Video Game / WarioWare: Touched!

You can't keep your hands off it!

''With two screens, I can make double the money!"

— Wario

WarioWare: Touched! is a a video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS in 2004 in Japan, and later 2005 overseas. It is part of the WarioWare series.

After a run-in with an elderly angel, Wario finds himself with a handheld device with two screens, but no buttons. Upon realizing the second screen is touch-sensitive, he determines he can make twice as much money with dual-screen games as he could with single-screen ones.

The game features 190 microgames based around the DS's touchscreen and microphone, with microgames no longer having standardized lengths like previous entries. The game expands upon the character cast of its predecessors, as it introduces Ashley (alongside Red) and Mike as new microgame hosts. Its development was concurrent with that of WarioWare: Twisted!, and in fact was assisted by the producers of that game after it was ready for release on the Game Boy Advance.

List Tropes!

• 12-Bar Blues: Mike's theme does this with a slight variation at the end.
• 20% More Awesome: As Wario himself says in the description of his intro stage:
  Wario here! No offense, but you stink! My Touch Training stage is guaranteed to make you 138 percent less pathetic!
• Book Ends: The first and last cutscenes involve Wario and an old man in a sewer.
• Background Music Override: Ashley's song plays during the microgames you play in her stage, thus forgoing the corresponding default themes of said microgames.
• Bragging Theme Tune: Ashley's song, which primarily has her boasting about her magical prowess.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Wario's boss microgame has you swatting flies on the touch screen; tapping too many times causes the screen to shatter and the flies to come flying out.
• Bullet Hell: Ashley's boss game in her chapter, Golbal Warning, has you control planet Earth as you guide it across outer space while dodging projectiles from enemy planets as well as incoming comets and meteors. The number of projectiles increases gradually, thus making their evasion more difficult (Earth is a One-Hit-Point Wonder, so getting touched will destroy it instantly).
• Call-Back: When Wario is confused as to how to play the DS-like console, he tries rotating it, which is how most games are played in Twisted!. However, this wouldn't have made sense to early buyers of the game outside of Japan, which is the only country where Twisted's release preceded Touched's.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Done to a rather comedic extent in Wario's story, where after being warned to not eat any sweets, after some dental surgery, he does just that, immediately gets all teeth damaged, apparently has a seizure, flies about fifty feet into the air, smashes through the dentist's roof, and lands in the chair again.
• Company Cross References: The background music to Mike's Theme is identical to the "Bunny Hop" theme in Rhythm Heaven, which shares much of the same staff as WarioWare.
• Console Cameo: The prologue of the game shows Wario accidentally tripping and dropping both a Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Advance SP to a manhole. The Sewer Guru retrieves both of them plus a Nintendo DS, and asks Wario which system(s) he dropped.
• Continuity Nod: The ending has Wario suffer the Flat Wario transformation courtesy of the Sewer Guru.
• Demoted to Extra: Orbulon only makes small appearances, like in Ashley's story, and Dribble and Spitz only get a cameo in Mike's story.
• The Dentist Episode: Wario's story has him chewing through a large amount of sweets until he rots his teeth out. He takes a trip to Dr. Payne's Dental Clinic who cleans and fixes his teeth before warning him to stay away from the sweets. At the end of the story he brushes off Dr. Payne's advice and orders ten pies before rotting his teeth again. He returns to Dr. Payne who said he expected Wario would return.
• Dub Personality Change: Ashley. While her core characteristics are kept intact, the English localization downplays and removes many of her cuter and more innocent traits (most notably her Third-Person Person speech) and puts more emphasis on the aloof and scary side of her character, while making her more of a cold Deadpan Snarker compared to how she's depicted in the Japanese version.
• Easy Level Trick: As playing Mike's microgames require using the microphone, to avoid feeling light-headed and dizzy after a while, you can simply just input random noises instead of actually blowing air continuously.
• Eat the Bomb: On the menu of the game, you feed a bomb to Wario-Man to change him back to Wario (to access Wario's levels).
• Eye of Newt: Ashley's theme song mentions using eye of newt to hex someone. It also mentions grandma's wig, though it's ambiguous whether it's a component or the target of the spell.
• Handcar Pursuit: One of the microgames consists of pumping a handcar while being chased by another handcar, Wario in his car and a train respectively for the different difficulty levels.
• Hollywood Chameleons: One of the souvenirs you can get is the "Pet Chameleon", which changes colors to match the background(s) dragged down behind it. The souvenir's description invokes this trope as well:
  "Chameleons blend into their surroundings. If you threw one into a giant mound of butter, it would look like a chameleon-shaped stick of butter! Try pulling down the wallpaper to see this buttery ability in action!"
• Honest Axe: Wario drops two Game Boy Advance systems into an open sewer; an old angel pops out carrying both systems and a Nintendo DS, asking him which one he dropped. Wario's response? "Gimme all of them!" *tackle*
• Iconic Sequel Character: This game marked the debut of the endearing young witch-in-training Ashley, her imp-like familiar Red, and Dr. Crygor's robotic companion Mike.
• Ignored Expert: Wario gets a toothache after eating too much chocolate and runs to the dentist, who fixes his teeth and warns him to stay away from sweets. A short time later, Wario stops at a sweets store and buys some pies. Just before digging in, however, he recalls the dentist's warning, but brushes it off and eats the pies. He ends up with another toothache and right back in the dentist's office, who says "I knew you'd be back!"
