WarioWare: Get It Together! in the test: good, but could be better

WarioWare

Oh, how optimistic we were when we first made the announcement from Warioware: Get It Together! and then played the demo. So much content seemed to be in the microgame collection, so much long-term entertainment and variety. The test version of Warioware: Get It Together! then brought us back down to earth, not necessarily painful, but still a bit sobering.

But first of all the good news: The new Warioware, like its numerous predecessors, is an entertaining and humorous treat for party evenings together. The title thus fulfilled the most important requirement, but nothing more. You can read about the other couch co-op titles available in 2021 in our special.

Table of contents

1 Get out of here! 2 Who is doing what here? 3 Wario-Cup, high the ball and more 4 And the rest 02:35

WarioWare: Get It Together !: Overview trailer for the microgame collection loadVideoPlayer ('84269', '& sAdSetCsategory = article_featured', 6, ' 16: 9 ', false, 1379519, false, 277604, 260, false, 0,' ',' ', false); WarioWare: Get It Together! from € 49.99

Get out of here!

In Get It Together! is a campaign in which Wario and the like are kidnapped into the world of their self-developed video game. To blame: the annoying bugs and a character known from the predecessors, but we don't want to tell you beforehand! Little by little we step through the different chapters on an upper world map and switch on the trapped heroes like Mona, Orbulon, Dr. Crygor and more free.

The respective worlds are nicely made, which at the same time fit thematically to the contained microgames. The children's ninjas Kat and Ana, for example, are in the section that deals with animals, so you will find all the disciplines there that somehow have to do with four-legged friends.

Is this fully retro or a little bit comfy from the developers? In the Nintendo chapter you simply play short sections from Super Mario World in the "boss fight". Source: PC Games There are also boss fights, which turn out very differently depending on the chapter - not all of them are fun. In Wario's world, for example, we simply maltreat an opponent with a ramming attack until he gives up, but in Mona's section we pack moving boxes and have to remember different combinations of objects.

Nonetheless, we always do the same here: play microgames one after the other, Until we run out of four lives. The little stories in which the sections are embedded score with charm and now also set sentences by the protagonists. The dog duo Dribble and Spitz are now chatting Berlinish and Bavarian, for example - a very likeable synchro!

The playing time per chapter and unlockable character is, however, tight at 15 to 30 minutes, and we have the whole story within a few hours without any problems closed. The return to story mode is only appealing insofar as we can compete with a different team and fight for a new high score, if desired also with a second player, or to unlock mini-games that we have not yet immortalized in the Wariopedia .

Who is doing what here?

Probably the most important innovation in Warioware: Get It Together! (buy now € 49.99) is the now immense difference in controlling the total of 18 characters (we count the duo protagonists as one figure). There are the very simple all-rounders like Wario, Mike or Orbulon, but also some with more complicated skills, including Penny, who uses the water tank on her back to move and attack, or 5-volts, whose mind is separated from the body floats through the area and teleports.

The figures are beautifully designed and have varied skills. The short story sequences are also nicely done. Penny is one of those characters who are rather difficult to control. Source: PC Games The choice of fighter results in blatant differences in the level of difficulty, some mini-games are tough with one character, banal with another character. However, this is also intentional and should provide even more variety. This works partially, but in practice nobody wanted to play with Mantis, Penny or even 18 volts, if there are figures with which victory is easier to achieve.

For ambitious gamers, the The hunt for the maximum number of points is certainly a motivation, but for the casual gamer, the new warioware offers relatively little content that encourages you to stick with it, although at first glance it seems that there is a lot of content on offer.

Wario-Cup, high the ball and more

So what else does Warioware deliver besides the short story mode? For example the Wario Cup for one player. The choice of character, game speed and the selection of disciplines are pre-determined here, and we try to score as many points as possible. We can only enter (or even look at) the online leaderboards if we have a Nintendo online subscription.

We use the coins we earn to buy items that we give to the characters to level them up. This does not change their values ​​or skills, but depending on the level they get bonus points if they take part in the Wario Cup. In itself a nice idea, but very few people will have the leisure and time to slowly move up the 18 figures; just to earn a few more points in the Wario Cup, which in turn gives them more coins that they can use to level up characters again. In addition, the disciplines are rarely renewed with just once a week.

As usual, Warioware not only contains the modes in which you play the micro-games alternately, simultaneously or one after the other, but also a few other types of games . The congenial drawing game from the Wii-U version unfortunately doesn't have it in Get It Together! Done, instead there is, for example, Hoch das Ballchen, in which up to four players have to prevent a ball from bouncing on the floor, five and hops, a type of volleyball in which the choice of character often decides whether to win or lose, and the chain fight .

