Video Game / WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$

aka: Wario Ware Mega Microgames

Microgames for mega-profit!

"Hey! Pay attention when Wario's talking to you!
Listen, you better have fast reflexes if you think you can master all of the games I've crammed in here.
There're more of 'em than I can count, and they’re the best games ever, baby!
And the best thing is, they're all simple enough that even someone like you can figure 'em out!
Why didn't I get into the video-game business before now? I'm gonna make a fortune! A FORTUNE!!!"

— Wario, blurb on the back cover.

WarioWare Inc. Mega Microgame$ is a a video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance in early 2003. The game is the first installment in the WarioWare series, as well as the second Wario-starred game overall in its supporting system, following up Wario Land 4 (2001).

The ever money-hungry "hero" Wario is sitting at home one day watching TV, when he watches a news broadcast announcing that a new hit video game known as "Pyoro" is breaking sales records and making tons of money. Naturally, Wario wants a piece of that pie, so he heads out to buy a computer and prepares to create a video game of his own and become rich. Unfortunately, game development is harder than he thought it would be. Undeterred, he gets the brilliant idea to enlist help from his friends to make the game for him.

Being the first game in its series, Mega Microgame$ set the blueprint for many conventions that would be carried over to its sequels, such as having character-specific chapters, unlockable modes, hidden minigames (as in, full-fledged ones instead of rapid-fire actions like the microgames), and a Replay Mode to not only revisit the microgames of the player's liking but also clear them several successive times with rising speed and difficulty to set a record. Interestingly, despite kickstarting the WarioWare series, it didn't have the involvement of eventual series producer Yoshio Sakamoto (as he was busy developing Metroid: Zero Mission, also for the GBA), though he'd produce many of the later games (including the remake WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$!, which has its own page.

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List!

