Wario Land 4/Unused Graphics

This is a sub-page of Wario Land 4.

To do: Wario's Sprites in the ending, as some parts are hidden behind other objects. Comparision shots with the in-game graphics for some things (ie: Game Corner Door). Animated sprites (Fish turning frames) Palette recreations for graphics with no palettes found (?) Check the Chinese version to see if there are any differences in the unused graphics with English text (i.e. the steak ad in the ending)

Early Logo

An early version of the game's logo. This would have fit with the Japanese title, Wario Land Advance. Curiously, it is not loaded in the Chinese version.

Title Screen Text

Interestingly enough, there are sprites for Save Game related text using the same style of the Press Start prompt. Maybe the game origially used a single game save, akin to Wario Land II and Wario Land 3?

Hidden Newspaper Header

	In-game	Full graphic
JP/US/EU
China

Because of the letterboxing in the opening animation, the very top of the newspaper is obscured. The full graphic reveals that the name of the newspaper is "The Nintendo News".

The advertisement in the ending also has the top cut off, but it's just more scratchy text blocks similar to the one at the bottom of the ad.

Big Heart

This refills all of the heart meter, an effect normally reserved to Heart Boxes, which are sprites and not foreground blocks.

Even though this block exists for almost every level, none are placed in-game.

Rocks

Sprites for the rocks Wario can throw around, incuding two alternate designs and its debris, possibly hinting rocks were going to act like their Wario Land 3 incarnation in that they would've been able to break.

Goggley-Blade

Unused turning frames for the Goggley-Blade, showing it could have changed direction more freely rather than always turning left.

Ringosukī

While this sprite isn't unused, the game overlays shades on top of the eyes for consistency with the other graphics. As a result, its eyes are never seen.

Note this is the only frame where this happens. In all others, the shades are drawn on the actual tiles.

Debug Room Graphics

A surprising amount of graphics or blocks are loaded but never used in the debug room. Some aren't even loaded but are still related.

Coin

Graphics of a coin, stored next to the blue and red jewels. Unlike the in-game coins, these are foreground blocks and not sprites.

Note how a tile is missing in the first frame. In the debug room, said missing frame is used to mark blocks that give out coins.

A fixed version of the first frame exists alongside both other debug room graphics and an early tileset:

This is how the animated coin tile would have appeared in-game:

Red Arrow

A block that sets Wario on fire. It could have been used to break Red Stone Blocks in the Debug Room... if they were placed.

This other block however is completely solid.

Generic Blocks

Empty blocks. The first one uses the warp tile graphics, while the second one is unique.

A different generic solid block with a purple outline. There's nothing else to say here.

Heart

While hearts aren't placed in the debug room, a block for them does exist and uses obvious temporary graphics.

Horizontal Pipe

Horizontal pipes ala Wario Land 3 go completely unused in this game. While the respective graphics and blocks only exist in the debug room, they don't do anything.

Early Debug Tiles

Earlier versions of debug tiles, which are almost completely transparent and have a simple black outline.

Snowman Block

Snowman Blocks modeled after their appearance in Wario Land 3. All the snowman blocks used in-game have an original design.

Unknown Debug Room Tiles

Unknown tiles for a strange line. For what it's worth, it's never used in the debug room.

Early Tileset Blocks

Earlier	Early

Two different early tilesets. The earlier one is used as padding for the background tiles in several tilesets, while the later one is loaded in the boss rooms.

• Both tilesets use placeholder tiles consisting of blocks with hexadecimal numbers.
• Placeholder Smiley Blocks.
• The correct palette for the blocks doesn't seem to exist anymore. What's used here is a custom palette.

The earlier tileset features coins, outlines, and a different version of the warp block. The other one replaces them with the jewels used everywhere else in the game, as well as adding an unique sand(?) block. This tileset also contains one less block.

Flip Smiley Block

A different smiley block which could apparently be flipped to become angry. The palette for this doesn't exist either.

Hall of Hieroglyphs

The only secret breakable block in the level has the outline on the right. This variation exists nonetheless.

