"Repeat after me: I'm the bad guy in Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3, where being bad is good, and greed is good!"
— Wario, American commercial
Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is the third game in the Super Mario Land series, the first in the Wario Land series — with subsequent titles dropping the Super Mario Land moniker — and the first overall game starring Wario, released in 1994 on the Game Boy. Being the first in a new series, it is very different gameplay-wise from the first two Mario Land games, though it still retains several recurring elements of the franchise which its successors would soon disavow.
Since Wario is basically a Villain Protagonist — indeed, the game is often cited as the first from Nintendo to feature one — the game has no real noble goal. Instead, the game is based around Wario, hot off the heels of his previous failure to seize Mario's castle, trying to get a lot of money in order to buy his own bigger castle and make Mario jealous. The greedy lout's plan to do this? Steal a giant golden statue of Princess Peach that had been previously stolen by a gang of pirates, and sell it back to its rightful owners for a sizeable fee... and if that wasn't enough, take every bit of said pirate gang's loot for himself along the way. There are Multiple Endings based around how much money the player accrued over the course of the game, something rather new at the time.
The gameplay, again, is markedly different from the original Mario titles, since Wario is much more brutal, blunt and combat-oriented. He can do a shoulder charge to defeat enemies, pick them up and toss them around, and use various power-up helmets to either attack enemies in new ways or explore the levels.
The game was available for the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console until its shutdown in March 2023.
This game provides examples of:
- 100% Completion: The ending of the game is determined by how many coins and treasures Wario has picked up during the game—specifically, this determines how big a castle he can buy. Finishing with 99999 coins and all the treasures results in getting the entire moon.
- Achilles' Heel: Wario is immune to Collision Damage, but is vulnerable to sharp things. Naturally, most of the creatures on Kitchen Island can strike at his one weakness.
- Adding Insult to Injury: When Wario gets a castle or other type of dwelling at the end of the game, he'll try to decorate it with a large W sign. In the worst endings, the sign falls off whatever dwelling Wario gets. The poor guy can't even personalize his new home!
- Adorable Evil Minions: As is Nintendo tradition, Captain Syrup's pirate crew are ruthless, but also very cute at the same time. Special mention goes out to the Gooms.
- Advancing Wall of Doom: The first level of Stove Canyon has a moving wall of instant-death lava.
- After Boss Recovery: Money literally rains from the sky once a boss is beaten, as do hearts in one instance. Also, if you happened to take damage and are small, you will be returned to your normal size.
- Anti-Frustration Features: The game requires you to pony up 10 coins to open the end-of-level door to finish most stages. However, any stage that has very few coins, employs Ratchet Scrolling or Advancing Wall of Doom, or in any way restricts backtracking, will have the door already unlocked for you to prevent any Unintentionally Unwinnable situations.
- Artifact Title: The game has minimal ties to the previous two Super Mario Land titles, aside from Mario and Wario's old castle appearing in one of the endings, as well as a cameo by Mario himself. The overall gameplay is similar as well (use of power-ups, shrinking when taking damage). The Excuse Plot of this game is also somewhat related to Super Mario Land 2, as it is about Wario trying to claim a castle for his own after his defeat in the previous game.
- Artwork and Game Graphics Segregation:
- Minotaur's artwork depicts a skull tattoo on his bicep, which is absent from his in-game sprite. For comparison, the other bosses with this marking, Spike Koopa and Penguin, do feature it on their sprites.
- Genie's official art depicts him as fair-skinned and wearing a red hat, a red vest with no trim, red pants, and bracelets the same color as his skin. In-game, meanwhile, he has dark skin (using the same shade of gray as his vest), his vest has a white trim, and he wears a white hat, black pants, and white bracelets.
- Background Boss: The Genie who serves as the Final Boss. Though he doesn't seem like it, he's actually positioned behind Wario's position, which is why he averts Collision Damage. Wario has to throw his lamp so it lands with the right position to make it expel a solid cloud Wario can land on and reach his head to stomp it.
