I've seen several people complain that this is just a repackaging of the GBA game that's compromised in several ways. I don't really know about that because I haven't played a WarioWare game a day in my life, I'm as bare and pure as the day I was born, covered in fluids and screaming in the corner of the WarioWare elevator as the door keeps opening up to wacky minigames. I don't know how I got here and I'm scared.

The multiplayer component seems to be the big draw, but "come over and play WarioWare, Inc: Mega Party Games!" doesn't have the same magnetism today that it probably did in 2003, and for that reason I experienced the game solo. Which, again, is just the GBA game (or so I'm told), and since it's all new to me, I had a good time with it regardless.

I am currently playing through Mario Party 6 with Appreciations and TransWitchSammy, and while that's obviously a more complex game, I do think it's funny to compare how minigames are designed between the two. WarioWare fires its microgames at you rapidly, but they're so simple and intuitive that you're rarely left wondering what's expected of you, which allows the game to maintain its pacing. Mario Party requires a team of adults carefully study the instructions to each minigame, examining them like a technical manual several times over before jumping into a practice game to ensure everything is operating correctly. Saw a log, pick your nose, dodge falling debris... Easy. I do that every day of my life. Navigate the Gomba maze in Hotel Goomba by punching Goombas in the back of the skull to coral them into the correct positions? Yeah, hold up, gonna need to do a couple dry runs.

"But George, that's an unfair comparison. The connection between the two is predicated on the presence of minigames as a generalized concept and is tenuous at best!" Oh, well look at what we have here. A Mario Party defender! Well guess what, I called Dribble and Spitz and they said they're coming to your house tonight!

I really wanted to enjoy Sony's vaguely lewdly titled spin on Splatoon. Was hoping all the negativity being spread around for it online was just the result of angry Nintendo fans getting peeved because there's now a cool new take on their once exclusive series out there for people with other consoles to enjoy, à la Palworld. Unfortunately, Foamstars is a genuinely baffling product with some seriously questionable design choices that I feel are going to make it hard for this to build an audience large enough to make its obvious inspiration even remotely nervous.

The game replaces the weird squid-children and ink with, well, foam and... influencers? The most unique thing it brings to the table is elements of your typical hero shooter, where instead of customizing loadouts to determine your playstyle you select from a group of characters at the start of each match with their own skills and abilities. Not a terrible idea. The problem is that it's difficult to fully relish using any of them when the core gunplay is so odd no matter who you go with. Most shoot in this bizarre arcing fashion usually used for throwing grenades pretty much everywhere else. This means you have to determine where your bubbly bullets are going to land in order to effectively hit someone, which can be tough to do in the heat of the moment causing the majority of firefights to devolve into everyone simply spraying and praying they land enough damage to open up opponents for the surfboard slide finishers. The ones who do shoot in a more traditional straight line tend to have significant range issues.

Slightly awkward gameplay isn't necessarily always a deal-breaker though. In fact, I'd say you're more likely to put this down over the general lack of content instead. There are only three match types right now. One of which, a twist on TDM with lives where the final kill has to be against the opposing team's top player, is constantly available while the other two cycle in and out on a confounding hourly rotation. Why the devs would choose to do this I have no idea, but it merely serves to make the offerings of an already fairly meager package feel even slimmer. There are single-player and co-op PvE missions where you defend generators from waves of pathetic enemies who strictly approach from a single direction and typically culminate in a marginally less pathetic boss battle. The latter does contain some value due to the fact that it can be pretty challenging on the hard difficulty setting, yet ultimately isn't enough to keep either inclusion from being altogether dull and entirely skippable.

It's also worth noting the former features super annoying writing to boot. All the dialogue is incredibly juvenile. I don't mean in a crass and crude sort of way, rather that it comes off as aimed at very young children. Quite at odds with the sexual designs of a few of its heroines. The voice acting delivering it might be the strangest part of this entire package. I'm not convinced about half of it isn't AI generated, because there can't seriously be a reality where they found this many individuals who read that unnaturally even on a first take.

Whether this being (currently) kind of, sort of, but not truly or always going to be "free" depends on how much you're bothered by the microtransactions. They are 100% optional and avoidable so there is NO pay-to-win bullcrap going on and therefore cause me to take zero issue with them. That being said, I will mention the price tags are ridiculous, with a lot of bundles costing nearly the same amount as a brand-new released game, and there's the usual irritating seasonal battle pass junk. The freemium mechanics don't stop there, however. In a downright borderline hilarious move, the perks-esque boost loadouts you can equip the roster with are inexplicably randomly generated by a gacha system, mercifully fueled by in-game currency rather than real-world cash. You can't make this stuff up and that may be the sole aspect more unbelievably peculiar than the voice-overs.

Despite everything I've talked about, the multiplayer can still be mindless fun in spurts thanks to the creative modes. At least when you're winning. My personal favorite sees teams split up into two groups, requiring both halves to coordinate while one is in the fight and the other provides support from outside of the arena. The designs of the current cast are also appropriately striking, eye-catching, and cool in spite of the storytelling portraying them as huge dorks. Originally, I was intending to stick around long enough to unlock the complete trophy list. With such a variety of better games out there these days, I simply can't justify wasting any more time on something this mediocre and flawed, or recommend it to anybody else. Certainly not when you have to start paying for it. Psssh, forget that! Square Enix needs to smarten up and backtrack on those plans IMMEDIATELY!

5/10