• 100% Completion: Unlocking all the microgames in every character's grid will unlock the Pyoro minigame. And earning a flower badge in all microgames will unlock the Pyoro 2 minigame.
• Addressing the Player: The game asks for your name and sex, and uses it as the name of the prince/princess Kat and Ana have to rescue on their stage, and the name of the cab passenger on Dribble and Spitz's stage. Wario also addresses you by name in things like the stage select screen.
• Alien Invasion: At the end of Orbulon's chapter, he attempts to use his "alien powers" to hypnotize all Earthlings. But the Space Hares who tried to rescue him reject him back to his UFO, which then crash-lands into the planet, clashing against a tree next to Mona's Gelateria.
• Amusing Alien: Orbulon, an alien intending to take over the world, has his plan stopped when he crash-lands in Diamond City. He's become quite enamoured with Earth culture in spite of this, if a little airheaded.
• Badass Biker:
  • Wario becomes this complete with a chopper bike called the "Wario Bike", built by Dr. Crygor for him since this game. In fact, a good few of his microgames have him riding his bike through various hazards.
  • There's also Mona who owns a scooter and puts it to good use in her stages in this game as well as WarioWare: Twisted!.
• Bare-Handed Blade Block: "Wario Kendo", one of the late-level microgames, asks you to do exactly this. On the easiest difficulty level, you have to catch a daikon radish. On its hardest difficulty level, the bokken-wielding samurai accidentally lets his blade slip, and you have to catch the falling sword before it bops Wario in the nose.
• Bar Slide: One of the microgames in the game is to catch a drink being slid down the bar. The drink speed and the timing required to catch it will vary depending on the difficulty level.
• Book Ends: Wario is the host of both the first and last stages. Both stages also have a similar plotline of Wario getting trapped inside one of his belongings, namely his boom box in the first stage, and his computer in the last.
• Boss Rush: One of the unlockable postgame modes is Total Boss, where the player is encouraged to play the boss microgames back to back. It's also an Endless Game, so when you get past the Final Boss you'll repeat them in harder versions until you run out of lives.
• Bowdlerise: In the Japanese version of the "Fruit Fall" microgame, the "not fruit" item was a poop coil. This was changed into a diamond everywhere else... though the golden poop coil that Wario gets at the end of the "Wario's Adventure" microgame remained intact in all regions.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • In the microgame "Heads Up", one of the ways to lose is if you fail to catch the ball and it goes out of bounds, causing the ball to break through the screen and fly off with the catcher watching. This also gets a callback in WarioWare Gold, which also modernizes the fourth-wall break.
  • Mona winks at the camera at the end of her stage.
• Brick Break: One microgame involves breaking bricks in its basic level. To succeed, the player has to hit the A button when the oscillating pointer of the stamina gauge is within the topmost (red) area; otherwise, they'll fail.
• Bull Seeing Red: Played with in one of Dribble's microgames, which features a matador taunting a... rhino. Hey, male rhinos are called "bulls", too.
• Console Cameo: A microgame asks the player to quickly identify which of the GBA samples shown is the real one.
• Company Cross References: 9-Volt's chapter starts the trend of his levels having microgames based on other Nintendo franchises. In particular, as the game was developed by Nintendo's R&D1 unit, numerous microgames are references to previous games created by the unit, such as Metroid and Dr. Mario, and toys created by Gunpei Yokoi (the unit's original founder and general manager).
• Damsel in Distress: Ana, in Kat's chapter. A skeletal spirit called Boneheads curses a regal individual whose name and gender are based on those of the player; and when Ana goes to the Castle to defeat the spirit she falls in a trap and is kidnapped. Ana sends a rescue letter to Kat asking for help. Winning the microgames symbolizes Kat being able to break through the areas of the castle until she reaches the roof, where the evil spirit, the player's avatar and Ana are.
• Death Course: Some of the microgames have a character ride through a perilous obstacle course, most notable the boss microgame in the final chapter (where Wario has to skate through hazards, fly upward on a jetpack while destroying obstacles and grabbing fuel, defeat a Thwomp for the treasure, and finally escape while being chased by a boulder). This also applies to the special minigame Skating Board, where 9-Volt initially just dodges mundane obstacles but then meets actual hazards
• Death from Above: The VS. minigame Dong Dong pits Mona and Dribble in a duel where they have to use punching bars (which move up and down) to thrust yellow blocks and see who is the first to make one of them fall above the other to squash them. One player controls Mona's bar by thrusting with L, with the other controls Dribble's by thrusting with R. As the minigame progresses, the speed of both bars will either increase or decrease, so timing will be important to aim at the yellow blocks properly.
• Denial of Diagonal Attack: The Pyoro minigame twists this trope forty-five degrees. Your tongue/seeds will only fire diagonally, while the beans you're trying to hit fall from above.
• Developer's Foresight: In Orbulon's stage, the life counter consists of four Alien Bunnies trying to get Orbulon to their spaceship. In the end, when Orbulon plans to take over the ship, an Alien Bunny replies "Shucks!" and drops Orbulon back onto the Oinker. The default amount is four. But, were you to lose a life and then clear the stage for the first time, then the Alien Bunny who pulls the switch is the one closest to it.
• Did Not Do the Bloody Research: The American localization named 9-Volt's pet "Shag", a shortened version of his Japanese name, Shaggy. In the European version, this was changed to "Fronk", and starting with WarioWare: Touched! this is what's used in the American localization as well.
• Embedded Precursor: Unlike all the standard microgames based on classic Nintendo games (which only replicate very small portions of their games of origin), three of the special minigames unlockable by scoring high enough in Jimmy T.'s chapters are full-fledged adaptations of games: Dr. Mario, Sheriff, and the Fly Swatter minigame from Mario Paint. The main difference in the former two is that they're starred by Wario instead of Mario and the nameless Sheriff respectively.
