WARIOWARE: GET IT TOGETHER

It seemed for a while that Nintendo might have all but abandoned handheld-scale games. Its positioning of Switch as a home console you can take on the move, combined with its more conservative recent approach to software, suggested some of its lesser lights might be put out to pasture. So news of a new WarioWare was greeted with both surprise and relief: in these chaotic times, it’s only right that Nintendo’s most anarchic character should get to be a headline act once more.

There is cause for both optimism and concern here. The one-word commands – Squeeze! Peel! Unplug! – remain in these espresso-shot challenges, but rather than push a button or press a stick, you control one of a series of returning characters. Choosing a team of three for each set of microgames, you might manoeuvre Ashley on a broomstick to shoo flies away from a cake, or guide MC Jimmy to hit a coin block in Super Mario Land. Though we’ll miss the Pavlovian immediacy upon which the series was founded, the disparate abilities of each character add an element of light strategy, not to mention greater variety when it comes to replaying familiar microgames. There’s a range of co-operative and competitive games for two players, too. And besides, where else are we going to pluck armpit hairs from a Greek statue?