An early and glitched version of the light blocks. These are stored right before the used ones.

Palm Tree Paradise

This is the set of debug blocks present in this tileset. Most levels only include the solid block.

Note that some can still be seen by removing Layer 1.

An unknown unused block. It doesn't seem to use the proper palette, but this is how it would appear in-game.

Wildflower Fields

A slope for the bottom of the level with flowers has a slope variant defined, but is never used, likely due to how they were only able to be used in this context.

The stem of a giant sunflower has a few tiles where they are covered in brambles, likely intended to harm the player on all sides, but is not used anywhere in the level.

Mystic Lake

This part of the background is always hidden behind foreground water, which is probably a good thing - this tile doesn't mesh well with the rest of the background.

Moonsoon Jungle

Compared to other tilesets, this one uses much more tiles from the debug room, including some unique to this level.

Top-right and top-left curved angles are used in various parts of the level. This isn't the case for these two.

The caves of Monsoon Jungle have an unused brown palette, shown here. This is not seen anywhere in the game; in the final game, the cave is colored green and is slightly darker.

The Curious Factory

Unused block formations that Wario can pass through. This may not be the way it's supposed to appear in-game, but it's stored like this in the tileset.

The Toxic Landfill

Among the pile of garbage in the first tileset, there is a graphic of a cell phone which is never seen in-game. Based on the phone's design, it seems like it was meant to be a jab at Nokia phones, and the urban legends about how they were "unbreakable".

40 Below Fridge

The non-frozen sections of 40 Below Fridge has a fair few unused tiles in the game, with their proper palettes to boot. Given how they had limited space to work with, and that there were only two rooms that used this tileset, it seems plausible that most of them just couldn't be used.

Pinball Zone

Pinball Zone has an unused orange solid block and a semi-solid platform that seems like it would be able to be stretched to any horizontal length defined in the graphics files in the main room's tileset. In the final game however, the solid blocks are all gray, while all semi-solid platforms only use their one-block variants, stretched to varied sizes.

Crescent Moon Village

The interior tileset for Crescent Moon Village has unused tiles for windows and doors. These aren't in the same style as the rest of the tileset, so it's likely the graphics for this stage changed significantly in development and these were cut as a result.

(Source: [1] CM30 (More unused tiles have been found in Wario Land 4!))

In the sewer tileset of Crescent Moon Village, there's an unused grate tile like the ones in the background. However, this version seems to be placed on top of some bricks, hinting that the grates were meant to be foreground decorations at one point in time.

Arabian Night

In the outdoor tileset, there is a graphic of a barrel which looks solid enough to be stood on, but is not used anywhere in the level.

Additionally, there appears to be a very weird-looking rock, which looks like it was intended to be broken with a tackle. It has its own palette, but again, it is not seen anywhere.

Hotel Horror

Hotel Horror has a plethora of unused graphics, most of which were used to decorate the walls of each room, outside of Room 102. It is unknown why they went unused in the final game, but it was likely due to time constraints.

The interior room tileset for Hotel Horror has an unused skull tile that seems like it was meant to be placed in the walls. This is very similar to a tile used in Palm Tree Paradise, and hints that it was meant as a 'hint' that a wall was actually fake and hiding a secret room (like in said level).

There are four wallpaper variants in the level, but only the diamond pattern wallpaper has its torn-up and worn-out variants to decorate the rooms used. Every other variant has these ripped variants defined, but are not seen in the final game.

Additionally, Rooms 303-403 have a lot of wall variants that went unused, intended to decorate the walls and make the place look more worn-out.

Finally, the fire escape tileset has a few unused tiles, one of which is a big solid metal platform and the other what looks to be a solid wall.

Golden Passage

The hallway of the level has a variant of the golden wall decorated with curtains and windows that is not affected by the lighting of the pillars. Surprisingly, this variant is not found, likely due to how there are pillars found all throughout that part of the level.

In the same tileset, we have some very weird-looking blocks with an arrow pointing down.