• Endless Game:
  • The extra minigames unlocked as you progress (Paper Plane, Skating Board and Jump Forever) go on forever, and the farther you go before your first (and only) clash the higher your score will be.
  • The postgame Easy, Thrilling and Hard modes consist of clearing as many microgames as possible, and the first and third modes will only end when the player loses four lives (Thrilling only gives one). Easy, true to its name, features microgames on their lowest difficulty, while Hard goes the opposite direction (Thrilling has them on Normal, but the caveat of giving the player only one life makes it very challenging). Reaching at least 15 microgames on Easy will unlock Thrilling, while reaching at least 15 on Thrilling will in turn unlock Hard.
• Exact Progress Bar: There are menus modeled on a typical computer interface (the story being that Wario is programming the games, and you are working as a tester). When unlocking things, a progress bar will appear, and slow down and speed up while the new objects "load". The one for the title screen (if you don't skip the intro) moves at a constant rate, though.
• Eye Beams: Dr. Crygor's boss microgame, "Alien Laser Hero", has the player control a Faceship orbiting earth to protect it from meteorites shot by an invading space vessel, and to this end the ship can shoot a melting laser beam from its eyes. In the final phase, the vessel approaches and tries to drop the meteorites despite knowing tha you can now attacking it (this phase is actually difficult, because it means you have to balance between shooting at the meteorites and shooting at the enemy vessel until it's destroyed).
• First-Person Snapshooter: There's a microgame called "Picture Perfect" where you have to take a picture shot of a bird flying; timing is required to perform the shot when the full body of the bird is within the marked borders of the camera's lens, because anything imperfect will make the player lose the microgame.
• Galactic Conqueror: Orbulon tries to be this during his chapter. He really sucks at it, and ends up crash-landing on Diamond City. As seen in later games, he has stopped trying to conquer anything ever since.
• Game-Breaking Bug: There is a microgame where you have to send a thread through a needle. Occasionally, on the hardest level, the needle will be placed too far, rendering the microgame unwinnable. This was fixed in Gold.
• Ghost Leg Lottery: One of the minigames utilizes this lottery mechanic, where you select between pipes in which to pour boiling water to direct it into a cup of instant noodles below.
• Giant Foot of Stomping: The game introduces the "Sole Man" series of micro games, in which you control the bug-sized Fronks from being stomped on by a giant foot. The size of the foot changes with the difficulty, starting with a girl's sneaker as the smallest, then a man's shoe, and ending with an overweight woman's sandal being the largest and hardest to avoid.
• Goomba Stomp: This is the first of many games in the series to add a microgame where Wario has to stomp one or more Goombas in a screen taken from Super Mario Bros..
• Hard Mode Filler: Jimmy T. has three chapters, and all of them pertain him trying to concentrate on his dance even while he receives a phone message. However, whereas the first chapter is relatively simple to complete, the second and third feature harder microgames (as well as previously easy ones with tighter conditions) and the total number of them also increases in each subsequent case.
• Hot Pursuit: Mona's chapter revolves around her needing to reach her workplace in time. Unfortunately, due to having to stop in order to let some school children cross a street slowly, Mona realizes that she won't make it if she drives under the speed limit, so she drives faster and a police unit detects her, thus beginning a chase that complicates when more units join. Some buddy animals accompanying Mona attempt to throw stuff to the units to derail them, and winning the microgames symbolizes their success in doing so.
• Indy Escape: The Final Boss microgame spoofs this trope, along with many other action game staples. Near the end, Wario has to outrun a large boulder after having claimed a cave's treasure.
• Jump Rope Blunders: The special minigame Jump Forever has Wario jump over a rope swung by Kat and Ana. As the minigame progresses, the speed of the rope's swing will increase, then go deceptively slower, then change unpredictably every time Wario jumps, and then at one point Kat and Ana will move left and right while Wario can only jump the rope successfully when he's aligns at the center (and eventually the speed of the rope will also change while the sisters move). The blunder will happen eventually, because it's an Endless Game.
• Letting the Air out of the Band: Usually, the song played in Jump Forever ("Drifting Away" by default, but also the one chosen in a later session) will play at the same speed as that of the swinging rope. But once Wario inevitably trips on, the music's speed and pitch deflates until total silence and the minigame ends.
• Maze Game:
  • "The Maze that Pays" from Wario's first set places Wario in a maze similar to Pac-Man. The maze has a trail of coins that he has to collect within the time limit.
  • "Maze Daze" in Orbulon's set has the player control a ballerina who has to navigate a small maze in order to reach the man at the exit. More difficult levels add portals that cause her to switch between different spots in the maze when she passes over them.
• Multiple Endings: There are some secret endings in Orbulon's stage; should you lose 3 lives, but if you beat the boss with one Alien Bunny left without quitting or getting a Game Over, after the message, which involves Orbulon telling the player to be amazed by alien powers, said Alien Bunny will only drop Orbulon off. There's also an ending for when you have 3 lives remaining, and one where you have 2 lives remaining. If you view Orbulon's ending again via Options, you'll end up with the 4 lives ending, so the only way to view the three secret endings is to lose a life and make it to the end of the boss and win without getting a Game Over.
• One-Hit Kill: One of the boss microgames pits the player against a rival boxer. Normally, the rival performs telegraphed punches that only substract one heart from the player's Life Meter; however, there's a chance the rival will instead prepare an unusually delayed punch that can instantly knock out the player, even if the latter has full HP (and the chance rate increases when the rival is on the brink of defeat).
