January N-E Game Club: Wario Land - Super Mario Land 3

[Dufniall]

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3

Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Released: 1994
System: Game Boy
Available on: Game Boy, Nintendo 3DS

We first encountered Wario in Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins as the antagonist and final boss. In Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 he takes on the lead part though, in a quest for money to buy as big a castle as possible. The ending varies depending on the amount of cash and treasures you have, the more you've collected the bigger your castle. It would be cool if everyone can get a photo up of their ending screen and compare castles. You know, settle the old "mine is bigger than yours" debate.  

It's a very solid 2D platformer that sets the tone for later Wario 2D games. We already played Wario Land 4 so if you've never played this one, it's nice to see where his roots are. It was the first game I got for my Game Boy, along with Kirby's Dream Land. So there is a lot of nostalgia involved, which means this may as well end up as a new Throwback Thursday on the front page!

First things first though: Where on earth did I leave my Game Boy cartridges? Ehhhrm... *wanders off searching boxes*

 

 

 

[Glen-i]

I like the idea of comparing Castles. I'm up for that.

Time to tear myself away from Dillon and Hyrule Warriors, I guess.

[drahkon]

I'm ready  Won't be able to play today, though.

[Dufniall]

1 hour ago, Vileplume2000 said:

Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Released: 1994
System: Game Boy
Available on: Game Boy, Nintendo 3DS, PS Vita

Fixed this.

[drahkon]

 I do own the original cartridge, but it's at my mom's place and I won't spend 4 hours of travel time just to get it  

[Jonnas]

Just got it for the 3DS (there's a discount on My Nintendo right now. Feel free to go for it). It's good that Wario has been able to shoulder his way into two of these threads already.

I might lose the castle challenge, though...

[Dcubed]

This game rocks! Gotta get my cart fixed up with a new battery though (Still bloody annoyed that I lost my progress during my last playthrough a few months back!)

[drahkon]

Finished World 1 last night. Here's my haul:

Spoiler

There is one neat mechanic that I've always appreciated. I'll put it in a spoiler tag just in case:

Spoiler

Once you defeat the first boss some of the stages in the first world change. I think this happens when getting rid of later bosses, as well.

 

[drahkon]

World 2 (and the secret world) complete!

Spoiler

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is actually my favourite of the three Super Mario Land games ("But it's a Wario Land Series game!" SHUT UP. I know...but I always thought of it as a part of Super Mario Land). What sets it apart from the others is the larger emphasis on exploration (if you're willing to go for the best ending). The secrets aren't hidden too well, but still require a keen eye to find. Sometimes you even have to revisit a stage in order to acquire the treasure or secret exit. It's very well done. Especially when you have to use the three power-ups to reach that particular ledge, or smash open that one block to reveal a door. 
Speaking of power-ups: They are awesome.

Bull Wario - Let's you smash through blocks with one hit, smack the ground with Wario's (I assume) very strong gluteus maximus and stick to the ceiling.

Dragon Wario - The protagonist gets to wear a fancy dragon hat. Aside from being able to breathe fire through its nose (which also works underwater but apparently turns the fire into some kind of laser beam) it looks fabulous.

Jet Wario - Probably the most overpowered hat in the game. It doesn't give you more strength but let's you walk faster and jump higher. Oh yeah, and you can fly. At least for a short time. By pressing the B button twice as soon as the hat loses power during air time you can pretty much extend your flight indefinitely without losing altitude. Skipping most levels has never been easier.

Small Wario - Technically this isn't a power-up, but Wario looks cute like this  

Graphically the game has some amazing sprites to offer. Wario looks amazing (and always has this cheeky grin on his face) and the enemies are a sight to behold, too. They are also quite diverse, both in looks and abilities. Here are some of my favourites:

 - Small Wario looks even more adorable ingame.

 - Chicken Duck. Throw an enemy into the bucket and the duck defecates and you should definitely stand below it. Seriously. You don't want to miss it.