- Betting Mini-Game: At the end of each level, you have the option of playing a game in which you pick one of two buckets. One has a moneybag which doubles the coins you got in the level, and the other has a 10 ton weight which cuts your coins in half. You can pick up to three times. The Virtual Boy game also has this... with the option of going for 3x coins (one of two buckets are correct), 6x (one of three), or 10x (one of four) with your coins cut in half if you pick the wrong bucket (with a spider in it).
- Beware the Skull Base: Kitchen Island is shaped like a skull, and to say nothing about Captain Syrup's castle.
- Big Bad: Captain Syrup, with Villain Protagonist Wario (and the 6 Golden Coins affair still fresh in everyone's minds) making it an Evil Versus Evil setup.
- Big Fancy Castle: It is possible for Wario to get one of these in the multiple endings (though it's not the best ending, as getting a perfect game nets you an entire planet).
- Bittersweet Ending: After all the effort he went through to get it, Wario doesn't get to claim the giant golden statue of the princess, but the Genie still gives him a place to live (canonically, he is able to get his castle after all).
- Black-and-Grey Morality: At least Wario is taking on a gang of pirates here, while they apparently have a reputation befitting, well, pirates.
- Breakable Power-Up: Just like his red counterpart, Wario loses his power and shrinks into a small form whenever he takes damage. He also loses his ability to use the body slam.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Every time you complete a level, Wario will wink at you and give you a thumbs-up for succeeding.
- Broken Bridge: Some levels change wherever a particular level is beaten; for example, the tide rises in Rice Beach, replacing quicksand with water pools and revealing the first treasure; defeating a certain miniboss in Mt. Teapot causes the floating "teapot lid" island to crash down into the mountain, destroying one of the levels completely and replacing it with the boss level.
- The Cameo: Mario makes a surprise cameo in the ending, where he flies by in a helicopter and snatches away the giant golden statue of the princess from Wario.
- Cartoon Bomb: There are bombs with wings that try to latch onto your head. A furious Captain Syrup will also toss in a giant one bearing a skull after the genie is beaten, blowing up the castle and leaving the Peach statue...Which Mario casually flies off with.
- Cast from Money: By pressing Up + B, Wario can draw a heavy 10 Gold Coin and throw it at enemies, then pick it back up afterwards. It's also the fee required to open the exit door of most levels.
- Character in the Logo: The logo on the International logo has Wario's head in the "O" in "Wario".
- Classic Cheat Code: Pause, press select 16 times, hold B, and go nuts. The only downside is that you have to wait a whole minute while your 999 coins are slowly added to your treasury at the end of the level.
- Collision Damage: Zig-zagged. Wario can stun or kill most enemies just by bumping into them, without harming himself. However, most of these enemies either have spiky protection or carry sharp weapons, which do harm Wario if he touches them. The trick is to attack them from an unprotected side (usually from behind or below). The Watches completely play this straight, as they harm Wario by colliding with him when they swoop down.
- Color Wash: The Super Game Boy is precoded to play this game with a beige-yellow palette by default, reflecting both the monetary theme of the game and the fact that Wario wears yellow (as opposed to Mario's red and Luigi's green).
- Continuing is Painful: If you were to lose all your lives, you'll lose one of the treasures collected and have to retrieve it again. If you had no treasures, you would lose half your collected coins instead.
- Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: You're not the good-natured and heroic Mario this time around; this time, you play the villainous Wario, the Big Bad of the previous game, who is on a treasure hunt to get a castle of his own.
- Cranium Ride: You can ride on Thwomps, and in Wario Land II you need to bounce off of enemies to cross spikes in one level and platforms that only enemies can stand on in a later one.
- Cumulonemesis: Pikkarikun. An impish little cloud enemy that functions like Mario's Lakitu. It floats along the top of the screen and drops lightning bolts on Wario. Unfortunately, they are invincible. You can drop enemies under his lightning bolts to get Plus Coins, so the little jerk is at least useful for receiving income.
