When it was originally released, there really wasn’t anything out there quite like WarioWare. While we’d been playing a variety of mini games in titles like the Mario Party and other series for quite some time, the concept of microgames at first felt a bit odd. The thing is, while perhaps not everyone was a fan, there’s no question that the concept worked, relying on a mix of truly bizarre situations, clever design, and generally very intuitive controls. But can someone else come along and tap into that same vibe, stealing some of Wario’s thunder? In the case of DUCK I’d say he doesn’t have too much to worry about.

While the story involving a 100-in-1 cartridge driving the single-player experience is its own thing, in principle you’ll be playing through different groups of microgames, each designed to have multiple skill levels and able to be completed in under a minute. To the developer’s credit, there’s absolutely some variety here, with quite a number of the games bearing some resemblance to various classic titles over the years. There’s also then some potential for fun with some friends, as once you’ve unlocked numerous games you’ll have the option to each take a crack at the games, seeing who’s the best. Throw in a survival mode that will give you more of a WarioWare-esque bit of chaos and the pieces of the puzzle are here.

The problem is the pretty wild inconsistency between different games in terms of their length, quality, and clarity… not even taking fun into account. Yes, many of these challenges could be called microgames as they keep things quick and simple, but quite a number of them deviate from that path, admittedly adding more depth but playing much more like minigames and derailing one of the title’s central pillars. Worse, the lack of some sort of unifying theme among collections, more weirdo humor, or simply too much complexity being in the mix makes for quite a lot of ups and downs of fun and frustration. Last, whether the issue is concepts that aren’t inherently obvious, or controls and rules that require each microgame to have accompanying instructions, the lack of clear and simple objectives nullifies the fun of being able to intuitively understand how a given game will work, allowing them to come at you in a rapid-fire pace that made the WarioWare titles truly shine.

While there are some things to appreciate here, and you can absolutely see the effort, the package as a whole suffers from inconsistency. That’s always a risk when trying to put together so many different ideas into one package, but that’s also essentially what they signed up for, so there’s no dodging the issues. If you’re going to promise a variety of microgames, much greater care needs to be put into ensuring simplicity and intuitiveness are ruling the day, even if that may make play a little too plain at times. In the case of WarioWare that’s where they tended to use humor, nostalgia, or some sort of shock value to fill the void. At times this title works well enough, but as a whole package it simply struggles to stay on task and that makes it harder to enjoy.