 - Pecan. A pelican that spits out exploding mines. Isn't nature beautiful?

 - Harisu. My personal favourite enemy in the game. Cute but with deadly spikes on its back.

 - Pouncer. The Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 equivalent to the Thwomp. If you manage to get that angry stone to crush an enemy you will be rewarded with a '10 coin'. Pretty neat. If you manage to get yourself crushed...you die. Instantly. No matter which power-up you are equipped with. Great.

 - Ukiwani. What is there to say about a crocodile with a life saver that looks absolutely disinterested in whatever the world has to offer. However, it seems to be quite hungry and attempts to grab a bite whenever Wario tries to jump over it.

Bosses look cool, too. For obvious spoiler reasons I'll hide the first two (and the secret boss) in the appropriate tag:

Spoiler

 - Spiked Koopa. The name is the game. Interesting tidbit: Its Japanese name derives from Hammer Bros. (Toge Burosu, which translates to Thorn Bros.) so he actually is part of the Hammer Bros. family.

 - Bīfun, guardian of Mt. Teapot. He looks strong but is actually quite easy to defeat. He isn't very fond of lava.

 - Hinyari - The secret boss. He wears boxing gloves with spikes. Talk about one-upping Wario. Hinyari literally translates to "cool". No points for creativity there, Nintendo. He's also the only boss you can fight multiple times in one save file. 

One thing I have to mention: The music. Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 has some of the most atmospheric tracks in gaming history.

Spoiler

Just listen to this. I mean, this has to be what you can hear when inside a volcano. And to be honest, I'd definitely spend some time burning to death listening to this song.

Spoiler

Sorry, Donkey Kong Country, but this game has a better Water Stage song than you. Deal with it and don't come begging for first place. This track also sounds similar to the music you hear when in a house in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. Nothing too surprising as Kozue Ishikawa was a composer for both games.

Spoiler

Stage four. You're chased by a Pouncer through a narrow corridor. Be quick, or be dead. And all the time, this song plays. The combination of all these things made little me nervous. Every. Single. Time. 

The level design, power-ups and spot-on 2D side-scrolling are a more than solid foundation for a good game. But what elevates it into greatness for me is how every single aspect - i.e. game play, sound/music, graphics - interact to create a complete experience. It's like a strawberry margarita. Its ingredients taste good by themselves, but mix them together and you have a cool, refreshing drink that leaves you smiling (in the corner, half-asleep, depending on how much you drink). This is Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 to me: A very creative and great take on the 2D platforming formula. Wario became a playable character for the first time and showed that he could carry a game as a protagonist. Four games of the Wario Land Series followed (5, if you include Virtual Boy Wario Land...), continuing a high quality gaming experience with the lovable, chubby, money-craving, criminally underused, yellow and purple body builder.

And to finish this post, here is a little bit of trivia regarding this game:

• if you pause the game and press Select 16 times, you enter "cheat mode". Holding down A and B allows you to change the values of lives, coins, etc. with the D-pad (this is actually something I figured out by myself as a kid...apparently I was bored enough to just mess around with buttons)
• the Japanese name is actually Sūpā Mario Rando 3: Wario Rando. Notice that in the west the title is reversed? This way it's easier for us to understand that this is a game from the Wario Land Series
• some of the sound effects used in this game are borrowed from Metroid II: Return of Samus (e.g. hitting a boss plays the same sound as when a Metroid gets hit)

 

(sprites, pictures, trivia shamelessly stolen from https://www.mariowiki.com/Wario_Land:_Super_Mario_Land_3 )

Edited January 14, 2019 by drahkon

[drahkon]

Spoiler

I was bored and had some time before going to a football match soon and completed world 4, as well.

Spoiler

I've been insanely lucky with the double-or-half-minigame (or whatever it's called). I usually got 3 bags of money. Wario's rich, baaaabyyyy!  Anyway, with 13k coins I think I only need the remaining four treasures to reach 99.999 coins. And if I remember correctly I also will have completed the other pre-requisite for the best ending when I finish all the stages that are left.

