All right! Finally done with my time attack of GBA Wario Land 4. For a platformer it is surprisingly long. It wasn't long after I started that I realized this was going to be an hour+ time attack. As it is, I got it done in just over an hour.
- Aims for the fastest possible time
- Uses no warps (not that there are any)
- Takes damage in two levels to save time
- Plays on Normal difficulty
- Lag reduction is turned off, but I'm not sure that matters as VBA seems to adjust settings on playback
For those who haven't played this game, it's a little different than the last two Wario Land games. Wario is no longer invincible, but that doesn't really matter here :) The game has 18 levels and 6 bosses, divided amongst 6 areas. The goal of each level is to gather the four jewel fragments from all and the Keyzer (a ghost/bird thing that has a key for a beak), set the level's self destruct mechanism, and escape from the level before time runs out. The Keyzer unlocks the door to the next level. The jewels unlock the door to the boss. There is no way to skip any level or boss. All jewels and all Keyzers must be collected.
The reason the game is played on Normal rather than Hard came down to a matter of length. Hard does what you would expect hard to do: it has more enemies, tougher enemies, and lower time limits. However, it also drastically alters the position of the four jewel fragments in each level. The jewel fragments are placed in hard to reach areas and areas that were "secret" on Normal. I estimate that playing on Hard would have added 10+ minutes to the length of the movie, and I figured the movie was already long enough.
The movie was more challenging to make than it might appear. Some difficulties I faced were with regards to controls. For example when Wario is running at full speed (which I try and keep him doing as much as possible), you cannot control the length or the height of his jumps. This means I must stop running if I need to make a controlled jump. If it's a small jump Wario can start running full speed again as soon as he hits the ground, otherwise you must build up to full speed. Also when running full speed you can't come to a sudden stop without skidding, but if you let go of run and walk for a few steps you can stop with no skid.
Controls while swimming were especially frustrating. Wario is very disobedient to my input whilst in the water.
It took a little bit of planning in some levels to figure out the best route to collect the jewel fragments, but most of it was pretty straightforward.
The hardest level to complete was definitely Pinball Zone. Looks like a breeze when you watch it, but getting those balls in the holes as fast as possible was exceedingly difficult. The Aerodent boss was also particularly frustrating until I figured out how to do it right. At first I didn't think it was possible to hit him more than three times without him flipping back up, but if you hit him just right he wont flip back up. It almost has to be pixel perfect to get a good hit.
Anyway, I hope you like it.
