Burning Nightmares: a fan-made single-level adventure inside Wario Land 4
Most Wario Land 4 hacks pile on extra stages. Burning Nightmares does the opposite: it is one very large, deliberately long level made by a single fan who wanted the feel of the older Wario Land games, specifically the second, third and fourth entries. It is the author's first project for the game, built with the community's WL4 level editor and other tools, and its changelog begins with a release on the WL4Maker Discord before the hack reached its final 1.0 version.
At a glance
- Based on: Wario Land 4 (Game Boy Advance, 2001)
- Created by: Hiro-sofT (level design, custom graphics, music editing)
- Released: version 1.0 final; the hack database page was last updated in June 2022
- Genre: Platformer
- What sets it apart: a single huge stage with three difficulty settings
What is in the level
- Three difficulties: Normal, Hard and S-Hard
- Wario's transformations used throughout: Fire Wario, Bat Wario and Zombie Wario
- Collectibles per difficulty: four puzzle pieces, a CD, the Keyzer and a set of diamonds (the changelog says the diamond counts on Normal and Hard were raised in a later revision)
- A frog switch timer with no grace period, so the pace is demanding
- Music and set pieces that wink at other Wario games
Credits worth knowing
Other contributors listed on the page include Beco and SSP for assembly patches, Nick123 for playtesting, and MIDI arrangements sourced from a public MIDI archive. The author notes that previous experience with the vanilla game is not required but is recommended.