Form Baton Basics
1) Always use the wrist strap.
2) Play standing in an open area.
3) Let go of your inhibitions.
WarioWare: Smooth Moves is a a video game in the WarioWare series developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Wii. The game was a launch title for the system in Japan, releasing in December 2006, while most other regions got it a month later in January 2007.
Long ago, a mysterious artifact known as the Form Baton was discovered, allowing anyone who held it to do all sorts of things depending on the way they held it. The relic was eventually placed in the sacred Temple of Form. In the present day, the Form Baton is discovered by Wario after he stumbles into the Temple in pursuit of a strange creature who stole his food. After narrowly managing to escape from the Temple with his life, the Form Baton inspires Wario to use it as the basis for his latest set of games.
The series' typical microgame-based gameplay continues with this installment, with a collection of 205 brand-new microgames to play. This being a Wii game, the microgames this time make use of the features of the Wii Remote, primarily the motion controls and pointer. Throughout the game, the player will be introduced to various "forms", being different ways to hold the Wii Remote. Each microgame is now prefaced with a prompt to use a specific form relative to the upcoming game.
A sequel to the game, WarioWare: Move It!, would be announced on the June 21st, 2023 Nintendo Direct, and was released on the Nintendo Switch on November 3rd, 2023.
List Tropes!
- Alien Among Us: The woman that Dribble and Spitz escort to Tomorrow Hill disappears into a giant alien ship, which then flies away.
- All Guys Want Cheerleaders: The football player in "Cheerleading to Victory" has a crush on Mona, who (in this game anyway) is one of his school's cheerleaders.
- All the Worlds Are a Stage: The final stage before the credits makes use of nearly every Form that the player has learned up to that point, with only The Elephant and The Mortar and Pestle missing.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The title theme
in the Japanese version was originally an upbeat version of the Temple of Form theme. When the game arrived internationally, it was replaced with a rearrangement of the title theme from Mega Microgame$! instead. - Animal Motifs: The challenge towers in this game are all themed after different-colored elephants.
- Antenna Adjusting: One microgame in Penny's set challenges the player to adjust the antenna on a TV set to remove all the static on the screen. There is a specific postion the antenna needs to be in, and the static will lessen the closer the player is to the correct position.
- Anti-Frustration Features: If you've just played a microgame involving spinning the remote around, and thus twisted up the wrist strap, the next game will be "Bungii!" in which you have to drop the Wii Remote and leave it dangling by the strap, untwisting it.
- Ascended Extra: This is the first game in the series where 18-Volt gets more of a role beyond being 9-Volt's Satellite Character, with the story of their stage moreso focusing on him as he tries to buy a replacement Game & Watch after accidentally breaking 9-Volt's.
- Attack Drone: The orange apple power-up in Pyoro S will cause two smaller Pyoros to appear and fly alongside the main one, also stretching out their beaks whenever the player presses the fire button.
- Attack Its Weak Point:
- The giant nose in "Boot Camp" can only be defeated by firing fruit into its nostrils.
- The giant R.O.B. at the end of the Star Fox Boss Stage has four Stack Up blocks on its base that the player must fire at when they start flashing colors in order to make its health go down.
- The boss in Pyoro S has six eyes around its diameter, and Pyoro must peck out each eye once in order to finish it off.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Kat and Ana's stage features Diamond Dojo being attacked by a giant Elephant Ogre that towers over the whole building.
- Auto-Scrolling Level: The Tower Tennis minigame automatically scrolls upward as the player uses their paddle to keep the ball airborne. If the player starts to fall behind and fails to keep their paddle and ball moving past the obstacles, the game will end.
- Background Music Override:
- Dribble and Spitz's stage has the song "Tomorrow Hill", which plays consistently throughout the stage, with not even the music from the mircogames interrupting it.
- Dr. Crygor's stage has its own backing track that the microgames do not interrupt.
