What's Your Favorite Microgame Collection?
COMMUNITY QUESTION | WarioWare Gold is out today, so let's talk about our favorite micro-mini-whatever games.
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Microgames, minigames. There are many ways to describe games that have other games buried within them. At a larger scope, series such as Yakuza and Shenmue fall under this category. In a more focused sense, the likes of WarioWare, Mario Party, and more embrace this formula and never stray from it.
For the sake of this week's community question, themed after the recent release of WarioWare Gold on Nintendo 3DS, feel free to consider both definitions in your answer. Heck, we're being broad with it. Here's our favorites, and let us know yours in the comments!
Kat Bailey, Editor-in-Chief
It's lost to history now, but one of my all-time favorite games for the Nintendo DS was Retro Game Challenge by indieszero. Based on the cult favorite Japanese TV show Game Center CX, it's a delightful tour of video game history, complete with accurate strategy guides, classic gaming magazines (replete with references to former EGM editors like "Dan Sock"), and other era-appropriate references.
In Retro Game Challenge, you are beamed back to the dawn of the Famicom era, where you must play games to appease a monstrous Arino (Game Center CX's host). They include top-down racers, shooters, and platformers, culminating in a modest-sized RPG called Guadia Quest. All of the games are pitch perfect recreations of the games they're supposed to represent, and are legitimately fun in their own right. On the bottom screen is a young Japanese boy, who excitedly shares his new games and magazines, and cheers you on while you play. It's a truly beautiful piece of nostalgia.
Sadly, Retro Game Challenge sold poorly in the U.S., and the sequel, which included Game Boy and Super Famicom games, never made it out here. I was desperate for the sequel that I actually bought it in Japanese, but it lost a bit without the translation. The original Retro Game Challenge is pretty rare these days, but you can find it on eBay for $35. I strongly recommend it—it's one of the best tributes to retro gaming I've ever played.
Nadia Oxford, Staff Writer
Rhythm Heaven Megamix for the Nintendo 3DS! I'm a big Rhythm Heaven fan, but I arrived late to the series with Rhythm Heaven Fever for the Wii. Megamix let me catch up on some of the best songs from the past games (and some of the worst—dammit, Frog Hop), and it included some great new tunes. There isn't a second of Tangotronic 3000 that dips below "brilliant."
Rhythm Heaven Megamix also manages to be a white-knuckle challenge without being as unforgiving as Fever's "one mistake and you're out of the running for a 'Perfect' score" system. Oh, and let's not forget the multiplayer challenge that lets you StreetPass with fellow Rhythm Heaven enthusiasts for a head-to-head throwdown. Dang, I can't wait for the next game.
Caty McCarthy, Features Editor
Nadia lay claim to Rhythm Heaven, so I'm gonna go with something else. Motherfuckin' Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Fortune, baby! Just kidding. (Though I do own it for some bizarre reason. I'm all about impossible body standards for women, I guess!) I think my favorite minigame-focused title is Wii Sports Resort. Before I lived on my own and had access to a slew of great party games (like Jackbox Party Pack collections), I often would whip out Wii Sports Resort as a game to play when friends came over. I played it quite a bit with my family too.
Wii Sports Resort has something for everyone, and that's what makes it great. Some of its minigames are meatier than others, but for the most part they're really stellar. My personal favorite will always be archery, but I'm definitely biased because I used to do archery as a teen. Otherwise, sometimes at smaller game events I happen across Multibowl, a competitive game that puts slices of retro games into WarioWare-like bite sizes. It will never, ever, ever release publicly, for obvious reasons.
In other news, I'm excited to pick up WarioWare Gold this weekend, and in the future I'm anticipating the Derek Yu-led joint UFO 50, a collaboration with a group of indie developers. (Even if Yu has gone on the record as saying it is not a minigame collection.)