WarioWare Touched! Review

By Kristan Reed Published 23 March, 2005

A touch of genius, but maybe just a touch easy?

Version tested: DS

Order yours now from Simply Games.

So word of mouth does work then? Sometimes it feels like we're talking to ourselves here when we dish out 9/10s to games that go on to sell, ooh, 13,500 units. Case in point the wonderful WarioWare, Inc. on the GBA, which suffered the ignomy of being last year's 169th best-selling handheld title despite probably being one of the best games available for the system. And yet WarioWare Touched has gone in with a bullet at No.6 in the All Formats chart over in the UK, second only to Super Mario 64 as the most sought after DS game. We nearly fell off our chairs.

And yet, while we're punching the air and rejoicing in the rare thrill of something vaguely new and original being in our nation's Top 10, it's tempered with the slightly uncomfortable knowledge that, well, (whisper it) it's not actually as good as the original.

Ready to Ware

'WarioWare Touched!' Screenshot 1

At first glance it's hard to be anything but truly enamoured with the humorous flourishes and pure design genius that ripple through each and every microgame within Touched. In keeping with WarioWare, Inc., you're simply tasked with progressing through a series of five-second long 'microgames' that relate to specific characters and their silly and surreal back stories (Jimmy T and Dr. Crygor making a very welcome return). Normally armed with four 'lives', you must quickly perform the task required, move on, defeat a 'boss' task, unlock the next character and so on.

Exactly like before, Touched is addictive, hilarious and impossibly good fun in small-ish doses and perfect short journey fodder. If you're not sporting a ludicrous grin the first time you blow into the microphone or try to do animal impersonations in a room full of people you must have fallen out of love with life itself. This kind of infectious lovable humour has always made us want to evangelise WarioWare, and with such a pick up and play mechanic it's the sort of game you don't mind handing to anyone (so long as they have, you know, hands).

The use of the touch screen is sometimes innovative (touch screen Duck Hunt, tune in a radio, rotate a black hole and suck the matter out of space itself) other times too simple or overly predictable (draw a line between two points, poke a cat, light two candles), but it's still rarely less than superb fun in the short term. The best thing about such a pot pourri of games is that even the rubbish ones are over with in the blink of an eye, and so long as there are new things to play you'll always come back for more.

Easy peasy

'WarioWare Touched!' Screenshot 2

But where the appeal of Touched begins to wane is when you realise that after three or four hours you've unlocked practically everything there is to see. It's possible that we're more familiar with the concept now after the months we put into WarioWare, Inc., but there's no denying that the difficulty of many of the Touched games is considerably lower than before and as a result presents little more than a humorous demonstration of the DS' touch screen and microphone capabilities.

To be fair, you can go back and try and set high scores on each of the 15 or so characters, or even play each of the 180 microgames individually and see how what difficulty level you can reach, but this really isn't the nature of WarioWare. Pulling out games in isolation merely serves to highlight how basic they really are. You'll soon tire of repeating the same five second task 30 odd times in succession, trust us.

There are a few 'Toy Room' diversions to mess around with, like the two-player 'Pong Ping' game that gives an overhead view of the table, a shoulder button each and a fairly madcap mini-game of table tennis to battle with, while a few pointlessly amusing other extras unlock as you go through, such as the ludicrous Grandmother Simulator who spouts wisdom at you in return for a quick blow (in the microphone, pur-lease), not to mention a the touch screen based Yo-Yo, microphone based Air Dude (blow to keep air dude gliding), or even the gratuitously pointless Clacker. Things that'll probably elicit an "ooh" the first time you seen them, but never be played again. Shame.

A touch of class

Like much of what we've seen on the DS, the appeal of Touched is rooted in novelty value. But after a dozen or so touch screen games, what you really want is a game you can come back to and get more than the initial novelty rush from. Sadly we're more likely to be found returning to the far superior original or the forthcoming WarioWare Twisted! (out in June on GBA and sporting a wonderful tilt sensor). The bottom line is that there are better ways to experience WarioWare, and that Touched! is simply too lightweight and way too easy to prove very satisfying for most gamers over time.

Order yours now from Simply Games.