- Blade Lock: The boss game of Penny's stage is a sword duel against a produce thief. The player holds the Wii Remote starting in the Boxer form, and turns their wrist to move their sword and block their opponent's attacks. Eventually, both fighter's blades will lock together, at which point the player has to push the Remote away from them to push the opponent back, then slice at them once to finish them off and clear the game.
- Blow You Away: The first boss stage has the player wave the Wii Remote up and down to wave a paper fan to blow gusts of air and send an army of Warios flying. Once they're all gone, a giant Wario robot appears that the player has to get rid of in the same way, though blowing air at him will only work when he lets his guard down to attack you with his hand.
- Book Ends: The first stage has Wario find the Form Baton in the Temple of Form. Tiny Wario's stage ends with him returning to the temple and accidentally putting it back.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: The Wii Menu start-up screen has Wario say "It's a Wii, Wario!" referring to Mario's iconic "It's a me, Mario!" from Super Mario 64.
- Botanical Abomination: At the end of her story, Ashley casts a spell on a small potted plant, causing it to grow into a massive rose with a mouth full of teeth and huge, thorny vines, the creature outgrowing her house. Red is terrified of the thing, but Ashley is happy with the result.
- Breaking Out: Tower Tennis has blocks that get in the player's way that they have to break through by hitting them with their ball. The blocks can prevent the player from progressing any further if the player fails to break through enough of them before the auto-scrolling screen pushes them too far down.
- Camera Abuse: The first boss stage takes place from a first-person perspective, so the Warios attacking the player will latch onto the camera if the player fails to blow them away.
- Cartoon Meat: The microgame "BYOM", requires the player to rotate the Wii Remote in order to roast a joint of manga meat — the kind resembling a meaty cylinder with a Stock Femur Bone through its middle — for cavemen.
- Comedic Underwear Exposure:
- Wario's Idle Animation on the map has his pants drop to the ground before he quickly pulls them up.
- The objective of the microgame "How the West Was Really Won" is to drop your opponent's pants by winning a Quick Draw against them.
- The Comically Serious: Whenever a new form is introduced, they are given a rather silly description narrated by a deadpan, Ben Stein-esque narrator.
- Company Cross References: Young Cricket and Master Mantis's story includes a brief appearance by two monkeys drawn in the Rhythm Heaven art style. The Japanese credits identify them as "Tap Monkeys", confirming them to be the same ones from that series' Tap Trial game.
- Console Cameo:
- The Form Baton and the Balance Stone are respectively a Wii Remote and Nunchuk carved from stone.
- 9-Volt's stage has the Wii Remote appear within some of the microgames themselves. "Wiipeat After Me!" features a 3D model of a Wii Remote that you have to move in the same way the game shows, while the Super Mario Bros. and Balloon Fight microgames have a Wii Remote appear in the player character's hand.
- Cranial Eruption: After Young Cricket runs across the heads of everyone in line at Mona's dumpling stand, he looks behind them and sees that they all have painful looking lumps on his head from his feet. He then proceeds to run across their heads again to get in line properly.
- Creator Cameo: The shopkeeper at the game store in 9-Volt's stage is revealed to be Satoru Iwata, the president of Nintendo at the time of the game's release.
- Cultural Translation: In the Japanese version, the Form Baton poses are all very specific Japanese concepts, and Kabuki Sounds play on the explanation screens while a narrator reads out the descriptions (the comedy being that he's a non-Japanese speaker with a noticeable accent). In the international versions, the poses were changed to more general concepts while keeping the same controls, the music was replaced with a soothing track, and the narrator is very calm and relaxed while delivering non-sequiturs to carry over the humor. For example, two different versions of the same pose:Japanese: Waterfall climbing. With the Form Baton in vertical position, place your thumb gently on the button. This form, beautiful as the koi that climbs violent waterfalls, steals the hearts of those who see it.
