Video Game / WarioWare: Move It!

Think Fast and Move Faster

"A trip with these chumps doesn't feel like a prize! Waaah!"

WarioWare: Move It! is a video game in the WarioWare series developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch in 2023. Unusually for the series, it is treated as a direct sequel to an earlier installment, specifically WarioWare: Smooth Moves, with the game's focus centering on the motion-control capability of the Switch's Joy-Con controllers.

Wario accidentally wins a group getaway for himself and the rest of the WarioWare crew to the tropical Caresaway Island after pulling the winning ticket in a sweepstakes. Upon their arrival, the gang each receive a pair of Form Stones, legendary relics bestowed upon the island many years ago by a powerful deity, said to bring luck to anyone who dances with them. While Wario is initially unimpressed, he quickly changes his tune after the Form Stones seemingly help him escape from the inhabitants of a shrine out in the jungle. From there, the story follows the various members of the cast as they try to have fun during their trip.

Move It! is a continuation of the motion-controlled gameplay introduced in Smooth Moves, with the game's controls requiring you to move your body in various ways while holding the Joy-Cons. While Smooth Moves was primarily played using just one Wii Remote, Move It! is played with one Joy-Con in each hand, allowing the player to control their game with both hands separately. With twice the controllers, the game introduces a variety of new Forms requiring the player to hold the Joy-Cons in a variety of ways to clear each microgame. A small handful of microgames even make use of the right Joy-Con's infrared sensor and require the player to make the correct shape with their hand.

Following the announcement in 2023 that Wario's long-standing voice actor Charles Martinet would be retiring from the role, Move It! is the first video game where Wario is instead voiced by Kevin Afghani. Afghani had also previously succeeded Martinet as the voice of Mario and Luigi starting with Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

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WarioWare: Move It! contains examples of the following tropes:

• Adaptational Attractiveness: In Wario Land 4 Cractus had a scaly texture on their body, Cross-Popping Veins, and is foaming at the mouth. When they reappear in Move It!, they lack the scales and veins of their previous depiction, and they have sap coming out of their mouth.
• Anti-Frustration Features: If you lose all your lives during your first time playing a story stage, the game will grant a Second Chance Stance. If you hold the Second Chance Stance for three seconds, you get to continue with four new lives.
• Ascended Extra: Mr. Sparkles, introduced in Gold, went from a gag infomercial character in that game to the host of Megagame Muscles in Move It!, complete with getting to perform the series-staple new vocal theme for it. Also, he may or may not now be some kind of god.
• Balloon Belly:
  • Upon clearing Ashley's boss stage for the first time, Red's body briefly grows larger than his head thanks to Ashley feeding him a bunch of the growth berries all at once.
  • Orbulon temporarily grows much larger than usual after being fed fruit by the Woods Watchers who have mistaken him for their deity.
• Banana Peel: After Orbulon recovers his memories, he attempts to make up with the Oinker, only to slip on the peel of a banana he had eaten and fall on his head.
• Big Eater:
  • The opening cutscene has Wario order fifty garlic burgers from the local stand.
  • Orbulon's scenario has him enamored with the fruit he's found on Earth and eating lots of it. While being worshipped by the Woods Watchers, he eats so much that he temporarily becomes much bigger.
• Call-Back: Move It! is a wholesale sequel to Smooth Moves, as indicated by their Japanese titles (Dancing Made in Wario and Super Dancing Made in Wario). Both games focus on creating poses using the respective controllers for their systems. The English titles are similar, but less closely related than in Japanese; the trailer for Move It! also shows a stage that reprises the first stage of Smooth Moves, with Wario running toward the camera while being chased by something.
• Company Cross References:
  • 9-Volt's stage, as is tradition, consists of microgames based on other games published by Nintendo. Additionally, a few of these are modeled after games from Intelligent Systems, including Paper Mario: The Origami King and Fire Emblem Engage.
  • One of the girls that Jimmy passes by while surfing atop a shark bears a striking resemblence to Hilda from Fire Emblem: Three Houses, also by Intelligent Systems.
• Console Cameo:
  • The Form Stones are clearly modeled after the Joy-Con controllers you use to play the game. Additionally, the Switch's double Joy-Con logo appears in different places throughout the game, such as on totem poles and the masks of the Woods Watchers.
  • The Super Mario 64 DS boss stage conclude with an appearance from one of Nintendo's consoles framing the goal room. Level 1 has a Game Boy Advance, Level 2 has a pair of Wii Remotes, and Level 3 has a Nintendo DS.
• Continuity Cameo: Kat and Ana's stage features Cractus as the main antagonist.
• Dance Party Ending: The plot of the final stage involves everyone having to band together and perform a dancing ceremony to lift the curse on the island's volcano. Fittingly, the stage itself is periodically interrupted by segments where you have to dance in order to stop large volcanic rocks from falling on you and costing a life. Finally, the boss stage is Super Wario Dance Company, a direct sequel to the final boss stage of Smooth Moves, where you must copy the dance moves of the dancers in front of you until the song ends.
• Dark Horse Victory: The Caresaway Grand Prix in is won by High-Octane Hippo, who had just been leisurely floating through the water without a boat, due to Dribble and Spitz, along with the rest of the racers, accidentally taking a wrong turn and driving their boats far away from the racetrack long into the night.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: 5-Volt hums the main Super Mario Bros. theme while walking through town.
• Disaster Dominoes: Immediately upon arriving at Caresaway Island, Wario rejects the Form Stones given to him at the welcoming party, throwing them and accidentally hitting a parrot, causing it to freak out and spill a drink being held by a nearby tourist, creating a puddle that an elephant slips on, crashing right into Wario and sending him flying off into the jungle where he lands near a shrine being protected by guardians who immediately chase after him. Even after he gets away, he then falls off a cliff.
• Don't Try This at Home: Parodied in the "De-Stocking" game, which have you pull a stocking off someone's head and ends with this message:
  Do not actually put stockings on your head.
• Flashback with the Other Darrin: The boss stage of 9-Volt's scenario is based on Super Mario 64 DS, but features new voice clips for Mario recorded by Kevin Afghani instead of reusing Charles Martinet's voice clips from the original game.
• Forced Transformation: In the final stage, Wario tries to steal a golden statue from the shrine, which breaks an ancient seal, and causes him to be turned into the Perspiration Peak Volcano, which begins to erupt. After everyone else calms the mountain down with the special dance, he gets turned back to normal.
• Fractured Fairy Tale: The Crygors' boss stage is a spoof of Snow White. The witch gives Snow White a poisoned apple, which she eats. In order to save her before the poison takes effect, you stand in the Big Cheese form and tilt your hips from side to side in order to tilt her body and guide the apple through her digestive system. You have to avoid letting the apple touch spikes or acid, and once you clear three sections, the apple safely comes out the other end and Snow White is saved.
