WarioWare: Move It! Review (Switch)

As much as we loved 2021's WarioWare: Get It Together!, it's definitely an entry in this barmy franchise that's ended up dividing opinion over time. With little in the way of truly engaging multiplayer options, no real core gimmick, or any significant attempt to utilise the Switch's unique control opportunities, some folks (not us, mind) felt that it didn't do enough to really make its mark. It's also been suggested that the game's large roster of characters, each with their own mechanics, ruined the simplicity at the heart of the fun, making for one too many decisions to be made before you got to the main meat of the microgames.

Now, after waiting ages for Get It Together! to come along, just two years down the line we've got another brand new WarioWare adventure to dig into. WarioWare: Move It! makes some big shake-ups to its predecessor, wisely bringing back the motion-controlled madness of Smooth Moves and giving us more ways to engage with other players. This feels like the classic Wii experience reinvigorated, and a more fully fleshed-out entry than 2021's effort overall with regards to cooperative and multiplayer options.

As per usual, WarioWare: Move It! kicks off with Wario and his party of pals getting together for some madcap fun and this time they're all off to a wonderfully colourful exotic island. Upon arrival, Wario discovers mysterious "Form Stones" (that's your Joy-Con) and a bunch of guardian spirits to boot. Long story short, this all leads to the gang taking part in over 200 very silly microgames across a story mode that whisks you between characters on a world map, a multiplayer board game-styled party mode, lots of co-op fun challenges, and more besides.

This time around you won't just be completing extremely quick challenges by simply bashing a button either. Oh no, as per Smooth Moves, in WarioWare: Move It! you need to adopt different forms before each motion-controlled minigame in order to successfully complete the task that follows, whether that be shooting a needle through a hat, chopping up a great big vegetable, pulling tissues from a box, curtseying or doing lots of things which are altogether harder to describe.

Forms see you assume various poses with your Joy-Con held in a certain way — don't worry none of them are too complex — and once you've got the form down, you then use it to complete the quick-fire task that follows. Forms are added to your library as you progress and any can be called into action at any time. What this means in action is that you and your fellow players need to actually move (it) to assume forms and perform tasks. (That's where they've got the name from! It makes sense now...) You'll need to do lots of wiggling, flailing around, pulling off strongman poses, and purposeful squatting in order to stamp a piece of paper with your ink-soaked virtual butt.

The movement aspect to proceedings will come as no surprise to Smooth Moves veterans — yes, there are still a few survivors out there — and it serves to give Move It! a key hook, something to set it apart and inject a little personality, something which, in hindsight, Get It Together! may have been missing.

In single-player Story Mode, WarioWare: Move It! is a hoot, with a campaign full of ridiculous challenges and some decent boss battles that up the ante and scope of the games for big confrontations. The microgames are as brilliantly bonkers as ever — we've got no idea how they come up with half of this stuff — and the incredibly over-serious ways in which each new Form is introduced got a giggle from us almost every time. There's a lot of theatrical build-up, is what we're saying, before you shuffle your bum slightly to stamp a piece of paper, or flap your arms like a bird to barrel down a gorge.

Of course, all of this moving around and being very silly works best with more people in tow, and one of WarioWare's biggest issues has always been that it's just not as much raucous fun when played alone. Luckily, with this in mind, you've also got a Party Mode that gives you a bunch of fun ways to jump into the action with pals, including a Mario Party-styled board game that sees up to four players work to complete microgames as they dodge dangers and other random spanners that the game throws in the works. Throw in Listen to the Doctor!, the 2v2 Who's In Control? mode, and a boxing survival game and there are certainly plenty of ways to play this time around.

Two players can also indulge in any of the main games cooperatively, using separate Joy-Con to work through all of the available microgames on offer. Further to this, once you've completed the campaign, you'll unlock a bunch of other modes to get stuck into, such as a Copycat Mirror game for two players, two-player showdown, and stuff like Thrill Ride, where you have to best every minigame with just one life to spare. For those amongst you who like to take things to the extreme, you can also turn the speed of the game up — not recommended for 'older' folk such as ourselves — and there's a super hard remix mode to unlock to really give you the toughest challenges possible.

With a museum full of microgames to play either in solo or co-op as you unlock them, WarioWare: Move It! certainly provides plenty of ways to play through and enjoy its excellent microgame menu with your pals. As long as you're playing with a bunch of folk, you're all dandy. However, this new entry, as much as it provides plenty of content and ways to play, does suffer somewhat as a solo experience. The drive to stick with the madcap mayhem is considerably less when it's just you playing on your lonesome, although it is hard to criticise too much considering WarioWare is a party game at heart.

And when it comes to party games, this batty series has just always been one of our absolute favourites. What's not to love about watching a family member trying to catch a fish with their thighs, having your gran hold Joy-Cons to her face then stab her head around, or making Uncle Joe hold controllers in front and behind him like a beak and a tail? This is the stuff of classic family evenings spent laughing in front of a TV screen before — eventually — a large row breaks out. What more could you ask for?

In terms of presentation and performance, WarioWare: Move It! is solid across the board, whether you're docked and playing with four players or just having a quick game in tabletop mode (handheld mode with Joy-Con attached isn't supported at all, so Switch Lite owners will need Joy-Con controllers and exceptional eyesight if they wish to Move It!). The variety and silliness of the minigames is as strong as it's ever been and the introduction of forms manages to add a new (old) layer to the mayhem without making things too complex.

If you're in the mood for a very daft comedy-based party game to dig into with family and friends, the WarioWare franchise does the job every time, and WarioWare: Move It! is certainly a strong entry in the series. Yes, it's a bit less engaging on your own, and there isn't really anything we haven't seen before, but we enjoy pecking for worms whilst holding a Joy-Con to our mouths, moving our arms like a Choo-Choo train, and drawing pictures with our backsides so much that it's really hard to focus on negatives to be perfectly honest.