WarioWare Gold

WarioWare Gold is an installment in the WarioWare series, released in late 2018 as the eighth entry in the series as well as the only entry in the Wario franchise for the Nintendo 3DS family. The title is a compilation of microgames throughout the franchise, featuring several new ones as well. Many returning microgames have been updated to provide new control schemes, scenarios and visuals similar to Rhythm Heaven Megamix, another game developed by the same team as the WarioWare series on Nintendo 3DS. WarioWare Gold features a total of 316 microgames, the largest collection in any WarioWare game to date, a record previously held by WarioWare: Twisted! for the Game Boy Advance.

WarioWare Gold is the last game developed, partly or fully, by Nintendo for the 3DS family. It is also the last game published by Nintendo on the console that is not a remake or a port. It is notable as the first game in the series to feature fully voiced cutscenes. Although Charles Martinet reprises his role as Wario in the English version, other characters receive new voice actors.

WarioWare Gold succeeded Game & Wario from 2013, and was itself succeeded by WarioWare: Get It Together! in 2021.

Story
After stealing a golden pot from a temple at Luxeville, Wario realizes that he is completely out of money. While reflecting on this in his house in Diamond City, Wario sees a report on television about Super Pyoro, a new entry in the Pyoro video game franchise that fans are eager to get their hands on. Acknowledging the money that could be made in the booming industry, Wario again sets out to capitalize on the video game craze. Using his computer and a recording device, Wario streams his latest scheme to the residents of Diamond City: a gaming competition with a steep entry fee, but a ten million coin reward to the victor. True to form, Wario calls up his closest friends to do most of the work for him and again, they agree. With his fortune on the line, Wario sets out to begin Diamond City's first "Wario Bowl" games. Unbeknownst to Wario, however, a small girl named Lulu is pursuing him in an attempt to retrieve the golden pot that was stolen.

Story
Story mode is divided into four leagues. The first three leagues all use a different control scheme: the Mash League (using the buttons like in WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!), the Twist League (using gyro controls like in WarioWare: Twisted!), and the Touch League (using the touch screen like in WarioWare: Touched!). The fourth league is called the Ultra League and it uses all three control schemes plus a fourth involving blowing the microphone, which is unlocked by beating all three other leagues. The first three leagues each consist of 5 stages, with each one having a theme. The first stage is always an introduction stage hosted by Wario; as a result, all microgames in said categories feature him in some way or another. The other 4 stages are hosted by one of Wario's friends and have one of the following themes: That's Life, Fantasy, Sports, and Nintendo Classics. All themes appear once in every league. In the Ultra League, there are 3 stages, including two "remix" stages which compile all the microgames from six of the previous stages, and center on two of the themes, and a final stage hosted by Wario's newest alter-ego, Wario Deluxe, which compiles all the microgames from the introduction stages and a brand-new set centered on a new theme: Anything Goes.

Other characters
These characters appear in Story mode as side characters. Mike and Fronk have their own sets of microgames, but they are exclusive to the remix stages in the Ultra League.

Challenge
Challenge mode is unlocked after completing Story mode and features stages with altered rules. The following Challenge stages are as follows:

Names in other languages

 * All Mixed Up


 * Thrill Ride


 * Super Hard


 * Wario Watch


 * Sneaky Gamer


 * Wario Interrupts


 * Cruise Controls


 * Split Screen


 * Battle Time

Microgames
WarioWare Gold is a collection of 300 microgames (not counting the boss microgames), 54 of which are new to the series. Each microgame falls under a specific genre – "Intro Games," "Sports", "That's Life", "Fantasy", "Nintendo Classics", "Anything Goes" – and a control scheme – "Mash", "Twist", "Touch", "Blow".

Souvenirs
Similarly to WarioWare: Twisted! and Game & Wario, WarioWare Gold features extra content in the form of souvenirs, obtainable via the Capsule Machine. These souvenirs are divided into eight categories: Minigames, Phones, Studio, Movies, Cards, Nintendo, Records and Miscellaneous.

Missions
Missions are certain milestones that can be achieved, similar to medals in WarioWare: D.I.Y. Once a mission is completed, the player is rewarded with a certain number of coins.

General

 * All microgame speeds are 120 bpm by default.
 * Some of the sounds and music in the microgames are either remixed, rearranged, or replaced entirely.
 * Several returning microgames are given new names; for example, I Spy from WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$! was renamed to Busted!
 * Microgames returning from WarioWare: D.I.Y. and WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase now have three difficulty levels like the microgames returning from other games, rather than simply using one set difficulty level.
 * All WarioWatch microgames are usually set to normal length.

Nintendo eShop description

 * American English version
 * The infamous schemer, Wario, is back! Play his brand-new microgame collection, where you'll have seconds to complete 300 different microgames. Better think fast to succeed! You'll use the touchscreen, tilt the system, push buttons, and rock the mic as you laugh through fully voiced stories featuring new and classic characters!


 * British English version
 * The latest in the WarioWare series is coming to Nintendo 3DS family systems! Which means, there's a new way to play Wario's strangely satisfying microgames. With classics and new additions, there are 300 microgames to enjoy, making this the biggest entry in the series! Press buttons, tilt the system, use the Touch Screen and microphone, and dig that crazy action while it's hot!

Gallery
As in Game & Wario, the characters have been redesigned in a much more simplified style, with some details being removed like Wario's gloves lacking Ws and characters looking far more angular such as Dribble.

