew in short cutscenes that comprise Get It Together!‘s story.
Graphics
For the most part, Get It Together! sticks to the hallmark style of the WarioWare series, with simple animations, bright colors with only a minimal amount of shading, and thick outlines. The game does stray from this when the microgames venture into other Nintendo franchises, such as Fire Emblem: Three Houses or classic retro titles. These are faithfully recreated and offer accurate representations of the games in question. Your mileage may vary when it comes to Get It Together!’s main aesthetics (and we’ve seen some divided responses to some of the crew member redesigns) but the visual performance is nothing less than excellent, with a buttery smooth frame rate, no matter how intense the gameplay gets.
Sound
There is plenty of variety to be found in Get It Together!’s soundscape, though the music featured in the microgames is -understandably- only a few seconds long, just like the games themselves. The high tempo tunes underline the frantic nature of the game and they will speed up as the game itself ramps up the tempo. The sound quality is crisp and the sound effects present are varied as well. The only real disappointment when it comes to the audio is that, for the most part, voice work is limited to short stock clips such as “Yeah” and “Hey” rather than full voice acting. We would’ve loved it had this not been restricted to short snippets, especially given how fantastic Charles Martinet’s Wario voice is.
Gameplay
It’s difficult to explain WarioWare’s gameplay to someone that hasn’t experienced it for themselves, as it doesn’t sound all that exciting in theory. The core experience consists of a series of microgames that see you perform simple tasks, such as unsheathing a sword or flicking a switch. The caveat is that you only have a handful of seconds to do so, and the fun lies in the fast-paced gameplay that requires you to make split-second decisions and figuring out exactly how you need to accomplish your goal. Each entry in the WarioWare franchise slightly shakes things up, and Get It Together! certainly isn’t an exception. This time, the entire WarioWare crew gets involved, rather than being relegated to background roles. If you’re returning to the franchise from a previous entry, rest assured that Get It Together! is WarioWare at its best. Anyone new to the microgame madness is in for a treat as well.
Get It Together!’s gimmick works surprisingly well: each crew member has their own special ability, from Mona’s boomerang to Wario’s charge attack. These abilities aren’t locked to specific microgames either, so you’ll end up having to beat the same stage in different ways depending on which crew member gets randomly assigned to a stage. You’ll unlock more and more crew members as you progress through the game’s main story mode, and their gradual introduction means that you’ll have plenty of opportunity to familiarize yourself with each ability. Get It Together! eschews DS-era gimmicks, such as touch screen support or having to blow into the mic. This makes sense as microgames that rely on stuff like this would be unplayable in docked mode. Instead, the various crew members ensure that there is still plenty of gameplay variety. In fact, this approach adds another level of challenge, as you’ll need to memorize just how an ability works so that you can spring into action as soon as you see which crew member you get. While there certainly are options to pick your own crew, we found that the frantic gameplay is far more fun if you’re playing with a completely randomized crew, especially in co-op.
The game has plenty to offer beyond the main story mode as well. New modes are gradually unlocked and there are plenty of remix modes -which shake things up even more-, and there are even boss battles to overcome should you decide to take the plunge. As we mentioned, the game can be played in co-op as well, and given the sheer simplicity of the game’s controls, it’s easy to get anyone involved, although the abilities might need some explaining. Thankfully, the game offers a practice mode in the Break Room and any microgames you’ve unlocked can be revisited through the Play-O-Pedia. We also have to mention the Variety Pack mode, which offers minigames -rather than microgames- that can be tackled with up to four players. Rounding things out is Rising Star, where you compete with another player for gold stars based on your performance, and Wario Cup, which is the game’s online mode.
Finally, the game also offers up a whole smorgasbord of collectible trinkets, which can be earned or bought from the Emporium. These consist of pieces of artwork and different job titles for your crew, among others. While these don’t affect gameplay in the slightest, and can be easily ignored if you’re not into this sort of thing, they do add a lot of gameplay time for completionists. If we’re honest, the trinkets feel like a completely unnecessary addition to a game that’s already packed with content, but we can’t really complain about them either as there is no harm in wanting to collect them all.
With 200 microgames, remixes, different modes and 20 different crew members at your disposal, there certainly is no shortage of fun to be had here. Although, there is one disappointment that prevents Get It Together! from being perfect (apart from the lack of voice acting). By this, we mean the aforementioned Wario Cup. This is the game’s only online offering and it feels like a barebones experience. It is built around weekly challenges and leaderboards, which seems slightly forced and doesn’t really fit the game’s format, as this isn’t a competitive game in the slightest. We’d much rather have seen certain other offline modes offered as online multiplayer variants, especially the Variety Pack mode. That said, the good outweighs the bad to such a degree that we’re comfortable with saying that Get It Together! is the best WarioWare title yet. It’s addictive, fun and chaotic.
Conclusion
Disappointing online mode aside, WarioWare: Get It Together! is a fantastic title. It’s a triumphant return to form for the series after the somewhat disappointing WarioWare: Gold. While it might not offer the same gameplay depth as Breath of the Wild or Xenoblade Chronicles, it’s still an essential addition to your Switch library simply because of how fun the chaotic gameplay is. If you’re not convinced, you can try out the free demo, but in all honesty, picking up WarioWare: Get It Together! should be a no-brainer.
WarioWare: Get It Together! - Review,
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