Can you make a game about ironing? You can indeed, and thankfully this game is so short that it's over in three seconds. Did you iron that shirt, or did your tilt sensor go mental and the iron go A.W.O.L. in WarioWare: Twisted!, another bunch of mad mini-games for your Game Boy Advance?
Wario is back for more mayhem, and he's here to show off some advancements in technology, too. We've definitely got time to play this one.
Fun Times
At home, bored and isolated, Wario picks up his purple GBA for some portable gaming. Did Nintendo not want to promote the mobile nature of its own handheld? Anyway, things don't go Wario's way, and he smashes his console in frustration. I've not been there personally, but I can empathise.
Taking it to Dr Crygor to get fixed results, not in a rebuilt purple GBA, but in tens of brand new Gravitator devices, buttonless consoles that need to be wobbled a little to get working. And the wobbling works quite well.
And that's how we find ourselves with WarioWare: Twisted!, a new take on the mini-game formula where, instead of buttons, we rotate and tilt our Game Boy Advances, such that the tiny little gyro sensor in the cartridge's insides can do the gaming for us.
But don't spin yourselves around. That way, sickness lies.
Frustrations
A game that requires specific hardware to work can be a challenge to get hold of. Twisted! just needs a gyro sensor, and there's one inside its own GBA cartridge. The problem for me comes from the game not being released in Europe, and me still not having picked up a Game Boy Advance. I mean, seriously. That's just ridiculous.
There are, however, many boffins hard at work emulating consoles and peripherals for not only our gaming pleasure but for the sake of preservation and documentation in the annals of history. That should just about justify my use of the VBA-M emulator to play Twisted! for the purposes of this blog...
Further Fun Times
While I should be deflecting lasers, eating animals and washing car windscreens with a tilt of my GBA, I am instead relying on the sensitivity of an Xbox's left analogue stick, as interpreted by the emulator. I wouldn't even know where to begin getting this close to a 1:1 representation of the original hardware.
What I do know is that Twisted! takes the same approach as Mega MicroGames in that it barks an order at you, and you have just a few seconds to register and react to that order, completing the task before losing a life. String a bunch of wins together before you run out of lives and the stage is complete, and the story, if you can call it that, can continue.
This is Mona, of Mona Pizza, and her stages, like those of Wario, will require tilting and spinning, only this time with a deft touch. Subtlety is key. I have a feeling this will go wrong before it goes right.
Each stage begins with a bizarre cutscene. Here, obviously, is a rival pizza chain trying to sabotage Mona's delivery using a T-Rex, which, with the aid of an airdrop, we combat with a tower of small animals. Duh.
Let's get into the action. Remember, we want lots of these...
... and none of those. Ready? You better be. What follows are highlights of a couple of attempts at this stage.
Can we safely cross a bridge between two skyscrapers on a windy day?
No, we can't. In three attempts, I never got this poor cat as close as halfway across the bridge. Wario's stages allowed you to slam the stick/push the gyro sensor as hard as it'll go and you'd be alright. Mona's stages require such a delicate touch that this was one of the challenges where I thought I'd have to adjust the sensitivity to get through it. But, we can lose a few challenges, so long as we win the rest.
Inexplicably, blowing out candles was quite challenging too. It took me three attempts, though I'm not quite sure why. I guess I was more attuned to the sensitivity by then.
Most of the other challenges were easy enough. Some can be done blindfolded, others you can complete only because the time limit runs out quicker than it takes you to forget how to balance things on the end of your fingers.
Eventually, after speeding up and tackling some more tasks, you're given a final challenge to complete the stage.
Like Mega MicroGames, however, you don't really get a sense of what's going on in these still images. You can imagine what things look like, but even then, there's no sense of the speed at which you play Twisted!. So here's a video of the next stage.
And even then, you don't get a sense of how it plays when your screen is attached to the gyro sensor that you're manipulating with your hands, so your view will change as you wobble and tilt your GBA to make progress.
Final Word
Basically, there's no real way of knowing just how good or bad WarioWare: Twisted! is without having it in your hands. I can have an idea that, like Mega MicroGames, it's good for a quick burst of entertainment, but for the long haul? Can you dedicate hours and hours into it? When does it get repetitive? At what point does it overstay its welcome?
Going back to the Pikmin argument, do both titles need to be on the 1001 list? Mega MicroGames introduced the idea, and then Twisted! swapped one form of input for another. Do both need to be experienced?
I recommended the first title, and I'd recommend this one as well, but in the same way: it's great for a quick burst of entertainment to see what it's about, but after that, your mileage is going to vary.
I may even go so far as to say that this is the one of the two to not be included for being too similar. Sure, the gyro is a nice gimmick, but it's not essential to understanding the concept of the game - it works without a gyro sensor. We're just telling the world that it exists.
So, yeah. WarioWare: Twisted! is alright. You'll have fun, and then you'll put it down. Result.
Fun Facts
The cartridge also included some rumble capabilities for a little force feedback when turning your GBA. It calibrated the sensors so often that loading the game in the top of the original GBA, or the bottom of the GBA SP wouldn't be an issue.
WarioWare: Twisted!, developed by Nintendo SPD, Intelligent Systems, first released in 2004.
Version played: Game Boy Advance, 2005, via emulation.