3.5/5 ★ – AvatarAang's review of Wario Land 4.

This year I played all five of the first Wario Land games (VB included). This was the only one I liked. It was a really pleasant surprise! I think the game starts slow. There are four worlds that you can tackle in any order. I picked the Emerald World, and it proved to be a big mistake--it was by far the weakest world, and it left a bad early impression of the game. Turns out the rest of the worlds are much better, with the Topaz World (the yellow one) being a particular standout. Something that is cool is that every single level (there are 18) has a unique theme and idea. I was particularly impressed by one level where you need to roll a dice and progress on a game board to continue the level. Every level winds up being memorable because of this and I wonder why future Mario titles and their level themes did not pick up where WL4 left off. The creativity from Super Mario Land 2 is back here on full display. The music is average, some fun tracks and some dull ones. A couple issues I had with the game. It could have been longer, although it was clearly a quality over quantity type of game. To fight a boss, you need to find all of the main collectibles in each level in that world. That means that finding them really wasn't optional, but the levels are still linear rather than open to exploration. This made the levels fairly stressful. In most levels, you will naturally come across the four necessary collectibles as you play. However, the whole time I was playing, I was always second-guessing myself in each level and worrying that I had missed one. There was actually only one level where I did not find everything in one go, but that was a pretty infuriating one. You can't backtrack in it and there are multiple paths, so if you skip a path thinking you can come back for it, you are out of luck and have to redo the entire level. The level design was a huge step up from Wario Land 3. WL3 was not made in good faith and its levels were actively designed to set you back as much as humanly possible as frequently as possible. Not so here! There was maybe one level that felt like it was made with the design philosophy of WL3, but the rest were refreshing and fun to play. Finally, the art and animation is great. This game has a lot of character and the bosses are WACKY! Overall, I thought initially it was one of the weaker entries but it turned out to be the best one (so far)! I would recommend Wario Land 4 to anybody who enjoyed Nintendo's games from the late 90's and early 2000's and is looking for more of that quality and style. It wasn't as good as the greats from that era but the presentation and fun factor feels right at home with them! This game will make you actually maybe like Wario as a slapstick character.