Here's something that I forgot to mention in my previous post:

I really like the transitions between stage-locales. E.g. SS Tea Cup. The first few stages take you from a forest to a beach, which eventually lets you board the SS. It's a nice touch that connects each level and world. 

Edited January 14, 2019 by drahkon

[Jonnas]

Meanwhile, I completed World 1 and have 1303 coins... I'm totally on drahkon's tail

[drahkon]

The final stage's song is awesome.

 

I've completed the game just now.  

Spoiler

Mario is such an asshole...

...just look at his smug face...

...and off he goes. What a cunt  

And now for the final two screenshots. 

Spoiler

Wario sure seems happy  

And there he his. Literally on top of the world.

What an incredible game. If you want to read what I think about Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land take a look at my previous two posts  

The N-E Game Club is off to a great start. Wonderful selection of games and a lovely one for us to play. This sure took me back to simpler times  

[Glen-i]

7 hours ago, drahkon said:

The final stage's song is awesome.

 

I've completed the game just now.  

  Ending Spoilers (Reveal hidden contents)

Mario is such an asshole...

...just look at his smug face...

...and off he goes. What a cunt  

And now for the final two screenshots. 

  And they say money can't buy happiness (Reveal hidden contents)

Wario sure seems happy  

And there he his. Literally on top of the world.

 

Spoiler

Hah, you loser! You don't even have a place to live in.

And that rock is barely 3 times the size of Wario! What a dump!

Why does a Genie offer you a wish and then demand money for it? What a crap genie!

I'm done now. Behold the majesty of my castle!

Spoiler

Isn't it a beaut?

So yeah, as you can probably tell. I decided to "Shoot the Moon" and go for the lowest score possible.

I gave myself a couple of rules before hand.

- No using Up + B to throw money away. (Except for the 10 coins needed for end goals)

- No using checkpoints to waste money.

- No using Bonus games to spend money.

It's an interesting challenge. You have to do some pretty silly manuevers to get around coins. You would not believe the amount of times I had to crawl under coins.

And my grand total was...

You automatically get 300 coins for beating the final boss.

I actually found a completely new (to me) Wario sprite for when you finish a level with no money at all.

This game still holds up. It's a weird in-between of Super Mario Land 2 and the later Wario Land series and it works. Power ups are great, (Even if the Jet hat is beyond broken) and the enemies are weird looking in a good way. And I can't get enough of the farty sounding music. Always puts a smile on my face.

Edited January 15, 2019 by Glen-i

[Shorty]

I wanna join this club! What do I do, dig out the game, play it this month, post my thoughts??

 

[drahkon]

8 minutes ago, Shorty said:

I wanna join this club! What do I do, dig out the game, play it this month, post my thoughts??

Yes.

[Shorty]

Eh sounds too complicated, I'm out.

[Dufniall]

So I've started Wario Land last weekend. I've located my Gameboy cartridges, but failed to find batteries for my Gameboy. I figured it would be more cost-efficient to buy the game on the 3DS than to go out to get batteries, especially with the 30% discount on My Nintendo.

It feels great to play this game again. It's also funny how your brain works. Some trivial things I remembered (like a secret room in a Mt. Teapot level) but I forgot for example how the world map changes sometimes, or how most of the bosses looked like. 

If there is a bad thing to say about the game then it's that Wario (if not wearing the Jet) plays quite slow. It's also too bad not more is done with the power-ups gameplay wise. The fact that you can hook your Viking helmet into the ceiling could have created some fun scenarios.

Other than that it is a lovely game to play. It has the typical Wario quirkiness and attitude, cool power-ups and a nice variation of worlds. I'm currently in the final world, although I do have some backtracking to do.

[Glen-i]

On 21/01/2019 at 5:42 PM, Vileplume2000 said:

If there is a bad thing to say about the game then it's that Wario (if not wearing the Jet) plays quite slow. 