Development
All returning microgames in WarioWare Gold were reprogrammed and redrawn from scratch. To select microgames for inclusion, Goro Abe polled the staff on their favorites and then ranked them according to other factors, such as how easily understood the microgame is or if it did not feel dated. The team aimed to update the microgame with new scenarios, more gameplay variables and also created connections between them that did not exist in their original form, with Abe citing how the remade versions of Hookin' Up, Love Tester, Rocky Reunion, Tearful Reunion, and Long Lost Love depict "a drama between a man and woman that spans several microgames." The Split Screen Challenge mode was an idea that the WarioWare development team had wanted to do since the days of the Nintendo DS, but the concept had been too taxing on the hardware.

Full voice acting was included for the first time in the series as the development team felt that it would lead to a deeper connection between the player and the game and make the characters feel more alive, although Abe stated future games would not necessarily retain full voice-acting. While the game was released after the launch of the Nintendo Switch, Goro Abe ruled out porting WarioWare Gold to the platform, stating it would "come with a number of issues" and that it would be difficult to reproduce "the same sense of fun".

Speaking about the design of the unlockable souvenirs, Goro Abe explained that while WarioWare: Twisted! and WarioWare: Touched! featured a large number of toys centered around the touch screen and gyro as both technologies were still fairly novel at the time, the team felt such unlockables were unnecessary for Gold due to how commonplace both forms of inputs had become and that with the end-of-development crunch, they preferred to focus on extras that didn't require as much programming effort like Records.

In a 2018 interview with GameInformer, Goro Abe explained that the future of the WarioWare series would be contingent on the reception to Gold. A sequel, titled WarioWare: Get It Together! would be announced for release on the Nintendo Switch in 2021.

Reception
WarioWare Gold has received positive reviews from critics, being hailed as a return to form for the series after the poor reception to Game & Wario. Reviews praised the return to the microgame formula, the amount of content, the humor of the cutscenes and the quality of the voice acting. Common points of criticisms were that due to the game's nature as a compilation, WarioWare Gold lacks much of the sense of surprise found in previous titles and the large amount of "filler" unlockables such as alarm clocks and phone calls.

Sales
According to Japanese sales tracker Dengeki Online, WarioWare Gold sold 138,024 units by December 30, making it the best-selling new 3DS release of 2018. In a Top 100 list of the best selling games of 2018 published by Famitsu, the game was ranked #38th.

Staff
Unlike previous WarioWare titles which were even collaborations between Intelligent Systems and Nintendo's SPD 1 team, WarioWare Gold was primarily developed by Intelligent Systems staff (most of which had previously worked on Paper Mario: Color Splash) outside of the involvement of series lead Goro Abe (who returns as the chief director) and Ko Takeuchi, who produced the character art, storyboarded and animated the game's cutscenes, and voiced Joe in the Japanese dub of the game. Youichi Tada acts as the game's sub-director and Nami Komuro, one of the writers of Fire Emblem Awakening and Fire Emblem Fates, wrote the game's cutscenes.

WarioWare Gold notably recasts every character beside Wario, who were previously voiced by members of Nintendo of America's Treehouse department, with professional anime and video game voice actors. It is also the first game in the series to be fully dubbed in languages other than English.

Pre-release and unused content

 * An early version of Penny Crygor's intro cutscene exists in the game's files. This cutscene mostly consists of sketches by the game's character design Ko Takeuchi, and features a few minor differences in character and background designs as well, like for the laboratory in the background.
 * Just like the other stage jingles, the Index has an intro jingle too, but it ends up unused.
 * The \Toy\Afreco\Texture\ directory contains previews of each character cutscene, although with a black border and a resolution (180x108) beneath it. The image filenames are full file paths: for example, C:/Projects/Wax/share/Development/Resources/Toy/Afreco/Lyt/NoArc_tga/ThmAfreco_Ashley_Ep.tga.

References to other games

 * WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!: Several microgames return. Drifting Away and Four Seasons reappear as unlockable souvenir records.
 * WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$!: Stealth Turtles reappears as an unlockable souvenir record.
 * WarioWare: Twisted!: Several microgames return. Wario Watch reappears with different microgames. Mona Pizza reappears as an unlockable souvenir record.
 * WarioWare: Touched!: Several microgames return. Ashley's Theme and Mike's Theme reappear as unlockable souvenir records. The fake cast roll in the movie "Let's Split" plays a rearrangement of the staff credits music.
 * WarioWare: Smooth Moves: Several microgames return. Tomorrow Hill reappears as an unlockable souvenir record.
 * WarioWare: D.I.Y.: Several microgames return. Body Rock reappears as an unlockable souvenir record and is heard within Fine Tune.
 * WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase: Several microgames return.
 * Game & Wario: Mole reappears as a microgame. Gamer reappears with different microgames. Dancin' Pirates reappears as an unlockable souvenir record.
 * Rhythm Heaven Megamix: Tibby appears as a plushie in Mona's story. The CAFE phone call references Ashley's cameo as a plushie in this game.

References in later games

 * Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: WarioWare Gold's artwork for Wario, 5-Volt, 9-Volt & 18-Volt, Ashley, Dr. Crygor, Dribble & Spitz, Fronk, Jimmy T, Kat & Ana, Orbulon, Mona, and Young Cricket is reused for their spirits in this game.
 * WarioWare: Get It Together!: This game uses the same character designs from its predecessor. The microgame genres also return in this game. A bag from Joe's Clothes appears in Mona's room during the intro of her story. The chef from Top Notch appears in So Kneady. In one of 9-Volt's gallery images, he and Fronk wear the outfits they wear in 9-Volt's stage from this game. Goro Desert resembles the background of the Mash League.