Pause Text

A Pause sprite in the same style of Quit, Resume, and Give Up.

Fonts

Rather than using this unique font in the map screen, the total coin counter uses consistent graphics through the game.

Hexadecimal font which is never loaded in-game.

Mini Map

BG Tiles	Object Tiles 1	Object Tiles 2

Unused graphics for a stylized mini map screen. The final game doesn't have anything remotely resembling this.

The palette for these tiles doesn't exist.

Empty Painting

A completely blank painting, stored multiple times as a placeholder for nonexistent levels in Entry Passage and Golden Passage.

Game Corner

BG Tiles	Sprite (Black)	Sprite (Light)

An early name for the mini-game shop is loaded within the level intro screen. It seems this was supposed to be animated, as there are sprites for black and lighter letters which would have overlayed the tiles.

Golden Passage Bricks

Unused variations of the bricks in the level intro screen. The bricks used in-game don't have anything written on them.

Game Corner Door

This is similar to the Item Shop door, except it's loaded in the level intro screen and has a different icon design.

Item Shopkeeper

The Item Shopkeeper has an unused sprite on a skateboard.

Level Intro Pillars

While technically used, the middle of these pillars is always out of view.

Misc Level Intro Tiles

Miscellaneous tiles loaded in the level intro. They seem to be two different sets of four floor blocks.

Boss Hall Tileset

A duplicate of the boss room tileset minus animations are loaded in each pre-boss hall, except stored in 8bpp format. Even if these were used, they would not appear correctly as the game would show them as 4bpp tiles.

Palettes exist for every boss room, including the last one (which has slightly different graphics compared to the rest).

Boss Doors

Each boss door not only has an unused opening animation, but an unused alternate palette to go with it. In-game, the doors all slide up instead of opening, only making use of the first frame.

An example of what the animation might have looked like.

Smaller Tack Capsule

The tiles for the Aerodent boss battle include two sizes for the capsules that open into the tack enemies. The graphic above is used for when Aerodent first throws them. Since Aerodent only throws them when it is well past the top of the screen, only the larger version is ever seen. This capsule can be seen in-game if debug mode is enabled.

Key Animation

Wario pulling out a key and opening a chest, much like the animation from Wario Land 3. In this game, Wario merely touches chests to open them and none are actually locked. The key is never seen anywhere else.

Bored Animation

Wario crossing his arms, tapping his foot, and then falling asleep. It might have been an alternate waiting pose to go with his other idle animations. The animation can be seen by using the following Codebreaker codes and pressing the Select and R buttons while in any level:

74000130 02FB
33001899 0045
74000130 02FB
830018B6 0000

Golden Diva's 13th Mask

This mask, featuring the Golden Diva's first head with a large number 13 on it. Indeed, it is the 13th of the Diva's masks in the data (excluding the stunned face). It's probably just a placeholder.

Language Option

The game has graphics for an English/Japanese language select, similar to Wario Land 3, though "Japanese" is misspelled "Japanease". While both versions of the game contain both languages, this setting can only be changed in the debug build.

Alternatively, the language value in RAM can be switched with a cheat device. Using CodeBreaker format:

Japanese to English	English to Japanese
33000016 0000	33000016 0001

(Source: [2] HelloTibi (RAM address))

Dead/KOed Sea Gull Graphics

The sea gull in the Wario Hop mini game has graphics for being knocked out or killed, meaning Wario was likely going to be able to interact with it at some point. These sprites go unused in the game itself.

Intense Mode

In the screen saying you've unlocked Super Hard mode, there are graphics for "Intense Mode" in memory. It's probably either an unused name for Super Hard mode or a removed extra difficulty option.

(Source: [3] CM30 (Wario Land 4 Sprites))

Vortex Marking

The background for when the scene that shows Wario falling through the vortex before each stage has a little boxed-in hiragana "mi" (み) in the corner, possibly a signature. Because of how the background is used, it never appears on-screen. It changes colors with the rest of the background.