- Cutting Off the Branches: The ending where Wario gets a castle seems to be the canonical version. Later games show him living in it.
- Death Mountain: The second world, Mt. Teapot, has Wario exploring a lake and scaling up a teapot-shaped grassy mountain. Features include waterfalls and water currents, lava pits, and tall areas that have to be climbed with ladders. Notably, one of its levels has a secret exit that grants the only known access to another world, Sherbet Land.
- Debug Room: The game has two debug modes. The first one can be accessed in-game by pausing and pressing select 16 times, and allows the player to modify the current amount of lives and coins as well as change the remaining time in the level and Wario's current form. The second one requires cheats to access, and lets the player warp to any level in the game, move Wario freely around the level, and even warp to the game's ending.
- Deface of the Moon: In the Golden Ending Wario pays Captain Syrup's genie to create a planetoid with his face on it.
- Developer's Foresight: If you manage to get to the level end screen with 0 coins Wario will close his mouth, throw out his hands and then walk off. This is the only way you can see him do that.
- Do Well, But Not Perfect: Getting the canon ending requires you to either collect more than 90,008 coins but less than 99,999, or pass on collecting some treasures or completing some optional levels.
- Downer Ending: If Wario gathered a meager amount of coins, he has to live in a hollowed tree-trunk or worse, a birdhouse. However, you can continue playing that save file to earn more coins and treasures to get Wario some nicer digs.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Compared to future games, this one is much more linear and has a lot of Mario elements (lives, shrinking down when hit, powerups from blocks, etc.).
- In both this game and Virtual Boy Wario Land, Wario wears a safari helmet by default, rather than his usual yellow cap. (He does wear the usual cap in this game's introduction, but loses it on the file select screen and takes the safari hat in its place.)
- The best ending for the game has the Genie giving Wario his own planetoid, but the second-best ending, where Wario merely gets his own castle, seems to be the canonical one (despite urging the player to "please retry!").
- The Spiked Koopa (the Hammer Brother-like boss of Rice Beach), as well as the Munchers, Piranha Plants, and Pouncers (a Thwomp variant) that appear throughout the game, are the only classic Super Mario Bros. enemies to appear in any form in any of the Wario Land games.
- This is the only Wario Land game where the intro has nothing to do with the game's story. The intros for the rest of the series actually show how the story starts, but this one just has Wario chasing and assaulting a Dangerous Duck. So if you didn't read or have the manual (or look up the plot online), the ending where Mario and a giant golden statue of the princess appear would confuse you.
- Earn Your Bad Ending: Getting the worst ending is a challenge in itself, as you really have to try to avoid collecting coins.
- Edible Theme Naming: The aptly-named Kitchen Island, which itself serves as the main setting of the game, includes worlds like Rice Beach, Mt. Teapot, Sherbet Land, Stove Canyon, SS Teacup, Parsely Woods (with Fork Tree as a major sub-location) and Syrup Castle. Incidentally, the pirate leader (Captain Syrup) is also named after food, as is her group of minions (Black Sugar Gang).
- End-Game Results Screen: The "castle" Wario ends up getting is determined by the number of coins and treasures Wario has collected over the course of the game, ranging from a birdhouse to a planet.
- Evil Versus Evil: Wario may be greedy as all heck, but he's at least going for an appropriate target in the Brown Sugar Pirates.
- Feathered Fiend: Watches are annoying birds that swoop down at Wario and attack with their sharp talons.
- Fluffy the Terrible: Bobo, the SS Tea Cup's guard.
- Flying Face: The Devil's Head, the boss of Stove Canyon.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The North American commercial for 6 Golden Coins involved Wario hypnotizing the inhabitants of Mario Land into turning on Mario. The North American commercial for this game repeats the theme, only this time Wario is trying to hypnotize you, the viewer, into buying his game and helping him get a castle bigger than Mario's.
