(RAGE!)
While many of the microgames in the WarioWare series are inherently easy due to the very simplistic and brief nature of their design, there are more than a few that can throw you for a loop.
Note: Boss microgames appear under That One Boss on the YMMV page.
Mega Microgame$
- The "Noodle Cup" microgame (one of Orbulon's games in the first and Mona's in Gold) can be a serious pain in the ass. The basic premise is based on amidakuji
. You pick one of four pipes to pour water in, and the water will go into every connecting horizontal pipe it reaches. The objective is to pick the route that will lead it to the ramen cup. It's one of the few microgames that isn't as simple as tapping a button to win—it requires intuition and the ability to visualize the route the water will take on the way down, a task that gets more challenging on higher difficulty settings, in which the water can go through two or three horizontal pipes on the way to the bottom. Oh, and you only have a couple seconds to decide which one to pour the cup into, so it's very easy to pick the wrong one in a rush. - The "Ice Climber" microgame. You are given exactly four seconds to grab the bird, and between the very slippery platforms, odd jump physics and the fact that you can accidentally fall or jump to your death, it's very easy to bungle it. Not hard per se, but rife with Fake Difficulty.
- The version included in Gold somehow manages to make this microgame both easier and harder at the same time! On the easier side, the timer has been doubled, giving you more breathing room. On the harder side, the controls are now extremely stiff, with it taking forever to build up any kind of forward momentum (which essentially means that you have to start pressing forward on the controller well in advance of when you actually want to start moving). While you won't be running out of time nearly as often as you used to, you will find yourself falling into pits much more frequently.
- "Gold Digger": While the first level is easy enough, the second and third levels have the finger(s) only a few pixels narrower than the nostrils, giving you almost zero room for error. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, however, if the hand didn't zoom back and forth across the screen, making it extremely difficult to nail the correct timing.
- "Wario Kendo", where Wario has to stop a blade from falling on him—it's very easy to get the timing wrong when you try this one.
- "Lickety Split" (one of Kat and Ana's microgames) also requires very precise timing to eat the hearts, and it's very easy to mess up on it.
- "Go Fer The Tater" is made difficult from the gopher's grid-based movement and very sensitive controls, meaning that you can easily overshoot a turn and smack right into a rock.
- "Right in the Eye", since not only does it involve getting a very difficult-to-control thread into a very tiny hole, but on higher levels, the game can become flat-out unbeatable due to the eye of the needle randomly being placed out of the thread's movement range. Thankfully, Gold makes this game easier by changing this into a Touch game, giving you much more control over the thread.
- "Rock Paper Scissors": The first level is straightforward enough (pick whatever beats Mario's hand). However, level 2 has Mario switch his hand in the middle of the game, and level 3 has him switching constantly. This still wouldn't be so bad, however, if it weren't for the fact that you can't just pick which hand you want, but you instead have to wait for Wario's hand to cycle to the correct choice. This means that not only do you have to make sure your selection is correct, but you have to time it just right, too, all the while praying that Mario doesn't switch his hand in the interim and invalidate your choice entirely. This, combined with the fact that you've got the standard four-second timer on what could easily qualify as an Orbulon game, makes this easily the hardest microgame in the final set and possibly the entire game.
Twisted!
- There's "Nice Catch", one of the microgames in the "Speed Spin" collection,note which involves the player trying to catch balls that fly all over the place. While the first level is fairly easy due to the net being big enough, the second level shortens the net by a lot, making it harder to catch balls. The third level really takes the cake, in which the player uses a very thin spear to stab one ball. While most games in "Speed Spin" start off with 4-8 seconds, this is one of the three games in the collection to start off with over 8 seconds, starting with 20 seconds. (The others are "Instant Replay"note and the Boss Game of the collection "Boing!",note though both are nowhere near as painful)
- Levels 2 and 3 of "Outta My Way!" in the "Mini Spin" section require unbelievably fast reflexes. In Level 1, you only have to avoid stationery objects; Level 2 requires you to avoid a car that can suddenly move to the left or right; Level 3 requires you to avoid a dinosaur statue that can fall towards you with almost no time to react (unless you pause beforehand).