English: The Umbrella. Hold the Form Baton vertically, thumb resting lightly on the button. Through this stance, you channel the quiet dignity of a circus clown in the midst of a thunderstorm. - Cute Kitten: "Feline Fever" features an entire army of lovable disco dancing kittens that join Jimmy T. for some dancing at Club Sugar. Later on, Jimmy P.'s stage has dancing puppies, and the similarity is lampshaded at the end.
- Dagwood Sandwich: Ashley's boss game is "Fresh off the Grill", in which the player enters a fast food restaurant and watches as various items get stacked onto a sandwich, which range from sensible ingredients, to a Wii Remote, and sometimes even a Fronk. The player must grab their remote as soon as the top bun lands on the sandwich, as grabbing it too early results in an employee taking it away, while waiting too long results in rats destroying it.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: You have to press both the + and - buttons on the Wii Remote simultaneously in order to pause the game, unlike in most Wii games where you only need to press one or the other.
- Dance Party Ending: The boss stage of the final stage before the credits is Wario Dance Company, a dancing game which requires the player to mimic the dance moves of the three leaders in front of them and strike poses with the correct timing.
- Demon Head: 9-Volt towers over and screams "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!" to 18-Volt after a tug-of-war over a Game & Watch between the two ends up breaking it.
- Demoted to Extra: Dr. Crygor and Mike don't get their own microgame set this time, Crygor's newly introduced granddaughter Penny takes that role instead. They do at least get to host a post-credits stage with the Kelerometer.
- Diagonal Cut: One microgame starts you in the Samurai form, with the Wii Remote at the opposite hip of your dominant hand. With it, you slice at at an oil drum, resulting in a diagonal cut that causes the top half to slide off the bottom one.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Tiny Wario. While his stage technically wraps up the main story, there's more to do afterwards, including Orbulon's stage and Dr. Crygor's stage.
- Driving Game: Kat and Ana's boss stage requires the player to hold the Wii Remote in the Chauffer form and turn it left and right to simulate steering a car. The car moves forward automatically, and it's up to you to reach the finish line at the end of the course without crashing into any trees.
- Edible Ammunition: The Boss Stage in Dribble and Spitz' set has the player use the Elephant form in the second half to aim their nose, which they fire fruit out of to deflect incoming obstacles and defeat the giant nose boss. In level 1, they fire bananas, in level 2, cherries, and in level 3, peaches.
- Final-Exam Boss: The Tiny Wario stage features nearly all of the Form Baton stances the player has learned throughout the game.
- Fun Size: The final story level involves Wario being turned into a swarm of smaller versions of himself, in reference to Tiny Wario from Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3.
- Gameplay Grading: Upon clearing all 20 microgames in the Kelerometer, the player will slim down depending on how many Kelories they burned, before receiving a rating depending on their new body size.
- Gasshole: "He Who Smelt It..." has Wario polluting the air with his smelly farts, forcing a kid to hold his breath. The player has to wave their hand side to side to fan the smelly gas away to clear the air.
- Get Out!: 9-Volt furiously kicks 18-Volt out of his house after he accidentally breaks his new Game & Watch in half.
- Goofy Print Underwear: "How the West Was Really Won" features Super Mushroom, Fire Flower, and Starman-print boxers.
- Humongous Mecha: The first boss stage has Wario attack the player by controlling a giant robot modeled after himself. He will try to crush the player with one of his giant hands, but when he raises his arm, he leaves himself vulnerable for the player to blow him away with their fan.
- Identical Stranger: The penultimate stage introduces Jimmy P., a disco dancer who looks exactly like Jimmy T., just with different colors.
- Indy Escape: The first stage has a giant boulder rolling toward Wario after he takes the Form Baton. The player needs to clear microgames in order to help him outrun it and escape. Clearing a microgame will cause the boulder to briefly get stuck between some narrow walls, allowing Wario to get ahead of it, failing a microgame will cause the boulder to gain on him, and running out of lives will cause the boulder to run him over.