- Frigid Water Is Harmless: The frozen Sherbet Land has a few underwater levels, where the water behaves exactly the same as in every other world.
- Gangplank Galleon: The SS Tea Cup, which is Captain Syrup's ship. It's nominally one of the worlds in the game, and its lower body is mildly reminiscent of that of a tea cup (hence its name), but only the last two levels take place inside (the preceding levels take place in Underground Level and Palmtree Panic levels instead, narrating Wario's journey to the ship proper). Once inside, Wario has to go through its inner corridors, defeating several enemies along the way, until reaching the outer area where he has to climb at the top to face the boss (Bobo, a large bird).
- Genie in a Bottle: The final boss of the game. At the end of the game, Wario gains control of the Genie and uses his wish to get the castle he's been after the whole game. The quality of the castle depends on how much cash you've gathered (in coins and hidden treasures).
- Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: The final boss, a genie. Granted, the Genie is being controlled by the actual Big Bad, Captain Syrup, but there's no reference to it in the game or manual before that point, so its appearance is a bit of a surprise.
- The Goomba: That would be the "Gooms" around here, which come in both Pirate Goom varieties, as the most basic actual threat in the game, and the Wanderin' Goom, which the manual outright — accurately — states is harmless and just there for Wario to "shake it up for a coin or two". Or to be used as a throwing weapon.
- Gotta Catch Them All: Kitchen Island is littered with treasures that Wario can find to improve his cash flow. He needs to get them all to have the Golden Ending.
- Ground Pound: The first playable instance in the Mario franchise, preceding the Trope Namer by one year. Wario can perform a stomping attack with the bull helmet Power-Up.
- Harmless Enemy:
- The series' Mascot Mook Wanderin' Gooms are completely incapable of attacking Wario in any way. Even if they walk into you they get stunned.
- Chicken Ducks fly slowly and leisurely in a straight line. It possesses no threat whatsoever. If anything, it's more helpful than most examples.
- Konotakos aren't able to harm Wario at all. Even if stuck to him when they explode, it merely stuns him.
- D.D.s and Guraguras can be rendered this via an easy-to-abuse glitch, done by scrolling them off and on the screen with the right timing, that despawns their boomerang or mace and leaves them unable to attack.
- The Minotaur boss can't directly harm Wario, but instead attacks by picking him up and attempting to toss him in the lava for a One-Hit KO.
- Hat of Power: All the power-ups are hats in this game that grant Wario special abilities. The Bull Pot places a Viking helmet on Wario's head that strengthens his body charge attack, lets him cling to ceilings, and allows him to do a Earth-shaking Ground Pound. The Jet Pot gives Wario a hat that makes him move faster, jump higher, and has built in rocket thrusters that allow him to fly. The Dragon Pot places a mechanical dragon on Wario's head that lets him shoot fire that breaks blocks and roasts enemies.
- Head Swap: The Watches and the Demon Bats basically the same enemy type but share the same behavior and hitboxes, but with a completely different sprite.
- Hearts Are Health: Unlike in the first two Mario Land games, hearts alone don't restore extra lives; instead, the player has "Heart Points", and collecting hearts adds ten heart points, while defeating an enemy adds one heart point. Collecting 100 hearts adds an extra life.
- Helpful Mook:
- The Wanderin' Goom; it has no way to hurt you, but you can still kill it for a coin or pick it up and toss it at something else. It more or less exists to show off the difference between Mario and Wario, that very Goomba-like enemies aren't even capable of annoying him.
- The Chicken Ducks cannot hurt Wario, but help him instead. They have a basket on their heads that when Wario tosses an enemy (likely a Goom) into it, its spits out Three Plus Coins (30 Coins) every time.
- Hero of Another Story: Implied in the manual with Mario, as it mentions him going on his own adventure to find the Princess Toadstool statue. He ends up appearing in the game's ending to take it back.
