Wario Land 3: The Joy of Movement
Nothing beats slamming Wario’s elbow into an enemy. That is until I find a slope and watch the greedy bastard roll down a hill and crash through three enemies, six destructible bricks, and then collide right into a bright golden coin. Likewise watching him catch on fire and begin running back and forth, despite the inconvenience for gameplay, brings me a tremendous amount of joy. And then there’s also watching the creep’s fat butt wiggle back and forth as he scales up a ladder, jiggling with malicious intent. And then…you know. I think this might be another opportunity to discuss movement in videogames.
On the note of greed, I have to confess that I was a greedy child.
And Wario was entirely to blame.
I wanted, so badly, to have a Gameboy when I was a kid, and it was because of Wario. Just about every other boy I knew in school was playing Wario Land: Super Mario World 3 on their original Gameboy. And just in case there is a reader who was not born before the year 2001, I’m talking about the giant gray brick of the original Gameboy that could only show four colors on its screen that always looked like a broken television. Watching my schoolmatess move Wario around the screen, slamming into enemies and collecting coin after coin after coin left a hollow cavern in my soul as I burned green with envy and entertained criminal visions of myself stealing their hardware. The visions would typically break once I remembered that I was a virtuous weenie and a boyscout (a literal boyscout for the record(Tenderfoot(I should have stayed in and gotten to full Eagle)). I resigned myself to the reality that I would have to wait and play Wario games once I had received a Gameboy from my parents, and returned to reading my Captain Underpants books.
And, I want to make this clear, Captain Underpants rules.
All cap.
Full Stop.
Words.
Eventually my parents bought me a Gameboy Color for my birthday, and offered me the chance to pick whatever game I wanted for it. You’d assume with this introduction that I would have picked a Wario Game. That, however, reveals the dangers of assuming anything though, because I decided to get Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.
It was the right choice.
Link’s Awakening rules. And so does the remake for Nintendo Switch.
It’s important to be honest at this point and admit that I didn’t play any Wario game until my 30s. I played Mario Tennis, Mario Strikers, various iterations of Mario Kart, and of course a decade's worth of Super Smash Bros because my friend Kevin wouldn’t play anything else with me. These games all have Wario in them and I would frequently play as the character. I was aware that he had developed his own videogame franchise, and even got his own Gamecube game that I wanted to play but never did.
I was literally 35 years old before I sat down to play Wario Land 3 on the Nintendo Switch, and once I was five minutes into the game I wondered briefly whether choosing Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening was the right choice all those decades ago.
I mean, it was. It was totally the right choice for me.
Wario Land 3 rules, and it’s in no small part because controlling Wario is like controlling The Spartan or Pac-Man: it’s a concept and execution of motion that simply brings joy to the player.
Wario Land 3 is an action-adventure, fantasy, platformer videogame released for the Nintendo Gameboy Color in the year 2000, and ss a brief aside, the website MobyGames lists Wario Land 3 under what is possibly my favorite genre title in videogames; they refer to it as a “Hop and Bop Platformer.” How can you beat that? And as I dig into the controls of the game that description will be perfect for discussing how fun controlling Wario actually is.
First I’ll lay out the plot of the game. Wario is flying in his plane over the forrest (it’s always THE forrest and never A forrest(have you ever noticed that?(because I have))). Due to technical difficulties (and the necessity of the plot), Wario’s plane goes down and he finds himself lost in this labyrinth of trees until he stumbles across a cave that’s empty except for a music box. When Wario Land 3 was released, Wario was still a relatively new character, but his previous appearances in the Mario universe had established him as a selfish oaf who’s obsessed treasure. So, naturally, he wants the music box as soon as he sees it. In a move that would shock no-one who watched kids movies in the late 80s and early 90s, the music box is magical and Wario is transported inside of it where a large disembodied face tells him that it has been trapped in this music box and it requires Wario’s help to escape. He must find the various cogs and machinery to make the music box work again and then they will both be freed.
Thus the game begins in earnest.
