WarioWare: Smooth Moves

aka: Odoru Made in Wario
Moby ID: 25969
Wii Specs
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Description official descriptions

In his home of Diamond City, Wario discovers an old building called the Temple of Form. Inside, he finds a treasure known as the Form Baton. The legend goes that if the holder follows the forms, he can ultimately overcome any challenge. The word is spread in the city and soon everybody tries to master the moves.

WarioWare Smooth Moves is a party game consisting of more than 200 micro-games (very short mini-games that last only five seconds each), using the Wii Remote, to scribble, swing, spin, squat, serve, flail and many more. Along the way, more micro-games are unlocked.

Spellings

  • おどる メイド イン ワリオ - Japanese spelling
  • 춤춰라 메이드 인 와리오 - Korean spelling

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Credits (Wii version)

133 People (115 developers, 18 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 81% (based on 98 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 48 ratings with 2 reviews)

Funny and Brilliant until you need some kind of challenge from a game.

The Good
WarioWare: Smooth Moves is stylish, whimsical, and most importantly very funny. I was compelled to race through the single player with the utmost of my skill, intent on opening up the annoyingly locked multiplayer, and instantly became engrossed with the excellent humour. My face constantly in a smile, I hardly noticed the barely two hours it took from Indiana Jones beginning to ET ending. The droll training commentary brings to mind classic comedian Steven Wright combined with Saturday morning cartoon aesthetic and its frequency throughout the game is very welcome. There is little I can do to describe the joy of holding the remote in as ridiculous a fashion as each of the training sequences describe.

An intentionally simple visual style inhabits each of the minigames. If it is polygons that we see, then the original Virtua Fighter is the inspiration. If 2D is more the minigames' style then you have to wonder If Nintendo outsourced to Walt Disney Company. Sometimes even a kindergartner would have difficulty drawing graphics as badly composed as some in this game on an Apple II paint program. Not only does this work on a base comedic level, but it makes sense considering how quickly control choices have to be made. On a stylistic level the line drawn graphics that look like intricately animated flash animations are actually very appealing; the only time a pixel is seen is when as in the case of the NES emulated segments it is entirely necessary. Also important to the overall strength of this game's visual appeal is a correct solidity or an accurate weight to each of the objects the player is interacting with. This illusion is never broken; when the game needs a cartoon it is a distinct and effective cartoon, when the game needs an object to be manipulated in 3D it often feels like the player's arm is reaching inside of the screen to fashion a success out of a solid polygonal structure.

While the idea that the method of controlling the minigames itself is some kind of divine instrument of unspeakable power ties the story together all of these situations in which the player finds him or herself avoiding conflict are all blissfully unaware of each other. So while none of the series staple of an intertwining story is present, the whimsy of the randomness of these character's interactions is often hilarious. Also lovable are the character designs themselves even most if not all of these are fan service from previous WarioWare creations.

The Bad
The interface is familiar if not terribly interesting and following each character's mini-adventure feels comfortable. It oozes quality on every level, but it seems like WarioWare: Smooth Moves does its best to try not to innovate the structure of the series in any way for the purpose of avoiding disappointment. Maybe the reader has noticed my earlier comment speaking of the game's overall valid play time. Understanding that the overall length of this game is derived from the inherent replayability of the medium, I am hesitant to mention this as a fault.

What is a fault is the repetition of most of these challenges. Pre-apologies for this minor spoiler, but many of the bosses are simply minor variations of earlier bosses and a larger than expected percentage of the minigames are the exact same tasks. Apparently no one at Nintendo yet understands the storage potential of a DVD because this game has less original content than the minuscule flash card of the DS not to mention a humble Gameboy Advance cartridge. Despite the relative lack of variety of minigames, very few games feature this wide variation of control schemes. This is in addition to the fact that they all work so well, so it is very difficult to pick apart the few control schemes that do not. So I will not. Instead I must mention that while all of the games are fun and all of this is a well- polished, well-oiled machine, it is so well polished that it offers no challenge even to people who have not played videogames since the Christmas of 1985.

The largest challenge in Wario Ware: Smooth Moves is a player attempting to best a high score, yet never when the game itself is challenging. Honestly, the only time I lost one of my four lives in any of the minigames was when the responsiveness of the controller failed and that was not often enough to complain. Also deserving mention is the music, while it is appropriately bouncy and upbeat it has no structure. Nothing could compare me for the voice samples or composition of the music in WarioWare: Touched, and while on the tiny flash memory of the DS music is the greatest strength here on this grand DVD music is another disappointing weakness.

The Bottom Line
I wholeheartedly recommend this game to fans of Wario, WarioWare and people with many friends not queasy about experimenting with multiple control formats in lightning fast hot-potato rounds, but beyond that it is a beautiful and funny yet shallow experience. No hidden challenge presents itself and once everything is unlocked a sense of tedium sets in that is unwelcome and unforeseen. Luckily for me since I have already purchased the game, I am a huge fan of Wario, and I applaud the increase in the already astronomical level of humor in this series.

Wii · by Minter064 (8) · 2007

The most narrow-minded game ever made?

The Good
It's made by Nintendo. Or at least it runs on a Nintendo console. That's probably the one thing good about this game. It's like, "I think St. Anger is a horrible album but since Metallica is one of my favorite bands, I'll get that album just to support the band."

The Bad
1. Wiimote isn't meant to be used in so many (20?) different ways. Some of them work, but there will certainly be some levels(micro-levels) where the Wii controls feel horribly imprecise. It doesn't matter how many levels work. The player will only remember the levels that don't work.

  1. It's narrow-minded (part 1). Once you start a level, you can't quit to the menu screen. You can't go to any "in-game menu" screen. You just can't. The only way to even pause the game is to press the Wii Home button. So, once a level starts,

  2. It's narrow-minded (part 2). You're restricted to one solution to each micro-level. How you were going to play each level was already determined when they designed it. There's no room for your own ideas anymore. You have to do exactly what they planned for you to do. So, I don't consider this to be a legitimate game. In a legitimate game, you can accomplish a task in a variety of ways (Deus Ex, Fire Emblem).

  3. Much of the gameplay is watching the cinematics which can't be skipped. I'd say about 80% of the gameplay is watching, and 20% is actual interaction.

  4. Unpleasant aesthetics. A little like the MTV short video sketches. Very random and somewhat chaotic.

  5. Basically you fail a level before you even figure out what's going on, and have to replay several times to beat it. Now, there are Japanese avant-garde experimental games that are meant to provide a huge sense of frustration, and even though Smooth Moves isn't quite that hard (it's easy to beat a level after 2 or 3 attempts), the design philosophy behind it is similar.

    The Bottom Line
    It really doesn't feel smooth at all.

Wii · by Pagen HD (146) · 2013

Trivia

Awards

  • GameSpy
    • 2007 – #8 Wii Game of the Year
    • 2007 – Wii Party Game of the Year

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by PolloDiablo.

Wii U added by Harmony♡.

Additional contributors: Freeman, gamewarrior, Patrick Bregger, Grandy02.

Game added January 12, 2007. Last modified June 18, 2023.