• Genius Loci: The final stage involves Wario being turned into the island's volcano, which subsequently gains his face on the side. Once everyone stops the volcano from erupting, he gets spat back out as if nothing happened, though his face remains.
• Giant Squid: The first boss stage is Octoblocker, which features a giant octopus with Wario's face on it. The player wields a pair of squeaky hammers that they use to fight it. During the first phase, the boss sends its tentacles after you, and you hit them as they emerge from a pair of whirlpools.
• God Guise: Orbulon's scenario involves him suffering amnesia after falling out of the Oinker, but because he landed near a statue that happens to look like him, the Woods Watchers nearby mistake him for an ancient deity and start worshipping him, stuffing him with fruit.
• Heavy Voice: After Ashley's growth berries cause Red to grow way too big, his voice becomes much deeper and louder as he begs to know what Ashley did to him.
• Help, I'm Stuck!: In the final stage, Wario gets ejected from the volcano after everyone else fixes the mess he made, and he lands in the shrine where he gets his rear end stuck in a hole in the pedestal he had tried to take a golden statue from.
• Here We Go Again!:
  • Ashley's stage ends with Red seemingly being grown back to his normal size, only to suddenly keep growing bigger and bigger until he's giant.
  • Orbulon's stage ends with him regaining his memories, only to slip on a banana peel and suffer amnesia all over again.
• Honest Axe: The microgame "You Dropped This?" starts with you dropping an item (axe or otherwise) into a pond, which an old man appears out of and offers you two items. You have to pick up the Joy-Con that corresponds to the item that you dropped.
• Huge Rider, Tiny Mount: After falling off the cliff at the end of the first stage, Wario lands on top of the parrot from earlier, which proceeds to fly away while carrying him, despite him being much larger than it.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: As Red and Ashley are building a sand castle, Red notices some berries and eats them all, but they cause him to shrink. Ashley attempts to change him back, but instead delightfully trolls with him a bit. Then, she uses her magic to make some cube berries for Red to eat in order to grow back to normal. Red turns back to normal size at first, but instead, the cube berries causes him to grow WAY too big. Much to Ashley's amusement.
• Inevitable Waterfall: In the first Remix stage, the gang's villa, which had started floating down the river due to their antics, goes over a waterfall and sends them flying through the air. Luckily, they all land safely on the top of a convenient tour bus.
• Interactive Start Up: By moving the Joy-Con controllers on the title screen, you can make the tide go up and down and cause different drawings to appear in the sand.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Mona's stage begins with Lulu harrassing a large fish by spraying it with her water gun. Come the end of the stage, that same fish tries to eat her.
• Psycho Electric Eel: The first boss stage has electric eels that sometimes pop out of the water instead of the octopus' tentacles. Hitting it by accident will result in the player being shocked, causing the stage to end in failure.
• Randomized Title Screen: The title screen will have one of 19 characters shout "WarioWare!" whenever it is accessed. The more scenarios you've completed, the more characters the game can choose from.
• Road-Sign Reversal: At the end of Dribble and Spitz' stage, a seagull lands on one of the arrow signs, causing it to turn the wrong way and send nearly all the racers off-course. The only racer who goes the right way is High-Octane Hippo, resulting in a Dark Horse Victory.
• Save the Villain: Kat and Ana's mission in their stage is to rescue Leo after he gets eaten by Cractus, though only by proxy; he had stolen a map they needed to find where they could order a delicious Caresaway Parfait, and the ninja sisters want it back.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: At the end of Mona's stage, she seemingly finds one of the mermaids she was hoping to see, only for it to turn out to be Lulu, who has gotten her legs stuck in the mouth of a large fish, forcing Mona to go help her. To add insult to injury, it turns out that there were some real mermaids watching from nearby.
• Slide Level: The boss of 9-Volt's stage is based on the slide levels from Super Mario 64 DS. You stand in the Scales pose and lean from side to side to steer Mario as he automatically goes down the slide, and the goal is to reach the bottom without falling off.
• Under the Sea: Mona's stage sees her go on a scuba diving adventure, seeing all kinds of marine life as she swims through a coral reef. Her main goal is to see a mermaid.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: While the majority of the gameplay is controlled entirely with motion, Dribble and Spitz' stage is unique in that every microgame makes additional use of the buttons on the Joy-Cons, with or without motion controls. The buttons are only ever used again in a few of 9-Volt's microgames, and the game features a special pop-up to indicate that a button microgame is coming up.
• Vacation Episode: The game's plot begins with Wario winning a trip for twenty to the tropical Caresaway Island, and the stories for each level show what he and the rest of the WarioWare crew get up to during their trip.
• Wardrobe Malfunction: The game's cover art shows Wario ripping holes in his shirt while striking a pose.
• Wasn't That Fun?: In the second Remix Stage, after the gang accidentally get thrown away by Poolopus, they return to the pool and ask to be thrown a second time.
• Worst. Whatever. Ever!: In the ending, Wario cries "Worst vacation ever!" after getting humiliated once again following his failed attempt to swipe some treasure from the temple.