Wario Land 4

Wario Land 4
"Thank you, Wario...♥" — Princess Shokora
Genre(s): Platform Platform(s): Game Boy Advance Release: JP: August 21, 2001 AU: November 9, 2001 EU: November 16, 2001 NA: November 19, 2001 CHN: June 8, 2004 Developer(s): Nintendo R&D1 Publisher(s): Nintendo Country: Japan Series: Wario Land Predecessor: Wario Land 3 Successor: Wario Land: Shake It!

""But um, look guys look, it's one of my greatest achievement: Wario Land 4 on the Game Boy Advance!""

— Wario, Living with Wario Episode 2

Wario Land 4 is a 2001 platformer video game developed by Nintendo and released for their Game Boy Advance in 2001.

Plot

Wario has to gather four treasures to unlock a pyramid and save Princess Shokora from The Golden Diva.

Why It's Wario Greatest Achievement

1. Many transformations from the previous Wario Land titles return, and most of them are improved.
2. Excellent graphics for 2001 standards, with the graphics being very colorful and extremely detailled for a 2001 GBA game, this game can even be compared to the awesome and colorgul graphics of Bomberman Tournament, which was also released in 2001.
3. Explore multiple levels with different themes, such as a jungle, and a toyland, making this game environnements really varied and awesome.
4. Wario's objective in each of the 18 levels is to find the room's treasures and escape the level with them, which can be refreshing to some peoples, as it's change a bit from the previous games
5. There are four main passages: the Emerald, Topaz, Ruby, and Sapphire Passages, in order of difficulty and each one features multiple stages and a boss battle.
6. A being called "Keyzer" must be collected on every level to access the next stage.
7. Four gem pieces must be collected from every level to unlock the door to the boss, making the levels more challenging and also make them being a bit of a exploration, which wasn't really present in the previous games with the exception of Wario Land 3.
8. Overall control and gameplay are improved from its predecessors.
   • The gameplay is now much more fast paced than the other games of the franchise before it, especially the first Wario Land where it was pretty slow but still an awesome and fun game.
9. Speaking of the controls, they are absolutely tight and responsive, even when compared to the previous Wario Land games, with them being even more responsive than the other Wario Land games, Wario Land: Shake It! would later improve the controls a bit more as well.
10. Wario now features a health meter, unlike in Wario Land II and Wario Land 3, where he could not die, making this game much more challenging but not as frustrating than the latter.
11. Multiple difficulty levels.
    • The normal mode is the easy one but still pretty challenging, especially compared to the hard mode which is extremely hard where in the normal mode it is pretty easy and challenging in a good way.
    • The hard mode is extremely hard since you only had 1 health point and you can't get more health bar, this mode is mostly recommended to the masters of this game.
12. Wario can access special rooms to purchase items and play mini-games.
13. The soundtrack, as expected from a Wario Land game, is awesome, with many bangers and songs that is even full of small details, such as when Wario crawl, the music became a bit slower.
14. Due to how great the game is, it's often considered to be the best Wario Land game ever made.
15. Awesome boss fights, especially when compared to both Wario Land II and Wario Land 3 (despite these both games having decent boss fights.
16. The best ending is very emotionnal, especially for a Wario game, as Wario save the life of Princcess Shokora and she give him a kiss, making Wario being in love of her, although he still had to go home and get his treasures.
    • Likewise, the bad ending can also be funny, as Wario is a bit disgusted by the woman that kiss him, and she had the same head of Wario but less good looking.
17. Some of the levels are very creatives, especially the one where you're in a pinball machine and you had to escape from it.

Bad Qualities

1. The cutscenes cannot be skiped, which can be annoying to some despite most of them being short or great, this mostly include when you start a level or when you die and fall off the level to be on the maps again.
2. The game is pretty short and shorter than Wario Land 3, as you can beat the game in only 3 hours.

Reception

The game received positive reviews. GamePro stated: "Boasting fantastic graphics and awesome transparency effects for water and fog, Wario Land 4 pushes the GBA to its visual limits".

GameSpot commented: "The gameplay is tight and varied, the graphics are detailed and bright, and the sound is second to none".

GameSpy called the game: "An incredibly entertaining, diverse, and humorous addition to the Mario/Wario legacy. It's challenging and creative, but not as outright frustrating as Wario Land 3.

The game also got a very high score of 88/100 in Metacritic, many fans not only say that this game is the best Wario Land game ever made but also one of the best Game Boy Advance games of all times and is even considered to be a classic of the console.

Trivia

• Part of the vocals used in the game's title track were taken from the first track of Zero-G's Vocal XTC audio sample compilation. The specific vocal lines in question are "Your time is over, I've had enough! Here I come! Look out, here I come!", sung by British session singer Helen Binding.
• Wario's in-game sprite shows that he is wearing gold buttons (similar to Mario, Luigi, and Waluigi's) and purple shoes. However, in the official artwork, his buttons are white and his shoes are green.
• Listen closely to the background music when Wario is crawling or rolling forward. When he's crawling, the music slows down, and when he's rolling forward, it speeds up. Some "status ailments" can change the tempo of the music too.
• Depending on how many treasures you were able to keep, (after beating the golden diva) the princess will be prettier. If you manage to get all the treasures, the princess will look very beautiful, as mentionned in the pointer of the ending.

References

Wario Land 4 on the Super Mario Wiki

Wario Land 4 on Metacritic

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