The game again follows goddess Zizou Olympia, who faces off against many strange and interesting foes in action-platforming gameplay. There are several tweaks to the series formula this time, with the Gradius-inspired enhancement meter being simplified, the removal of Classic Mega Man-esque boss weapons, and a more strict Capacity Meter forcing more careful resource management.
The Legend of Dark Witch Episode 3 contains examples of:
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- The player can switch between difficulty levels as they please. As there are no Speed Run-based Playing Levels this time around, the player can get Game Master with two save files, one for each character.
- Falling into a pit now deducts a single heart and places the player back onto the nearest platform. The player does not lose health if they were already in Mercy Invincibility when they fell, and it also destroys any nearby bullets.
- In the game's obligatory Boss Rush, the game shows which boss lurks behind each portal.
- If the player loses to the final boss, they don't have to repeat the preceding fight unlike the first two games.
- Another Side, Another Story: Day is the second playable character.
- Art Shift: This game carries the Brave Dungeon Art Shift back into the main series.
- Bag of Spilling: Zizou loses everything except Liner and Lord Attack. Downplayed when she's fought as a boss, as she still remembers Upper Tornado and Hyper Dark Arm.
- Battle Amongst the Flames: The second visit to Folkstone, as it has been set on fire by this point. During the Boss Rush, the flames rage on in front of the boss's normal background.
- Big Boo's Haunt: Brujita's stage, Stret Cemetery, is as ghoulish as its name would imply.
- Blackout Basement: The primary gimmick of Cholesy's stage, Neural Reality.
- Book Ends: The game starts and ends at Folkstone.
- Clockworks Area: Seama's stage, Hivi Clock Tower. Her boss fights takes place in front of a gigantic clock.
- Collision Damage: Played straight for bosses for the first time in the series. In fact, a couple of bosses deliberately try to walk into the player to cause damage.
- Dark Reprise: The Stage Select theme switches to a slightly more ominous version once the Beast Men bosses are revealed. "Burning" Folkstone's theme is much less cheery than the original version.
- Death Mountain: Patty's stage, Kinder Hill. In fact, the player narrowly avoids getting crushed by falling rocks as soon as the stage begins.
- Evolving Title Screen: Almost all of the characters in the opening sequence start out silhouetted, but reveal themselves over time.
- Fantastic Racism: The game plays up this angle a bit more than the previous two, with the human "Magic Lion Corps" on the verge of wiping out the Beast Men on the Old Islands until Day turns traitor and ruins a critical operation. Cue Zizou, who comes down to stop Day's impending Roaring Rampage of Revenge and, in true Zizou fashion, beat the snot out of both sides of the conflict for good measure.
- Final Boss: Simeone in Zizou's story, Mati in Day's story.
- Harder Than Hard: Lunatic difficulty, as per series tradition.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: In Zizou's opening stage, the player fights Day normally until she activates Capacity Zero, which empties the Capacity Meter. As all methods of attack use the Meter, the player has no choice but to let Zizou lose all of her health, after which Zizou gets rescued by her sister. The player can theoretically reduce Day's health to zero before the meter is emptied, but she won't die.
- Guide Dang It!: Pure Syega are in far more obscure places than in previous games. There are also at least a couple that exploit the fact that dashing into portals gives the player character more velocity when they exit the other side, a quirk that the game does not tell you anything about.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Simeone tricks Day into betraying the Magic Lion Corps, which leads to their collapse and allows her to gain the upper hand.
- The Lost Woods: Rio's stage, Boleyn Garden, features gigantic trees and villainous plants. Claudia's stage, Lyme Park, is a more sinister take.
- Noodle Incident: The game never quite goes into detail about what caused Day to turn traitor, aside stating that it involved Simeone convincing her and Claudia's ability to create illusions.
- Nostalgia Level: Heaven's Gardens returns, complete with remix of its stage theme.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In Day's story, Zizou figures out that Simeone is behind everything and takes her out before Day returns to Folkstone. Zizou and Day fight anyway, because Zizou wants revenge for losing earlier.
- Poor Communication Kills: If Day just listened to her comrades, she would have learned that they don't have a grudge against her and this whole conflict could have been averted. Granted, Simeone might have just found another way to turn the Magic Lion Corps against each other...
- Recurring Boss: Al, fresh off of her Day in the Limelight in Brave Dungeon, is back as a boss.
- River of Insanity: Wonder Girl's stage, Stream Mersey, sees players riding a river current and navigating waterfalls.
- Sequential Boss: Just like the first two games, the final battle consists of two phases. Unlike both those games, two different characters are involved.
- Shout-Out: During one aftertalk with Rio, Rio runs away while saying, '"Time for me to make like a hedgehog and roll outta here!"'
- Sinister Subway: Zanetti's stage, Mary Subway, is abandoned and full of monsters.
- Sudden Name Change: The term that refers to creatures that are naturally adept at Magic, which was translated as "Fae" in previous games, becomes "Beast Man" in this game. This becomes a big problem, as the Japanese version uses a different term for non-human creatures that are not naturally adept at magic that was also translated as "Beastman".
- A Taste of Defeat: Day turns the tables on Physical God Zizou, causing Mati to intervene. Mati refers to this trope almost verbatim.
- Title Scream: "The! Legend of Dark Witch! Episode 3!" Both on the Nintendo 3DS's OS and in the game itself.
- Trailers Always Spoil: Every single character appears on Dark Witch 3's website, including the Big Bad with the incredibly spoilerific subtitle "Mastermind." Furthermore, it spoils that Mati is fought as a boss.
