Gudetama Okawari Ikagassuka poaches Wario Ware’s formula

We’ve seen Sanrio poach ideas for its games before. Hello Kitty’s Magic Apron is a take on Cooking Mama with rhythmic elements. Hello Kitty to Issho! Block Crash is a series of Breakout clones. Hello Kitty: Big City Dreams is a lot like Animal Crossing. It’s grabbed onto a concept that works and won’t whisk deviating from that course. When it comes to Gudetama Okawari Ikagassuka, this is good for both Sanrio and anyone who happens to pick up this Nintendo 3DS game. This title goes the eggstra mile to act as a successor to Nintendo’s WarioWare games.

As is common with Sanrio-related games, Gudetama Okawari Ikagassuka is a minigame collection. It’s something you’d expect to find cheeply priced in some bargain bin. It is set in a cafe where Gudetama is the star. Or starter, since every possible dish involves beating, frying, baking and preparing this egg to make him part of a meal. These minigames are sifted into categories based on things you’d find in a kitchen. For eggsample, a frying minigame would be tied to the stove, while preparing an omelet would take place on a table. There are over 50 included and each one can be completed with simple touch screen controls, just as in WarioWare, requiring you to act fast.

Like WarioWare, Gudetama Okawari Ikagassuka does its best to make you crack under pressure. An onslaught of minigames will be thrown at you after picking a category, tasking you with completing challenges within a few seconds, one after another. These are scrambled up, so you don’t know which will be served next. After the halfway point of a session, which involves playing between eight and ten of these challenges in a row, difficulty will ramp up and gameplay will speed up. You have three eggs (instead of hearts) doled out at the beginning of each session, and failing a minigame takes one away and brings you closer to defeat. Gudetama Okawari Ikagassuka even cuts to the front door of the cafe between takes, just as WarioWare did with its elevator doors. It is constantly referencing the classic Nintendo series.

Gudetama Okawari Ikagassuka does an eggstraordinary job paying tribute to WarioWare‘s sense of humor too. It is always yolking around. Obvious jokes include drawing a ketchup design on a sultry Gudetama omelet or covering the egg’s butt with a shell. There’s dark humor, such as when a snake is attempting to eat an egg and you’re trying to protect it or Gudetama’s treating a bowl of boiling broth as a hot tub. It even offers games that are just plain out there; one task requires you to create a Gudetama-themed deco nail manicure. There is this wonderfully egglectic mix of tasks, and it helps make up for the fact that Nintendo’s actual microgame collections are far more robust. The spirit is there, even if the wealth of content isn’t.

There’s one final element in Gudetama Okawari Ikagassuka that acts as a shout-out to the WarioWare series. People can earn additional versions of Gudetama to display in the menu. Ones you’ve earned can be viewed in the hencyclopedia. There’s a brief description and image of the egg in different positions and meals. Think of it as a reminder of WarioWare: Twisted! and WarioWare: Touched‘s souvenirs. They are achievements for you to earn and enjoy.

Gudetama Okawari Ikagassuka will soften the hearts even the most hard-boiled WarioWare fans skeptical of any sort of successor. It may not be as robust as Nintendo’s originals, but this Sanrio copycat does a wonderful job eggspressing itself. The way everything is organized, minigame library, humor and opportunity to earn additional Gudetamas will brighten up any Japanese 3DS owner’s day.