Going into this one, I had a bit higher expectations than I did the original Wario Land games. I mean, its a big jump from the Game Boy to the Game Boy Advance, and this is also the game I've been hearing is the best one since way before I've started my little Wario Land marathon here. I think I'd ultimately say that, out of the ones I've played (don't currently have Shake It but I will get it shortly and I never played the Virtual Boy game), this is probably the best one. Just a lot of fun. Obligatory disclaimer: I played this on Wii U. Thankfully I did not need to use Restore Points at all, unlike my playthrough of the Game Boy games, so I played this as if it was on the GBA. This one was actually shorter than the other games for me, only taking 16 hours whereas its predecessors all took at least 20 hours.

Jumping straight into gameplay here, Wario Land 4 carries what seems to be series tradition of taking the base formula and changing things around to make it feel like a different beast from the others. For one, Wario isn't immortal anymore, which I have mixed feelings on. I think I do ultimately prefer the heart system this game introduces, but I'm not sure why they changed it considering immortality worked well in the previous two games. Its not a big deal, though. I think that, when it comes to overall design, Wario Land 4 is definitely the best. In my opinion, it sort of has the best of both worlds, taking some strengths from 2 and 3 while introducing its own ideas into the mix. WL3 had that Metroidvania nonlinear style of finding four different treasures in every level that are gated by progression through powerups you gradually get, and this is echoed in a much less time consuming way through the gem shards you can find in a level. You need to get the four shards in each level to be able to enter the boss room for each world, but its nowhere near as obtrusive as it was in WL3 since you have your full move set from the get-go and nothing is gated off. Similarly, WL3 had a focus on nonlinearity, which is present here in WL4 since each world is available right after you complete the tutorial level. The elements of WL2 are mostly just because that game established the groundwork that made this series truly unique. What makes Wario Land 4 so much more fun than the other games to me are a few different factors: great level design, great core gameplay loop, boss fights that are actually fun and don't feel like a chore, fluid fun movement, collectibles that are smartly placed but don't feel too difficult to find...there's just a lot of things this game does right in my opinion. I love the dash move they gave Wario, it makes a lot of sense both for Wario to be doing in general and for complimenting the game design. I think its part of how this game seems to be promoting a considerably faster pace than the other Wario Land games; for one, each level only ends when you jump on the blue frog thing, which activates a time bomb that you have to run back to the portal you entered the level from to escape. It made me think more about the great level design, since, of course, I'd need to plan my escape route or at least just know where I'm going. Sometimes even more secrets open up only after you activate the bomb and you have to race against the (admittedly quite forgiving) clock to be able to get everything. Genuinely, this feels like the peak of the series gameplay to me so far, but I'll see if going through Shake It makes me change my mind. No, I'm not playing the Virtual Boy game.

To no one's surprise, there's no real story here, so I'm skipping that yet again to talk about visuals. Wow, this game looks really nice. It's very colorful and fun with a ton of personality; feels like a natural progression of the Wario Land series while still being very unique in its own right. If I'm not mistaken, some of these visuals were either inspired by or taken from WarioWare, which, if I'm right about that, is a really nice way to sort of tie Land and Ware together more. The levels themselves are pretty creative. For every standard grassland, jungle, swamp, and volcano level, there's also a level based on a hotel, a fridge, Arabian Nights, and a glorious golden palace. In particular, the levels in the Topaz Passage stand out a lot for their charming vibrant arts-and-crafts theme, like how the first level is based on toys and toy blocks. The bosses...well, for one, they're actually fun to fight now whereas in every other older Wario Land game they're either very unfun or mediocre, but that's besides the point. Design wise, the bosses stand out so much for how cartoonishly grotesque they look, almost like some of them came out of a '90s gross-out cartoon. The bosses have probably the most exaggerated expressiveness out of any character in the game aside from maybe Wario himself, though that's not to discount the sheer amount of zany goofy expressions pretty much everything with a face in this game has. It's just delightful.

Overall, I think Wario Land 4 is easily the best game in the series that I've played so far. Big improvement over the others, with its own charm and personality to boot. It was a blast to play through, earns a spectacular 4 stars from me. I was very close to putting it at 4.5 stars, but I don't think it was quite THAT good.