- Hit Points: Much like the parent series, Wario shrinks when he takes damage no matter what his power-up form is (He doesn't regress to Normal Wario when he gets hit as Bull, Dragon, or Jet), giving him only two hits. Get hit while small and Wario's done for.
- Hostage for MacGuffin: The Brown Sugar Pirates are holding the statue of Princess Peach for ransom, demanding a huge cash sum for its return. Wario plans to steal the statue and collect the ransom himself. Mario comes along in a helicopter and takes the statue back to the Mushroom Kingdom anyway.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: The Garlic Pot serves to turn Small Wario into Wario and Wario into Bull Wario.
- Immediate Sequel: The game picks up shortly after Super Mario Land 2, with Wario learning about the Princess Toadstool statue shortly after his loss in that game.
- Infinite 1-Ups: Easily gotten in Course No.06, which is a short stage consisting of nothing but a Bull Pot, coins, invisible blocks containing hearts, and harmless enemies hidden in the ground. And that's not even with you accessing the Debug Cheat to edit your life count.
- Instakill Mook: Pouncers will kill Wario in one hit no matter what his form is.
- Invincibility Power-Up: The Star, unsurprisingly. While invincible, Wario moves faster and he receives ten hearts when he destroys enemies.
- Jet Pack: Or rather jet hat. The Jet Pot powerup is a plane-shaped hat with a jet engine behind that allows Wario to glide horizontally until he gradually descends to the ground.
- Kill It with Fire: Dragon Wario. Although the fire become shock waves underwater.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Captain Syrup runs for it when Wario defeats her genie. By that point, he's pretty much taken out her entire crew and she realizes she's no match for him.
- Ledge Bats: Unlike Mario, Wario takes Knock Back, which means that even enemies that otherwise cannot harm him, like Demon Bats, can effectively kill Wario in one hit...
- Lethal Lava Land: Stove Canyon is a world that takes place inside an active volcano, so its levels feature lava that can kill Wario instantly upon contact. A relative of the Lava Bubbles, the Bō, appears frequently and is indestructible. Along the way, Wario has to cross bridges (including collapsing ones), climb ladders, jump across tiny platforms (including sinking ones), and ride platform carts to navigate safely.
- Level Goal: The game usually requires you to pay 10 coins to open the locked exit door (if it isn't a stage where the exit door is open to begin with). In some stages the stage is cleared by hitting a giant ! block instead, which results in some big change happening on the world map.
- Load-Bearing Boss: Syrup Castle explodes after Captain Syrup is defeated, which is explained by a gigantic bomb being placed in the throne room.
- Locomotive Level: Two fixed scrolling ones that feature divided tracks that are traversed with platform carts, rails navigated via a train and some platform carts.
- The Lost Woods: Parsley Woods. It is a deep, dense forest with special features like trees that drop spiked balls, levels set inside trains, a Cumulonemesis enemy that drops lightning bolts to harm Wario, and a large tree that has to be scaled upward.
- MacGuffin Delivery Service: Wario destroys Syrup Castle to reveal the giant golden statue of the princess, only for Mario to appear and snatch it right then and there.
- Minecart Madness: One of the levels in Stove Canyon. A level in Parsley Woods is very similar.
- Mini-Boss: Unlike any other enemy in the game, Captain Syrup is defended by an armored knight who behaves very much like any of the preceding bosses and takes some work to defeat.
