WarioWare: Twisted!

WarioWare: Twisted!, known as Mawaru Made in Wario (まわるメイド イン ワリオ Mawaru Meido in Wario, lit. "Turning Made in Wario") in Japan, is the third game in the WarioWare series. It was released for the Game Boy Advance in Japan on October 14, 2004 and in North America on May 23, 2005 (it was not released in Europe even though announcements had been made). Unlike the other WarioWare games, it uses a tilt sensor for the bulk of its gameplay, so most of the game involves moving the console rather than pressing any buttons. This leads to a wide variety of microgames in-game, where the player character moves through tilting rather than the standard Control-Pad.

Story
While Wario is playing Avoid-A-Roid on his Game Boy Advance, he loses and, in frustration, tosses the system, heavily damaging it. He is immediately horrified when he sees the damage, but gets the idea to see if Dr. Crygor can fix it. At his lab, Dr. Crygor tosses the Game Boy Advance into his new invention, The Gravitator, which creates new handheld systems with no buttons. He explains that the system is controlled through rotation, and Wario starts to play it. Soon, Mona and 9-Volt enter the lab and start to play with the systems, quickly enjoying it. This gives Wario the idea to market the handheld system, dreaming of making a fortune from it.

Gameplay
The core gameplay of Twisted, like its predecessors and its future sequels, revolve around completing small, simple minigames (called "microgames") that increase in speed and difficulty as they are completed. The microgames are sorted by the various hosts of the story's stages, which each host having a recognizable distinction between their microgames. The game uses a gyroscopic sensor built into the cartridge that allows the player to physically move the console to control the game. While the buttons are still frequently used, a lot of emphasis is placed onto the tilt sensor.

It is one of four games to use such a sensor, alongside Yoshi Topsy-Turvy, Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble, and Koro Koro Puzzle Happy Panechu!. It is also one of only two Game Boy Advance games to use a Rumble Feature, the other being Drill Dozer.

Microgames
With 223 microgames, Twisted has the most microgames out of the entire WarioWare franchise. Each microgame has three levels of difficulty, with their speed increasing after the third level is complete. The microgames are grouped via character, with their unique microgames appearing in each of their stages. The exceptions to this are Fronk, who has nine microgames that can appear at any point, and the various microgame sets, who use a collection of microgames from other characters rather than unique microgames.

Souvenirs
Souvenirs are objects separate from the microgames that have varying levels of interactivity. The souvenirs are divided into seven categories: Records (various music tracks from the main game and microgames), Instruments (musical devices that can be used to play notes or songs), Figurines (dolls and action figures that can each be uniquely manipulated), Games (short minigames that are often based around other microgames), Doodads (utility gadgets that can be used as actual tools), Toys (amusing objects that have limited interactivity in comparison to the Games), and Other (miscellaneous objects that do not belong with any other category). There are 139 different souvenirs in the American release of Twisted, though the Japanese release has two exclusive souvenirs (Mushroom and Mochitsuki Set).

Staff
Twisted was developed as a co-production between Intelligent Systems and Nintendo SPD Group No.1. As with most of the series' games, Yoshio Sakamoto acts as a producer alongside Ryoichi Kitanishi, who first joined the series in this entry and continued as a producer for the following two installments, and Goro Abe acts as the chief director, with Osamu Yamauchi and Teruyuki Hirosawa as other directors.

Development
Development on Twisted started after it was suggested that a second WarioWare game for the Game Boy Advance, even though the previous GBA installment, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!, was still selling units. The project was soon underway, with the team amassing a collection of potential microgames, but they were not able to find something that would make it unique from the rest of the series. Around this time, the team was presented with the Nintendo DS, and they thought that the stylus would be perfect for a WarioWare game, developing it as a launch title even though there was already progress being put into Twisted. Development of this game, which would become WarioWare: Touched!, briefly overlapped with that of Twisted. As the series' core staff was already busy with Twisted, Touched was primarily developed by people new to the series. Following its completion, Twisted's staff was immediately moved to Touched to ensure the game was ready for the Nintendo DS's launch.

When the team was still looking for the game's key element, one of the staff, Kazuyoshi Osawa (who went on to conceptualize and become the chief director of the Rhythm Heaven series), presented an experimental motion sensor he was working on set up to work with microgame-like demos. The rest of the team loved the idea and soon sent it to Satoru Iwata for approval. Iwata spent a long time with a record player (which became the basis for the Record souvenirs), setting the console on a swivel chair, spinning it around, and enjoying as the game's music matched the chair's rotation. Sakamoto knew that he had a success on his hands when Iwata spun around in his chair and called the demo "idiotic". The game was finished in August 2004.

Critical reception
Twisted received generally positive reception from critics. It was praised heavily for using the tilt controls in a unique and fun fashion as well as its charming and quirky visuals, though many wished for increased multiplayer options. 1UP's Jeremy Parish, in his review of Yoshi Topsy-Turvy (which also uses a tilt sensor), commented that Twisted! felt like the tilt sensor was built for it, rather than the other way around. IGN editor-in-chief Craig Harris (who gave the game a 9.5 out of 10 in his review) listed it as number 1 on IGN's "Top 25 Game Boy Advance Games of All-Time".

