Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land

I’ve recently been spending bit of time looking at Wario, culminating in my desire to go back and finish some of the games I’ve never finished and games I’ve never even played.

It’s also an excuse to hunt down and pick up a few glorious boxed GameBoy games, which is always gratifying fix.

  

The true lineage of the Wario Land games goes back to the Super Mario Land games, with the third in that series being the first Wario Land game as such.

Being a big fan of the mainline mario games that were on the GameBoy I already had the first two and am very familiar with them from when they originally came out on my GameBoy, the third I honestly forget how I acquired but I’ve certainly had it for a while. I also managed to pick up a very decent Wario Land 4 a few years back at a car boot sale, which left me with only Wario Land 2 & 3 to finish the GameBoy set (I have a few of the other format titles in the series but not all)

I decided to start off where I’d left off, originally back some time in the 90’s when I first tried SML3.

I loved the first Super Mario Land game and where I enjoyed the Six Golden Coins follow up, I felt that I preferred the more fluid movement of the first game and while the map, with its zones and hidden levels was fun and very welcome, I preferred the first game and it left me feeling muddled about the series.

Then came the third game, which I must have played somewhere and I instantly felt pushed further away with its heavy physics, large sprites and slow gameplay. So I never played it again.

Fast forward to 2018 and with a new appreciating perhaps for the style and an aged mind, I very much looked to get back in to it and see it through.

I played on the GameCube, GameBoy player.

Using a Hori GameCube Digital Gamepad, that was specifically designed for use with the GameBoy player, it has a superior D-Pad than the small thin, GameBoy Advance D-Pad that was taken and put in the GameCube controller. It also has a large moulded underside, that makes it feel like a chunky SNES controller

Expensive as Hell nowadays, but is the best way to play GameBoy games on the big screen.

It’s a true successor to SML2 in most ways, in terms of design and overall aim. Performance is slightly improved I feel, with perhaps the choice to go for a closer camera helping with the frame rate by reducing the amount of moving sprites on screen.

The gameplay still feels slow and clumsy I think, even being prepared for it, I was taken aback by how wallowing it is. However, after a while, you start to get used to it, then start to appreciate the slow melodic movement of Wario and begin to build it into your gameplay. Designed this way on purpose ? I’m not sure but I certainly came to enjoy and appreciate it.

The replayablity of levels was improved over the previous game (lets kind of ignore SML for a second) as you could certainly go back and re-play levels in the Six Golden Coins but for not much reason other than building for more lives or searching for hidden exits. With not much than that but an added incentive of Treasure, SML3 gives you the choice to collect treasure by finding and unlocking grand skull doors that you come across in the game. Often you’d see a locked door before you found a key and would be tempted to hunt it out. Some of the Zones, the first one in fact, Rice Beach, once you’ve beaten the boss level becomes flooded by the imcoming tide and changes things up, unlocking areas you couldn't get to before and uncovering treats - making it essential to go back to.

The fact that the game makes no suggestion that you should even think about this, is an example of its and a lot of it’s mystery. Such a wonderful time.

The level to level gameplay was more mixed upon than previous game also, with often tracking back and even going from right to left at times. There were also a few ‘Minecart’ levels where you have to jump from cart to cart.

One of the games entire Zones (Sherbet Land) is completely passable, only accessible if you locate the hidden exit in Zone 2, I don’t seem to see any reason to go there at all you can totally bypass it - odd.

The ending is akin to Luigi’s Mansion say, or rather Luigi’s Mansion is akin to this perhaps but once you beat the final boss your coins through the game are collated, your treasure cashed in and the grand total of your spoils are exemplified via the level of abode you can build with it. Neat.

My original play though got me all of the Treasures, minus six, which got me this lovely wood cabin.

  

It also does that old thing of having to power off the console to restart, simply sitting at the end screen not responding to any inputs until you switch it off.

Once you’ve beaten the game however, you’re locked into the ending, no going back and mopping up, so you have to re-load up your save and eek out the extra then if you wish too.

Which, of course I did….

 Which got Wario his idealistic castle.

The overall style felt more platform puzzle than straight up platforming but then introducing someone to it as a platform puzzler feels like you’d be doing them a disservice perhaps.

It’s not a stella Mario game, nor even a great Nintendo game but it’s certainly, fun, compelling, satisfying and enjoyable.