Wario’s latest outing has arrived! WarioWare: Get It Together! was first announced during Nintendo’s digital E3 2021 presentation, and has been recently released in September of the same year. It promises frantic microgame fun, and let me tell you — this game delivers on that promise and more. You might have a bunch of questions, then: is story mode worth it? Are the minigames fun? Is there online play? We’re going to answer all of these questions today! Please note that this review is completely spoiler-free. And yes, there actually are spoilers in this game worth avoiding if you’re a fan of the series!
Introduction
The WarioWare series has a simple premise: you play a bunch of fast-paced microgames in quick succession in an attempt to shoot for a high score. If this doesn’t sound appealing to you, then Get It Together! might be a pass — because this game has the exact same premise, but with a small twist that we’ll talk about later. One of this game’s obvious strengths is its accessibility. Its controls are simple, its microgames are self-explanatory –it’s the perfect game to shut your brain off and enjoy as you please.
To make the game even more accessible, Nintendo decided to slash its price by $10 — which means it costs $50 instead of $60. It’s easy to see why, too; a fair number of players won’t want to shell out even $50 (let alone $60) for a collection of minigames, which is completely reasonable. And yes, a minigame collection can become repetitive, but this one has a lot of tricks up its sleeve that keep it feeling fresh and interesting. As per our tried-and-true review format, let’s start with what you’ll notice most: the game’s visuals, presentation, and storyline.
Story & Presentation
If you’ve played many games featuring Super Mario characters, then it should come as no surprise that WarioWare: Get It Together! has a rather bare storyline. That is to say, there is a story, but it’s stitched together in bits and pieces via short cutscenes that play before each level in story mode. Here’s a quick run-down of the plot, then: in classic Wario fashion, the greedy money-grubber enlists (or tricks, depending on who you ask) his friends into developing games for him to sell. Unfortunately, things go awry and Wario’s game becomes infested with bugs! This eventually results in a major glitch that converts the entire WarioWare cast into data and then absorbs them straight into the console. Now the crew has to defeat each of the game bugs and escape to the real world! …So, yes, that kind of thing has been done to death, but an intricate story certainly isn’t necessary for a game like this. We’ll talk more about what story mode entails later, but for now, let’s move on to the game’s unique visual style.
Wario games have always made use of a strikingly simple hand-drawn style, and Get It Together! uses this style to once again capture the expressiveness of its characters. You can get a taste for this style before you even launch the game — just look at that box art with its cool shades of purple! The main game’s graphics aren’t anything groundbreaking, of course – in fact, several minigames have purposefully sloppily-drawn elements – but that level of inconsistency is part of what makes Wario games so charming. As for the playable characters, each one is rendered in a super-smooth three-dimensional model, and the game itself runs at a stable and fluid sixty frames per second. That performance is absolutely necessary for a game as fast-paced as WarioWare!
Overall, in regard to presentation, this game is very much “what you see is what you get”. Another important note is that this game includes half-animated cutscenes that take place before each level, and then fully-animated custom cutscenes that play after the first cutscene but before the level starts. These scenes don’t have much to do with the whole “game bug” storyline, but they’re there and the nonsense they bring to the table is very much befitting of a WarioWare game. Humorously enough, there are also several extra game modes you unlock later in the story that each features custom art for its title screen — some of them are very… interesting, but I’ll let you see for yourself on this one! My only complaint is that Wario doesn’t talk as much as he did in WarioWare Gold’s cutscenes, but make no mistake — this game is still packed full of Wario charm.
Gameplay
WarioWare: Get It Together! is just as exciting as the series’ previous entries, and the much-loved fast-paced minigame gauntlets are back in full force! There’s a twist, though: this time around, you actually have to pick a character to play as! There are over fifteen of them to unlock, and each one has their own unique ability that will change the way you approach each minigame. Fifteen unique abilities might sound intimidating, but in reality, this game’s controls couldn’t be simpler: all you need is the control stick and one button! This is perfect for newcomers who want to pick up and play, and it’s also perfect for situations where your Switch is in handheld mode and you have to split the Joy-Con between two players. So perfect, in fact, that the box art features Joy-Cons!
The game’s story mode, which is featured prominently on the title screen, tasks players with completing several “levels”. In this context, each level has its own theme and is chock-full with fitting minigames. Said themes include food, culture, and even Nintendo Classics — which was my favorite of the bunch! Almost every minigame in Get It Together! is intuitive, meaning that you’ll almost always know what to do the second the timer starts. It’s just a matter of being quick enough to utilize your character’s ability to secure the win! The entirety of story mode can be played with two people, and you’ll unlock every single character and minigame WarioWare has to offer along the way.
There’s other content too, though! There’s the Play-O-Pedia, which catalogs each minigame you’ve encountered in story mode. You can then play it over and over with increasing difficulty (and any character you want) to shoot for a high score. This isn’t as boring as it sounds, though, because the game encourages you to use a team of all crew members, who switch in and out randomly after each round. This means you’ll have to constantly be on your toes about the optimal way to complete the minigame. I found two specific characters difficult to play as – specifically, two of the final ones – so getting a high score in the Play-O-Pedia is never a sure thing if you’re using a full team of crewmates. It’s also worth noting that WarioWare uses its mission system to encourage playing with a full crew.
On that note, missions! This game gives you a ton of tasks to complete in exchange for pink-coin currency, which can be used to buy things called Prezzies. You can then give these Prezzies to your crewmates, who will level up to a max of 30. This, in turn, increases the base score that character will earn when playing Wario Cup, which serves as Get It Together’s sole online mode. In Wario Cup, you’re given one challenge per week that you can attempt as many times as you like. Your score is then saved and ranked, and in the following week you’ll receive a reward depending on your performance. You can choose a team of characters you’ve leveled up with Prezzies, and this will generally increase the score you’ll get on Wario Cup. Which, in turn, makes getting gold medals much easier!
There’s also a Variety Pack selection you can unlock after completing the main story. It includes a bunch of specific game modes that involve anywhere between 1 and 4 players, and as you might expect, most of them revolve around minigames. I haven’t dabbled in many of these game modes myself, but it’s clear that Get It Together! has delivered on its promise of four-player fun with a variety of activities to choose from. Each game mode is short and snappy — which is exactly what WarioWare games are supposed to be!
WarioWare: Get It Together! suffers from two main weaknesses, then. One, if you’re buying this game for the story mode, you’ll likely be disappointed. It’s way better with friends, plus that story mode will only last you three or four hours at most. After that, it’s focused on multiplayer modes and grinding for Prezzies. I’d recommend purchasing this game if you like things that are easy to pick up and play in short bursts, or if you have real-life friends to enjoy the minigames with. Otherwise, you might want to wait until this game goes on sale for $30 or $40.
The Verdict
This game certainly isn’t for everyone. If you’re expecting something with a lot of depth, you may be better off looking elsewhere. But if you’re looking for something exciting, fast-paced, and easy to pick up, WarioWare: Get It Together! fulfills that niche excellently. The lack of online play with friends is a real bummer – especially considering we’re still in the middle of a global pandemic at the time of writing – but the game is still fun even if you’re playing it all by yourself. Overall, this is an incredibly solid outing and one well worth picking up if you’re a fan of the Wario series.
If Get It Together! sells well – which certainly appears to be the case thus far – then hopefully it will encourage Nintendo to put Wario in more games. I think most of us can agree that you can never have enough Wario, so further WarioWare and even Wario Land titles would do this world good. For now, this game is all we’ve got on Switch, but to be fair, what we’ve got is really good.
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