A mixed, but mostly good and fun party game. Really dig the Cyberpunk/Y2K asthetic of the game. Definitely guaranteed to have fun playing with a group of 4, but the biggest thing holding the game back are the somewhat boring character designs and the minigame selection. Playing through the main tournament mode, it's a toss up whether you get a good variety of fun and clever minigames, or really bad and boring luck where you'll get 3-4 game in a row that consist of taking an orb to a designated scoring point, but maybe you'll be paired up with someone arbitrarily sometimes. It's always fascinating how easy a Mario Party type game would be, but for some reason it seems that no other developers have ever been able to crack what Nintendo and Hudson perfected. As it stands, Fuzion Frenzy is fun to pull out for a game night, but replayability will probably come down to what Minigames you play that night.

A mixed, but mostly good and fun party game. Really dig the Cyberpunk/Y2K asthetic of the game. Definitely guaranteed to have fun playing with a group of 4, but the biggest thing holding the game back are the somewhat boring character designs and the minigame selection. Playing through the main tournament mode, it's a toss up whether you get a good variety of fun and clever minigames, or really bad and boring luck where you'll get 3-4 game in a row that consist of taking an orb to a designated scoring point, but maybe you'll be paired up with someone arbitrarily sometimes. It's always fascinating how easy a Mario Party type game would be, but for some reason it seems that no other developers have ever been able to crack what Nintendo and Hudson perfected. As it stands, Fuzion Frenzy is fun to pull out for a game night, but replayability will probably come down to what Minigames you play that night.

Pros: ADHD heaven: the Game. It's creative gameplay, it's funny and stupid, it's visual variety, it's wonderful colorful characters, and it's an incredible novel concept of playing five second "micro-games" in succession one after another. It just works.

Initially, I couldn't wrap my head around what this game was when it was first announced... I thought... A minigame collection? Well, no, there are minigames, but that's not what this is. It's like... if video games were Flash Cards that test your gaming abilities, performance and reaction time, and keeping you on your toes, not knowing what five-second-game will come next. Well, there are multiple categories, though no game goes beyond the simple controls of d-pad and A button only, so you're never put in a place of too much confusion. There's also always a single prompt that appears when a microgame is introduced, and I feel it's enough to suggest to the player just enough of what to do in the microgame. And these categories help separate the games into different modes so it's not too much unexpected in one place, and in WarioWare here, there are different characters that are keepers of these different gaming categories.

Firstly, Wario, the mascot who's used perfectly for this game and eventual franchise, as he matches the silliness and chaotic energy of the style of gameplay found here, even though it practically has nothing to do with the Wario games that've come before. But he's used great as a mascot here, and his likeness benefits the success of the product. And to differentiate him from his prior appearances, they've dressed him up in a wildly colorful biker outfit, and even given him a hog of his own to ride around town. Other characters are all brand new, and they're all fantastic too, yeah, all of them. Jimmy, the disco dancer, hosts sports themed games, Mona the fashionable ice cream shop worker hosts "weird" games, 9-Volt the nerdy kid hosts retro Nintendo themed games (which, was the huge draw for a Nintendo nerd like me), Kat and Ana host animal themed games, Orbulon hosts "thinking" games that take slightly longer than five seconds, Dribble & Spitz are a dog and cat duo and they host sci-fi games, and Dr. Crygor hosts "photo real" styled games, and then one final category is a Wario remix, where Wario is featured in new microgames that can fit snuggly into any of the above categories. It's a fun journey with a TON of variety, and little microgames that are so goofy and fun, that often you'll wish they were full-blown games all in their own right. And with these characters also comes great presentation, as each have their own little story intros and outros, as well as unique visual and audio storytelling, with some great music as well.

In addition to the main campaign, there's other modes where you can play each microgame for highscores, as they get faster and harder the more they loop. As well as "hard" and "thrilling" modes, as well as Boss Rush and such. Speeding things up, setting things to maximum difficulty, only giving you one life, etc. And then there's also unlockable minigames, separate from the microgames, little high score games like jump rope, skate boarding, and paper airplane, but also "multiplayer games" where one player uses the left side of the GBA and its L button, and another player uses the right side of the GBA and its R button, these minigames are frenetic and exciting, and a blast to play with a friend (Vs. Chiritorie and Vs. Dong Dong are favs of mine).

Cons: Some of the visuals can look rather janky, but I kinda chalk it up to charm, honestly, so much of this game is weird, and some moments that look off model, actually add to the quirkiness. Otherwise, I don't see any real issues here, some Microgames are more difficult than others, and sometimes you wish a prompt would clue you in more or less, but it's never to the point where you feel cheated, it works, and if they didn't throw you for a loop every now and then, it wouldn't have that chaotic energy that you want out of this game, which is a huge part of the fun factor!

What it means to me: Like stated above, when I first saw the announcement of this game, I didn't know what the heck I was looking at, thinking it was a minigame collection, but I remember seeing some of 9-Volt's NES games, like Zelda and Duck Hunt and such, and wanting to try this game out just for that... But... Once you try WarioWare, that's it, you're in, it was like no other game before it and especially if you're into highscore games, this one will keep you playing for a long long long long long time.