- Multiple Endings: Wario Land introduced a then-new mechanic for the series where the number of coins you collect will determine the quality of the epilogue. Getting the lower two endings requires you to
avoid coins like the plague.- 6 Money Bags: Planetoid (must have 99,999 coins, all treasures found, and all courses cleared)
- 5 Money Bags: Castle (90,008 coins)
- 4 Money Bags: Pagoda (70,008 coins)
- 3 Money Bags: Log cabin (40,008 coins)
- 2 Money Bags: Tree trunk (10,072 coins)
- 1 Money Bag: Birdhouse (lowest possible score is 300 coins)
- Mutually Exclusive Power Ups: Played with the Garlic Pot. The Garlic Pot is the only one of the power ups that can be used to access two different forms, turning Small Wario back to normal, and upgrading Wario to Bull Wario. Otherwise, the power ups (Bull, Dragon and Jet Pots) only turn you into their respective forms and skipping over the normal form if you happen to be small.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: Even when it's downplayed, it's worth noting that the only things that can actually hurt Wario are sharp enemies and fire/plasma-based substances.
- Night of the Living Mooks: Ghostly Spear Gooms are ghosts of prior Spear Gooms Wario defeated and behave the same as the famous Boos. They home in on Wario when he's not looking at them.
- Nintendo Hard: The first world is harder than the entirety of Super Mario Land 2.
- One-Hit Kill: Pouncers can one-shot Wario in this game, regardless of powerup state. Even if you merely bumped into its sides. This is because the sides and bottom are spiked, and spikes are an instant kill to Wario.
- One-Time Dungeon: The game has Course 10 of Mt. Teapot. You can only access this course until you beat Course 12 and hit the switch, which makes the lid of the mountain slam down onto the top of the mountain. It lands right on Course 10, which transforms it into the much more rough and claustrophobic Course 13.
- Orcus on His Throne: Captain Syrup serves this function here.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: The money-obsessed boss of Parsely Woods, which summons Pirate Goom ghosts.
- Our Minotaurs Are Different: The Minotaur. Amusingly fitting, he imitates some of Wario's trademark abilities.
- Outside Ride: In the train levels.
- Palmtree Panic: Rice Beach, which also serves as the first world of the game, is a coastal region located west of Kitchen Island with a Gangplank Galleon motif. There are boxes and barrels with Jolly Roger symbols across the sandy beach, caves with ephemeral platforms and lava pits, and Pouncers that must be avoided due to their deadly spikes.
- Polar Penguins: The boss of Sherbet Land is a spiked hat and boxing gloves-wearing penguin.
- Planet Baron: If Wario goes out of his way to obtain every single coin he can find, then he'll have enough money by the end to buy his very own planetoid with his face on it.
- Playing with Fire: Dragon Wario spews flames that can break blocks and destroy enemies. It even works underwater, where it shoots shockwaves instead of fire.
- Point of No Return: Subverted. After passing the SS Tea Cup, you're shot into the Parsley woods and can't go back to the previous levels, until you find a way to drain the lake about three stages in.
- Poorly Disguised Pilot: Despite having Super Mario Land 3 in its name, the game is actually part of a new subseries starring Wario (who debuted in the preceding game as the Final Boss), which is likely why the name of the series it starts comes first with the series it spun off from comes second.
- Power-Up Food: The game parodies the traditional Mario method of power-ups by having Wario eat comically oversized heads of Garlic, which give him his hat powers.
- Pragmatic Villainy: The premise, and an Irony where someone's Greed causes them to make a more-reasonable decision: Rather than try to conquer Mario Land again, seek Revenge on Mario, etc., Wario decides to simply Start His Own on Kitchen Island.
- Promoted to Playable: Though Wario was already playable in Wario Bast: Featuring Bomberman, his debut in a platform game is here, following his debut in the previous Mario Land game as its Final Boss.
- Puzzle Boss: Albeit a very easy puzzle with the Minotaur. To defeat him, stun him with a charge, pick him up, and throw him in the lava. The "puzzle" is figuring out that you can pick the boss up, as giant and intimidating as he is.
- Remixed Level: Several cases. After you beat Rice Beach, two stages there become flooded when you try them again. The final stage of Mt. Teapot is a remix of a previous version of the stage. The first stage of Parsley Woods changes significantly after you drain the lake.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Parsley Woods is erroneously spelt as Parsely Woods after Wario drains the lake. It may have been possible that in an earlier state of development, the area may have been referred to as Parsely Lake, utilizing the draining cutscene as the trigger for altering the map tiles. Eventually, they caught the misspelling and stuck to consistently calling it as Parsley Woods, and they may have blanked out the tiles that spelt Lake (space saving measure?), but didn't realize that they spelt Parsley twice in its drained state. This was not caught in localization.
