Wario Land 4
Overview
Wario's last true platforming outing is his best with sixteen inventive levels and the mad rush to get back in time. There are some weaker spots, but it's a great experience all around.
Review
While I've been playing Wario Land 4 since it first came out, I most strongly associate it with a 2007 vacation to New York and playing it at a townhouse we stayed in in New Jersey. There was something about Wario Land 4's weird and moody atmosphere (which was also brought over into WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames!) that paired with the totally foreign experience of the New Jersey/New York area (the latter just a few day trips). Like with Mother 3, which also had some strong associations with retail in that point in time; 2007 was the height of the "malls blogs" era (even MallsofAmerica was still updating, and at that point, no major retail chains had closed since the early 2000s).
One of the things that Wario Land 4 was good at was almost every stage being unique, with some enemies unique to each world...though sometimes this was frustrating. One level, "The Big Board", had a gimmick based on RNG (or just good timing) but when used with quicksave features it becomes a joke. Other literal "hit-and-miss" levels, like Domino Row, also were difficult without quicksave features, but quicksave makes everything a bit TOO easy. Ultimately, there are only 16 levels not counting the intro and final level, but it's a good enough experience that it doesn't feel underserved or overstayed its welcome, with the levels large enough to explore but not long enough that it just feels like a drag. (This was a problem I had with Yoshi's Island DS), which I played for the first time as well in 2007.
That being said, the most annoying part of Wario Land 4 is the gameplay loop. You get money in levels to spend on minigames, then use those coins from the minigames to buy items you need to help defeat the bosses which is useful since the bosses are on a timer and in some cases there’s just not enough time to beat the boss before the timer runs out (if the chests start vanishing, better reset as you've already locked yourself out of the best ending). The problem is there's only three minigames and none of them are particularly fun after a while, so it just becomes a grind.
Player Notes
As I recently replayed this game once again, I've made changes to the review. This is the original version and this was the updated version when it was made a part of the main games list. It was given the rating of "GOOD" when it was ported over.
Screenshots
Recommended Guide
Wario Land 4 had complete strategy printed in "Nintendo Power Advance Volume 3" which is a good resource to have. However, the maps are a bit blurry. There's VGMaps for that, but it only shows the items' locations in Normal (not Hard or the hidden S-Hard difficulty) nor does it show how to get the diamond in some of the secret rooms. Use it and StrategyWiki together.