One of Nintendo’s defining traits is their unrivaled ability to showcase the merits that are exclusive to the video game medium. While other developers and publishers seem hellbent on bringing the world of Hollywood into the video game fold, Nintendo has always understood that the real poetry of video games is in their gameplay. Mario and Zelda (rightfully) get the most praise for this, but perhaps the Nintendo franchise that expresses Nintendo’s game design philosophy in its most literal sense is WarioWare.

The WarioWare series strips away all the bells and whistles of gaming, and reduces it to its bare-bone basics. By throwing multitudes of ‘micro-games’ at players – each one requiring minimal movement and button presses – WarioWare is a showcase of gameplay concepts at their most simple. It’s as beautiful as it is absurd.

There’s perhaps no better entry in the WarioWare series than WarioWare Twisted. Released on the Gameboy Advance in 2005, Twisted put a unique spin on the series’ formula: motion controls.

While most other WarioWare sequels have capitalized on their respective hardware by weaving the quirks of Nintendo’s consoles into the series’ formula, Twisted instead had unique functionality of its own. With a built-in ‘gyrosensor,’ WarioWare Twisted allowed players to interact with its micro-games by moving, tilting and flipping your GameBoy Advance.

You know how in movies and TV shows when someone is supposed to be playing a video game, but the actor clearly doesn’t know what they’re doing and is just moving the controller around like a madman? WarioWare Twisted has player’s actually doing that in order to play the game. In typical WarioWare fashion, Twisted provides innovative gameplay at the price of making the player look like an idiot while playing it. What could be more ‘Wario’ than that?

A year before the Nintendo Wii brought motion-controls to the mainstream, WarioWare Twisted brought a different kind of motion control to the table. While many of Twisted’s micro-games will still require a press of the A button or D-pad, most of them require the player to move the GameBoy Advance around in order to effect what’s happening on screen. It makes for a game that’s easy to pick up and play, while providing all the charm and hilarity you could ask for in a Nintendo title.

Can you think of another game that requires the player to move the entire system left and right in order to shave a man’s stubble? I didn’t think so. There are so many fun and funny ideas at play in WarioWare Twisted at every turn. If you can play it and somehow not get a goofy grin on your face or let out a chuckle, you must have a heart of stone.

There are micro-games that have you flipping the GBA upside down so a man’s toupee falls off, or that have you tilting the Gameboy Advance to its side so you can slide a man his drink (but tilt too fast and the drink spills). There are games that have you twirling the system so a key falls out of a giant keyring, or to make a platform move so a frog can land on it. Not all of the micro-games are winners (such as one where you have to pay attention to which of two hands is holding a coin, with the motion controls only being used to highlight which hand to select), but the ones that are, shall we say “not-so-great” are in shorter supply.

The game features a variety of modes, with the “story” being spread out between different characters. Each character works as their own stage, with their own set of micro-games that follow different rules (some might require light motion-controls, while another character’s might have you going all-out with them). You have four chances to make it to the ‘boss’ micro-game which, after completed the first time, will allow you to move onto the next character. After a character’s stage has been completed, you can replay them and go through more and more micro-games to try and best your high score as the games continue to pick up speed. You can also play a mode that allows you to select a single micro-game to play on repeat, again getting faster and tougher after every few rounds.

The more you play the different modes, the more goodies you can unlock. Some of these unlockables include music tracks from the game, while others will be goofy trinkets that display the game’s motion controls even further, albeit in minuscule ways (for example, you can unlock a marionette, which you can then move about by tilting the GBA to pull his strings).

It’s all a bit silly and mindless, but that’s kind of the appeal of WarioWare. It strips the very concept of video games down to its bare essentials, then runs wild with them in as many crazy ways as it can think of. WarioWare is both a celebration and a parody of its own medium, and that’s perhaps never been better displayed in the series than it is here in Twisted.

Aesthetically, the game still looks and sounds great for a Gameboy Advance title. Twisted wisely uses its many micro-games to experiment with various visual styles, and this is one of the few GBA titles I can think of that had good enough sound quality to feature a song with lyrics (“Mona Pizza” which has since gained fame for its uses in the Super Smash Bros. series).

It is a bit of a shame to admit that WarioWare Twisted can be a difficult game to find these days. Notably, it never even saw a release in Europe, due to the gyro sensor in the cartridge containing mercury. And its unique control scheme means it has yet to see a re-release on a subsequent Nintendo console.

Let’s hope one day Nintendo finds a way to adapt Twisted onto contemporary hardware. Until then, if you still have a Gameboy Advance handy, WarioWare Twisted is more than worth the trouble of tracking down. And if you don’t have a Gameboy Advance, Twisted remains a great reason to get one.

8

Author: themancalledscott

Born of cold and winter air and mountain rain combining, the man called Scott is an ancient sorcerer from a long-forgotten realm. He’s more machine now than man, twisted and evil. Or, you know, he could just be some guy who loves video games, animations and cinema who just wanted to write about such things. View all posts by themancalledscott