- Samus Is a Girl: The story in the English manual mentions that Captain Syrup is "known the world over for being a really rotten and ruthless guy", making it a surprise when she turns out to be a woman.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: What Captain Syrup does after you defeat her genie.
- Secret Level: Starting from this game, almost every game in the Wario Land series has many secret levels, including whole secret worlds (in fact, Mario Land 3 itself has the world Sherbet Land, which is accessed by completing a level from Mt. Teapot via a secret exit).
- Sequel: The Original Title: This being the third game in the Super Mario Land series, the game prioritizes Wario's name over Mario's, to signify the change of protagonist from Mario to Wario, and the subsequent start of the Wario Land series. This only applies to the overseas versions, though; in Japanese, the original title comes first, followed by the Wario Land subtitle.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Wario destroys Syrup Castle to reveal a giant golden statue of Princess Peach — which he had been hoping to sell to said princess for an obscene amount of money — which, unfortunately for him, is then taken back by Mario in his helicopter. Luckily for Wario, he still has Captain Syrup's magic lamp, and the Genie who lives inside is willing to take cash.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Sherbet Land, which is not only optional but has to be unlocked by completing a certain level from Mt. Teapot via its secret exit. The first level takes place through bridges that collapse when Wario steps onto them, the second takes place within a cave with large ice blocks (some of which feature frozen enemies that come back to life when those blocks are thawed after Wario presses a switch) above spikes, the third has breakable blocks (though not all of them should be broken, as they'll serve as supporting platforms once the ice blocks disappear at one point by pressing a switch), and the last level is a partially-flooded cave. There are also two secret levels set within ice caves.
- Snowlems: Bucket Heads are short big-headed snowmen who wear buckets on top of their heads and spit ice crystals at Wario. Suitably, they only appear in Sherbet Land.
- Songs in the Key of Panic: Like the rest of the Mario series, the music speeds up when the timer drops below 100 seconds. Unlike them, however, it climbs up a half-step.
- Spanner in the Works: Subverted. After Wario's defeated Captain Syrup, he's about to get the giant golden statue of the princess... only for Mario to come along in a helicopter and take the statue back to the Mushroom Kingdom himself. It doesn't necessarily matter, since Wario gets ahold of Captain Syrup's genie. If Wario has enough treasure, the Genie can still give him the castle he wants.
- The Spiny: Since Wario doesn't take basic Collision Damage in this game, the multitude of enemies in this game wield some sharp weaponry or protection of some kind. Be it spears, spikes, or knives, which does damage Wario. Wario has to attack them from an unprotected side.
- Spikes of Doom: Spikes are not only very frequent, they're far more dangerous than usual, as they can kill Wario instantly (Pouncers, being spiked on their sides and bottom, are deadly for this same reason).
- Spring Jump: There are blocks that acted like the Super Mario Bros. springboards, and the Spring Wario power up (which turns Wario into a spring worked) also works like this.
- Squashed Flat: When you finish a level, you can play a mini-game where you either increase or decrease your final coin score. If you win, the coins you gain are represented by a large money bag landing on Wario and flattening him like a stomped Goomba. Naturally, Wario is never harmed by this.
- Start My Own: Having failed to steal Mario's castle in the previous game, Wario goes on a treasure hunt to try and get enough money to build his own castle bigger than Mario's. In the best ending, Wario is so successful that he manages to buy his own personal planetoid.
