Nintendo’s previous WarioWare game for Switch, Get It Together, was divisive. While I enjoyed it well enough for what it was, it was a huge change of pace for the series, due to its focus on adding characters with unique abilities that were used to solve puzzles in different ways. For Wario’s second microgame outing on Switch, WarioWare: Move It, Nintendo has ditched that to focus purely on microgames that function as quick non sequiturs, requiring you to figure out the goal and quickly execute a solution. And as the name implies, it also reintroduces this in the context of movement-based microgames using the Joy-Con controllers. That’s right: waggle is back, baby.
WarioWare isn’t exactly trying to hide the connection. The game revolves around posing in different “Forms” exactly like in the Wii game Smooth Moves, so the individual games rely on being in those poses as a starting point. The story revolves around Wario and his friends visiting a tropical island and being given Form Stones, which are said to be good luck. After getting frustrated that these stones aren’t valuable gems and tossing them away, Wario goes through some misadventures on his way to discovering the Form Stones are, in fact and just as he was told, good luck. If he wants to have a good time on this island, he has to play along.
It’s a metaphor, you see. Like Wario, you really need to play Move It on its own terms, adopting these silly poses and playing along, or none of it works. While you could conceivably cheat your way through and get by with wagging your hands, most of the games seem cleverly built around the poses in ways that only feel intuitive if you’re actually playing by the rules. Also, if you’re just going to cheat your way through, what would even be the point?