The game won the grand prize in the 8th Japan Media Arts Festival's entertainment division for its aesthetic appeal and its innovative controls. Director Goro Abe was nominated alongside the game and came to pick up the award at the ceremony.

Sales
In Japan, WarioWare: Twisted sold around 108,000 copies on its opening week and had lifetime sales of 463,938 according to Famitsu sales data.

European release
In 2005, when the game was released in Australia and America, Nintendo announced the game for release in Europe on June 24, which was later pushed back to December 8. Three years later, in 2008, the Game Boy Advance was discontinued. The page for WarioWare: Twisted! on the Nintendo of Europe Website had been removed as well. In the European version of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, when it is mentioned on the Chronicle, the game is marked as "Not Released".

Regional differences
As with most localizations, there are many differences between WarioWare: Twisted!'s Japanese and American releases; most of them are minor graphical or text changes, such as the "points" symbol being removed next to high score or "Speed Up" being changed to "Faster", but many notable changes were made to the story, the microgames, and the souvenirs.

Stages

 * On top of Mona's Mona Pizza, a spoof of the Mona Lisa with Mona in her place was placed on the roof, and the pizza boxes also reflect this change.
 * In the Japanese version, 9-Volt's stage centers around him and 18-Volt playing on a Family Computer (a Japan-exclusive console), while in the American version, an Nintendo Entertainment System is used. As the stage proper takes place inside the console, the colours are appropriately changed, and the four elf-like creatures that represent the player's lives are also changed to Wario lookalikes.

Microgames

 * Practical Joker originally featured poop on the Joker card, which is a pun on baba being able to refer to either a joker or fecal matter, depending on how it is written. The American release changes it to a regular joker.
 * The counter in Ice Queen locks to 00 in the Japanese version if the player exceeds 100 spins; this is fixed in the American release.
 * Bubblegum Blues features a sleeping boy with a bubble of gum coming out of his mouth and gum splatter is left on the boy's face once the bubble is popped; originally, it was a snot bubble coming from the boy's nose and nothing is left behind after the bubble popped.
 * In the Japanese version, Slap Jack! was based around the story of Sun Wukong; Sun Wukong made a bet with the Buddha that he could escape from the Buddha's palm and promptly fails, leading to him being imprisoned for five centuries. The microgame, in turn, features Sun Wukong riding on a cloud (one of his abilities) while the Buddha attempts to swat him away with his palm. The American version retools this to fit the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, with Jack in place of Sun Wukong and the giant in place of the Buddha.
 * Crazy Straw and Mooo-ve It! feature a character drinking in a city at night, which is changed to a rural area in the day. Some of the drinks also changed in colour.
 * The third difficulty of Key Ring features a wrestler in a sleeping bag surprised to see someone about to enter the window, which was originally the wrestler surprised to see someone inside the bag with him.
 * Handy Man originally featured an egg, a rat, and a rice ball; the rice ball was kept out of the American release.
 * Trash Day features rocks in the American version where there was once poop in the Japanese version.
 * Safecracker features a golden pile of excrement during the third difficulty in the Japanese version, while the American version features a pile of gold coins and a money bag. Similarly, Inch, Worm! changes the prize in the third difficulty from some dung to a bag of money.

Souvenirs

 * The Mushroom, a Figurine that can be collapsed and have its head removed if the console is twisted fast enough, was removed entirely from American releases.
 * The Written Oracle was changed into a Fortune Cookie, with a colour-coded stick exiting from the fortune being replaced with a colour-coded paper, though the fortunes' colours and what they represent remained the same.
 * The Carrot Grater and the Big Carrot Grater were modified from corresponding turnips.
 * The statue of Ksitigarbha, known in Japan as Jizō, was turned into a garden gnome for the American release.
 * The Mochitsuki Set, which involves a boy and a senior making some mochi, was eliminated completed from American versions.

Quotes

 * "Easy games for lazy bums like me!"
 * "Give it a spin, baby, and feel the burn, because this is more than a game. It's a workout! Aw, yeah..."
 * "My invention makes me the master of GRAVITY ITSELF!!! And now, I'm sharing this power with you. You'll need to learn how to control gravity if you want to win... YOU HEARD ME!"
 * "Does this suit make me look fat? Tell me the truth. I can take it."
 * "Since I am such a bighearted fellow, I've given you not one, BUT TWO--yes, count 'em, TWO--ways to pause your game. You can replay me later."

Trivia

 * The box art of the game shows Wario holding a Game Boy Advance SP, but in the game they never use an SP. Instead they use the original Game Boy Advance.
 * In the Guinness World Record 2010 Gamer's Edition, WarioWare: Twisted! was listed as having the most minigames in a single video game, 223.