Wario Ware review: Get It Together! : a mustache on the CV of the Switch?

Each Nintendo console has its own Wario Ware. Constant in the effort since 2003, the all-out party game returns more silly and sassy than ever on Nintendo Switch, once again thanks to the deliciously tortured brains of Intelligent Systems. Get It Together is a generous, adorable and rambunctious child, the kind who cannot be scolded too harshly when his mischievousness degenerates. That's all we needed for the start of the school year, in short.

Wario Ware review: Get It Together! : a mustache on the CV of the Switch? See PriceRead ConclusionWarioWare: Get it Together

200+ diverse, varied and silly mini-games
Univers foldingo
20 truly different characters
Very fun for several

Redundant, of course
Trial/character combos that don't work
Mostly failed bosses
Variable interest of mini-games, universes and characters

WarioWare: Get It Together! releases September 10, 2021, exclusively for Nintendo Switch. Download code provided by Nintendo.

Wario Ware All Stars

This new Wario Ware is still an angry maelstrom of mini-games that follow one another to the point of disgust, but its proposal deviates a little from the habits of the series: this time we embody up to 20 different characters - heads well known to the license - with distinct movement and attack characteristics. Some jump all the time, others only move in jolts, the lucky ones can fly when some fanatics simply don't move on their own. Some can fire projectiles (in one or all directions), 9-Volt swears by his yoyo, Mona his boomerang: most have a rather exotic arsenal, like 5-Volt whose teleportation serves both movement and attack system.

The challenge is therefore no longer just to understand in an instant what the game expects of us to achieve the objective, but also to find the most effective way to achieve it given the possibilities of the selected character. The concept gains enormously in variety, depth and durability since the same mini-game will not necessarily be solved in the same way, depending on the hero or heroine in action. We do not avoid certain improbable associations, bordering on insoluble, such as when Crygor and his particularly slow movements must empty a tube of toothpaste in less than two seconds or that Mike must shoot at a very precise place in the decor, when he cannot aim only above his head.

These frustrating situations are still quite rare, and this new batch of mini-games impresses precisely by the flexibility of its concepts and its possibilities of resolution. By chance or simply to experiment, it is not uncommon to succeed in a challenge in a way other than that which was initially intended. The game sessions are all the more fun, especially in multiplayer when the duo strives to work collectively - and often clumsily - towards the same goal. General chaos is Wario Ware's raison d'être, and this Get It Together doesn't betray its legacy. The pace is still as lively, and all the more messy if we let the game choose randomly from all of this wacky and colorful cast. You can also select your crew of 3, 4 or 5 cranks, but it's frankly less fun to settle for the most manageable and obvious characters.

Accumulate to reign better

After the indigence of the Wii U episode, Intelligent Systems had to set the record straight on the content side: Get It Together does not miss the opportunity to stuff its flock with more than 200 mini-games, to be discovered alone or two. We always have to plug noses, spin contraptions to activate things, move things or destroy things, all in a matter of seconds. Reflexes are constantly called upon by tests which require precision, rapid calculation, dexterity, observation, reactivity or even a sense of timing. As always with games that rely on accumulation, it is furiously uneven in terms of interest or requirement, as is the panel of characters, but the pace of the Story mode is anyway too high to that we really notice these few playful hollows.

Unfortunately, frankly long, uninteresting, even downright boring bosses regularly pollute the progress: Intelligent Systems could have spared us this soft knee memory, this simplistic 2D Mario, this unworthy climbing or this ersatz tower defense flush with the daisies without encumbering its title of anything. It's fortunately not enough to spoil the two hours of discovery of the scenario, cute all the way with its meta niceness on the creation of video games. The first run allows you to become familiar with all the protagonists, whose outfit you can then customize with a lot of cosmetics and completely useless color swaps (therefore completely essential).

Wario Ware invents for the occasion a whole system of progression per character based on the currency of the game, which one wins by playing or by succeeding in the hundreds of more or less demanding missions added for the occasion: doing so many points in such a level, unlock all the mini-games, waste the credits by shooting at the names that appear gradually... We didn't necessarily need that to restart a small game from time to time, but this progression system fichu invites you quite naturally to chain sessions in all modes and with all characters, in addition to motivating the most relentless completists.

JVFR

The progression system is incentive, but not clumsy.

Who can do more can also do less well

A dozen additional events are also part of the game, some being playable alone, in twos or up to four. Cooperative, competitive or a bit of both, these modes, again very unequal, testify despite everything to the great generosity of the game. point of success or, on the contrary, penalizes the player who caused everything to fail. It's sometimes unfair, so perfectly unstoppable between friends. Arena of duels where you have to pass more challenges than your opponent is also friendly, just like hockey where you can hinder the other player while he tries to do his mini-game.

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A side event that does not really make you dream...

The juggling contest, the perfectly unbalanced general fight or even this kind of contract race in side scrolling will have us on their side perfectly left unmoved, to remain polite. More interestingly, the weekly Wario Cup challenge allows Nintendo Switch Online subscribers to compare their performance on a set of mini-games concocted in advance by Intelligent Systems. Rather raised for the two that we have had the opportunity to try for the moment, these events add a little spice to a formula that does not ultimately lack air despite its repetitive concept in essence.

Watch your eyes (and ears)

On the production side, Wario Ware is obviously always the crazy and uneven catch-all that likes to summon a maximum of graphic universes to ultimately never do much constructive. Technology, animals, food, sport: the mini-games are arranged in themes without offering any visual coherence, and this is what has been the strength of the license from the start. Naive or realistic drawings, elaborate or simplistic backdrop, static or non-static scenery: the staging of each skit is systematically calibrated for its mini-game, with a view to helping or ruining the player depending on the nature and difficulty of the what is asked of him.

JVFR

This is not a very interesting sequence to play.

Intelligent Systems plays with shapes, colors and sounds to guide or disorient players and if this visual and sound surge inexorably ends up tiring, there is always a funny detail or a wacky idea to make us smile. The way in which Wario Ware manages, for nearly 20 years, to appropriate a bewildering quantity of imaginations to explode them in a few seconds on the screen is magical. But once again, it is partly thanks to the accumulation and the mess that we pass the towel on the less creative finds or simply in bad taste.

We still regret the overall very shy use of the Nintendo universe, which is content with a few not-so-fantastic courses. The Japanese giant marks its territory too well to let a band of wacky creatives trample its precious intellectual properties, and that's a shame: Wario Ware is the ideal place to release the pressure a little and deconstruct some myths, with the inimitable style that the license has forged over time. Too bad, we will be satisfied with the typical antics of the license, which still work as well despite the years. After all, consistency in anything is not within everyone's reach.

JVFR

WarioWare: Get It Together!, l'avis de JVFR

Allegory of the useless coupled with a naive and absurd declaration of love for the fundamentals of video games, WarioWare manages very well to relaunch and densify its unstoppable concept on Nintendo Switch. The twenty different characters push to constantly review the way in which each mini-game is approached, perfectly mitigating the impression of deja-vu induced by its genre. Get It Together is as unequal as it is irresistible, as vain as it is essential for those who above all combine the pleasure of playing in the plural: an essentialism tinged with surrealism which is really good at the moment, and which will easily find its place among the games that we like to share with the people who are dear to us. Mission accomplished.

WarioWare: Get it Together

While retaining its legendary verve, WarioWare innovates and densifies its formula: the show is still messy and enjoyable, but also uneven and even frustrating. Unstoppable for two, Get It Together will find a place in any good Switch toy library, silly stress relief category that we draw for an hour in the evening.