Wario Land 4

Wario Land 4 is Wario‘s only platformer for the Game Boy Advance and the last handheld Wario Land. It came out in Japan in August 2001, a few months after the system launched, and reached the West in November.

The story starts with a newspaper. Wario reads about a legendary Golden Pyramid hidden in a jungle and roars off in his car to loot it. Inside he learns that the pyramid belongs to the Golden Diva, a greedy ruler who has cursed Princess Shokora and turned her into a black cat. Beating the bosses of the pyramid’s passages and then the Diva herself lifts the curse, and Wario gets to keep the treasure.

Unlike the earlier Wario Land games, Wario now has a health meter of eight hearts, refilled by little hearts dropped by enemies. He still fights by barging, dashing and ground-pounding, can pick up and throw enemies, and can ground-pound repeatedly in mid-air to smash through tougher blocks.

Enemy attacks often change Wario instead of hurting him. He can be set alight, flattened, puffed up, frozen, turned into a snowman, a zombie or a bat, and each form is needed to reach certain areas.

Every level is entered through a vortex that closes behind him. Somewhere inside is a switch; hitting it starts a countdown, and Wario has to race back to the vortex before time runs out, often along a different route through blocks the switch has changed. Fail and the score drains away.

• Jewel pieces: four per level, needed to open each passage’s boss.
• Keyzer: must be found to unlock the next level’s door.
• CDs: hidden music tracks that can be played in the sound room.
• Coins: add to your score, and a high enough score earns a crown on the level.

After the tutorial Entry Passage, the four main passages can be tackled in any order. Each has four levels and a boss who must be beaten inside a time limit; treasure chests in the boss room disappear one by one as the clock runs down, and how many Wario saves decides the ending.

Before each boss there is a shop with three minigames (The Wario Hop, Wario’s Homerun Derby and Wario’s Roulette). They pay out medals that buy items to damage the boss before the fight begins.

Finishing the game unlocks Hard mode, and beating Hard unlocks S-Hard, where Wario starts with a single heart, the escape timers are tighter and the jewel pieces are moved.

Wario Land 4 was very well received, with a Metacritic score of 88, 9/10 from IGN, 8.7 from GameSpot and 9/10 from Nintendo Life. It was runner-up for GameSpot’s Best Game Boy Advance Game and Best Platform Game awards of 2001. It sold about 720,000 copies in the US by 2006 and around 2.2 million worldwide.

It was the last Wario Land game for seven years, until Wario Land: Shake It! on the Wii. Its escape sequences have had a long afterlife: the developers of the indie hits Pizza Tower and Antonblast have named it as a direct inspiration. The game has been re-released for 3DS Ambassador Program owners (2011), on the Wii U Virtual Console (2014) and on Nintendo Switch Online (2025). Its music and Wario’s voice clips were reused in WarioWare, Inc. two years later.

• The black cat Wario almost runs over at the start is Princess Shokora under the Golden Diva’s curse.
• The more treasure chests you collect from the bosses, the better Shokora’s final form in the ending.
• In China it was one of the first two Nintendo handheld games released by iQue, alongside Super Mario Advance.
• The Hard and S-Hard endings add extra scenes to the credits.
• The ending suggests Wario celebrates at an all-you-can-eat steak restaurant.

• Wario Land 4 Review by Nick Beeson

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