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Mawaru Made in Wario
By admin | March 8, 2010
The original Made in Wario was like a breath of fresh air. Best described as
gaming for A.D.D. sufferers, the unusual yet well implemented action "party game" caused quite a stir. This week saw the release of Mawaru Made in Wario, which takes the premise of the original and offers an interesting twist… literally.
Mawaru Made in Wario makes use of a position sensitive cartridge which means that the game can detect movement when you turn your GBA. It must be clarified hat this works by physically turning the GBA so that you are rotating it from its original position, not physically rotating yourself or merely tilting the GBA.
The game format is much the same as the original, with the main game comprising of an unfolding story following the adventures of Wario. At each stage of the game, revisiting all the old favourite characters, a set of mini-games must be completed. In most cases, this involves performing a task within a 5 second time frame. Following completion of 10 or so mini-games, it’s off to the Boss Battle. Defeat the boss, and the next part of the story is opened.
Beyond the main story, you can once again play each mini-game individually, with the difficulty increasing progressively, as well as being able to replay through the story again with the game continuing after defeating the boss. The Pig Towers make a welcome return, this time as Monkey Towers, but the premise remains the same.
Obviously, the biggest departure is the use of the movement detecting cartridge, and here-in lies a question key to the games’ success; does it work well? Thankfully, it does. Each degree of turning gives a nice clear ‘click’ from the cartridge, making the game very tactile and very pleasing to play. Despite requiring some deft movement at certain points in the game, the cartridge reacts instantly to the action, meaning that the game is unhindered by
unreliable controls.
Graphically, the same mish-mash of styles remains from the first title, with more use of scaling and rotating graphics. Special mention has to go to the vertically scrolling "nose in fingers" boss level, which invites you to rotate the GBA 90 degrees to play in vertical mode, while employing a brush stroke drawing style that looks fantastic on the small screen.
Sonically, the game has to rank as one of the very best GBA games to date - strange voices chip in with mumbles, music contains more vocals than before, tracks are interesting, and the whole production sounds much clearer.
The games themselves are once again fun, humorous, and involving. You will find yourself (amongst a myriad of other things) pushing sweets out of the mouth of a young girl, extracting bad teeth, teasing a cat with a stick, playing keepy-up football, shaving, ironing a shirt, balancing an umbrella on your finger, as well as some interesting retakes on some NES classics. The level of required
interaction to complete each game ranges from a simple, timely press of the A button, all the way to having to turn your GBA through 360 degrees over and over again.
The main game is relatively short (it can be completed in just over 1 hour), but truth be told, this game and the original were never really about the main game - it is all about scoring highly and unlocking the extras. Again, there are a host of extras to unlock, including a number of mini-games, musical instruments, curio, and collectibles. The mini-games prove addictive as ever and are definitely worth taking the time to unlock, adding to the reward of replaying the games over and over.
On the down side, it must be noted that at the harder levels things get very difficult indeed, more so than the original game, with some of the challenges requiring nimbler hands than seems humanly possible. The main game itself is over pretty quickly, and the addition of a few extra modes would have been nice. The inclusion of a time-attack level (which is part of the main game) involves starting the level with 15 seconds on the clock. Completion of a round will see
the overall time increase, but you have no 5 second limit, meaning that the longer you take, the more of your time gets eaten up. Keeping your time above zero is the goal. While this is a nice addition, some extra modes catering towards multiple players would have been appreciated.
Given that Mawaru is made for the GBA (the portable games machine of choice at the moment) and given that the original Made in Wario was the ultimate "short commute" game, I don’t envisage seeing many people playing this game in the same manner. You will be moving, turning your head with the screen and generally
looking quite odd… although adding confused onlookers may add even more appeal to the games strange nature.
With the remote possibility that this game may not get a US / European release, it’s worth pointing out to potential importers that the game can be played with little japanese knowledge. Although the one phrase description of what you need to do in the game is helpful, the goals of the mini-games are usually relatively straightforward. Some Japanese word-based games make an appearance, which will cause issues, but fortunately these are scarce and there is no compulsory level, like the Japanese RPG boss level in the original game, that will halt your progress.
All in all, Mawaru Made In Wario is definitely worth checking out, especially for fans of the original and for those who like something a bit different.
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