#retroarch

Finally beat Clay and earned the 5th badge.

Since upgrading to a newer phone and transferring my games, I seem to have lost some progress. Managed to find a backup save just before getting the 4th badge again. After beating Elesa again and earning the badge. I am getting back on track.

Play Dates: March 28, 2026 - April 13, 2026

Playtime: ~10 hours

The transition to Wario Land 3 is been the most jarring part of the Wario Land series thus far. The game takes the "Invincible Wario" foundation of WL2 and mashes it together with a heavy Metroidvania structure.

In the previous titles, Wario enters a level with his full kit, and your success depends on your ingenuity. In WL3, they strip your abilities away and make you earn them back through treasures. It’s a "thinking man’s platformer," but that often means hitting a roadblock because you haven't unlocked the right ability or a specific stage transformation yet. The game is built on backtracking; you’ll see a treasure you want, but you can’t get it until you find a magic bean in another level that grows a beanstalk here. It turns the game into a massive, interconnected puzzle, which provides a great sense of progression but can also feel linear and arbitrary when you’re just wandering around hoping to find the one thing that unlocks the next path.

Shoutout to this Flowchart, which I used throughout my plaything and made the frustration of exploring a bit less: https://www.reddit.com/r/nintendo/comments/7p736e/wario_land_3_game_progression_chart/

That said, once it clicks, there’s a rewarding feeling to gaining a new move and realizing exactly which obstacle it overcomes. While the boss fights (including the final boss Rudy the Clown) feel a bit too easy, the core loop of exploring and "powering up" Wario is a unique twist that I can appreciate.

It still feels like a massive departure from the simplicity of Wario Land 2, but it’s a fascinating look at Nintendo experimenting with what a platformer can be.

Play Dates: March 10, 2026 - March 14, 2026

Playtime: ~5 hours

Okay, now things are feeling weird and Wario. The choice to move away from the Super Mario Land branding is the right call because Wario is officially doing his own thing now. The biggest shocker to me is the invincibility...it’s such a bold move to tell the player "you can’t die," but it doesn't make the game easy. Instead, it shifts the challenge from survival to logic and puzzle. The levels feel more like giant puzzles where the enemies aren't trying to kill you; they’re trying to inconvenience you by turning you into a zombie or a ball of fire just to mess up your path. I’ve even developed a bit of a headcanon for the invincibility: I like to think of Wario as that classic cartoon villain who gets flattened, burned, or blown up, only to shake it off and yell, "I'll get you next time!" before running back into the fray. It makes every "mistake" feel less like a failure and more like a comedic beat in his relentless quest for loot. He’s essentially too angry and too greedy to actually get hurt.

Swapping out the power-up hats from the first game for "status effects" like Flat Wario or Fire Wario makes the platforming more reactive. I found myself actually looking for enemies to hit me just so I could use their "attacks" to reach a hidden treasure. It's a clever bit of game design that forces you to rethink everything you know about platformer tropes.

Play Dates: March 01, 2026 - March 03, 2026

Playtime: ~3 hours

Since Nico picked Wario Land 4 for Cartridge Club, I’ve decided to marathon all four games leading up to it, starting right at the beginning. To make the Game Boy era feel a bit more modern, I played this one with a colorized mod and a mechanical tweak that brought Wario’s speed and shoulder charge closer to his WL4 kit. Between those upgrades and a healthy dose of save states, the whole experience went down like butter. It’s not necessarily a "reinvent the wheel" kind of game, but the music is surprisingly catchy and the level design feels much more creative than I remembered for such an early title.

The absolute highlight of this playthrough, though, wasn't the mods or the mechanics. It was the fact that this technically became the first game Annie ever played. Watching her practice "jumping" on the controller while Wario stomped around gave the whole run a different kind of weight. It’s one thing to appreciate a classic for its history, but seeing a toddler get a kick out of those same pixels makes it feel brand new.

Also, the ending. Genuinely one of the most disrespectful moments. After an entire game of Wario busting his back, collecting every stray coin, and finding every hidden treasure just to get his dream home, Mario shows up. He flies in with a helicopter, hooks your castle to the bottom of it, and gives you a cheerful "Peace out!" wave while he literally steals your house. I was sitting there with the controller in my hand, absolutely fuming. I’ve spent the last several hours shoulder-charging through monsters for this damn castle, and Mario treats it like he’s just picking up an item in Mario Party. Mario is officially on my list.