Wario Ware: Smooth Moves (Wii) Review
Posted by Chris Kovatsh on 01.26.2007
Can the Wii and its crazy controls make the best Wario Ware game yet?
Title: Wario Ware: Smooth Moves (Wii)
Publisher: Nintendo
Type: Other
Players: 1-12
Wario Ware no doubt is definitely one of Nintendo's fastest rising new franchises. They have also had the ability to change each game up, whether it's twisting, touching or now even moving around they've always been able to switch it up to make new and interesting games. This series however isn't for everyone; there’s always some people turned off by the crazy visuals and ten-second microgames that they have to keep playing in succession. There's also the other side of the coin where people love the insane animations and fast gameplay. Almost every age group partakes in the Wario Ware from kids getting together to have lots of fun, to college students using this as a very successful drinking game.
Graphics
This game isn't really about the graphics per say, it's more about the style and the uniqueness of the design. Each game essentially has its own drawing style, which in turn helps add to the absolute insanity of the game and the whole series in general. For instance, one level you have to push this guy and when you do he goes flying into a cat’s mouth and then a dog proceeds to shake his tail. They use a lot of photos and real life pictures of things for the microgames, this helps add to the hilarity when you have a picture of some girl who is smiling getting pushed over by you using the remote. They also have a fair amount of games that are from past videogames like Zelda: Wind Waker and Animal Crossing. This is more of a nostalgia thing but the graphics do look how they did on the Gamecube. There isn’t much from the 8-bit and 16-bit era of videogames showcased in this version of Wario Ware, which is sad because I loved doing games like Link walking into the cave and the Hogan’s Alley target shooting game. Wario Ware does a great job of sticking with what works, all the character storylines are designed how they were in the past. They use a cartoon style with thick black outlines, which works nicely because in the actual gameplay they rarely ever use that art style and it makes distinguishable from the microgames and just adds to variety of styles used in Smooth Moves.
Gameplay
Smooth Moves has a lot of variety with their games, different games require different poses. You could play one game and you’d have a picture of how you should hold the Wii remote (or a pose as they call it) and after you win or lose that game you would go onto the next. There is a whole bunch of different poses such as the elephant (you hold the remote up to your nose so you look like an elephant) and the big cheese (you put your hands on your hips and stick your chest out). Doing these poses throughout the game is key if you want to have any fun playing this game at all. One game you have to do the big cheese pose and do squats, well essentially all you need to do is move the remote up and down but then you just ruin the game for yourself. If you are one of those people that like to “beat the system” and do that then this game is definitely not for you. Letting go of your inhibitions and acting completely crazy is what makes this game entertaining. There is a lot of disappointments however in the gameplay of Smooth Moves. Using the remote to play takes away from some of the accuracy of the games, and in a game where you’re being fired at over and over again with microgames you need to be as accurate as possible. The other problem is sometimes you don’t even know what you’re supposed to do for the microgame and somehow you manage to successfully pass it because you accidentally wiggled the remote a bit and it registered that as the movement you’re supposed to make. The Gamecube version of Wario Ware was loaded with multiplayer games and they were all a blast to play. The Wii version has very little multiplayer options and the games are bad. Remember how I was saying that Smooth Moves has some accuracy issues? Well two of the games are on a you mess up once you lose basis and the balloon one is just plain awful. Only one game is really worth playing and that is the one where you’re running a race. This game each player plays five microgames and gets points, after the race is over you somehow get tied up over top of alligator infested waters (don’t ask why). Whoever has the highest amount of points gets more ropes and whoever has the least has only one rope. Each player takes turn cutting ropes until the player loses all of his ropes and falls into the water. This part just makes winning almost completely random, which almost ruins the game. There is also a bunch of games that don’t involve microgames at all. There is a darts game that plays very similar to the version in Monkey Ball and some other ones that are barely worth playing. Another problem with Smooth Moves is the ridiculousness of only being able to use one remote. You talk about missed opportunities, what the hell happened? Nintendo is always telling you to wear the wrist strap and then they make you use one remote. It’s impossible to take the strap off pass it to your friend and have him put the strap on. You’d think that Nintendo who has had tons of problems with people throwing remotes through televisions would let you use multiple remotes so people could wear straps while they played. I can see not having everyone play at once for safety issues, but at least have an option where each person can have an individual remote.
Sound
The sound in Smooth Moves is on par with everything they’ve done before in the series. After each microgame you play for whatever stage, the character will say some random quote like “alright” or “work it work it”. Each microgame also has its own music, which is usually wonky and crazy to help add to all the randomness that goes on in the game. When a new pose is introduced in the one player mode of Smooth Moves, they have almost a Ben Stein kind of voice explaining what the new pose is and how it works. These are always hilarious and they let you go back and play them again and again if you choose to do so.
Lasting Appeal
There isn’t much that’s for sure. This game can be beaten easily in two hours, which is fine because Wario Ware games are never very long. They took out the option to play one microgame over and over again to try and get a high score. Now you can play one microgame three times and then you’re done. The other games like Pyoro and Tortoise and the Hare are fun for small amounts of time and quickly get redundant and dull. Multiplayer modes get dull fast and everyone I know that has played the Gamecube version absolutely could not stand the Smooth Moves multiplayer. The best multiplayer you can hope for in this game is taking turns playing a characters stage and then trying to beat your friend’s high score.
Fun Factor
Smooth Moves is a blast going through the story mode and the game is fun playing the levels over again and trying to get high scores. There’s just a fair amount of disappointments mainly in the multiplayer aspect. Getting right into this game and doing the poses and playing the microgames how they are meant to be played does create a lot of entertainment however.
The 411
I don’t hate this game, but there was a lot that needs to be improved on. One thing is all the stupid multiplayer problems. One of the big things being making the use of multiple remotes available, another being make the multiplayer games not suck. Stick to single player when you play this game and you’ll be fine. I really hope this isn’t the only Wario Ware game that will be released for the Wii. Perhaps in the next installment they could just keep the microgames and add a whole bunch of great multiplayer options like the Gamecube version.
Graphics
8.0
Excellent unique graphic style. You'll never see anything that looks remotely like this game.
Gameplay
6.5
There's some remote problems and multiplayer is really weak. One player will keep you in this game.
Sound
7.0
If it's not broken don't fix it. It's essentially the same idea for music as past versions.
Lasting Appeal
4.0
The main game is short and multiplayer is boring and gets old fast. The only thing that will keep you playing is beating your high scores.
Fun Factor
7.0
It's a blast doing the poses and such but it's hard to get over the disappointments.
