Vampire Wario wasn't just a bat in Wario Land 4?

[CM30]

Saw this on The Cutting Room Floor and thought it was neat. Basically, the file wario4land_gba_ique\src\global.h,v has this code starting from line 572:

/*
enum WAR_STAT_VAMP
{
    VPCHNG,
    VPBAT,
    VPTURN,
    VPWALK,
    VPJUMP,
    VPHAJIK,
    VPEND,
    VPSTOP,
};
*/

From what I can tell, it's code for Vampire Wario's non bat form, or at least a reference to it. Presumably this version was planned for Wario Land 4 as well at some point:

But yeah, anyone want to investigate it more? Figure out if there's still working functionality for this in the game?

 

[noobmurderer34]

I find it interesting "VPHAJIK" is there, which could be short for hajike/弾ける, the verb for popping/bursting open. I feel like popcorn's a good example for it, but ironically I've never seen it used for popcorn (but it can be! I had to go out of my way to double check) So I feel like maybe this could refer to Wario spreading out his cape, as a way to switch forms?

Every time I hear of hajike I can't help but think of Bobobo- bo bo-bobo lol

In WL3 Vampire Wario's kind of Dracula form that could walk on water was a little bit underutilized, it's easy to go through the game flying with the Bat form instead, I almost thought it was obsolete compared to the Bat form. There's like one room that's crowded and has water dripping from the roof where you're meant to use the Dracula form, but it's still possible with the Bat form, and it's to get a musical coin so it's easy to miss fully understanding it (yet WL3 is extremely intricate of all games lol). So I understand why they'd get rid of it for WL4, but maybe it could've stayed if they utilized it a bit more. With Fiery Cavern not really being horror themed, I feel like the only place they could've used it was maybe if there was a water room in Hotel Horror or something

 

[CM30]

I find it interesting "VPHAJIK" is there, which could be short for hajike/弾ける, the verb for popping/bursting open. I feel like popcorn's a good example for it, but ironically I've never seen it used for popcorn (but it can be! I had to go out of my way to double check) So I feel like maybe this could refer to Wario spreading out his cape, as a way to switch forms?

Every time I hear of hajike I can't help but think of Bobobo- bo bo-bobo lol

In WL3 Vampire Wario's kind of Dracula form that could walk on water was a little bit underutilized, it's easy to go through the game flying with the Bat form instead, I almost thought it was obsolete compared to the Bat form. There's like one room that's crowded and has water dripping from the roof where you're meant to use the Dracula form, but it's still possible with the Bat form, and it's to get a musical coin so it's easy to miss fully understanding it (yet WL3 is extremely intricate of all games lol). So I understand why they'd get rid of it for WL4, but maybe it could've stayed if they utilized it a bit more. With Fiery Cavern not really being horror themed, I feel like the only place they could've used it was maybe if there was a water room in Hotel Horror or something

Case in point: I genuinely didn't know Vampire Wario's normal form could walk on water. Damn, they really didn't do a whole lot with that form, did they?

 

[noobmurderer34]

Case in point: I genuinely didn't know Vampire Wario's normal form could walk on water. Damn, they really didn't do a whole lot with that form, did they?

Me neither! I just thought that the game was so complex and intricate that it kept me wondering "when the regular vampire Wario level would be" and it never came, and I couldn't accept that as an answer, and then I discovered it online

 

[607]

Case in point: I genuinely didn't know Vampire Wario's normal form could walk on water. Damn, they really didn't do a whole lot with that form, did they?

I didn't know this either. Wow, no wonder that coin was so hard to get. :')

 

[BlanchonUltime]

Case in point: I genuinely didn't know Vampire Wario's normal form could walk on water. Damn, they really didn't do a whole lot with that form, did they?

To my knowledge he can't, entering water will set wario back to normal. The tiles he's talking about are visually water but in reality they act as solid blocks when wario is vampire or bat (doesn't make a difference between both) else they're empty blocks. Developers maybe had the idea to use them for vampire wario in that room (we're talking about Volcano Base right ?) but they didn't make anything with them (outside the blue chest room in Bank of Wild River).

 

[CM30]

To my knowledge he can't, entering water will set wario back to normal. The tiles he's talking about are visually water but in reality they act as solid blocks when wario is vampire or bat (doesn't make a difference between both) else they're empty blocks. Developers maybe had the idea to use them for vampire wario in that room (we're talking about Volcano Base right ?) but they didn't make anything with them (outside the blue chest room in Bank of Wild River).

So basically they're the equivalent of someone putting a SMW custom block that's solid if big on top of actual water tiles, then that giving the appearance big Mario can walk on water? Guess that makes sense. May have been a last minute gimmick.

 

[BlanchonUltime]

So basically they're the equivalent of someone putting a SMW custom block that's solid if big on top of actual water tiles, then that giving the appearance big Mario can walk on water? Guess that makes sense. May have been a last minute gimmick.

You can't use tiles that way in WL3 since there's only 1 layer (unlike SMW and WL4) but it would have been easy to C/C this block's code and change default effect to water instead of empty (+ add another condition to exclude bat and only let the vampire form). Looking at the room's design it seems like it was what they were aiming for : use bat to reach higher section, then transform back to vampire to get through patches of water.

Like you said they probably didn't have time to make what they wanted for this room.