It has been a rough few months for Nintendo DS owners because nothing really worthwhile has hit store shelves since launch. You spent $150+ on something that you played for a week and then put on the shelf or worse, eBay. Well, Nintendo heard your cries and read your angry messageboard posts and finally released another must own game for the DS. WarioWare: Touched takes the crazy randomness of WarioWare Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and puts a stylus in your hand for added fun. Yeah. Touching is definitely good.
If you haven't already played the WarioWare games on GBA or GameCube already, here is a little rundown of what to expect. The games are filled with around 200 minigames that you play through one after another. The catch is that the minigames only last an average of 5 seconds before you move onto the next one. What made WarioWare especially interesting was that the minigames were completely strange and off the wall, including such things as picking a nose or jumping over flying fast food among many, many others. The attraction was that the game moved at a lightning fast pace and it was easy to jump in and play a quick round, which made it the perfect handheld gaming experience.
WarioWare Touched continues that legacy of portable gaming perfection by taking advantage of the unique features of the Nintendo DS. Rather than using the directional pads and buttons, Touched uses only the touch screen and microphone to control the minigames. Most of the minigames require you to tap and rub and drag things around, and it makes great use of the touch screen. You'll pet kittens and puppies, shoot a bow and arrow, light candles, clip dripping snot, tickle hairy armpits, urinate on a fire, cut a pizza into quarters, pop balloons, and much, much more. A handful of games use the microphone and in these you have to blow onto the DS in order to cool a cup of coffee, propel a sailboat, blow bubbles, and fog up windows. Be careful, though, because not all of the games require you to simply blow as hard as you can. Blowing bubbles, for example, requires a slow steady blow in order to reach the right size. There is another microphone minigame that actually requires you to be perfectly silent or you lose, which is a fun change of pace.
Overall, the 180 or so minigames in WarioWare Touched are a lot of fun. Some are better than others, but for the most part everything is very intuitive and you can quickly figure out what you have to do and then move onto the next one. The way the game is set up is that you pick from different characters and then play through their minigames. The characters represent different control styles, so you will get dragging games or tapping games or microphone games based on which character you pick. You eventually will unlock characters that give you minigames completely at random, which is nice since you never know what style you'll get next. Definitely worth noting is that there is one character whose minigames are all based off of classic Nintendo games. You'll pull metroids off of Samus, hit bricks for coins in Super Mario Bros., and play a number of Game & Watch games. These are simply awesome and round out the overall selection quite nicely.
When you beat the different character stages and/or unlock all of their minigames, you will open up various toys to play with. A lot of the toys are just endless versions of some of the minigames, but there are a lot of other things in the toy room as well. One lets you build a snowman and then destroy it. Another is a harmonica where you blow into the microphone and then press buttons to change the sound. There is also a yo-yo, a clacker toy, wind chimes (seriously), a piano, a movie projector where you control the reels, a calculator, a timer, and a bunch of other stuff. More interesting toys include a multiplayer ping pong game where each player uses one of the shoulder buttons to control their paddle and hit the ball back and forth between the two screens. There is also a strange, yet wonderful grandma simulator where you say things to her and she gives you advice. A lot of the toys are pretty goofy and simple, but there are a lot of them and they are a fun reward for reaching different goals playing the regular minigames.
The graphics in WarioWare Touched are very similar to those in the original GBA WarioWare, but it gives the game its own unique style and still looks pretty good. The minigames feature everything from simple drawings, to photos, to more complex things with some 3D effects, and everything looks great. There isn't anything that pushes the DS hardware and produces "OMG PSP is teh suxxzor" type graphics, but maybe graphics aren't everything. A bold statement, I know.
The sound in WarioWare Touched is also very well done and fits the overall theme nicely. Each minigame has its own sound effects and everything just fits. Each character has their own theme music that plays while you go through their stage, and all of the music is very upbeat and catchy. The spooky goth chick, Ashley, has particularly memorable music.
To sum it all up, WarioWare Touched is a must own title for the Nintendo DS. There isn't a whole lot else to choose from at the moment, but Touched really stands out and will make you happy you own the system. It takes advantage of the dual screens, touch screen, and microphone in a lot of different ways and is a great sign of things to come on the DS. Touched is the right game at the right time for Nintendo because it is fun and fresh enough that it will definitely win a few DS nonbelievers over. WarioWare Touched is a solid buy that any DS owner will be very happy to have in their collection.