In full honesty, as of this writing I haven’t completed Wario Land 3, and while I would argue that would prohibit me from writing a general review of the game as a whole, I want to make it clear this essay is, like its predecessors, simply observing one element of the videogame, specifically how Wario moves and how it inspires joy in the player.
Most of the joy comes from the fact that Wario can’t be killed.
Wario Land 3 is a unique platformer because, unlike any of the other platformers I have played over the course of my life, the protagonist is invulnerable. This became obvious while playing the first level N1:Out of the Woods and I encountered one of the various enemy non-playable characters(npcs) named Spearhead. This character is literally just a blue blob with a spear projecting out from his face making it look like Clive Barker reimagined Gonzo from the Muppets. This enemy is the equivalent of the Goombas from Super Mario in that it’s easily avoided, and just as easily defeated.
Though the first encounter with Spearhead taught me the first lesson about movement in Wario Land 3.
Hopping on top of the Spearhead I expected to keep moving, leaving the sprite to disappear behind me. Instead the little noid flipped upside down and hopped a few feet away, its minuscule legs waddling in the air. It’s important to note again that I have spent most of my life, in regard to the Mushroom kingdom, playing Super Mario games where the rules of the universe are simple: Mario hops onto an enemy, the enemy is crushed. Obviously, Spearhead’s refusal to disappear shook me for a loop, and I hopped on it again. Once more I watched as Spearhead was pushed several feet away and still didn’t disappear. After several more attempts I left it be and watched as the little dude eventually popped back up. I decided I must have done something wrong and walked towards him, only to be met with the tip of his nose-spear and here I learned the important lesson: Wario does not die, and Wario cannot die.
I don’t use the phrase paradigm-shift often, but I can’t find another word to describe how my mind blew up once I recognised this.
This was a new approach to platformers, and I was, simply put, stoked.
Wario Land 3, like its previous installments, established Wario as a “tank.” The whole narrative and interactive rhetoric of the game is built around Wario’s weight and physical prowess. Whereas Mario was an average weighted character who was susceptible to damage from enemy NPCS, Wario was a heavyset character who was built to endure even the most intense abuse the world could dish out at him. And this makes sense when looking at his performance in other videogames. In Super Mario Kart: Double Dash Wario was always restricted to the heavier vehicles alongside Donkey Kong and Bowser. In Super Smash Bros he was placed alongside Bowser, King K. Rool, Ganondorf, and Donkey Kong as the heavy fighters, meaning that players using his character could stack up higher points of damage before becoming vulnerable to attacks. Wario is, consistently, presented as a bulbous wad of muscle and fat that can endure whatever the world throws at him.
And this creates some memorable and beautiful sequences for players controlling him.
As Wario moves through the levels, collecting coins, hopping on enemies, and then killing them by slamming his elbow into them there is a slowly growing momentum that makes the player feel as if they cannot be stopped. Moving Wario becomes like controlling a sheer unstoppable force so much so that, even when faced by enemies that at first appear to not be indestructible, the player is reassured that all it’s going to take is a little bit of force to push through.
Consider this example.
In one sequence in the level N1: Out of the Woods I found a coin that was placed in a small alcove that could only be accessible through a small passage. Wario can crouch and shimmy through such spaces, but there were two purple cracked blocks impeding my path. I was able to smash one with a shove from my elbow, but no matter what I did I couldn’t find a way to break through the second block. I note here that Wario Lands 3 is as much a Metroidvania as it is a Platformer, but I’ll dig into that another essay(hopefully(there’s so many essays I wanna write about dude(I haven’t even written anything about Metroid Prime yet and that game rules))) I finished the level by opening one of the chests and eventually found myself in the level titled W2: Volcano Base. Once again, I found a coin locked behind a wall of stones and hidden away in an alcove, and it seemed I was going to remain frustrated and unable to collect the pretty tokens which dwarfed Wario in size…at least until I discovered a slope.
Wario stepped onto the slope, and my rather fat and flat thumbs must have pressed down on the D-pad. Before I knew what happened, Wario bunched up into a ball and began rolling quickly full-tilt down the hill before slamming into the purple blocks, shattering them, and opening the gateway to the coin.
