I very clearly remember when WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames! landed on the Game Boy Advance in the early 2000s. It genuinely came out of nowhere and was a remarkably bold move on Nintendo’s part. Wario had made his debut all the way back in Super Mario Land 2 as the final boss, then went on to headline his own successful spin-off series on the Game Boy. Nintendo even followed that up with a fitting GameCube sequel, Wario World. But for the Game Boy Advance, they took him in a completely different direction, spin-off, costume, and all. I never actually picked it up back in the early 2000s, but I eventually got to play it through the Switch’s Game Boy Advance online library.

The concept itself was incredibly bold for its era. Minigames were already a pretty standard feature in games at the time, but nobody had really heard of a microgame before. It was such a strange, radical idea that video game journalism practically had to explain the concept to people. In a way, it was basically the TikTok of gaming, these tiny bursts meant to hold your attention for a few seconds before vanishing from memory entirely.

You’d blitz through them in a rapid-fire marathon, each one throwing a task at you with barely a split second to figure out what to do. None of the individual microgames are outright bad, though I definitely have favorites, and there are a couple that are genuinely irritating to nail down. For the most part, though, they’re clever and charming.

That said, I wasn’t particularly invested in the new cast of characters or the surrounding story, which honestly barely makes sense anyway. Ironically, Wario himself doesn’t shows up until the very end, or at least that’s my assumption, since I never actually finished the game to see it happen.

I will say I genuinely enjoyed the section of microgames paying homage to classic Nintendo titles. There’s one based on the original arcade Donkey Kong featuring Mario and Pauline, another pulled from Super Mario Bros., and even Balloon Fight, the Joust-inspired classic, makes an appearance. There’s even a fun little nod to Mario Bros. on the Virtual Boy tucked in there too.

Probably the standout microgames in the original WarioWare were the boss battles, essentially extended versions of the format, arguably minigames in their own right. The very first one is such an obvious homage to Punch-Out!! that you have to wonder why they didn’t just license Little Mac outright. It’s a boxing game that plays somewhat identically, and the opponent even looks like a thinly veiled knockoff of him.

Also worth mentioning is that the game technically includes a full version of Dr. Mario, just rebranded as the amusingly named “Dr. Wario” as a little parody twist. It’s never been my favorite puzzle game, but I thought it was a genuinely cool inclusion, especially considering Nintendo had also released a standalone Dr. Mario on Game Boy Advance separately, making this a nice bit of value for anyone in the know.

I think I actually played a little bit of this game around 20 years ago too, either through a demo or by borrowing a friend’s copy. And much like back then, I never really clicked with WarioWare. The microgame format is undeniably clever and memorable, but it’s just not really my thing. It’s also brutally difficult, forcing you into constant trial and error, since a lot of the microgames fly at you so fast that failure feels almost inevitable the first time around. Once you learn the pattern, though, it becomes much more manageable. I did cheat a little by using the Switch’s rewind feature, but even with that assist, I’ve only managed to get through about half the game. I really wanted to love it, but unfortunately, it just wasn’t meant to be.