+ Sprite animations
+ Heavy on exploration
+ Inventive Puzzle Design
+ A lot of content
+ Pushes Game Boy Colors Limits
~ Levels are multilayered
- Can't get everything in one go
- Constant Backtracking
- Constantly Reuses levels
- Animations / Boss Design just ends up being a big time sink
- Boss Difficulty is chaotic

I think this is maybe one of the strongest games for Game Boy Color as a platform. The set-back nature of failure is a bit frustrating, and I did save state my way through the golf mini games on an Analogue Pocket. A younger me would have brute forced it but time is precious.

The level design is excellent. There are always hints pulling you along without being overly overt. The mechanics feel very satisfying. Wario has a huge array of abilities and the game finds seemingly endless ways to exercise them.

Each treasure is gated behind a unique wrinkle to the gameplay formula. Environments are beautiful and varied. Bosses are whimsical and reasonably challenging. This one slipped under my radar when it was new even though I loved Wario Land II and this is such a welcome refinement of that formula.

This is absolutely a game that I'll go back and 100%.

This is truly peak Game Boy, far superior to Wario Land II, Wario Land 3 goes all out on Graphics, level design, and puzzles in a unique platformer. While not every level is a winner most are, and screen scrunch hardly gets in the way. Figuring out how to move and manipulate Wario to solving his way to the game's many chests is always a fun tricky time to figure out. The music also fits the game perfectly, extra shoutouts to the boss theme that fits the mood perfectly.

My only real gripe with the game is the significant loss of time when getting hit. I get it's to balance not having a health system, but it gets worse in bosses where you have to constantly renavigate to them until you have the boss figured out. Most bosses are good about it but some can be a little annoying.

But yes, Wario Land 3 is an essential Game Boy game to play and anyone looking into its library shouldn't overlook this classic.

Uma abordagem criativa e original ao "gênero" de metroidvania. Resultado de uma abordagem que não tenta imitar os jogos que dão nome ao estilo: é uma evolução natural do que Wario começou a fazer desde seu primeiro jogo solo. O que temos aqui é um platform-adventure sem "gordura": não há backtracking inútil e você sempre tem ideia de onde precisa ir. Mas nem por isso é um jogo trivial: em alguns momentos parece mais um puzzle-platforming do que qualquer outra coisa, e saber como usar os power-ups e elementos dos níveis é bem divertido.

Interesante vuelta de tuerca que ya está completamente diferenciado de Super Mario Land. Para empezar no hay vidas, no puedes morir, pero algunos enemigos el efecto que tienen es transformar a Wario, otorgándole habilidades según la transformación. Luego tienes un sistema de upgrades de habilidades digno de un Metroidvania. Los niveles no son lineales y tienes que explorarlos utilizando las habilidades de las transformaciones o las nuevas habilidades que hayas ido consiguiendo, lo que marca el "final" del nivel es un cofre del tesoro en el que hay objetos que te pueden dar nuevas habilidades o directamente afectar a los niveles o abrir nuevos niveles. Con todo ello debes visitar de nuevo niveles antiguos con nuevas zonas abiertas.
Es todo superoriginal y único y una verdadera lástima que no hayan vuelto a hacer un juego así.

Gameplay-wise, this game is very unique: it is pretty much a metroidvania with puzzle and collectathon elements, where each level has different treasures to get, which grant you new abilities or change the structure of other levels, granting you access to new objectives in a non-linear progression (and I was pleasantly surprised that the game never became too confusing, always informing you about the levels to check out whenever something changes in the world map). Unfortunately some sections can become frustrating due to the fact that Wario can't take damage, so you get punished for your mistakes by being sent away from where you're supposed to go. Also, I think the game should have been a bit shorter to complete.
Apart from these two things, the overall experience is very good and I recommend checking it out, I don't think I've ever played anything with a structure similar to this.

The first Wario Land was essentially Mario Land But As Wario and was overall a good but incredibly short game. Once Wario Land became established as a series, its first sequel, Wario Land 2, did more to differentiate itself from Super Mario by changing the core gameplay; You're in an open-ended course where you can go both left and right. Solve platforming puzzles by getting yourself hurt and collect the things. It worked, it was fun, and extended its game time by granting you what is essentially an entire second game on top by playing differently.

Wario Land 3 probably takes the series' biggest step in deviation by being completely open in design. You quickly open up entire stages to be entered and exited at will across an entire game map, moving from area to area and unlocking more of each level by collecting items and powerups throughout them. It's a cycle of starting a level, reaching a point where you can no longer progress, going back to other levels to collect more items and eventually gain the powerup to continue. It's compared a lot to Metroid but I don't think that necessarily does it justice, it feels like a much different concept when you're experiencing it.

On paper this actually sounds like a great way to play Wario Land; just the idea of open stage design seems like it would lend itself well to Wario's moveset. Unfortunately it's a good concept the game seems to fumble hard for me.

Starting out, Wario's initial moveset is stripped up and out. All of his more mechanical moves like swimming and ground-pounding aren't immediately available and right off the bat the game feels lesser because of it. Maybe starting off weak in a game like Metroid works because you ALWAYS start out that way, but this being the third entry in a series doesn't really lend itself to be particularly inviting when series staples become unlockables. The levels are designed to be returned to, but for the longest time you'll be going through water you can't swim through and passing breakable floors you can't pound. The game starts off with an immediate sense of frustration rather than making me feel like I want to.. UNLOCK the ability.. to SWIM?

The initial frustration of your stripped moveset is only the beginning, because Wario Land 3 is an absolute asshole of a game with time-wasting obstacles. Starting with Wario Land 2, it's been tradition for Wario to be practically unkillable, as his reactions to different traps and elements are actually used to solve puzzles. Get stung by a bee, inflate and rise to meet high platforms. Get set ablaze, and run your ignited ass through wooden walls to bash right through them. Wario Land 2 used these traps as gotch-a moments for you to realize that these traps are actually crucial to solving puzzles and not just hinderances.

In Wario Land 3? They're mostly just hinderances.

This game just does not play nice or fair at all. When Wario becomes indestructable to the abuse the world throws at him, the game difficulty and general stakes become much lower than your standard platformer. Wario Land 2 solved this problem by making every coin and treasure you grab crucial. Getting hit means spilling out a portion of your huge wad of cash, which you are going to need to hang on to and hoard hard to get the ending you want. In Wario Land 3, coins are much more sparse and don't mean much to the overall gameplay, so the game seems fit to make your punishment for getting hit simply wasting your time. Enemies and traps are placed strategically and frustratingly so slight missteps are penalized with being sent back, usually to ludicrous distances back. Screen size becomes an apparent issue very quickly, as Wario takes up a huge portion of real estate on the screen, leaving very little to be seen ahead. It feels like you're almost guaranteed to hit every single trap the first time around.

I actually played this and restarted it multiple times, always got a bit over halfway and finally shelved it a few months ago. My initial plan was to play the entire series but this left such a bad taste in my mouth I didn't want to play Wario Land 4 for a while. Now that I'm actually playing Wario Land 4 I am loving it and it's helped me contextualize why I had such a bad experience with this game. I loved the concept of an open-designed Wario Land game and I think my interest in that idea kept me returning to give it shot after shot after shot. It's an unfortunate realization, as it's been way too long since the last Wario Land game and the horizon doesn't seem to be leading us into another one for a very long time, if at all.