History VideoGame / WarioLand4

* DenserAndWackier: The ''Wario Land'' series was always on the weird side, but this game kicks up the weirdness a few notches. Unlike the comparatively more grounded settings of its predecessors, the game takes place within an ancient pyramid with an assortment of anachronic and surreal worlds to explore within its paintings. The art style is as varied as the locales are, utilizing everything from pre-rendered sprites of real objects or [=3D models=] to cartoonish aesthetics wherever appropriate. The game's sound design also warps and distorts in response to Wario's actions to contribute to the atmosphere; his transformations cause the background music to shift pitch, change tempo, and warble. The voice lines of Wario himself are treated similarly; they consist of several smaller voice clips that are combined and played in ways that sound nonsensical and blatantly artificial.

* DenserAndWackier: The ''Wario Land'' series was always on the weird side, but this game kicks up the weirdness a few notches. Unlike the comparatively more grounded settings of its predecessors, the game takes place within an ancient pyramid with an assortment of anachronic and surreal worlds to explore within its paintings. The art style is as varied as the locales are, utilizing everything from pre-rendered sprites of real objects or [=3D models=] to cartoonish aesthetics wherever appropriate. The game's sound design also warps and distorts in response to Wario's actions; his transformations cause the background music to shift pitch, warble, and speed up or down. The voice lines of Wario himself are frequently played in ways that sound blatantly artificial, further contributing to ''4's'' bizarre atmosphere.

* DenserAndWackier: The ''Wario Land'' series was always on the weird side, but this game kicks up the weirdness a few notches. Unlike the comparatively more grounded settings of its predecessors, the game takes place within an ancient pyramid with an assortment of anachronic and surreal worlds to explore within its paintings. The art style is as varied as the locales are, utilizing everything from pre-rendered sprites of real objects or [=3D models=] and cartoonish aesthetics wherever appropriate. The game's sound design also warps and distorts in response to Wario's actions; his transformations cause the background music to shift pitch, warble, and speed up or down. The voice lines of Wario himself are frequently played in ways that sound blatantly artificial, further contributing to ''4's'' bizarre atmosphere.

* DarkerAndEdgier: The game carries an underlying dark tone that sneaks up every now and again. The music can be unsettling at times, the bosses can look unsightly at best and nightmarish at worse... and the end of each level turns the methodical puzzle platformer into an anxiety-ridden TimedMission, where Wario must make climactic mad-dashes for the exits.

* DenserAndWackier: The ''Wario Land'' series was always on the weird side, but this game kicks up the weirdness a few notches. For starters, the sound effects warp and distort with Wario's transformations and certain movements, the new character designs are some of the series' most bizarre, and the animations exaggerate liberally. Topping it all off, the entire game takes place within an ancient pyramid -- which makes the already surreal levels become even more so.

** The Bugle is most effective against the childlike Spoiled Rotten. Since the boss seems rather young, loud noises would definitely spook it.

* ArtCourse: has Doodle Woods, a level within the Topaz Passage. Hoggus, a MookMaker constantly pesters Wario through the level drawing enemies to attack him. Pencils are cleverly used as SpikesOfDoom, and some of the drawings on the wall come to life as enemies.

* ArtInitiatesLife: Hoggus, found in Doodle Woods, draws enemies to attack you.

* ArtInitiatesLife: Hoggus, found in Doodle Woods, draws enemies to attack you. However, his sad facial expression after his drawings come to life implies he has no intention to attack Wario. In the credits, [[https://www.mariowiki.com/images/9/90/Ending_picture_Wario_and_Hoggus_Wario_Land_4.png he is even seen drawing with Wario]].

* MonsterSuit: Aerodent's icon in the Topaz Passage level select prominently features a teddy bear. But as the boss' name hints, that's not the boss itself--that's a giant balloon protecting the ''true'' Aerodent, a tiny, [[DamageSpongeBoss sturdy]] rat ghost. The balloon provides it with all of its offenses and defenses; when that balloon flips upside down, Aerodent is completely helpless until he rights his ride and reinflates it.

* PollutedWasteland: The Toxic Landfill, a titanic dumping ground that contains a ton of hidden passageways among the trash. Even without factoring in those secrets, the level contains the most visible breakable blocks of any stage, and the music is suitably aggressive to encourage players to bust past them all.

* MonsterSuit: Aerodent's icon in the Topaz Passage level select prominently features a teddy bear. But as the boss' name hints, that's not the boss itself--that's a giant balloon protecting the ''true'' Aerodent, a tiny, [[DamageSpongeBoss sturdy]] rat ghost. The balloon provides it with all of its offenses and defenses, and it's left utterly harmless without it.

* HellHotel: Hotel Horror, natch. It's quite a large level that requires a bit of exploration to complete, with maps posted on each floor. Thankfully, you'd be hard-pressed to get lost inside, since each floor is denoted by their distinctly colored walls. Also, judging by the balcony area, it seems to be located in the Crescent Moon Village, explaining why there are ghosts running amok in the place.
* HelpfulMook: Dr. Scienstein, who shows up in almost all the bonus rooms [[FastballSpecial whenever a projectile is needed]]. He cannot be defeated, only knocked over, yelping in pain each time he's attacked in some way.

