WarioWare: Mega Microgame$ isn't one game. It isn't two games. It's probably closer to about 200 games. That equates to less than 25 cents per game if you bought it full-price at a retail shop. No, that figure doesn't include sales tax. And each mini-game averages around five seconds of play; sometimes it's less, sometimes it's a bit more. Now we all know Wario: that plump little codger's always looking to make a buck. Seeing the apparently newsworthy success of Game Boy Advance games such as Pyoro on television, he gets it into his head that he should produce his own game for a massive payout. Off he goes to his laptop (which also has a mustache for some reason) and he starts toiling away with his somewhat surprisingly vast knowledge of C++ and the like. But he gets bored easily, and that's understandable. He obviously won't be able to do this alone, or at least not in a reasonable timeframe. He phones up all his friends in Diamond City and they agree to help him make some minigames for his compilation. And now, as you (you're not Wario -- you're you, a difficult concept to grasp), you are responsible for playing their games and proving you're a gamemaster of sorts.

The game starts out by presenting you with Wario's first offering of games. It's a very small collection of about 12 mini-games, varying from catching a falling stick with a fake hand or attacking a little UFO with a plasma gun being ridden by a miniature Wario... or even stomping on a Goomba in an artistically blockier parody of the original Super Mario Bros. game. After surviving all the mini-games for a certain length of time, you'll also get to a boss battle. But be aware: this isn't your normal boss fight. Here, it's just Wario bunching a ball attached to a chain. The more you hit it, the more it swings away -- you'll have to give it a few good socks before it will fly off!

Cut a steak! Cross the whales! Snort... mucus... into a princess' nose! ...I don't even...

As you progress, more characters' game collections will be available for you. You will need to complete a certain number of games successfully (or at least not fail up to four times -- Nintendo was kind enough to install some leeway) in order to move on. Every character has their own genre of games. The dancing disco king, Jimmy, for example, relies on sports games. The extraterrestrial, Orbulon, focuses more on I.Q. games. And the child prodigy, 9-Volt, presents us with Nintendo-themed games that draw from Nintendo hits of the past, including F-Zero, Donkey Kong, and even obscure ones like Chiritorie, a remote-controlled vacuum cleaner from the 1970s. Yes, you do learn some strange history here. Then again, all of the inhabitants of Diamond City are pretty... out there. And with comical cutscenes for each character, you'll know this for a fact. And, likewise, each collection of mini-games features its own boss battle, and they're all a bit quirky. Jimmy has a fight reminiscent of Punch-Out!! for the NES; the gelato girl, Mona, requires you to pound a nail into the ground with a floating hammer without missing or denting the top of the nail; and Orbulon has you take part in a mock RPG battle where you must select the best choices for attacking and defending from a ridiculous list of wacky text-based options.

This all sounds easy. And initially, it should feel fairly simple. After all, you're only using the D-pad and the A-button... and that's it. Plus, the main quest isn't overly difficult, and it may not take you that long to complete: a few hours, at best. The primary source of difficulty becomes a combination of speed and change. The farther along you get in the stream of mini-games, the faster they get. After you finish, say, 5, the words "SPEED UP" appear and things slightly quicker. After another 5, "SPEED UP" appears again, and so on, and so on. And so on. Trust me, the game eventually become very overwhelming. Formerly five-second games soon must be completed in one second. This is Fordism in video game form.

But wait... I said "change", too! Each mini-game has three different levels of difficulty! It's not the same thing over and over again, nuh-uh! Take, for example, the quite odd mini-game entitled "Shake". Initially, all you have to do is grab a moving dog paw and shake it. If you are playing just this mini-game alone, or if you experience it later on while playing a bunch of them together, you'll meet the second level of difficulty: you have to shake TWO paws! And further along, the third level rears its head: not only do you shake two paws, but the game's human hands are moving as well, requiring you to connect multiple moving targets. That's just one example, but every mini-game (and boss fight) changes over time. Playing each mini-game individually features the three levels of difficulty in succession, repeating, but having the speed increase after each run.

But there is more to WarioWare than just meeting a play quota and moving on. Being tackling each character's demands, you can also access the Grid system and play each mini-game individually to see if you can top the game's high score. Surpassing all of them within one character's grid can potentially earn you a tasty reward. As well, some of the characters have new challenges in successfully completing an even higher number of mini-games to earn additional rewards. Or, of course, you could just play through to see how far you can get. Challenging yourself is a challenge unto itself... which is why the word "challenging" is in there.

Defeat Mother Brain! Knock the opponent out! Make sure not to... honk that monster's pouch! ...I don't even...

Rewards? Yes, indeed. Additional games can be unlocked if you achieve certain goals. These include new modes of play (such as an All Easy mode and a Boss Rush) and new mini-games entirely. It's fun to try and unlock the great Dr. Wario, a more-or-less fully-functional take on Dr. Mario. And let's not forget that you can also play Pyoro, the game mentioned in the introduction, and its sequel (Pyoro 2, if that didn't cross your mind). Now we can finally determine whether Pyoro should have been a big hit in the stores. (Hint: The answer is no. Another Hint: Avoid it on DSiWare, too.)

But with so many mini-games on one little Game Boy Advance, you can't possibly expect Renoir with this one. Every game has fairly simple graphics, occasionally to the point of black and white stick-figury, but I believe that's the art style they're going with. Besides, if you're only going to see it for a few seconds before moving on, there's no sense in trying to beautify the scenery. Everything is functional. The only place where you will find extensive detail, aside from the rare mini-game, is in the cutscenes, though they are mostly cartoonish in nature (which pretty much sums up the feel of the game anyhow). The audio is just as ecclectic: weird grunts and groans throughout echo the game's yearning to be different. And the music, though in small spurts, is still catchy! There are even a couple of full-length songs, chopped up between mini-games, featuring lo-fi vocals!