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WarioWare Inc. Mega Microgames made a big splash on the GBA last year.  The action was frenetic, intense, addicting and frustrating all at once.  It was an exercise in Japanese weirdness and a mad test of reflexes.  It was followed-up by a GameCube version, which added party elements but the core microgames remained unchanged.  Now comes WarioWare Touched!, Wario's first foray on Nintendo's fledgling DS handheld.

Predictably, Wario is up to his old tricks, looking for ways to make a quick buck.  A quick fall down a manhole and he discovers the DS, which leads him to create a whole new whack of microgames, almost all of which utilize the touchscreen.  A few of the games utilize the mic, which you, uh, blow into to make things happen.  You'll never have to use the buttons or directional pads.

The crux of Touched! is the cornucopia of microgames.  Nothing will match the first play session you had with the original but Touched! had me grinning stupidly from start to finish.  Here's a quick sample of what kind of tasks you'll face: keep pesky Metroids off Samus, connect some dots, do math in your head, pop balloons, blow up an inflatable man to do sit-ups, slice flying objects, draw a path for a stickman to get home, poke snails in the eyes and, in maybe the most inspired "boss" encounter ever, Wario goes hunting for buried treasure in someone's nose!

The boss challenge in this case, as with most in Touched!, isn't much of a challenge as the originals -- it's the microgames that pose the most challenge.  And no matter what anyone says, they can't convince me that the games are somehow less worthy of being a microgame.

Besides packing in a great number of microgames, Touched! also features pure time wasters, which are rewards for doing well with the microgames.  Among other things is a parrot that will mimic what you say, a grandma type that sips here 

 

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coffee and mumbles responses, and a container full of brine that has a few microbes to look at.  There are also mini-games to access, one of which is the best use of the dual screens I've seen so far: a two-player table tennis game that's a real throwback to coffee table arcade units.

The graphics have received a bit of a facelift, but most of the graphics have remained 

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of the crudely drawn variety, which is consistent with the Wario mythos. My assessment of the original still holds here: "WW features a curious mix of crude hand-drawn stickmen and digitized images of fruit."  The animation is great.

If you're a fan of WarioWare as a franchise, Touched! comes highly recommended.  It doesn't have the impact as the original but there's nothing like your first time either.  Touched! has enough thrills and weirdness to keep you playing.

- Omni

(March 1, 2005)

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