Once again, my brain achieved a cosmic awakening meme, and I said aloud what anyone would have in that situation, “Son of a gun, that’s awesome.”
Rolling Wario down a hill isn't just convenient for the player, it’s downright fun because of the sheer momentum of the roll, and the fact that players will have to time jumps so as not to stop the momentum of rolling Wario. In the previous example there were in fact multiple platforms on the way to the coin that, if touched, stopped Wario from rolling at which point I’d have to walk back to the slope and try again, often multiple times to get the jumps just right. This isn’t just a fun mechanic, it’s also a great narrative design. Again, Wario is a greedy cretin who wants everything and if he has to roll through solid rock to get it he will.
Or set himself on fire.
And that is an excellent opportunity to discuss invulnerability.
Because he cannot die, Wario's obstacles are not always enemy npcs, but sometimes can be environmental factors. Looking back to level N1: Out of the Woods, immediately upon being poked by Spearhead Wario’s movement is disrupted by a status effect which is a fancy-pants word in videogames for something happening to the character such as being on fire, poisoned, put to sleep, becoming heavier, etc. Typically, status effects are used in role playing games (RPGS) like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Pokemon, or Dragonquest. They effect the player during combat situations and are usually a way of lowering a character’s defenses or ability to fight.
Wario Land 3 is one of the first games I’ve ever played that used status effects for the purpose of making the lead character stronger.
One great example is in the level W2: Desert Ruins. There are multiple purple blocks throughout the videogame Wario Land 3. Some are easily broken with a quick slam with Wario elbow shove attack, some are broken by Wario rolling into them as I described earlier, but some are marked with a donut. This was a bit of a mystery to be until Wario Land 3 reminded me that it was a videogame about a fat Mario doppelganger and I encountered an enemy npc that was called, and I’m not kidding here, the donughteer.
There are times I miss this Nintendo. THIS one. The one that was like, lets smash words together to make enemies, because why not?
The Donughteer(apart from being(I assume)an expert engineer of donuts) is another in series of noid-esque characters Wario can destroy, however this one is armed with a fork that throws donuts into Wario’s mouth making him become pudgy, swol, and most importantly fatter than he already was. Once the Donughteer throws its food into Wario for several seconds he becomes engorged to the point that his movement slows; he’s almost incapable of movement, and every jump shakes the ground he walks upon. My reader can probably already tell where this is going. The purple-donut blocks are crushed by a few jumps, and Wario is able to continue moving.
This is all more than enough to show how status effects work in this game, but I also really want to talk about setting Wario on fire. One because it’s legitimately funny, and two, it also will help segue into aesthetics.
One of the enemy npcs Wario will encounter is literally a torch, and its name is…well, Torch. That’s it. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it I guess. Torch is a stationary torch that will sporadically drop balls of fire as Wario waddles past and, if one of these balls hits him, his pants will alight and the player will immediately lose most of the control over Wario because he will begin to run. This moment can be frustrating if you’re trying to maintain a course of action, but there are certain blocks that have fire symbols on them and thus can only be destroyed by setting Wario on fire. The fire status effect is also rather unique because as Wario runs into enemy npcs while trying to put out the fire they will immediately be crushed under the freight train of his sheer momentum. Eventually the fire will totally consume Wario, at which point the player is controlling just a sprite of pure flame with legs that look about desperate for release from this Dante-esque oblivion.
Eventually the flames stop, Wario dusts himself off, and resumes his search for treasure boxes.
These are just two of the status effects that can impact Wario, and hopefully my description alone communicates why it’s so fun to play this videogame. I’m not aware, as of this writing anyway, of any game that’s incorporated status effects in such a way to not only affect the player character, but also to benefit the gameplay and use it for the purposes of exploration. Wario Land 3 is a puzzle game as much as it is a hop and bop platformer because Wario is moving through level after level encountering enemies and spaces that have to be explored and interacted with in order to locate keys and treasure for the ultimate final goal, and this in turn reveals why moving Wario is so fun.
