Did the Wario Land 4 team just run out of room in the ROM?

Seriously, I'm starting to wonder whether the 18 levels thing is because they literally ran out of space. Or maybe time, given how long it probably took to draw all those graphics and animation frames.

I mean, look at the sprites for the enemies:

http://www.spriters-resource.com/game_boy_advance/wl4/

18 to 20 frames seems to be the MINIMUM for these guys. That pirate from Crescent Moon Village has what? 80 frames? It's nuts, especially when EVERY level seems to have multiple animations purely for background elements.

I wonder whether they ever hit space limits, or got told 'can you please hurry up a bit, we've got to release the game at some point'. Hence not a ton of levels.

Maybe they wouldn't have ran out of space if they didn't include the useless sound room.

I wouldn't say so, no. I'd say Wario Land 4 feels fully complete and the amount of levels is just a testament to the quality over quantity design mentality. I'd say that feeling simply comes from a game working so well that it leaves you wanting more, it's the way those levels are set up that, to me, feels complete. I think they ended up making exactly what they had in mind, personally, it's definitely how WL4 comes across.

CM30 said:

That pirate from Crescent Moon Village has what? 80 frames?

Click to expand...

Actually, the only sprites needed for the ghost are these:

The enemies are made of seperate parts, so only the sprites that actually change need to be saved, not repeating sprites.

Well, they coded one to many Purple Pipe Puzzle Rooms, forcing them to shove an extra one into Pinball Zone (unless they origionaly planned to have one in the Tutorial Level, or Golden Passage). Plus, Fiery Cavern is out of place in the Horror Passage. Maybe, just maybe, they were planning another passage where the Fiery Cavern was more fitting, and never finished the 4th level for the Sapphire Padsage.

But really, I strongly believe that they intentionally went for Quality over Quantity, and the perfectly designed hub / game structure sugests they made the game exactly how they wanted it to be.

wariolandgoldpiramid said:

Well, they coded one to many Purple Pipe Puzzle Rooms, forcing them to shove an extra one into Pinball Zone (unless they origionaly planned to have one in the Tutorial Level, or Golden Passage). Plus, Fiery Cavern is out of place in the Horror Passage. Maybe, just maybe, they were planning another passage where the Fiery Cavern was more fitting, and never finished the 4th level for the Sapphire Padsage.

But really, I strongly believe that they intentionally went for Quality over Quantity, and the perfectly designed hub / game structure sugests they made the game exactly how they wanted it to be.

Click to expand...

I don't think Fiery Cavern is out of place. As I mentioned before, it's got a hell theme. As in, the saying 'when hell freezes over' in reference to something extremely unlikely.

But in retrospect, I suspect that yeah, they were going for quality over quantity. Contrast this with Wario Land Shake It, where every theme got reused at least once and many levels felt kind of rushed or thrown together. I'd rather have 18 great levels instead of 33 okay ones.

wariolandgoldpiramid said:

Fiery Cavern is out of place in the Horror Passage

Click to expand...

How is Hell not Horror?