The latter is an uninspired copy of Super Smash Bros. in which the characters give each other a treat. Up to four participants traverse simple side-scrolling sections in commuting, hunt down enemies and collect items in order to emerge from the battle as the points winner in the end.

In Triritorium, winners of a micro-game set a flag and claim areas in triangles of the field for itself. This discipline adds a slightly tactical element to the otherwise always identical completion of mini-games one after the other. Source: PC Games All of these modes may provide an hour of entertainment each, and then you've had enough of the game. In the other modes, the focus is on the micro-games, of which we liked the categories balloon tension, puck panic and triritorium - but balloon tension is already known from the predecessors. One after the other, participants play micro-games there, and if it's not your turn, you inflate a balloon. As soon as it bursts, the one who is trying to play the mini-game is out of the game.

In puck panic, the friends manipulate the mini-game to be completed, they rotate or squeeze the screen, for example. And with Trititorium you mark a field with your flags in order to cover the largest area by winning mini-games and thus to win. The microgame arena is a classic versus mode, but only a maximum of two players are allowed to take part - a wasted chance. Warioware lacks a way to quickly and easily start a straightforward match with friends.

And the rest

Contrary to what had been hoped, there is no further story mode behind the missions indicated in the demo with secondary tasks. Instead, it is more or less a matter of successes. We get coins by surviving a certain number of rounds in story mode, re-coloring our character, unlocking items and titles and so on. A large part of the work is done unintentionally on the side. The presentation of the missions in the form of a confusing text list does not exactly motivate you to take a look at the menu.

The microgames are again well implemented and simple, but not too easy. They are also available in many variants and, thanks to the different skills of the 18 game figures, there are also different ways to master the objectives. Source: PC Games

Of course, we still have to talk about the microgames themselves. And these are for the most part beyond any doubt, especially since they are more flexible than before thanks to the different character abilities and again have a few variations depending on the level of difficulty. So we develop different strategies for different games, depending on the character.

The wildly mixed up styles of the games are charming, personable, colorful and humorous, just like the text overlay or voice commands at the beginning of each round (example: " They should smooch! "). A bit of faecal humor comes into play, but never particularly tasteless and actually always child-friendly.

For the youngest, however, warioware could be too stressful, after all, you usually only have a few seconds to complete the tasks. Get It Together is good for party evenings! definitely, even if a real long-running discipline or a simple, addicting extra game is missing in the Switch part of the series.

My opinion

By Katharina Pache

Chief Editor

[email protected] Good, but not a hard worker for Warioware What have I played a lot of Warioware on the Gamecube in the past - great times! And I've raved enough about the Orbulon drawing game in the Wii U edition. Get it together! does what the series has always done well, but not really anymore - instead of the different abilities of the characters, as nice as I find this gimmick, I would have preferred more. Earn more mini-games, more exciting extra games apart from these mini-games, more correct long-term motivation instead of prospects for high scores and coins. The Jackbox games are aimed at older players and are less focused on the pure mechanics as Warioware does. However, Nintendo's series could learn from the competition how to keep players engaged in such a way that at least one round is played on every game and party evening. Namely with more variety and content, so that after a few hours the feeling of having seen everything does not creep in. That all sounds terribly critical, but it doesn't mean that I wasn't well entertained by Wario's current antics. But I would like to have fun with the game even longer and, above all, permanently. In fact, I already know that Warioware: Get It Together! wander into the closet after a few evenings with friends and will probably collect dust there. In favor of additional extra games or other micro-games, I would have liked to forego some of the single player content, such as the Wario Cup or generally leveling up the characters. What I'm also missing: More nice, little secrets to unlock, as was common in the past. After discovering all the microgames, exactly nothing happened. Since I do not want to rule out that something is still very well hidden somewhere that I have not yet found, I leave this fact out of the evaluation. WarioWare: Get It Together! (NSW) 7/10

Graphics - Sound - Multiplayer - Pros & Cons Wild, fun mixture of more than 200 mini-games Funny presentation Charmingly synchronized characters with different skills provide variety Little content to motivate in the long run Too much content focused on solo players Half-done extra games such as chain fight or five and hops Access to high scores only with Nintendo Switch Online More pros & cons ... Conclusion Entertaining party game, but too little in the long run The content is provided by