7 / 10

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Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (18) Latest comment 7 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Blerk #1 7 years ago

    Heh heh... Wario Ware is definitely a 'big grin' game. But I think I'll wait for the GBA sequel, tbh.

  • Razz #2 7 years ago

    have they sorted out the error's that occured with the jap version?
    Edited by 1 at 23/03/05 @ 09:11

  • Machiavel #3 7 years ago

    Sounds like the perfect introductory Warioware game then. I'd heartily agree that some of the grouped tasks are tiresome in their similarity (particularly those rotating tasks - new screen, rotate, new screen, rotate) but so far I don't find the fun diminishing when it's dipping randomly from all the styles.

  • Razz #4 7 years ago

    Hyoshi: <A href="http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=57469&q uot;>Nintendo fesses up Wario Ware DS Bugs</a>
    I had one of the buggy versions ;_; i recently bought the UK version, so i could play some of the games i couldn't before! :)

  • krudster #5 7 years ago

    We will have separate DS/PSP sections soon!

  • kalel #6 7 years ago

    Unfortunately I'ev been sufereing from errors in the Jap game also, although no show stoppers.

    Excellent review. I completely agree that they got the difficulty slightly wrong, but currently its the only real DS games that shows the potential of the machine.

  • Kiigan #7 7 years ago

    Great fun this game, and better than a 7 IMO.

    However yes, it is easier than the GBA versions and lost some of the hardcore challenge aspects due to the more accessible interface. That's not a negative necessarily though.

  • mattigan #8 7 years ago

    I thought it was a big fuss over nothing!! Took a week to complete all challenges and unlock everything (playing 30mins a day on the train) then found it had Zero replay value, heres a little tip for everyone trying to get high scores on all 180+ games, don't bother, the reward is possibly the most piss poor unlockable I have ever encountered, to say the quality of reward earned is inversely proportional to the effort required to get it would be a MASSIVE understatement!!

  • terminalterror #9 7 years ago

    I suspect it might have sold so well as they had a copy in every demo pod. It really is that sort of game, the moment you have played it yourself, you want to buy it. That was the problem with the original. I wasn't too bothered about it until I played on a copy after ECTS one year (and beat all of otto's high scores), then I had to go and buy one for myself.

  • bionutz #10 7 years ago

    Erm, I played the game (I'm selling it on ebay.de right now). It was fun but short-lived. I never felt an incentive for playing it again and again. The mark is correct 7/10.
    The cool thing about it were the fresh ideas.

  • Burton2000 #11 7 years ago

    i got an exclusive demo of it with my vip ds pack its gud to show peeps who aint seen a ds b4

  • Tabasco #12 7 years ago

    Good fun while it lasted but I got it on Friday last week and had unlocked everything by the Saturday night...And I'm shite at games in general so...

    Swapped for Mario 64 which I've never played before so that should be good.

  • Tweakmonkey #13 7 years ago

    So to summarise, the game is brilliant but quite short.

    /adds to list

  • redzero #14 7 years ago

    Maybe the difficulty was pitched right for people who've not played games before, the fabled "new gamer" that the DS is supposedly bringing in. In which case, Nintendo must be assuming they'll still get good after a week and be buying another game ;)

  • freedumb #15 7 years ago

    Tabasco, you've never played Mario 64?! Get out of here, you're not worthy to call yourself a gamer! (kidding)

    TBH, the true way to play it is on the N64, full screen, analogue stick and N64 controller etc.

    This looks fun, but it doesn't persuade me to rush out and buy a DS just yet. I'm waiting for lost in blue. (check out the trailer at gamespot)
    Edited by 1 at 23/03/05 @ 13:54

  • ChrisOTR #16 7 years ago

    My 2 cents - for me, this has lasted a lot lot longer than the original GBA Warioware... And it's great! :D
    Edited by 1 at 23/03/05 @ 16:03

  • Tabasco #17 7 years ago

    Freedumb - I KNOW.....I had a N64 but never had that many games due to most being 50 quid...I guess it slipped under the radar! :o)

  • Kami #18 7 years ago

    Shame really... there's a lot that could have been done with "Touched!"... basic is the point, but the original never felt repetative...

    But at least it's not a total disaster.