A classic in a rather underapreciated series.
User Rating: 9.8 | Wario Land 3 GBC
Wario Land 3 teaches some dangerous values to those who dare to play it. For example "getting set on fire is fun" or, "being flattened by a stone pillar is good!" But for all that, it still manages to be one of the greatest games of all time, and perhaps the best game to ever be released on the Game Boy. Quite simply put, this game rules. Wario Land 3's protagonist, everybody's favorite anti-hero Wario, manages to get himself stuck inside a magical music box in a cave after he crashes his personal plane. As soon as he arrives in the world inside the music box, a mysterious being in a temple promises to return Wario to his world, in exchange for setting the being free. While it may not always be a good idea to trust mysterious beings inside temples that are located in mystical worlds located entirely within a magical music box located in the middle of nowhere, Wario goes out to see what he can do anyway. After all, there is a possibility of finding treasure along the way. And so the game begins. The first thing worth noting about this game is the way that it progresses. The straight-ahead fashion of the previous Wario Land has been dropped in favor of an approach that makes the game a lot deeper and open-ended than it's predecessors. To pass through one level, Wario must find a key and take it to a color-coded treasure chest on that same stage to retrieve the treasure inside. Doing so may well either give Wario a new ability, or alter one of the other stages in a way that will allow him to reach a new area. For example, finding the binoculars in one stage will allow Wario to spot a door in another stage. Finding the detonator in one stage will destroy several walls in another. The way that this all happens is slightly similar to the method of progression seen in the Metroid games, but with a lot more emphasis on altering the stages themselves in different ways. The way that this all happens actually reveals how large each individual stage on the map is. While it may seem at first as though the game isn't very large, the areas that encompass each one of the treasures turn out to be quite large after you begin opening up different parts of them, and the entire game can take quite a long time to explore. It's also notable that the game features the inclusion of both day and night modes. After Wario finishes a stage, the world transitions from either day to night or from night to day. This can affect the layout of the stage, or how easy it is to find your way around, or even what enemies are doing. So timing your expeditions into each level can be just as important as how you make them. Wario himself controls in almost the same way as he did in his last adventure. He has all the same moves, powers, and abilities that he had before. However, as stated, he must locate them in this game. In the beginning, he can only jump and do a shoulder charge. While progressing through the game, he'll need to gain the ability to throw enemies, to do a ground-pound, and even learn how to swim. This entire transformation makes Wario seem a lot more powerful at the end of the game than he does at the beginning. Also, Wario is once more invincible in this game. And once again, he has the ability to change forms based on how enemies' attacks affect him. For example, forms like Flat Wario and Fire Wario have returned for this game. Flat Wario appears after Wario has been flattened by a great weight, and Fire Wario shows up after Wario has been set on fire. But some new transformations have arrived for this game. For example, being attacked by bats will turn Wario into Vampire Wario, who is immune to enemies and can change into a bat and fly around. Getting covered in snow will turn Wario into a giant snowball, with the ability to become even bigger by rolling down hills and through enemies and obstacles. So, the game itself plays incredibly well, but what about the presentation? Well, the game's graphics look wonderful. They're mostly an update on the appearance of Wario's last Game Boy adventure, Wario Land II. That's not to say that they didn't add a lot of new things to this game, in fact, if you play it immediately after it's predecessor, you'll notice a lot of the huge updates that were made to the game's graphics engine. For example, since this game was designed for a system that had the ability to present colors to the player, everything looks a lot sharper and more brilliant. Environments look more natural, and characters all have more color to them than they ever did before. Sound is also a step above previous Wario games. The music itself is composed very well. While the Game Boy Color still does not have the most sophisticated sound system, all of the music manages to shine with more detail and variety than it did before. And next to that, sound effects in this game are also a bit more varied than they were before, perhaps in adaptation to the way that all sorts of new transformations and enemies were added to this game. So, to finish, Wario Land 3 is pretty much the most important game available for the Game Boy. It manages to be one of the deepest and longest platformers available for any system. Finding each and every item throughout the game's huge stages and colorful worlds is sure to take you through a very long and very fun journey, and you'll be amazed at just how consistent this game is along the entire way. Wario Land 3 is a definite must-buy for the Game Boy for players of any age. Finding it is more than worth it for anyone. So play it. Play it now! 
