WarioWare: Touched! (DS) review "Wario Ware: Touched! is fun depending on what type of person you are. If you enjoy funny, light-hearted stories, unrolling toilet paper, and using a peeing statue to stop a forest fire this is definitely for you. You will do everything in this game from cutting, poking, sliding, and even blowing all via the touch screen, save the latter. "

Wario Ware: Touched! is fun depending on what type of person you are. If you enjoy funny, light-hearted stories, unrolling toilet paper, and using a peeing statue to stop a forest fire this is definitely for you. You will do everything in this game from cutting, poking, sliding, and even blowing all via the touch screen, save the latter.

Wario Ware: Touched! is all about using the DS in innovative ways from the opening title screen to the ending credits. If you are easily amused you could probably spend half an hour or more poking weird nose-spiders or rolling a green ball loaded with paint, then cleaning it up by sliding a brush around the two screens, and thats just the title screen! Everything in this game is controlled with the touch screen or microphone meaning you will never be uncomfortably wielding he stylus in one hand as you attempt to use the control pad to navigate somewhere.

Gameplay is split up into several categories based on a character. The starting character you must take control of is of course our demented friend Wario whose one goal is to poke everything in sight (and hopefully make some fat cash along the way). Each "micro-game" lasts less than 10 seconds as you navigate your stylus to various parts of the screen accomplishing given tasks. Upon completing enough of these micro-games you are taken to a boss stage where you must play more of a mini-game than a micro-game. These are very random and range from swatting flies to dodging incoming lasers aboard a space ship.

While each of the nine different characters display their own form of stylus waggling one thing remains common ground. Every micro-game is randomly tossed to you and is a trial by fire experience. While the basic concept of scooting or poking something to win will remain the same, exactly what micro-game you will be playing is different. A quick example would be from the ninja twins Kat and Ana. One game may have you slicing your way through fruit being tossed around on the screen while the next you must cut a log in half as it falls from the top to bottom screen.

Wario Ware: Touched! does not have its sights set upon any in depth or emotionally touching plot but still manages to capture the essence of the term crazy, fitting for this wild game. Each character has a short and quite humorous situation they are stuck in whether that is going home from the Dentist's office in Wario's case or playing classic video games as the young kid 9 Volt. All of these are very funny and people of all ages can find themselves laughing at one thing or another. The game really does a fine job testing the capabilities of the twin screens to see how well short skits and cut scenes can be used effectively as both screens are full of action all the time.

Upon clearing through each character's main storyline and reeling the credits by there is still a few things left to do. This is where the game begins to feel more and more like a prototype game than a ready to sell title. Two toy rooms loaded with fun devices to play with make an appearance as you play through the many micro-games to unlock them. The majority of these are simplistic gimmicks that may keep you amused for a few seconds, if that. There is a bubble maker in which you blow into the microphone to create bubbles that float away onto the upper DS screen. Another is a small harmonica simulator where you can blow into the microphone to produce sound then hold various buttons to change keys and pitch. That's not to say all the toys are cheap gimmicks though, as a few of them are full mini-games controlled by the stylus that are enjoyable to play.

At the end of the day Wario Ware: Touched! proved to be more of a test game than anything else. The entire experience is only a few hours long and each style of micro-game just tests how well you can "slice in this direction" or "drag an item from point a to point b". The extra content of the toy room only adds to this more as there are many half functional and gimmicky objects to play with. This in no way means Wario Ware: Touched! is bad however, on the contrary it's quite a good game, very amusing, and just plain fun to play.

Community review by Zenax (October 13, 2007) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.