Wario Land 4 from 2001 is a Game Boy Advance platformer created by Nintendo Research & Development 1 – the in-house team whose lineage reaches back to the very roots of Nintendo's handhelds. The starring role belongs to Wario, Mario's greedy counterpart, who hunts treasure rather than princesses.

The Wario series carved out an identity of its own: instead of a fragile hero, a bulldozer who ploughs through enemies with brute force, and instead of saving the world, a shameless chase after money. The fourth instalment polished that recipe – its levels are built on exploration, treasure gathering and the famous twist in which hitting a switch forces a timed escape back to the exit.

2001 was the Game Boy Advance's debut year and Nintendo needed to show what the new handheld could do. Wario Land 4 was one of its showcases: big, bold sprites, a saturated palette and audio quirks players still remember years later.

Among handheld platformers the fourth Wario enjoys a reputation as one of the peaks of the entire platform, and its cartridge ranks among the most treasured GBA items for collectors. The game is designed for one player.

The Wario entries dared to bend genre rules: the hero is not fragile, and many injuries transform rather than kill him – being flattened, set alight or inflated opens paths otherwise impassable. Punishment becomes a tool, a design inversion the genre rarely attempted elsewhere.

This classic keeps its own card on OldGame.cz, complete with year, studio and an image gallery.