Topic: Wario Land 4 Review

[Aaron Brown]

More oddballery is never bad.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/reviewmini/37482/wario-land-4-review

Playing the Wario Land series is a nice hiatus from your average platformer, and Wario Land 4 is no exception. Its zany flare is appealing and fun, but it could have made a few more additions to make it really stand out.

In this entry, Wario sets out to rob a golden pyramid after reading that it contains a legendary treasure. The overview is set up with four main passages positioned at each side of the pyramid’s base, all containing four levels and a boss. Each passage has a theme as well, such as nature, mechanical, toy, and horror. Out of the four, the toy-themed levels were by far my favorite. How could racing dominos, being in a pinball machine, and a colorful, LEGO-like land not be fun?

Though the toy levels were the best, almost every level brought something to the table thanks to the fun puzzle-focused gameplay. That, combined with the need to collect as much treasure as humanly possible, really made exploring and toying with various parts of the levels desirable. Different secrets require different approaches, anywhere from flying as a Vampire bat to getting temporarily fat from eating an apple (Why they changed the doughnut to an apple is anyone's guess). Overall, the game spreads them out nicely across the whole experience.

However, there was not a single new transformation this time around, which was disappointing. They are all hilarious and I love them, but a new mutation would be welcomed. Instead, the game added a Frog Switch, which you hit at the end of the level, causing a timer to pop up that gives you a certain amount of time to get to the start of the level and finish. When the Frog Switch is triggered, the screen starts shaking, bells are rung, and the music changes. The problem is, sometimes it takes about five minutes to go from the Frog Switch to the start again, and the shaking and frantic music gets straight-up obnoxious.

In the end, Wario Land 4 is a very good, enjoyable game. Although it is reminiscent of prior installments, the new fresh coat of paint, absurdness, and clever platforming makes it worth looking into. If you dig both puzzles and the abnormal, or just haven't played a Wario Land game before, this should be right up your alley.

[Phil]

I played Wario Land 4 first of the post-Super Mario Land 3 Wario Land games that feature transformations. I enjoyed it, but it was coming off Shake It (Shake Dimension) on Wii. Thus, I didn't find it as thrilling. It's still a really fun and cleverly designed game, however.

[MagicCow64]

Eh, the frog switch level design really soured the game for me, Wario Land 2 and 3 being two of my favorite games ever. A once-in-a-while gimmick would be fine, but it baffled me that they based the entire game around it. Wario Land Shake It, however, managed to make it work far better somehow.

[Luigi Dude]

Eh, the frog switch level design really soured the game for me, Wario Land 2 and 3 being two of my favorite games ever. A once-in-a-while gimmick would be fine, but it baffled me that they based the entire game around it. Wario Land Shake It, however, managed to make it work far better somehow.

What Shake It did so well was adding those speed boosters that make Wario start running like Sonic for most of these sections.  This gameplay change really made things more exciting since as long as the player didn't get hit, you could get to entirely new area's and even finish many of these sections very quickly.  This is one of the reasons why there's a time mission for every level, and many of the money missions have things like diamonds and gold coins in area's that can only be accessed by still running as well as all the treasure chest that can only be found that way as well.

That's one of things I found so great about Shake It is they took the part about Wario Land 4 that I felt was the weakest, and just by adding a new thing to it made it my favorite part of Shake.