This looks vaguely familiar for some reason...
Hoo boy, where to even begin with this series? The WarioWare games are absolutely loaded with references to other games.
(REFERENCE!)
Examples:
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Nintendo Classics microgames
- The "Nintendo Classics" genre of microgames are literally defined by this, which can be found in 9-Volt's stages in each game as well as 18-Volt's in DIY Showcase and both 18-Volt and 5-Volt in Gold:
- His level in the first WarioWare is practically a museum of vintage Nintendo games and products. In order, you have microgames based on Balloon Fight, Duck Hunt, a Game Boy microgame, Donkey Kong (the NES version), F-Zero, a microgame based on the Japan-only Famicom Family Basic keyboard, Super Mario Bros., a microgame based on the Ultra Hand toy (from Nintendo's days when they were a toy company), a microgame based on Nintendo's Chiritorie (a remote controlled vacuum cleaner), a microgame based on Laser Outlaw (a toy where you shot a light gun at a target on a cowboy), Hogan's Alley, the flyswatter mini-game from Mario Paint, Ice Climber, The Legend of Zelda, Sheriff (one of Nintendo's oldest arcade games, which is also fully playable as an unlockable game), Dr. Mario (with a fully playable version of it called Dr. Wario included outside of 9-Volt's stage as an unlockable), Color TV Racing 112, Mario Clash (a Virtual Boy game), Helmet (a Game & Watch game), Urban Champion, a microgame based on R.O.B. the Robot and Stack-Up, Metroid, Wild Gunman, and the LazerBlazer game from the SNES Super Scope 6 pack. The boss fight is the Ultra Machine, a baseball launcher once made by Nintendo, and Mario makes a guest appearance in it.
- In WarioWare: Twisted, you get microgames based on Tennis, Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3, Pinball, Mario Bros., Clu Clu Land, Baseball, Balloon Fight, Kid Icarus, The Legend of Zelda, NES Open Golf Tournament, Metroid, Wrecking Crew, Golf, Excitebike, Donkey Kong Jr and Donkey Kong 3, Ice Climber, Mach Rider, Duck Hunt, and Ice Hockey.
- In WarioWare: Smooth Moves, you get microgames based on the Tennis game from Color TV Game 6, Animal Crossing Wild World, Wario Land, the Game & Watch game Octopus, Balloon Fight, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Pikmin 2, Nintendogs, Super Mario Sunshine, Punch-Out!!, Brain Age, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Clu Clu Land. Opening Night features sprites recycled from Super Mario Bros. 3, Kid Icarus, The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, and music from Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros., Dr. Mario, Kid Icarus, Excitebike, The Legend of Zelda and Clu Clu Land. In Sifty Character, the game is centered on revealing three different items, which references a deck of Hanafuda cards (referencing the fact that Nintendo began as a maker of Hanafuda cards), a Game Boy or a Virtual Boy. One Hit Wonder is based on Nintendo's 1968 Indoor Batting Machine and Laser Clay Shooting is based on Nintendo's old Laser Clay Shooting System. Super Nostalgic Entertainment System is centered on a Super Nintendo (or an original Famicom if you're playing the Japanese version), and the cartridges put in include Super Mario World (Super Mario Bros. in the Japanese version), Wario's Woods, Mario Paint and Super Metroid. The boss minigame is based on Star Fox, culminating in a face-off against a Zapper-wielding R.O.B.
- In WarioWare: Touched, you get the usual microgames based on Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Duck Hunt, Metroid, Balloon Fight, Mario Paint, Hogan's Alley and Donkey Kong 3 (plus a cameo of the Ice Climber in the 8-Bit Hero game), along with the Ultra Hand and Punch-Out homage games returning. You also get microgames based on the Famicom's old microphone controller, the Game & Watch games Toss Up, Flagman, Lion and Oil Panic. The GameCube and Game Boy Advance are also the center of two microgames. In Japan, instead of a Metroid game, you get a microgame based on the Japan-only Famicom game Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind.
- In WarioWare: D.I.Y., microgames based on Super Mario Bros., Mario Paint, Urban Champion, Balloon Fight and Ice Climber returns, and there's microgames based on Star Fox, Pikmin, The Mysterious Murasame Castle, the Shooting Range event in Wii Play, Excitebike, Yoshi's Island, the Tightrope Walk minigame from Wii Fit, the Game & Watch games Greenhouse and Turtle Bridge, the Shadow Shift game from Big Brain Academy, Metroid: Zero Mission, and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass appear.
- In WarioWare Gold, alongside some reprises from the first 3 games, there are microgames based on Rhythm Tengoku, Donkey Kong Country, Fire Emblem: Awakening, the Game & Watch game Manhole (which can be unlocked in its entirety as a minigame), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Pushmo, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Super Mario Land, Super Mario Sunshine, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Wario Land 3, Super Metroid, Pikmin 2, Brain Age, Tomodachi Life, and Super Mario Maker, plus games based on the Wii's main menu and Mii Channel, amiibo, and the Nintendo Switch.
- In WarioWare: Get It Together!, microgames based on Super Mario Bros., Super Metroid, Super Mario Land, Devil World, Pikmin 2, Splatoon 2, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Ice Climber, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Big Brain Academy, Nintendo Badge Arcade, WarioWare: Twisted!, Luigi's Mansion, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, New Super Mario Bros. U, the Game & Watch game Judge, the Destiny Game and Ele-Conga toys, the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube and Nintendo DS (with respective WarioWare installments), Yoshi's Story, and Super Mario World appear.
