Things you don't like about Wario Land 4?

I'm pretty sure everyone here likes Wario Land 4 as it's by far the most popular Wario game, but no game is perfect, right?

Personally, the two complaints I have about the game:

• A) It's way too short and easy. And yes, I know there are difficulty options but still, it doesn't necessarily fix the issue as the difficulty is those modes feel kinda artificial. I wish the Golden Passage was a full length 4-stage world. Since it has to be the last one, it would've perfect to have the hardest levels in them. As well as make the game longer.
• B) The Emerald and Ruby passage are really boring. They are really easy and most levels don't really have really interesting gimmicks.

Definitely the game length and difficulty. I get why it's the way it is there, the game is really ambitious when it comes to not reusing resources for multiple levels in a row (every stage has at least 2-3 unique tilesets and backgrounds plus its own unique music, bonus CD music, enemies and mechanics, etc), but it does mean it's all over in a flash. Would have been nice to have an extra level in each passage, or another passage or two altogether.

Only complaint that comes to mind, is you only get to kill Spoiled Rotten once.

Yeah it would be neat to have a way to refight Spoiled Rotten at least. I get why they don't want you to have to defeat it every time you beat the final boss and see the other bosses revived, but they could just make it so you could enter the door to the boss arena and fight it at any time. Heck, the postgame could just let you fight any of the bosses at anytime instead of making you have to beat the Golden Diva again for another shot.

Exactly! It could be a simple gimmick like hold L and R for five seconds and WHAM! you can re fight Spoiled Rotten again. Or any boss.

Hotel Horror said:

Exactly! It could be a simple gimmick like hold L and R for five seconds and WHAM! you can re fight Spoiled Rotten again. Or any boss.

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Or they could just boss make the boss not disappear after beating the game. I feel like that's such an obvious solution , so much I thought it was how it worked before seeing this. Why did Nintendo do that?

Cirta said:

Or they could just boss make the boss not disappear after beating the game. I feel like that's such an obvious solution , so much I thought it was how it worked before seeing this. Why did Nintendo do that?

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I guess since she's more of a tutorial boss, they thought people wouldn't be interested in re fighting her? I really wish they came up with some cool way to bring Spoiled Rotten back though.

Kinda like what Pizza Tower did with The Doise

Iirc Virtual Boy Wario Land isn't that long either, I think the relatively short length especially in comparison to the other Wario Land entries might be intentional and I don't mind that, although I do still kind of wish the game had a bit more content. Would be nice to have a boss rush and maybe 3 extra levels in the path leading directly to the Golden Diva (preferably with their own unique gimmicks), with the Golden Passage being more difficult as well. That would make it a little more climactic and thrilling than just instantly going to the Golden Passage, blazing through that, then going to the final boss. And given that a lot of other games do exactly what I suggested (i.e Pizza Tower and for an older example DKC2), I don't get why WL4 didn't do that as well.
As it is, though, it's still an 8 or 9/10 game. Love the graphics, music, sounds, sprites, boss fights, designs, and so much more.

I think I have two complaints with WL4

1. This is actually an issue I have with almost all WL games cept for Shake it but I never liked how trivial the Coins or Emeralds you collect feel, especially if you already know the bosses by heart.

to be fair atleast in WL4 you can use them to play the minigames (and buy helper items for the bosses, which for a first time playthrough are pretty helpful) but... I dunno now when I replay it, it doesn't really matter other than for a highscore I guess.

2. Okay this one is really petty but it always makes me sad when I only ever hear people talk about Wario Land 4 aaaand when I did saw some folks play any other WL some are like "this is slow and awkward, this sucks".

That's sort of the problem when you have 5 games that all kinda do their own thing I suppose so I can't blame em either lol

Wami said:

I think I have two complaints with WL4

1. This is actually an issue I have with almost all WL games cept for Shake it but I never liked how trivial the Coins or Emeralds you collect feel, especially if you already know the bosses by heart.

to be fair atleast in WL4 you can use them to play the minigames (and buy helper items for the bosses, which for a first time playthrough are pretty helpful) but... I dunno now when I replay it, it doesn't really matter other than for a highscore I guess.

2. Okay this one is really petty but it always makes me sad when I only ever hear people talk about Wario Land 4 aaaand when I did saw some folks play any other WL some are like "this is slow and awkward, this sucks".

That's sort of the problem when you have 5 games that all kinda do their own thing I suppose so I can't blame em either lol

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1. The items are kinda essential on Super Hard mode, at least if you don't figure out how to stunlock the bosses with speedrun strats/play near perfectly. But I get what you mean, the money doesn't have that many uses.

