 I've looked at Wario Land 2 and 3 in the past couple months, so let's keep going with Wario Land 4. The great thing about the Game Boy Advance is that it's essentially a portable Super Nintendo but with beefed up and more modern hardware. And Wario Land 4 is a perfect demonstration of that. This game looks, sounds, and plays like a mid 90's Super Nintendo platformer out of the same vein as something like Yoshi's Island. Fans of Wario Land 2 and 3 might be bummed out to learn that the 4th game plays a bit differently. This is much more of a traditional platformer. Wario has a heart meter and can take damage this time around, but don't worry, Wario's reactions are all still here, but the game just overall feels like a bigger, faster, more polished Wario Land. The first thing that stands out here are the visuals and sound. Look at this boss here, that is some bad ass sprite work. And the music is unreal too, some of the songs actually have vocals. One key difference in Wario Land 4 is that the Wario sprite itself is a bit smaller and the wider Game Boy Advance screen allows for a more screen real estate. So this game definitely has a much different feel to it than previous Wario Land games. Everything moves much faster here and since this game is much more of a traditional platformer instead of a more deliberate puzzle solving game, it's further better. Wario Land 4 has the same kind of feel a Mario or Kirby game might have. Wario has a ton of abilities you can take advantage of, like his usual shoulder ram, in addition to a running charge, a butt stomp, and of course he can throw enemies as well. The level design is again up to the task of not only giving Wario plenty of opportunities to make use of these abilities, but to use them in unexpected and creative ways. I like this boss fight here where this inflatable bear floats up to the ceiling and you have to stop these spiky dudes and throw them at the bear that inflated a bit for it to come back down. There's lots of silly little touches here and there too, like Wario being too heavy for this flying carpet to carry him too far. One thing Wario Land 4 has in common with its predecessors is the overall structure. You still have to unlock levels as you go by collecting all sorts of items. I mean, there's so much stuff to collect here, it almost feels like I'm playing a new Super Mario Bros. game. But yeah, there's a ton of stuff to unlock, all sorts of goofy mini games like this weird home run Derby game for instance. This looks like something out of an Atari game. It's more amusing than anything else. But yeah, the structure here lends itself to be played out in multiple ways. It's a great 100% run game, or you can say screw it and just speed run straight through to the end, which is a pretty good challenge as well. If there's any flaws with this game, it's how the screen scrolls from top to bottom. There's some occasional blind jumps and falls, where the camera viewpoint doesn't scroll until you actually go down there. That can be frustrating at times. Also, while although Mario enemy reactions are back, there aren't any new ones. It's the same stuff from previous games, like Zombie Wario and Vampire Bat Wario. That's all kind of nitpicky stuff though. If there's one word to describe Wario Land 4, it's inspired. And that's kind of rare to say about a game that's the fourth in its series. This game got me so excited to play. It looks, feels, and plays like a classic Super Nintendo game. And like I said, the closest comparison I can give is Yoshi's Island. It's got that same bit of flexibility and style. I gotta say, one reason I branched out a bit to do reviews on Game Boy, NES, Genesis and Steam games was to find games that have that same high-energy colorful spirit with an open-ended functionality that certain SNES games have. And I can say I definitely found it here with Wario Land 4. This is easily one of the best Game Boy Advance games out there.