- Interactive Start Up: The player can interact with the title screen in various ways, such as using the pointer to make Wario's eyes follow the cursor, using the cursor to pull on Wario's moustache, and holding the Wii Remote upright and waving it side to side to make the Wii Remote in the logo move, revealing different images in the process.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: "Feline Fever" begins with Jimmy T. encountering a small cat hiding from the rain behind a trash can, and giving it his umbrella to protect it. This leads to the cat following him and even bringing friends to join Jimmy for some dancing at Club Sugar.
- Luck-Based Mission: The Lifeline multiplayer game has each player's Mii tied up with ropes hanging from some pipes, and the players take turns cutting the ropes, hoping to avoid having their own rope cut and falling into water below. While these ropes are sometimes split between different colors, there is usually no way to tell which rope is attached to each player until after the rope is cut. Before this part, however, each player will get five chances to play microgames in order to score points, and the players with the most will have more ropes, increasing their odds of winning.
- Me's a Crowd: The final regular stage has Wario get split into a swarm of Tiny Warios after an incident with the bike that Penny made. After the stage is cleared, they all merge back together into Wario himself.
- Mini-Game Credits: The credits minigame has a Mii representing each and every single staff member; the player controls a moving hole that the Miis can fall into, and the game keeps track of how many you've scored.
- Mistaken Declaration of Love: At the end of "Cheerleading To Victory", the football player attempts to confess his crush on Mona. Unfortunately, he waits too long, and she leaves, resulting in him accidentally blurting the confession out to one of the Monettes instead.
- Monster Is a Mommy: In "Evil Attacks Diamond Dojo!", during the Elephant Ogre's attack, Ana goes to ensure the safety of her master, only to discover the beast's child, the Little Ogre, hanging around. When Kat tries to fight the Elephant Ogre, the child begs them to stop fighting, after which the two are reunited and leave quietly (Well, they try to anyway, the Elephant Ogre accidentally ends up taking Ana instead).
- Nasal Weapon: The giant nose in Dribble and Spitz' boss stage fires boulders at the player from its nostrils, which the player can deflect by firing at them from the Wii Remote, which is currently on their face since they're using the Elephant form, meaning both fighters are firing from their noses.
- New Jobs As The Plot Demands: As usual, Mona has a different job than in previous games, this time taking the role of a cheerleader at the football stadium. However, she also changes jobs in the middle of the game, leaving the stadium to run a dumpling stand that Young Cricket wants to order from.
- Non-Indicative Name: The microgame called "Animal Crossing: Wild World" is modeled after Animal Crossing (2001) instead. This was amended in Gold.
- Non-Standard Game Over: Can Shooter normally ends once the timer hits zero, which the player can avert by hitting certain targets, but if a missile or a stick of dynamite collide with the screen before the player shoots them, the game instantly ends regardless of the time remaining.
- One-Hit-Point Wonder:
- In typical series fashion, one of the challenge towers is called Sudden Death, and gives the player just one life to clear as many microgames as they can at maximum difficulty.
- The Survival multiplayer game casts each player's Mii as an angel, and if they fail a single microgame, they fall from the sky and are eliminated from the game.
- The Balloon Trip and Pyoro S minigames only allow their protagonists to take a single hit before the game ends.
- Opposing Sports Team: "Cheerleading to Victory" has Team Dinosaur, the rivals to the Diamond City Roughs Mona is cheerleading for. The members are the employees of Pizza Dinosaur from the previous games.
- Overly-Long Tongue: In Pyoro S, Pyoro does not use his long tongue as his primary attack this time, instead stretching out his beak to eat lines of insects. However, he can still use his tongue whenever he collects a blue apple power up, which has more range than his beak does.
- Palette Swap: The penultimate stage introduces Jimmy P., who looks exactly like Jimmy T., but with tanned skin, a yellow afro, and a blue shirt.
- Portable Hole:
- "One in Hole" from the opening stage has you move a hole around the screen to make Wario fall into it.
- The credits feature each member of the development staff appearing on a stage as a Mii. As they appear, you can move a hole around the screen to try and make as many of them fall down as you can if you want.