2. Sadly even Wario Land 4 seems to be too slow-paced for some people now. Had a few friends try it and lose interest quite quickly due to how easy the intro stage was.

But it seems to follow a trend I've sadly noticed recently, where younger generations seem to expect platformers to be super fast, difficult twitch reflex based action games where you're constantly moving at all times. They seem to expect them to be like Donkey Kong Country Returns/Tropical Freeze, Pizza Tower/Antonblast, arguably Cuphead, etc.

So I get the feeling that a lot of them would find stuff like the older Wario Land games, Yoshi's Island, the easier Disney games, etc kinda boring

That second point are my thoughts exactly!

Maybe it's also cause I get overwhelmed by games like Pizza Tower (even if that game still rocks, obviously!) but I feel like "slow" plattformers like the older WL games (especially WL1) work because the level design is tailor made for it.

Also on that note, I feel like if you recommend WL1 to ANYONE you should let them know that pressing up + left or right makes you slightly faster. It is such a simple movement tech but my gosh does it improve the experience TENFOLD


Wario Land 1 wouldnt have been my fav OG gameboy game if it wasn't for it I love it that much lol

CM30 said:

1. The items are kinda essential on Super Hard mode, at least if you don't figure out how to stunlock the bosses with speedrun strats/play near perfectly. But I get what you mean, the money doesn't have that many uses.

2. Sadly even Wario Land 4 seems to be too slow-paced for some people now. Had a few friends try it and lose interest quite quickly due to how easy the intro stage was.

But it seems to follow a trend I've sadly noticed recently, where younger generations seem to expect platformers to be super fast, difficult twitch reflex based action games where you're constantly moving at all times. They seem to expect them to be like Donkey Kong Country Returns/Tropical Freeze, Pizza Tower/Antonblast, arguably Cuphead, etc.

So I get the feeling that a lot of them would find stuff like the older Wario Land games, Yoshi's Island, the easier Disney games, etc kinda boring

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CM30 said:

2. Sadly even Wario Land 4 seems to be too slow-paced for some people now. Had a few friends try it and lose interest quite quickly due to how easy the intro stage was.

But it seems to follow a trend I've sadly noticed recently, where younger generations seem to expect platformers to be super fast, difficult twitch reflex based action games where you're constantly moving at all times. They seem to expect them to be like Donkey Kong Country Returns/Tropical Freeze, Pizza Tower/Antonblast, arguably Cuphead, etc.

So I get the feeling that a lot of them would find stuff like the older Wario Land games, Yoshi's Island, the easier Disney games, etc kinda boring

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I think it may be a matter of the games you're raised on or used to, I'm 16 yet I still enjoy slower platformers (i.e Super Mario Bros. 3 and WL3) while simultaneously loving much faster games like certain Sonic games and Pizza Tower as some of you have mentioned. Which I think is because I was raised on both types of games. Although I may have a bias towards slower games since my favorite platformers are Wario World, DKC2, Yoshi's Island, WL4, Bananza and Odyssey (in no specific order).

It's a bit redundant because others have said it, but the short length is definitely a detraction, but a lot of Wario games have that issue, I think. It might be TOO CRAZY to say, but I want more Wario!! So much so I want a longer game with him. Wario Land 3 is up there with Wario Land 4 for me because of its decent length.

CM30 said:

the game is really ambitious when it comes to not reusing resources for multiple levels in a row

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I really feel this with the enemy types, because there are so many cool ones that would go great in the levels players find boring, but they don't get used because they're usually themed and exclusive to their own passages

I don't mind the length of the game because it has excellent replayability, it's really fun trying to max out your score to get karaoke in the sound test and then challenging yourself to do the same in super hard

But one thing I'll say I dislike is how sometimes there are unkillable enemies when you try to get a perfect score. They went and masterfully created so many cool ideas for score attack; butt slamming to create richer harder enemies, getting the health and red bar to full to make the red dots dropped by enemies change to 100 coins, letting the player map out the health boxes and hearts and saving enemies for later to maximize coinage, hearts being turned to coins at the end, and then during hurry up being forced to play aggressively so you don't run out of time and lose money, which in turns adds risk and tension to the enemies and treasure, everything just works and you just want to try and get a perfect score. But then they will put those spiked jumping clams in spots where it's impossible to get underneath them and kill them (in Crescent Moon Village iirc), or make it impossible to kill all the crocodiles that only appear in Monsoon Jungle (by throwing an enemy at them) or even when I was playing through Wildflower Fields on super hard there are fish inside the currents that are impossible to get at