wario land 3 imprinted on me as one of my first games as a conscious gamer: I read about it myself in nintendo power retro column back in elementary school, got it from a bargain bin shortly after, and played it all the way front-to-back at a time where I finished very few games. while I dimly knew that there had been a fourth one, I never felt driven to play it given the shift in focus between it and its predecessors. the large explorable world of wl3 enthralled me in a way that made wl4 look less appealing, and it sat far down in my backlog until I realized that it's considered one of the best, if the not the best in the series. it won't unseat wario land 3 for me at the end of the day, but wario land 4 tries something fresh with solid results overall.
wl4 takes a much more setpiece-heavy approach to level design versus exploration-based puzzle solving of wl3. while transformations remain, the puzzles that involve them tone back the complexity, and many levels focus on other gimmicks entirely. wl4 thrives on its creativity and variety of concepts thanks to extremely tight pacing between areas. speed takes an increased focus after the leisurely prior entries, as challenges are meant to be sight-read and level layout hews towards linearity. each level now ends with a mad dash towards the beginning of the stage after pressing a frog statue that reopens the entrance vortex, which at the same time begins a few-minute countdown and opens up some new areas. this mechanic works best when the stage post-transition significantly differs than the route to the frog statue, such as in the volcano level that freezes after pressing the statue. a key to unlock the next stage must be collected along with four stone pieces that help open the way to the boss at the end of each area. these generally fall on the path going to or leaving the frog statue without much real exploration needed.
I'm sort of struggling to talk about specifics in terms of game-feel or level design because there's really not a cohesive design paradigm at play here. wario land 2 and 3 focused heavily on transformation-based puzzles and exploring for treasure, and here all the same mechanics exist with little alteration. wario has roughly the same moveset he had in those titles, enemies largely remain the same, and there are virtually no new transformations to speak of. there's still frequent secret paths to diamonds and such, though here the focus is on achieving a high score in a given level rather than the collectible aspect. in a lot of ways, it feels like the unique ideas behind this game are grafted onto the framework of the older games without much integration. stages like the domino level or the spinner level interested me initially but are fleeting joys that never get expanded upon beyond the level they exist in. there's virtually nothing new in terms of the pre-existing transformation puzzles, and thus the moment-to-moment gameplay feels like a rehash of those ideas when there isn't some random new idea to propel the game forward.
still, thanks to that fast pacing, this is a perfect pick-up-and-play game that won't leave you scrambling to remember what you did last like in wl3. the control feels solid and quick with the only exception being holding throwable items: why is it so easy for wario to drop these?? each of the boss succeeds at presenting a nice little puzzle against surreal, grotesque monsters, and the theming overall switches up the vibe constantly. I can't think of many GBA games that look much better than this either, which astonishes me considering this came out in the launch window. there's plenty of little extras and minigames as well, some of which presage this team's next title: the original warioware, which shouldn't surprise anyone who's heard the soundtrack to both games with that distinctive synth bass. there's also a little classic wario land treasure hunting with the hidden record chests, which unlock a given track for use in the sound test and require much more thorough hunting in order to retrieve. even though its a short game, the package is remarkably tight for an early GBA game, and could go toe-to-toe with any other 2d platformer of its era.
wario land 4 reminds me a bit of drill dozer, another GBA game with a lot of great ideas without a good mechanical throughline that ends up just missing greatness. I could easily float this between 7 and 8 on my ranking scale given how I'm feeling on the game and what I played last: its uneven nature both elevates its creativity but detracts from its coherence. no doubt I'll return at some point to get more gold rankings on stages and find more vinyl records, but at the moment I'm just glad to have this game finally out of my backlog.
wl4 takes a much more setpiece-heavy approach to level design versus exploration-based puzzle solving of wl3. while transformations remain, the puzzles that involve them tone back the complexity, and many levels focus on other gimmicks entirely. wl4 thrives on its creativity and variety of concepts thanks to extremely tight pacing between areas. speed takes an increased focus after the leisurely prior entries, as challenges are meant to be sight-read and level layout hews towards linearity. each level now ends with a mad dash towards the beginning of the stage after pressing a frog statue that reopens the entrance vortex, which at the same time begins a few-minute countdown and opens up some new areas. this mechanic works best when the stage post-transition significantly differs than the route to the frog statue, such as in the volcano level that freezes after pressing the statue. a key to unlock the next stage must be collected along with four stone pieces that help open the way to the boss at the end of each area. these generally fall on the path going to or leaving the frog statue without much real exploration needed.
