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WarioWare Gold (JP) is a minigame collection on the Nintendo 3DS. It contains over 300 microgames acting like a Best Of collection similar to Rhythm Heaven Megamix. The game features new redesigns for the characters. It is the eighth game in the WarioWare series, and the only entry for the Nintendo 3DS family.

The title is a compilation of microgames from across the franchise, including a number of new additions as well. Many returning microgames, however, have been updated to new control schemes, scenarios and visuals. Overall, WarioWare Gold features 316 microgames, the largest collection in any WarioWare game to date, a record previously held by WarioWare: Twisted! for the Game Boy Advance.

WarioWare Gold is also notable as the first game in the series to feature fully voiced cutscenes. Though Charles Martinet reprises his role as Wario in the English version, other characters receive new voice actors.

Plot

The main plot is that since Wario was broke after his latest heist, he organized a game tournament with an entry fee and then had his friends make games. Each character has their own story. Ashley, for instance, summons a demon that tells her and Red that a ravenous demon named Hum Gree has been terrorizing other demons by eating all the food, so she goes to defeat Hum Gree.

Gameplay

The microgames use all facets of the 3DS controls from the buttons to the top screen to the gyroscope. The majority of microgames return from previous games from across the WarioWare series (barring WarioWare: Snapped!) The microgames are classified into four control types; Mash, Twist, Touch, and Blow.

The microgames are divided into stories for each of the main characters with each one having a voiced cutscene at the beginning and end. Each league focuses on a different control type. After each boss microgame, the player gets to play a short minigame and collect Gold Coins.

Gold Coins earned can be spent on the capsule machine. It works similarly to the Cluck-A-Pop from Game & Wario except each time costs 600 Coins. The rewards include the cutscenes (which can be dubbed over by the player), Toys (various Nintendo toys and their history), Character Cards and Minigames.

Development

All the returning microgames in WarioWare Gold were reprogrammed and redrawn from scratch.[1] To select microgames for inclusion, Goro Abe polled the staff on their favorites and then ranked them according to other factors, such as how easily understood the microgame is or if it did not feel dated. The team aimed to update the microgame with new scenarios, more gameplay variables and also created connections between them that did not exist in their original form, with Abe citing how the remade versions of Hookin' Up, Love Tester, Rocky Reunion, Tearful Reunion, and Long Lost Love depict "a drama between a man and woman that spans several microgames." The Split Screen challenge mode was an idea that the WarioWare development team had wanted to do since the days of the Nintendo DS, but the concept had been too taxing on the hardware.[2]

Speaking about the design of the unlockable souvenirs, Goro Abe explained that while WarioWare: Twisted! and WarioWare: Touched! featured a large number of toys centered around the touch screen and gyro as both technologies were still fairly novel at the time, the team felt such unlockables were unnecessary for Gold due to how commonplace both forms of inputs had become, and that with the end-of-development crunch, they preferred to focus on extras that didn't require as much programming effort like Records.[3]

Reception

WarioWare Gold has received positive reviews from critics, being hailed as a return to form for the series after the poor reception to Game & Wario. Reviews praised the return to the microgame formula, the amount of content, the humor of the cutscenes and the quality of the voice acting. Common points of critcisms were that due to the game's nature as a compilation, WarioWare Gold lacks much of the sense of surprise found in previous titles and the large amount of "filler" unlockables such as alarm clocks and phone calls.

Sales

According to Japanese sales tracker Dengeki Online, WarioWare Gold sold 138,024 units by December 30, making it the best-selling new 3DS release of 2018[4]. In a Top 100 list of the best selling games of 2018 published by, Famitsu, the game was ranked #38th [5].

References in later games

  • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - WarioWare Golds artwork for Wario, 5-Volt, 9-Volt, 18-Volt, Ashley, Dr. Crygor, Dribble and Spitz, Fronk, Jimmy T., Kat and Ana, Orbulon, Mona, and Young Cricket is reused for their Spirits in this game.

Gallery

  Main article: WarioWare Gold/gallery

Microgames

Trivia

  • This is the first fully voiced acted WarioWare game with it having dubbed cutscenes for each major language.
  • This is Waluigi's only appearance in a WarioWare game, in which he only appears as a drawing if the player scans a Waluigi amiibo.
  • Because the game is fully voiced for all the regions, WarioWare Gold marks the first game since Mario Kart: Super Circuit where Wario is voiced by someone other than Charles Martinet (although he reprises his role for the English localization), and the first game since Mario Kart 64 to give him different voice actors for different international markets.
  • WarioWare Gold uses the same font as the Paper Mario series for some microgames, as both series are developed by Intelligent Systems and are spin-offs of the Mario universe.

References

  1. Stephen Totilo (October 18, 2018). The Unusual Effort That Went Into Creating WarioWare Gold. Kotaku. Retrieved October 20
  2. Stephen Totilo (October 18, 2018). The Unusual Effort That Went Into Creating WarioWare Gold. Kotaku. Retrieved October 20
  3. Stephen Totilo (October 18, 2018). The Unusual Effort That Went Into Creating WarioWare Gold. Kotaku. Retrieved October 20
  4. [1]. Retrieved January 17, 2019).
  5. https://sites.google.com/site/gamedatalibrary/games-by-year/2018-top-100

External links

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