As opposed to Mario who was continually moving forward, Wario is just moving in any and every direction the player can think of. Gameplay prioritizes moving Wario in a variety of ways through the physical space of the world, and in sequences that include platforming, puzzle-solving, and even just allowing enemy npcs to affect Wario in some fashion this movement never stops. Watching Wario shuffle up stairs, charge his elbow into an enemy, be set on fire and begin to run about panicking, slam his rump onto a switch, or roll down a hill is all presented in a charming visual aesthetic that makes me want to keep playing to see what else I can make this fat oaf’s body do. Wario is a sheer physical presence, and the designers of Wario Land 3 managed to perfect an already pre-established momentum.
While I was writing this essay and looking up reference images, I managed to stumble upon an article published on the website Paste Magazine from November 21, 2022 titled, “It’s Settled, Wario Land 3 is better than Mario Land 3” by Marc Normandin. Normandin, it should be noted also has his own website titled RetroXP, and I would definitely recommend that you go to his website and read his work because it’s obvious that he’s a great writer and loves videogames (maybe even more so than I do). His article for Paste Magazine was excellent because he managed to argue for Wario Land 3’s merit and far more importantly, in my opinion, he conveyed his sheer joy for the game. In one paragraph he talks about moving Wario and I had to include it here. He writes:
It’s a blast to play because of this combination of… well, traditional for Wario platforming, anyway, there is a mini golf minigame you have to master if you actually plan to open up all the paths and chests, wherein Wario kicks an enemy past sand and lava traps in an attempt to make par… with the pathfinding aspects of a Metroid. But Wario Land 3 also animates beautifully, with the kind of attention to detail that people who did not have the portable might not be aware the Game Boy Color could even manage. There’s a bounce to every step of Wario’s, and all of his expressions are incredibly animated in every sense of the phrase. His little shimmy as he goes up or down a ladder makes me laugh no matter what number time it is that I’ve noticed it, the way his face and body contorts as he’s set on fire or inflated or flattened or caught up in a web or every other terrible thing that happens to him that he’s mercifully—or unmercifully—not harmed by. Every frame of animation within is a little gift, and if Nintendo had any sense, they’d remake this game using the hand-drawn art style of the otherwise inferior Wario Land: Shake It! to give it the modern flourishes it deserves, rather than shifting things to side-scrolling 3D.
Normandin’s essay hit the nail right on the head as they say (whoever “they” are(I’ve never actually met “they” in person(I’m told they have nice pants))), and managed to communicate most of what I wanted to say in this essay. Mr. Normandin if you ever discover this essay, or if a friend sends it to you in a message with the caption “LOL, look at this,” I just want to tell you…you rock, keep up the great work, and also, nice pants.
At this point it’s the perfect time to sum up and say “so what.” Mostly because this essay is way, WAY longer than it was originally supposed to be.
Wario Land 3 is one of the best examples of physical motion in the medium of videogames because, simply put, it makes moving the character fun. Moving Wario across a platform is like Pac-Man consuming a power pellet, or the Spartan slamming his spear into a Roman Soldier: it inspires an overwhelming sensation of possibility and an assurance of one’s ability to move. And this in turn inspires players with an overwhelming perception of their own agency.
Wario’s entire presentation is a jiggly mass of pure potential, and the aesthetic response to playing the game is sheer joy at being able to control such a figure. And it’s a wonder then that, even as I’m writing this in 2024, literally 24 years after the games original release, and even after playing multiple contemporary and retro games on my PC, Wario Land 3 manages to create a sensation of movement that’s spellbinding in ways that multiple triple-A games released in the last decade could only ever aspire to.
I’ve watched Wario assume his wicked grin, prop his elbow up, and start to charge knowing that I’ll either hit my mark and pummel through an enemy, or that said enemy will set me ablaze and send me running away crushing anything and everything in my path. It’s incredible how every time, success or failure has still resulted in a fit of laughter and then continuing on my way hopeful to find just one more coin to stick in Wario’s pocket.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
8.5.2024
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