I'm sort of struggling to talk about specifics in terms of game-feel or level design because there's really not a cohesive design paradigm at play here. wario land 2 and 3 focused heavily on transformation-based puzzles and exploring for treasure, and here all the same mechanics exist with little alteration. wario has roughly the same moveset he had in those titles, enemies largely remain the same, and there are virtually no new transformations to speak of. there's still frequent secret paths to diamonds and such, though here the focus is on achieving a high score in a given level rather than the collectible aspect. in a lot of ways, it feels like the unique ideas behind this game are grafted onto the framework of the older games without much integration. stages like the domino level or the spinner level interested me initially but are fleeting joys that never get expanded upon beyond the level they exist in. there's virtually nothing new in terms of the pre-existing transformation puzzles, and thus the moment-to-moment gameplay feels like a rehash of those ideas when there isn't some random new idea to propel the game forward.
still, thanks to that fast pacing, this is a perfect pick-up-and-play game that won't leave you scrambling to remember what you did last like in wl3. the control feels solid and quick with the only exception being holding throwable items: why is it so easy for wario to drop these?? each of the boss succeeds at presenting a nice little puzzle against surreal, grotesque monsters, and the theming overall switches up the vibe constantly. I can't think of many GBA games that look much better than this either, which astonishes me considering this came out in the launch window. there's plenty of little extras and minigames as well, some of which presage this team's next title: the original warioware, which shouldn't surprise anyone who's heard the soundtrack to both games with that distinctive synth bass. there's also a little classic wario land treasure hunting with the hidden record chests, which unlock a given track for use in the sound test and require much more thorough hunting in order to retrieve. even though its a short game, the package is remarkably tight for an early GBA game, and could go toe-to-toe with any other 2d platformer of its era.
wario land 4 reminds me a bit of drill dozer, another GBA game with a lot of great ideas without a good mechanical throughline that ends up just missing greatness. I could easily float this between 7 and 8 on my ranking scale given how I'm feeling on the game and what I played last: its uneven nature both elevates its creativity but detracts from its coherence. no doubt I'll return at some point to get more gold rankings on stages and find more vinyl records, but at the moment I'm just glad to have this game finally out of my backlog.
2 Comments
@Dief88 thank you so much!! I'm excited to see this community grow too... it's been a lot of fun writing reviews on here for about a year now. experiencing the proper launch lineup for the gba must have been great, I was very young at the time and only played games my dad had bought such as rayman advance, phalanx, and d&d eye of the beholder; not exactly a stellar set of games looking back on it! I wish I could've played this one on real hardware myself, I bet you'll enjoy it quite a bit more as a short burst of fun in the context it was originally intended.
Dief88
2 years ago
As for Wario Land 4, I remember reading about it in Nintendo Power as well. It was a hard choice among early GBA games, but in the launch window I ultimately went for Castlevania, Golden Sun, Advance Wars, F-Zero, and Super Mario Advance. WL4 and Super Dodgeball Advance looked compelling enough but possibly like they would take less time to complete, and in those days the more time you could squeeze out of a game, the better. I purchased WL4 on ebay but a few years ago, but it's remained in a Ziploc bag with several other GBA games I bought at that time; I was ultimately too busy with my 3DS to bother with them.
All of which is to say that I probably should blow the dust off that Ziploc and finally try Wario Land. Your review convinced me that, for as weird of a bespoke little game that it is, that's also probably the root of its charms.