Wario Land 4

Wario Land 4
Developer	Nintendo R&D1
Publisher	Nintendo
System	Game Boy Advance
Release Date	JP August 21, 2001 US November 18, 2001 EU November 16, 2001
Gallery	GH Gallery
Rating	ESRB: E

Wario Land 4 is the only entry in the Wario Land series on Game Boy Advance. It was also the last one until Shake It! was released 6 years later.

Story

This game features Wario who discovers a newspaper that says that a young princess is trapped inside a pyramid. But more importantly, also includes possibilities of untold treasures that drives Wario to search out the pyramid and claim the riches for himself. During his greedy treasure hunt, Wario must save Princess Shokora from the Golden Diva or else the princess will sleep for another thousand years.

Gameplay

Unlike Wario Land 2 and 3, Wario is no longer immortal and now has a health bar. However Wario is still not immune to status effects inflicted on him by the enemy and many of these abilities continue to be necessary to find all the treasure in the stage.

New to the game is that Wario must reach the end and find the key and activate the Frog Switch. Once he does so, he has a time limit to go back to the beginning of the level or he begins losing his coins one by one until he runs out. Unless Wario gets the key, he will be unable to enter the next level. The game is divided up into four passages, each with a theme, ending with four of the six bosses in the game.

Legacy

The game shows Wario driving the Wario Car in the intro and ending. The Wario Car would go on to be the model for the kart Wario uses in Mario Kart: Double Dash!! and Mario Kart DS. The Wario Car is also seen in the Wario Ware series.

Sequels

The game went without a sequel for a long time afterwards, although Wario World followed it on the Gamecube, it was stylistically different. For several years though Wario lived on only in the Wario Ware series until at last in 2007, Wario received another platforming game with Wario: Master of Disguise. In 2008, an actual sequel was released, titled Wario Land: Shake It!.

Trivia

The unnamed archeologist in the game is actually a cameo of a character from Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru. His name in that game is Dr. Arewo Shitain.