• One-Hit-Point Wonder: The postgame mode Thrilling ends when the player fails one microgame. The challenge consists of clearing as many microgames as possible before that happens (reaching at least the 15th will unlock Hard Mode).
• Light and Mirrors Puzzle: There's a microgame where the player has to stop a moving mirror in the instant when the laser it's reflecting lands onto a target.
• Nose Nuggets: While every WarioWare game has a microgame that involves picking a nose, in this game there's one microgame has you helping a young woman retract snot back into her nose by spinning the control pad.
• Painful Pointy Pufferfish: The objective of the microgame "Rough Puff" is to have a pufferfish inflate at the right time to deflect an attack from another fish.
• Potty Emergency: In Crygor's chapter, the scientist is working with chemicals and then drinks what he thinks is a tasty beverage, unaware that it's a chemical that makes his bowel go haywire. He goes quickly to the restroom for an evacuation. Winning the microgames symbolizes the speed to get rid of the drunk chemical out of his body before it's too late.
• Racing Minigame: The VS. minigame "Hurdle" pits Orbulon and Dr. Crygor in an athletic race against each other. One player controls the former by jumping with L, while the other controls the latter by jumping with R (the two characters run automatically). Besides fences that have to be jumped on (as clashing against one will make the affected character fall down and waste time), there are also puddles of mud that slow down the running speed, though tapping the player-designated button rapidly will make their character escape from it more quickly. The first player to win three races is the champion.
• Random Encounters: Parodied in 9-Volt's chapter. You don't actually get to move around the Retraux RPG world, but each random minigame is introduced with the message "A game appears!"
• Recycled Soundtrack: The game reuses quite a few tunes from the Wario Land series, notably Wario Land 4. For instance, a version of the Curious Factory theme is recycled as part of the Paper Plane soundtrack. And the Crescent Moon Village theme is reused for the ending cutscene. It also recycles sound effects, with his laugh sound effects coming from Wario Land 4 as well (including his elevator entrance laugh being the one heard when you enter a portal in said game).
• Road Trip Plot: In their chapter, Dribble and Spitz are asked by the player's avatar to be taken to the harbor during a rainy night. Winning the microgames symbolizes Dribble overcoming the difficulty of driving across the road during night while the downpour is ongoing. At the end, the taxi drivers manage to get their customer to the destination... and then that person is shown to be a merperson. Watching them depart to the vast sea is heartwarming for the drivers... until they realize that the merperson didn't pay them!
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: One of the games is Rock Paper Scissors against Mario. On the first difficulty level, you just have to beat his hand sign; on the higher ones, he'll switch signs after a couple of seconds.
• Self-Deprecation: The microgame "Praise or Haze" where the player is asked to either compliment or insult a subject; on occasion the requires you to "Haze" yourself or the game you're playing.
• Shell Game: There's a microgame based on this classic gambling game. There's a golden coin and a number of cups (usually four) positioned upside-down. The host will hide the coin in one of the cups and then move all of them rapidly. The player has to select the cup hiding the coin to win.
• Shoddy Knockoff Product: Dr. Wario (Wario's knockoff of Dr. Mario), is a parody of bootleg games, particularly the ones with head-swapped characters and edited titles, e.g. Super Bros. 11.
• "Simon Says" Mini-Game: One of Orbulon's microgames has you perform dancing moves in the directions indicated by the fingers of your master.
• Solid Clouds: "The Frog Flap" Kat & Ana's boss microgame, has the player jump between cloud platforms in the high skies to reach a goal (a small pool of water) without falling down. The clouds do vanish after being landed on once each, and some of them move either up and down or sideways, so the player needs to time their jumps wisely.
• Solid Gold Poop: The Final Boss microgame has Wario going after a treasure, which is revealed to be this.
• The Song Remains the Same: Both the American and European releases keep the Japanese songs for Dribble and Spitz' and Kat and Ana's stages. Justified with the latter, since the stage is ninja-themed.
• Stalked by the Bell: In Pyoro, the beans you are supposed to eat will destroy a piece of the floor if they touch it. If you continue to let the beans fall and not eat them, you will get trapped on a single block, and then eventually get killed.
• Treasure Is Bigger in Fiction: In the "Diamond Dig" microgame, Wario drops into a recess in the ground to land behind a diamond as big as his head.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: In "Fruit Fall" catching a diamond doesn't give you the win, it just gives you a concussion. Diamonds are hard.
• Unexpected Shmup Level: One of the boss microgames puts the player (who is driving a spaceship) in a shmup level where they have to destroy incoming enemy ships, and eventually defeat a boss whose weak point is a core that periodically leaves its body for a brief while.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • The Microgame "Right in the Eye" involves threading a needle. On Level 3 (the hardest difficulty) of this microgame, the needle can be placed too high or low to thread.
  • Certain microgames, such as "Guy Scraper", can reach a point where the time limit is too fast to complete the microgame before it returns to the score screen.
• Unlockable Content:
  • Extra modes can be unlocked after clearing the main story, as well as replaying Jimmy T.'s chapters and clocking at certain high scores that weren't possible the first time.
  • Once the player performs at least 100 successful jumps before the blunder in Jump Forever, the option to select a different music in the next session will be available (the default is "Drifting Away", while the alternatives are "Four Seasons" and the theme of Pinball Zone from Wario Land 4).
• White Flag: One microgame requires the player to keep a spotlight trained on Wario as he moves around in an otherwise dark area. If the spotlight's still on him when the time runs out, Wario hoists a pair of white flags and you get credit for successfully clearing the microgame.

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