- Stealing from Thieves: This pretty much forms the basis of Wario's Get-Rich-Quick Scheme over the course of the game. Head to Kitchen Island, steal the giant statue of Princess Peach that the Brown Sugar Pirates stole first — then sell it back to its original owners for an extortionate sum of cash — and grab every bit of their treasure that isn't nailed down along the way. And even if it is nailed down? Since greed is good, steal it all the same.
- Stepping-Stone Sword: Used to get a secret exit that leads to Sherbet Land.
- Stock Money Bag: The game features a post-stage minigame where you have three chances to pick from two buckets, each money bag doubling the coins you've collected for the stage — and a weight splitting them. After the final boss, your funds are also converted to these, and how many of them you give to the genie affects what kind of new digs Wario gets, from a birdhouse, to a luxurious castle — and even his face on the moon for having maxed coins.
- Superboss: Hinyari, located in Sherbet Land. Amusingly, you can just walk right out of the battlefield through a convienently-placed door.
- Super-Strength: Wario is already a powerful guy, but the Bull Pot makes him even stronger. He can break solid blocks in one blow and can perform earth-shaking Ground Pounds.
- Super-Speed: Jet Wario is not only capable of flight, but he runs faster than his other forms on top of jumping higher.
- Suspicious Videogame Generosity: There's always a power up right before the boss door.
- Tagline: "Be the bad guy."
- Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack: The game uses variations of the theme first heard in the first level of the game.
- Timed Mission: The timer is usually long enough so as to not be a bother, though.
- Time Keeps On Ticking: Done in the pre-final boss cutscene.
- Traintop Battle: Done in several levels, most notably in Parsley Woods.
- Treasure Hunt Episode: In what would become a Wario series tradition, Wario embarks on a treasure hunting adventure to get rich. In this case to claim a castle of his own.
- Underground Level: Rice Beach, Stove Canyon, and Sherbet Land all have levels set in caverns, the former two having lava pits and the latter having icy floors and rarely a flooded area.
- Under the Sea: There are water levels in Sherbet Land and the SS Tea Cup areas, the former as part of Wario's journey to Captain Syrup's ship and the latter set within an icy cavern.
- Unending End Card: The game hangs on a screen with Wario running around and giving the player a thumbs-up. Though, like with almost all Game Boy games, you can return to the title screen by pressing A+B+Start+Select to reset the console.
- The Unfought: Captain Syrup herself. You fight her genie instead. After defeating said genie, she promptly pulls an Exit Villain, Stage Left.
- Unique Enemy: Maizōs are only found in stage 6, though there's multiple of them. They lie under the sand, and when Wario ground pounds near them, they quickly run off to try and prevent Wario from stealing their coin.
- Unstable Equilibrium: Done differently than Mario games, and later Wario games, in that Wario can still break blocks when small but loses the ability to run and perform his trademark shoulder bash.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Syrup Castle. Nothing subtle about that giant skull at all.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can throw any of the smaller Mooks underneath a "Pouncer" or into a lightning bolt, and you'll get 10x the coins for your trouble.
- Video Game Flight: Jet Wario. Thanks to a programming quirk, you can fly forever.
- Villain Protagonist: The game lets you know right from the box and the commercials that you're the bad guy in this game. You're not saving anyone. The world isn't in any danger. Heck, the pirates you're going after don't really do anything except get in your way. It's all about you and your own selfish self interest. Feels pretty good.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: If the player has not figured out that this is not a "Mario" platform game yet, the very first boss, a Spiked Koopa, will hammer it for them. He cannot be jumped on, as any Mario player would recognize, but must be jumped into, which Mario players have been conditioned to not even consider. More, he is immune to fire, and since this game has no dash button coming in with the Dragon Pot makes the fight harder than just being plain "big" Wario, and even then Wario's momentum is controlled much differently than Mario's so you cannot dodge by muscle memory. Even ignoring all of that, he is a fairly tough boss with multiple attacks that would be seen at the midway point of a Mario game rather than the beginning and consequently is one of the most difficult bosses in this game. The fact that the level was aggravating didn't help things either.