A weird quirk this game has is that doing a high jump (Holding the D-Pad Up when you jump) actually moves you at the speed of running with the Jet Hat.

So I'm basically never running.

[Jonnas]

I haven't been posting much in this thread, but I have been sporadically playing this. I'm almost finishing Parsley Woods, and when I'm done with the game, I'll post my full thoughts, since Ithink this game deserves something pondered.

Until then, here's a retrospective video I found:

Seems relevant, considering the options we had this month!

[Ike]

Plenty of gold spare for pizza! Personally I think Wario got ripped off, why would you want to live on the moon? Or is it his own planet, I'm not sure.

Wario Land 1 is kinda interesting in that it doesn't feel like its found its own identity yet, it's not really until Wario Land 2 it feels like it's own series. WL1 still feels like a Mario game but slower and a bigger focus on hunting treasure, although the stages aren't really that big. Wario even has small version, like Mario, power ups are found in blocks, like Mario. In Wario Land 2 and later, they're not powerups they're more like status ailments that Wario can use to his advantage. He can't dash or ground pound without the right ability, these later become Wario's standard moveset. Altering stages so you had to revisit some was cool though.

I'm pretty sure one of the stage background music is lifted straight from Link's Awakening. 

 

[Dcubed]

On 1/29/2019 at 7:55 PM, Ike said:

Plenty of gold spare for pizza! Personally I think Wario got ripped off, why would you want to live on the moon? Or is it his own planet, I'm not sure.

Wario Land 1 is kinda interesting in that it doesn't feel like its found its own identity yet, it's not really until Wario Land 2 it feels like it's own series. WL1 still feels like a Mario game but slower and a bigger focus on hunting treasure, although the stages aren't really that big. Wario even has small version, like Mario, power ups are found in blocks, like Mario. In Wario Land 2 and later, they're not powerups they're more like status ailments that Wario can use to his advantage. He can't dash or ground pound without the right ability, these later become Wario's standard moveset. Altering stages so you had to revisit some was cool though.

I'm pretty sure one of the stage background music is lifted straight from Link's Awakening. 

 

I actually completely forgot that was in WL1 when I went back and replayed it recently! I thought that was only a thing in WL3!

 

But yeah, I totally get what you mean.  WL1 does feel like a transitionary game in many ways.  The great thing about ML1-3 is that you can see the gradual process of metamorphosis, as Nintendo R&D1 gradually go off on their own tangent.

 

If you just look at the enemy designs in SML2, you can already see shades of what would eventually become the Wario Land series' enemies...

 

The witch and the shark with the boxing gloves are vintage Wario Land!

 

But even by WL1, you already had a lot of the trademarks of the series (and Wario himself) in place.  The music, the chunky visuals, the core moveset, the focus on the surreal and bizzare, the subversion of Mario series tropes.  They're all here already!

 

I do think that "Mario Land 3" is still a fiiting title at this point (fun fact: in Japan, the naming convention is the other way around from the west.  In Japan, it's "Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land"), because it does still feel like a successor to Mario Land 2, but it's still caught in this weird, in-between state, and that in of itself is actually quite appealing!

 

Wario was always meant to be a bit of a middle finger from R&D1 to EAD's idea of a goodie goodie hero; with ML2 & 3 being subversions of the tried and tested Mario formula.  So it's only natural that it would eventually splinter off and go down its own path I suppose!

 

Wario Land 2 was the moment when the Wario character and series finally, truly became its own thing though.  It's really cool how you can see the way in which the developers themselves changed their approach to game design in such a visible way!

 

Now if only we could see the Wario Land series return proper...

Edited February 2, 2019 by Dcubed

[Dufniall]

With February starting it's time to finish the game, which I did just now! I completed the game with 2 treasures missing, which let me to a grand total of...

How much of a castle does that get you? Well, a modest Feudal Japanese palace it seems.