- "Drywall Dodge" in the "Spandex Challenge" section has the same issue as "Outta My Way" in that you have to move Wario away from the peeling drywall with no time to react once the wall starts falling (again, pausing helps immensely).
Touched!
- "Very Attractive", where the premise is to move the paperclip between magnets without it getting stuck. On the third difficulty level, the magnets are very close to the path, meaning you'll have to tread the paperclip very slowly through the path. Oh, and the microgame has the normal length rather than double, so good luck. (Thankfully, the Gold version has a rarer but much less painful variant where you have to move around a magnet to attract all of the paperclips.)
Smooth Moves
- "Hand Me Down", where you must hand over an object to another person, is especially this on higher difficulties. On Level 2, the other hand will sometimes stop, throwing off the player. On Level 3, the other hand can actually close, messing you up even further. Thankfully, the Gold incarnation completely removes both of the annoying features and the highest difficulty just has both hands moving.
D.I.Y. / D.I.Y. Showcase
- "Stop! Go!", especially with the Gold interpretation. On your first playthrough, it's not very clear what you have to do, as you are just being thrown into a room with two aliens, one of which periodically tells you to "Beware my watchful EYES!". Even once you figure out what the goal is (move the orange alien towards the blue one when it's not looking), it still has a fairly tight window to beat it, even on lower speed levels. While the D.I.Y. version and the Levels 1 and 2 variants in Gold atleast only have one set speed in which the alien will look the other way, the Level 3 variant of the Gold version can have varying speeds, including turning back at the player only a SECOND after looking away, which can really throw players off. Even worse, the alien might sometimes say "EYEHOLES" instead of just "Eyes" (The words appear one letter at a time in the Gold version, by the way), which can consume even more time.
Gold
- This game's interpretation of "Write On, Dude" doesn't use the top screen to hold the example kanji like Touched did, and the recognition in general is much pickier thanks to the thinner lines used.
- For a full-stage example, there's "Wario Interrupts" in Gold. It's an all-microgames challenge level (this includes Fronk's games) with the gimmick of Wario Deluxe using a disruptor on you every three games. The visual obstructors can be gotten rid of easily, but they can still screw you over if the first microgame is a group of three is very visual-based. He can also flip the screen around (especially disastrous for twist games), invert the screen's colors, hide what type of game is next, or distort time to throw you off. You can get Lulu's help to stop the current disruptor, but one of the missions requires you to score 45 points without using her at all, so you'll have to brave any and all distractions without running out of lives.
- While the "every sound effect turns into the baby voice" distraction doesn't usually cause as much frustration as it does chuckles, you're screwed if it's active during "Sounds of Super Mario Bros.". The game's purpose is, as you might guess, to pick the Mario object that makes the sound heard. Naturally, having this distraction active turns this into a Luck-Based Mission.
Get It Together!
Microgames:
- “Block Puzzle” can be a serious pain, even on the lowest speed. The goal of the microgame is to smash segments of a block so that it matches the pattern in the top right. Sounds simple enough, but the problem is that the block rotates, and the pattern doesn’t. This means that you have to account for the block’s rotation on the fly, and that’s not easy to do while also controlling a character with their own unique movements. Fortunately, you can match the pattern at any orientation.
- "Sort It Out" on Level 2 has an object resting on the see-saw cloud right when the game starts. There is little time to first react to the microgame being played, then to identify which side the object belongs to, and then to execute on this before the second object falls onto the platform, which may belong to the opposite side. Level 3 ups this a bit more by putting the object signs in silhouette, potentially making it harder to process what belongs where. Luckily, this is made easier if you have Orbulon, as you can use his tractor beam to sort the items without using the platform.
- "The Waiter Awaits" on Level 3 gives you a generous timer, but it doesn't help much when the silhouettes of the dishes can be almost impossible to tell apart if you get bad RNG. It is especially bad for Penny, and due to the nature of the game, there isn't a crew member whose ability can break the game.