- Post-Final Level: In addition to the usual bonus modes unlocked after clearing Tiny Wario's stage, there is one more story stage featuring Orbulon, who comes with his own set of microgames, which are the only ones in the game to make use of the Nunchuk.
- Replay Mode: The theater lets you view the stage cutscenes again, which is handy since the stages switch to endless mode after being beaten once.
- Retraux: Can Shooter uses pixellated graphics designed to resemble a an 8-bit light gun game from the 80s.
- Shooting Gallery: The unlockable Can Shooter minigame sees the player point their Wii Remote at the screen to aim and fire at cans to earn points.
- Shout-Out: The title screen for the Balloon Trip minigame is a spoof of the poster for Jaws, with one of the giant fish from the game under the water preparing to jump out at the Balloon Fighter floating just above.
- Showdown at High Noon: Spoofed with "How the West Was Really Won", a western-themed microgame where you draw your gun and fire at your opponent when the game says "Draw!". The loser of the draw will have their pants fall down, revealling Goofy Print Underwear.
- "Simon Says" Mini-Game: Tortoise And Hare is an extended version of a microgame from Orbulon's set. The player holds the Wii Remote and Nunchuk in each of their hands, which represent both a white and red flag. The player raises and lowers the flags based on the instructions onscreen until they miss one, scoring points based on how many they follow correctly.
- Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: One microgame in Penny's set requires you to move a magnifying glass so the light passing through it forms a beam of light that concentrates on some germs to burn them.
- Splash of Color: The intro cutscene to "Feline Fever" starts off with everything shown in monochrome except for the cat that Jimmy finds and the umbrella he uses to shield it from the rain. The color comes back in full once he and all the other cats start their dance.
- Tablecloth Yank: One microgame in Tiny Wario's set challenges you to pull a tablecloth from a table without disturbing the glasses on top. You have to move the Wii Remote with enough force that the glasses are not sent flying.
- Take My Hand!: One microgame in Mona's set features a woman falling from a very high place, starting with a skyscraper in Level 1. The player has to reach out their hand to grab hers and catch her and save her from falling.
- Tear-Apart Tug-of-War: In "The Multiplayer Test", 18-Volt breaks 9-Volt's Game & Watch when he can't wait his turn and tries to grab it. The enraged 9-Volt immediately kicks him out of his house.
- Timed Mission: Can Shooter gives the player a 30-second timer to rack up points. Periodically, a can with a heart on it will fly across the screen to give bonus seconds.
- Unexpected Shmup Level:
- The boss stage of 9-Volt's stage is a recreation of the original Star Fox. The player uses the Chauffer form and tilts the Wii Remote in different directions to steer the Arwing, and can press the A button to fire the laser at enemies. The stage even features a boss battle against a giant R.O.B. who shoots at the Arwing with a giant NES Zapper.
- The Pyoro minigame this time is "Pyoro S", a vertically scrolling shooter where the player moves Pyoro around the screen using the pointer as he flies through the sky. The player can press the A button to make Pyoro stretch out his beak to eat lines of insects to score points.
- Variable Mix: On Dribble and Spitz's stage, the vocal song "Tomorrow Hill" plays throughout the level. When you mess up, the song distorts. You might think it's just an effect placed over the original song, but it's actually a Variable Mix- the distorted parts of the song are actually sung differently, sometimes even with nonsensical words in place of the normal ones ("Already said my goodbyes" becomes "Already ate my french fry", for example). This alternate version of the song, "Falling Off Tomorrow Hill", can even be heard in the Sound Test.
- Video Game Remake: One of the unlockable bonus minigames is a 3D reimagining of the Balloon Trip mode from Balloon Fight. It has the same premise as the original, in which you must go as far as you can by flapping around the screen while avoiding obstacles, but you now move into the screen instead of having a side view, and can steer your Balloon Fighter around by flapping his left and right arms using either the Wii Remote or Nunchuk.