• Interactive Start Up: The game's title screen has several Wario noses jumping around that can be poked, a green marble that can be flicked across, a star that leaves a rainbow trail, garlic, etc.
• Kaizo Trap: Even after defeating the... planet from Ashley's boss game, you can still be hit by a stray bullet.
• Late for School: 9-Volt and 18-Volt's chapter revolves around them staying up late playing a new game and doing their usual partying afterwards. As a result, in the epilogue, they end up oversleeping and being late for school the next day, forcing them to rush to get there as fast as they can.
• Looming Silhouette of Rage: Ashley, when she collides with Orbulon.
• Loves Me Not: There's a minigame based around this concept called "No Love for You", where the player has to pluck all the petals off of a flower within the given time limit. On the first level of difficulty, the flower is replaced with a four-leaf clover.
• Mini-Game Credits: The game lets you manipulate little, blue video game shapes (the Nintendo GameCube logo, The Triforce, etc.) in different ways as the credits roll.
• Nasal Weapon: There's a boss minigame where you explore a "cave" that's actually a nose. Aside from Everything Trying to Kill You part of the finale involves fleeing as the nose is sneezing.
• Old Save Bonus: Placing a WarioWare: Twisted! cartridge in the GBA slot of your Nintendo DS while playing Touched! will unlock the Mona Pizza music video. North American gamers probably didn't know about this Easter Egg at first, because Touched! was released before Twisted! in the States (in Japan, the reverse is true). This doesn't work in Europe, because Twisted! wasn't released there, and due to region lockout it's not possible to use a foreign copy. In Korea, where Twisted wasn't released either, the video is instead unlocked using WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$.
• Out of Focus: Dribble, Spitz, and Orbulon take a temporary backseat as mere cameo appearances.
• Pain-Powered Leap: Wario performs one of these when he gets a toothache from eating too much sweets.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In Mona's ending, rival pop singer Vanessa briefly tries to disguise herself as Mona, but she retains her green hair and purple clothing. No one buys it.
• Press X to Die: There's a microgame which involves a group of Fronks trying to cross a tightrope. Blowing into the microphone causes them to fall, ending the game in a loss. This minigame is prone to catch you off-guard, doubly so if you're playing it at a high speed, and further when you're playing with the DS's language set to a language you barely understand. Background noise can cause failures in this game as well.
• Produce Pelting: After thwarting a chase by her musical rival Vanessa, Mona performs at a concert only to run off when she remembers she has pizzas to deliver. Vanessa takes the opportunity to dress as Mona and get on stage claiming to be her, but the audience isn't fooled because of her green hair and purple outfit and throw garbage at her.
• Real Men Hate Sugar: Played with. Wario's favorite food may be garlic, but he still likes sweets, enough that his story in this game begins and ends with him getting a toothache from gorging himself on pastries.
• Rewarding Inactivity: One of the microgame themes requires you to use the mic. Since nearly every game in the theme can be beaten just by blowing into the mic all the time, they'll occasionally be replaced (even if you're playing the single-game mode in the album!) with a tightrope-walking game that requires you to make no detectable noise at all.
• Silly Simian: There's a monkey which steals a bunch of bananas from Kat and Ana. It's a peaceful, yet mischievous primate whom the sisters look for during their story chapter. When found and cornered, the monkey make suse of its cuteness to be spared. He becomes their pet and is named Numchuck.
• Squirrels in My Pants: In the outro for Jimmy's stage, a fly lands in Jimmy's afro, tickling him, and he begins shaking and hopping. The onlookers remark on how Jimmy sure is one hell of a devoted dancer.
• Subliminal Seduction: The game is famous for containing a (supposed) subliminal message. Selecting gothic character Ashley's theme in the jukebox and running the record faster than normal distorts the words, which supposedly forms phrases like "I have granted kids to hell" and "I work in a kitchen". Both are probably coincidence. A backwards message video for Ashley's theme he saw that interpreted one part as "Ear! Shut up!"
• Super Zeroes: Wario-Man comes under this after a rather silly theme song, flying an inch off the ground and what not, he tries to stop a train and fails miserably (A Twinkle in the Sky). It's even called "Super Zero" in-game.
• Tech-Demo Game: The game was developed with the idea in mind of exemplifying the DS's control scheme, including both the touch screen and the microphone. It was released shortly after the Nintendo DS itself was, so it's justified.
• The Tooth Hurts: Wario's story has him visit the dentist after getting a cavity from gorging on chocolate bars. After his teeth are healed the dentist tells him to not eat sweets for the time being but then he comes across a bakery and decides to eat pie even going as far as to dismiss what he was told and gets another cavity.
• Trainstopping: Subverted. Wario as Wario Man tries to stop the train, then gets smashed halfway across the horizon and into a sewer.
• A Twinkle in the Sky: Happens to Wario himself during the "Punch!" minigame.
• Verbed Title: Being a Nintendo DS game, the game is subtitled Touched! to reference the reliance on the system's touch screen to play microgames (the microphone is used as well).
• What Song Was This Again?: Both versions of Ashley's theme are Bragging Theme Tunes, but the Japanese version is about how everyone loves her while the English version is about how she's a scary Creepy Child.
• Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: There's a minigame that requires you not to blow/talk into the microphone to win. Unique in that it only shows up if you have been playing microphone-oriented minigames (and no, you can't access through normal means via going to a menu page and accessing a marathon of it.)
• Wire Dilemma: This is a standard microgame in Wario Man's set, with the number of wires to cut going up per difficulty level. The color (red, blue or yellow) to be cut varies and you are always told which one to cut.

---