- "Answer Me!" on Level 3 asks questions about your current run, such as the current round number, which crew member played two rounds ago, or how many lives you had left. This is especially likely to lead to a miss in an "all mixed up" style challenge where it's less likely to pop up, diminishing the player's guard.
- Another hard memory-based game is "Hidden Holidays" on Level 2. You are only given a few seconds to move the obstructing objects out of the way to get a peek at a basket, which contains 4 random objects. However, the game only asks you to remember "one" of these objects, so you are forced to memorize everything while trying to shovel the obstacles out of the way. Level 3 throws another curveball and asks you to remember what was not in the basket, which can easily trick players at higher speeds.
- "Kitty Business" asks you to cover in litter a cat's poop. To do that, you have to move around the litter. However, whether it actually works is a complete crapshoot and even the poop that's covered still might not fully count.
Character-specific:
- While 9-Volt is hard to control in most games, “Muscle Out” deserves special mention for being damn near impossible to complete due to the amount of luck required. The basic premise of the microgame is that you have to knock over all the bodybuilders like dominoes, which sounds easy, but the problem is that 9-Volt’s attack, more often than not, will not result in a chain reaction, and instead send the bodybuilder that was hit flying. If you’re unlucky enough to get this specific combination of microgame and character, it’s practically an instant life loss.
- 9-Volt's stage in Get It Together! is considerably harder than anything before it or anything after it until the endgame. He is a hard-to-control character and this is your introduction to him, but the Play-o-pedia also shows that 9-Volt is reported as a "Bad Fit" for almost his entire microgame set, a dubious distinction no one else in the roster has, not even the similarly hard-to-control Kat & Ana.
- Though he's listed as a decent fit for the game, "Gifted" quickly becomes nearly impossible for Pyoro on higher speeds, since he is incapable of directly pulling on the ribbon. While 9-Volt and 18-Volt have quick attacks to make up for this issue, Pyoro's tongue movement isn't as quick as they can be.
Move It!
- "The Way I Like It" on levels 2 and 3 requires you to pour a mixture of coffee and milk to match the tone of the example. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if you didn't also have to fill the cup up to the correct level, with an overflow counting as an immediate loss. Getting the correct mixture without overflowing the cup is extremely tricky, and unlike other microgames that require you to think carefully, this one doesn't have a doubled time limit.
- "Code Dependency" requires you to find a barcode on an item and scan it, using one hand to reposition the item and the other to angle the barcode scanner. Problem is, the game is very finicky about what counts as a successful scan, meaning that even once you've found the barcode, you could lose the microgame just from not having enough time to find the desired angle.
- "Take a Stab" is harder than it looks. You need to carefully stab forward in a very straight line, otherwise your aim might get thrown off and you'll miss. Higher levels compound the difficulty by introducing cards that float up and down, which means you also need to worry about precise timing.
- "Pure Waddle" requires you to match the pace of a group of penguins in front of behind you. The motion controls end up making this one harder than it needs to be, as the difference between large steps and small ones is fairly minute. Level 3 adds in the additional challenge of jumping over a seal, all the while ensuring that you don't accidentally move forwards and bump into the stationary penguin in front of you.
- "Thigh Fishing" itself isn't especially difficult, but the issue is that this microgame involves having to quickly shut your thighs together. This can be problematic for some male players.
- "Air Guitarist" proves to be deceptively difficult at later levels. Levels 1 and 2 aren't too hard, just having to repeat a simple pattern, but Level 3's pattern is just long enough that you'll barely have enough time to input it. At faster speeds, the game becomes a borderline instant loss.
- In "WarioWare Series", you have to use Gift Giver form to balance a stack of cartridges/discs. The problem is that the Joy-Con work a little too well in this regard, in that they can detect even the slightest tremors in your hands. You need to keep your hands almost perfectly still, so if you don't have steady hands, consider this microgame an instant loss.
- "Party of ?" requires you to quickly count the number of people in your party, including yourself, and hold that many fingers up. Not only does this microgame not have a longer time limit, but the last second of it is dedicated to the win/loss animation, so in reality you get even less time. The countdown timer can also throw you off if you're not ready, as it starts warning you at two seconds left instead of the usual three that you'd might expect.