I went back to pick up the final two treasures for completionist goals, so consider the game done and dusted for now!

I agree with what's been said above. The game does hold up still, and you already see some of the wackiness that will show in later Wario games. It is a transition game, with the more traditional powerups but it's own pacing and set of enemies.

I'll write another instalment of Throwback Thursday for this one, so it would be great if I can grab some quotes from this topic! So if you have more to say, say it! Although I'm already happy with what you've all written. Cool to see almost everyone seems to like the game as well.

Onwards to February!

[Jonnas]

I actually finished the game last week, on the 30th (so, still within the month). What I haven't had time for was actually sitting down and articulate the review that this game deserves! Especially now that Vileplume's looking for substantial comments.

I'll try to whip something up by the end of the week.

[Jonnas]

So, here's a fun fact: I once wrote my thoughts on Wario Land a long time ago, in another thread. I had replayed it recently at the time, and I had thoughts on why, exactly, was it that this game kickstarted a new series.

(Please forgive the bad formatting. The forums have changed since then.)

On 24/04/2013 at 6:36 PM, Jonnas said:

Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 (1994)

 

Audio

 

The game that started the series. After Super Mario Land 2, its developers wanted to work on something they could call their own, instead of just doing Mario games. In a clever move, they decided to use the villain they had created, and thus the spin-off was born!

 

Even though the game still clings to some Mario staples (world maps, linear progression with the occasional secret, blocks, power-ups, turning into "Child Wario" when you're hit, etc.), it was pretty clear that the game's soul was turned elsewhere. This was not puny Mario, this was brute Wario!

 

Mario can throw fireballs, or maybe hover and fly? Wario has a flamethrower, jets through the sky and even causes earthquakes by butt-stomping the ground! Even his regular adult form can ram things with his shoulder.

 

 

But here's the most vital difference: Wario is the strongest thing in the game. He isn't damaged simply by touching enemies, in fact, most enemies are simply pushed around by this mountain of a man. A shoulder tackle can kill any enemy, and that's if you don't choose to simply pick them up and throw them around.

 

Furthermore, the entire plot is about Wario invading some poor saps' pirate island, plundering and stealing all their treasure, unprovoked. He's not trying to save anyone, he's not out for revenge, he's just a greedy asshole! The opening even shows Wario relentlessly pursuing an enemy out of nowhere, and the ending depends on how much money and treasure you've collected.

 

And it's with this unconventional, burly, villainous protagonist that a new series was born. I remember this game being one of the most popular back in my school. You could say Wario simply had an unique charm to him.

I stand by the idea that Wario "feeling" stronger than Mario was essential. This game feels a lot more like a mean playground for the player, and there's a lot of appeal in that. I suppose Wario Land is a shining example of "Characterization-through-gameplay", an example of excellent integration of plot and gameplay.

And an addendum: playing as a ruthless villain was something unique at the time, and even now it's rare among 2D platformers. Wario has consistently wrecked days and stole fortunes throughout the years, and he never spared a thought for the innocent. Turning the traditional Mario coins into a permanent score, and having collectable treasures that add to that score, was a stroke of genius that made the game more fun and simultaneously defined Wario's character, making him unique.

It helps that the level design is superb, as well. Alternate routes, hidden goodies, good use of the power-ups, and varied ideas and environments until the end. Plus, the changes to the levels (the drowned beach, the emptied lake, the clogged crater, etc.) encourage the player to explore, and learn how to master the game, a satisfying endeavour in itself (once you learn the trick Glen-i mentioned, you'll never go back).

I'd say the only major flaws in this game are the boss fights (not bad, but unimpressive. The genie is the only good one, imo) and the soundtrack (which, other than the water theme, I do not like. Sorry, Drahkon).

Future games would further delve into the elements of exploration, the alternate paths, the treasure hunting and so on... But the original still remains as a beautiful subversion of Super Mario, and a great game in its own right.

...

Oh, right, and I got the moon in this playthrough.