- Warioware: Move It! features microgames based on Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Donkey Kong Junior, Dr. Mario, Fire Emblem Engage, Hogan's Alley, Mario Bros., Mario Pinball Land, Metroid Dread, Nintendogs + Cats, Paper Mario: The Origami King, Pikmin 2, Pilotwings, Punch-Out!!, the Ultra Scope toy, Ring Fit Adventure, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, the WarioWare series, Wii Play: Motion, and Super Mario 64 DS.
Other
- Super Wario Bros. is a hilariously crappy parody of Super Mario Bros..
- Wario Bros is likewise a mockup of Mario Bros..
- Vermin is a mock-up of the Game & Watch game of the same name, only featuring Wario in the star role.
- Unexcite Bike is a parody of Excitebike.
- Grow Wario Grow has sprites and music recycled from Super Mario Land, but Wario's sprites come from Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, and the Super Mushroom is a grayscaled sprite from Super Mario Bros..
- The "W" in "Wario" can be seen glitching into an "M" in the icon for the Anything Goes set during a cutscene in Get It Together!.
- Jimmy's first boss mini-game is called Punch-Out, although it doesn't actually look or sound like the arcade game (let alone the NES game).
- The various "Classic Clash" microgames features a Ultraman-esque Mario fighting Bowser.
- One of Dribble & Spitz's game is named "Scoot or Die", a reference to the video game Skate or Die.
- In Wario's first stage of Twisted!, the music box from Wario Land 3 is visible on a shelf behind the watch.
- The description for the Twisted! microgame "Circular Logic" reads "Portrait of the artist as a young pup.", referencing the novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
- One of the games in Smooth Moves has you shooting cans off of a fence. One of those cans is Crab Juice.
- One of the microgames in Smooth Moves is called Wokka Wokka, a pun on Fozzie Bear's "Wocka Wocka" phrase.
- D.I.Y.'s graphic editor is highly reminiscent of Mario Paint, and its music editor has many samples from the same. Some of the microgames also make references to it in the form of the man doing sit-ups and one in Touched! where the objective is to color in a picture.
- The Mario Paint music Easter Egg in D.I.Y. (activated by renaming your microgame to "Mario Paint" and then opening the graphic editor) further drives the point home.
- In Gold, the baby face from Mario Paint's music editor appears as a Running Gag in multiple games. This includes "Wario Interrupts," where Wario Deluxe can replace all of a game's sound effects with the baby face's sound.
- In Get It Together!, characters can be customized to have all their vocal effects replaced with the sound, with the baby face superimposed briefly over theirs each time.
- The Kat and Ana stage in Smooth Moves has a quartet of turtles representing the player's lives.
- Jimmy P. in Smooth Moves bears an uncanny resemblance to Bo-bobo.
- Rhythm Heaven references:
- Game & Wario:
- The Wandering Samurai from Rhythm Heaven Fever is in one of the fish-slicing microgames in Gamer, and as an added bonus, his microgame is rhythm-based.
- The Chorus Kids, Wrestler and Reporter, and the onion from Rhythm Tweezers (named "Harry Onion") make cameos in cutscenes. The ending credits list all the Rhythm Heaven characters who appear in the cutscenes, which at that point the player may not have even known they were in the game.
- Gold:
- A plushie of Tibby from Rhythm Heaven Megamix shows up in Mona's story.
- One of 5-Volt’s games is Rhythm Tweezers.
- The Huebirds of Happiness appear in the book 9-Volt is studying.
- The phone number CAFE lets you call the Barista, who is grateful for being gifted the Ashley doll that appeared in the museum in Megamix.
- On his A-rank card in Gold, Mr. Sparkles is said to attend to same gym as "that wrestler who gets interviewed all the time" from Rhythm Heaven Fever.
- The promotional videos that can be found on Nintendo's official YouTube channel feature at least one Rhythm Heaven character cameo each, with Young Cricket's video revealing that the boy from the Kung Fu Ball endless game in Fever was an even younger Cricket.
- Get It Together!:
- The shot of the researchers being shocked by the giant space nose in Wario's intro cutscene is from "First Contact"
. - The Tibby plush reappears in in Mona's bedroom, alongside plushes of Barista and the onion from Rhythm Tweezers.
- The Wrestler appears in the first level of the "Get Swole" microgame, with the Reporter coming in occasionally.
- The shot of the researchers being shocked by the giant space nose in Wario's intro cutscene is from "First Contact"
- Conversely, the Alien Bunnies appear throughout the Rhythm Heaven series.
- Game & Wario:
- Wario's Mash League boss stage in Gold is a direct shoutout to the Wario Land series.
- In Gold, all the "reunite the two lovers" microgames from older games were redrawn to turn the two lovers into Orihime and Hikoboshi.
- In "Sneaky Gamer" in Gold, 5-Volt can sometimes be heard humming the underground theme from the first Super Mario Bros.
- One of the button prompts for level 3 of "Code Buster" is the Konami Code, minus the B, A, Start at the end.
- The character selection screen for Get It Together resembles the one for various Super Smash Bros. games, specifically Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, complete with using a white glove as the cursor for this screen.
- The Friendless Battle variety game has the player(s) be pitted against evil clones of the other characters, who take on a dull shade of blue with red glowing eyes, just like the puppet fighters from Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's World of Light.
- 9-Volt's quotes when selected in the Break Room include "No Contest!" and "9-Volt joins the party!".
- One of the pop-ups in "Pop-Up Patrol" is a devilish version of the infamous "You Are An Idiot" trojan.
- In the "Rock On!" microgame, occasionally the Rockstar will do a pose similar to The Clash's London Calling
- In Orbulon's story mode, one of his memories is of his pet Omni Nom, who has a passing resemblance to a Sphere Doomer.
