WarioWare: Move It feels like it's partially a victim of its release circumstance. Having two WarioWare games on the same system isn't uncommon, but being the tenth in the series - I feel like the novelty has begun to wear thin.
That feeling of fatigue has largely been avoided by having each subsequent game adopt a unique gimmick that makes the inherent repetition less obvious, but Move It is one of the rare examples wherein the gimmick isn't actually 'new' as much as it is a complication of Smooth Moves' motion control, this being something of a spiritual/direct sequel to that title.
And it is quite clever, but in order to get beyond what Smooth Moves offers, Move It decides to just complicate the motion controls, utilizing the Switch's hardware to its full capabilities. Sometimes, this is inventive and so extremely outside the box - but others it's perhaps too complex (relatively speaking), losing some of WarioWare's intuitive joy in the process - especially when it feels like the Joy-Con aren't always up to the task.
It's just generally hard to escape this frustration inherent to some of the less simple microgames or the pervasive "been there, done that" energy underneath it all - particularly the low stakes and now tired story mode.
Move It would feel like a halfhearted retread if not for some truly fantastic multiplayer though, which is where the game excels. This is certainly the most clever and expansive set of multiplayer modes across the series, and is certainly worth buying the game for.
I think the the ultimate problem here for me is that I'm just ready for WarioWare to mean something other than what it currently does. Game & Wario is divisive but I love how it took the spirit of the series and applied it to a new context - Move It just feels like a riff on more of the same. And there's a LOT of that "same" already. I know that's less of an indictment on the game itself and more so a reflection on a lack of series progress, but I just think it's time that WarioWare looks different again.
Perhaps the familiarity is in some ways a response to Get It Together already being "different" in some manners of speaking, but I feel like that was the path forward and an opportunity to, like Game & Wario, continue diverging from the core formula.
That feeling of fatigue has largely been avoided by having each subsequent game adopt a unique gimmick that makes the inherent repetition less obvious, but Move It is one of the rare examples wherein the gimmick isn't actually 'new' as much as it is a complication of Smooth Moves' motion control, this being something of a spiritual/direct sequel to that title.
And it is quite clever, but in order to get beyond what Smooth Moves offers, Move It decides to just complicate the motion controls, utilizing the Switch's hardware to its full capabilities. Sometimes, this is inventive and so extremely outside the box - but others it's perhaps too complex (relatively speaking), losing some of WarioWare's intuitive joy in the process - especially when it feels like the Joy-Con aren't always up to the task.
It's just generally hard to escape this frustration inherent to some of the less simple microgames or the pervasive "been there, done that" energy underneath it all - particularly the low stakes and now tired story mode.
Move It would feel like a halfhearted retread if not for some truly fantastic multiplayer though, which is where the game excels. This is certainly the most clever and expansive set of multiplayer modes across the series, and is certainly worth buying the game for.
I think the the ultimate problem here for me is that I'm just ready for WarioWare to mean something other than what it currently does. Game & Wario is divisive but I love how it took the spirit of the series and applied it to a new context - Move It just feels like a riff on more of the same. And there's a LOT of that "same" already. I know that's less of an indictment on the game itself and more so a reflection on a lack of series progress, but I just think it's time that WarioWare looks different again.
Perhaps the familiarity is in some ways a response to Get It Together already being "different" in some manners of speaking, but I feel like that was the path forward and an opportunity to, like Game & Wario, continue diverging from the core formula.