* IdleAnimation: Wario has quite a few that play when certain conditions are met:

* LastLousyPoint: The hardest level to get a gold crown on is the ''tutorial level'', Hall of Hieroglyphs, as there are only ''just'' enough points to earn it. You can give yourself a tiny bit of breathing room when getting it by using one trick: [[spoiler:GroundPound next to the harmless purple Goomba-like enemies to pop them into the air and "upgrade" them to red. They're still harmless, but now they drop bronze coins that are worth 50 points, instead of two tiny 10-point coins.]]

* LethalLavaLand: Fiery Cavern, a prehistoric volcano brimming with lava geysers and tough-as-nails cavemen... until you hit the frog switch, inducing a near-instant flash freeze across the entire environment.

* LosingYourHead: One enemy exclusive to The Curious Factory is a robot which throws its spiky head on the floor, causing it to roll forward.

* MonsterSuit: Aerodent. The teddy bear shown in the boss icon is actually just a giant balloon; the ''true'' Aerodent is a rat ghost that inflates and pilots the balloon. Despite being [[{{DamageSpongeBoss}} very resilient]], the rat itself is harmless when the balloon is incapacitated.

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wario_land_4.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqwgV1ORl4k "Now work it! WORK IT!"]]]]

* AnAxeToGrind: Malicious ghost enemies, the Men'ono charge after Wario in an attempt to slash him with their hatchets. A similar [[{{Mummy}} mummy enemy]] called Onomi, appearing in Arabian Night, behaves the same way.

* AnAxeToGrind: Malicious ghost enemies, the Men'ono charge after Wario in an attempt to slash him with their hatchets. A similar [[BandageMummy mummy enemy]] called Onomi, appearing in Arabian Night, behaves the same way.

** In one of the credits images, Wario is carrying a box full of UsefulNotes/{{Game Boy Advance}}s, with another box near him.

* AnAxeToGrind: The pink, hooded ghosts of the Sapphire Passage wield hatchets. They're very eager to use them, too; if they spot Wario when he draws near, they immediately sprint forwards to slash him.

* ArtInitiatesLife: Hoggus, found in Doodle Woods, draws enemies to attack you. However, his sad facial expression after his drawings come to life implies he has no intentio to attack Wario. In the credits, [[https://www.mariowiki.com/images/9/90/Ending_picture_Wario_and_Hoggus_Wario_Land_4.png he is even seen drawing with Wario]].

* ArtInitiatesLife: Hoggus, found in Doodle Woods, draws enemies to attack you. However, his sad facial expression after his drawings come to life implies he has no intentio to attack Wario. In the credits, he is even seen drawing with Wario.

* HeelFaceTurn: A minor example, but one of the flashbacks in the credits montage shows Hoggus (the enemy-summoning pig in Doodle Woods) [[https://www.mariowiki.com/images/9/90/Ending_picture_Wario_and_Hoggus_Wario_Land_4.png drawing pictures together with Wario]].

* ArtInitiatesLife: Hoggus, found in Doodle Woods, draws enemies to attack you. However, his sad facial expression after his drawings come to life implies he has no intentio to attack Wario.

* ArtInitiatesLife: Hoggus, found in Doodle Woods, draws enemies to attack you. However, his sad facial expression after his drawings come to life implies he's not summoning these creatures on purpose.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: The second phase of the Golden Diva's fight revolves around turning four different attacks against her in some way. Three of them are simply thrown back at her, but the fourth, a spiked hammer, does not yield the same result when tossed. It turns out that Wario must wait for the hammer to retract its spikes, then toss it onto his own head to turn himself into Spring Wario to damage the Diva. While this strategy goes against how Wario handles the other three attacks, the use of a hammer this way has precedence thanks to the Menhanmā enemies seen throughout the game.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: The second phase of the Golden Diva's fight revolves around turning four different attacks against her in some way. Three of them are simply thrown back at her, but the fourth, a spiked hammer, does not yield the same result when tossed. It turns out that Wario must wait for the hammer to retract its spikes, then toss it onto his own head to turn himself into Spring Wario to damage the Diva. While this strategy goes against how Wario handles the other three attacks, there is some precedent for the hammer: it's very similar to the ones used by the Menhanmā enemies seen throughout the game.

* ViolationOfCommonSense: Especially blatant in the final boss fight. [[spoiler:When the Diva's face is crying and throws spiked hammers, you must wait for the hammer to retract its spikes, pick it up, throw it in the air and ''hit yourself in the head with it''. Only then is Wario in a state where he can damage her.]] If you figured out on the first try that this is what you had to do, without doing it by accident, [[GuideDangIt you're lying]].

* CameraAbuse: If you run out of time and money when the Frog Switch has been activated, the game throws in a little extra humiliation for Wario by having his DeathThrows result in his face hitting the screen, and sliding down slowly.

* {{Shopkeeper}}: The shops are run by a strange, shadowy figure resembling Mr. Game and Watch but with eyes and the ability to emote. If you buy an item from them, they'll follow you into battle and use it on the boss before leaving. They can also be seen in some of the images in the Sound Room. [[spoiler:It's heavily implied that they're actually Princess Shokora, given that if you use an item on the Golden Diva that involves the Shopkeeper transforming, they'll then turn into the black cat that the Golden Diva then captures.]]