WarioWare: Twisted!
Game Boy Advance
Release date: May 23rd, 2005 (NA)
The WarioWare franchise started out a little kooky, with its unique concept of "microgames" (meaning mini-games so short they're completed in just a few seconds) and its cast of crazy characters. The very first game in the series, Mega Microgame$!, set the tone. It would become tradition for new entries to the series to introduce new characters (developers) and gimmicks, often basing their entire collection on said gimmicks.
Which takes us to Twisted, the first game in the series that I owned, also for the Game Boy Advance. I didn't cover this one in the early days of the blog; you'll see why soon. The cartridge, larger than normal, actually had a built-in gyro sensor. The sensor would calibrate upon the game being turned on, so that it would work no matter which type of GBA you owned (with a top slot for the regular GBA, or the bottom slot for an SP model, which is what I had).
The story here: Wario and Doctor Crygor end up inventing a strange Game Boy Advance that reacts to being tilted left and right... so Wario, true to form, decides to market the Heck out of it, even asking his crew to make new microgames using this new feature. Most, if not all, of the microgames involve tilting the console. Shave a guy by moving the razor around his face? Spin the console upside-down to drop a hat off a guy's head? Sure. Several games here also require pressing the A button. Notably, one "boss" (read: A longer microgame at the end of a stage) only asks you to turn the console on the side to play a shmup... against noses. This is one of only two games on the GBA to use a gyro sensor, the other being Drill Dozer.
I recall loving the weirdness of that one - then again, weird is just normal for WarioWare. But spinning the console? Yeah, that was especially bizarre. Later entries in the franchise would focus on the new Nintendo console's features, like the touch screen and microphone of the DS, the motion controls of the Wii, or the digital camera of the DSi. A new one is coming soon, focusing on the Switch's motion controls as well.
As for why I never covered this one in a full-length article? Well, that's because I didn't own it anymore. One day, I had friends come over and one of them brought some other guy we didn't really know. One of them had brought her games, including her own copy of this one; at the end of the day, she lost it. We genuinely believe it was stolen by the guy we didn't know. I gave her my copy. I'm pretty mad that it was stolen, but I did the right thing in the end. Let's just say I never allowed for +1s I didn't know at home from then on.
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