20. N5 The Tidal Coast – Blue
O’ the few uses o’ the octopuses in this game, this is the most interesting use, challenging the player to navigate an underwater maze to find both the key & the chest room while avoiding the charge attacks o’ the octopuses who alternate from up & down as they enter the screen & threaten to shove the player back — & possibly make them lose track o’ where they are if they aren’t paying close attention to where they get shoved.
The chest room is also a novel concept, challenging the player to jump out o’ the water while dodging the apples that will make Wario fat & sink back to the bottom o’ the water, albeit underutilized with just 1 straightforward iteration. I can imagine potential twists where you need to intentionally get fat @ a certain part o’ the water so you sink down & break donut blocks. Howe’er, such extra variations would work better for their own treasure, not @ the end o’ a treasure that already has a theme.
1 element that puzzles me ’bout this treasure are the thick walls o’ solid blocks on either side o’ the entrance to the octopus room. Sure, they make you get the garlic to break thru them; but you already need to do so to unlock the fruit that makes the octopus grow to break thru the gates in the water. My best theory is that they put these walls here as a fakeout troll: they tease you by making you think you just need to have the garlic to get thru, only to give you ’nother lock requiring ’nother treasure. It’s not much o’ a burden, & players following the Temple-recommended path are not going to encounter this trick, anyway, so I’d just credit this to the developers wanting to add an extra interesting detail that doesn’t affect gameplay much.
19. S6 Above the Clouds – Blue
1 o’ the most iconic treasures in this game & a fitting conclusion to this level: after climbing all the way to the top o’ the level, the player can enter a door inside the full moon to enter a weird temple with a unique tileset. There the player has to pull off a series o’ platforming challenges thru tight spaces that require precise movement: jumping up to a platform from a rising platform monster while holding a rock while avoiding hitting the ceiling & bumping the rock off; jumping off a bird while ducking so you can reach a high tight passage; dodging birds while jumping from falling platform to falling platform; & then charge jumping thru a wall o’ cracked blocks while on a falling platform.
Unfortunately, despite the many cool platforming challenges they employed that they could have used for getting the key, they placed the key in the laziest place: just to the side o’ the moon entrance, the only challenge being that you have to fall down a bit & redo the last part o’ the climb. Thankfully, you don’t have to redo too much, but it’s still lame padding. E’en if they couldn’t think o’ a challenge to use for getting the blue key, they could’ve just placed it ’hind a minigolf block. Heck, e’en with the green chest using a minigolf block, it would’ve been a clever twist to use it again for the blue treasure, after the player probably assumes they’re safe from having to do the minigolf game e’er again in this level — surely cleverer than when “The Vast Plain” required it twice.
Since the player needs to enter the moon, this treasure needs to be done @ night, whose darker palette is a bit harder to see than @ day, upping the platforming challenge on the upward climb. To make up for this, the nighttime version o’ this level offers the player the best level theme in the game.
18. E6 The East Crater – Blue
The designers made the wise decision to make what for most players is the final treasure in the game have its own unique mechanic: throwing barrels up o’er walls & catching them as they land to use them past the walls to break thru throw block walls.
My 1 complaint ’bout this treasure is that despite beings its only use, it doesn’t build on its mechanic in any way beyond maybe jumping on a rising snake head & throwing the barrel @ a wall @ the end, whose main challenge is just timing a jump well so it goes after the snake head rises but before it starts spitting fire, which is barely a challenge by this point in the game. The key just involves throwing a barrel up @ a ceiling o’ throw blocks right where a barrel spawns, so there’s no challenge there, either. In fact, the hardest part o’ this treasure is the beginning, where the player needs to deal with an apple thrower in addition to throwing a barrel o’er a wall.
17. E5 The Warped Void – Red
This treasure introduces a rare mechanic unique to this very unique level: warp rooms where the walls & almost all the rest o’ the terrain are weird yellow warp material that kicks you out o’ the area — a similar alternative to death that the gray treasure used, but this treasure focuses entirely on it, with the main room splitting with warp material in the middle & the red key on the left & the chest on the right. Whereas the gray treasure had you time jumps on solid platforms ’bove the warp material, here you are warped inside up in the air & have to maneuver thru the air as you fall to land on the only solid ground & avoid the warp material all round.
It’s a basic treasure, but in a game with 100 treasures, that’s a good thing, specially since this & the green treasure are opened with the same treasure. It’s the best use o’ this weird warp room mechanic.
16. W6 The West Crater – Green
Certainly a unique treasure: past the series o’ flames only passable by extinguishing them with the fire extinguisher treasure there’s a large room full o’ scattered blocks that seem random but in reality compose 2 branching paths to the key & chest where the only challenge is raw platforming, albeit with a few twists, such as the e’er-present jumping off enemies to reach higher platforms & having to duck jump under low ceilings to avoid getting jumps eaten. Thankfully, the former doesn’t consume much o’ this treasure with the latter rarer & mo’ interesting challenge type taking up mo’, especially @ the beginning. This room layout reminds me o’ the general level design o’ Super Mario 64, finding that sweet balance ’tween feeling too coldly calculated, which feels less believable that such areas are naturally formed, & just arbitrary & scattershot.
There are other subtle touches they added, like requiring you to charge attack — but not jump, as the ceiling is too low to not get it eaten — to go from the high cliff to the slightly lower cliff with the green key.
There is 1 place where you may be diverted toward a music coin, but unlike “Castle of Illusions”’s blue treasure, said diversion is much shorter, looks more out o’ the way, & a’least gives a sneak peak @ where the green chest is.
My 1 complaint is that the visuals are both bland & searing @ the same time, with the same texture on all the blocks & a similar 1-tile texture for the background in eye-aching bloody red.
15. E7 Forest of Fear – Gray
“Forest of Fear”’s gray treasure falls into the problem quite a few other levels fall into, where the gray treasure involves much o’ the same work as you’ll be doing in later treasures, making it easy to o’erlook. This, ’course, makes a lot o’ sense & is not much different from how Super Mario 64 operated. In this level it works better, as the work you have to do is pure platforming ( albeit on climbable wire rather than platforms ) that can be done quickly if good, rather than having to wait thru certain abilities to do what they need to do. I emphasize “if good”, ’cause by Wario Land 3 standards this level is rather brutal with its confusing arrangements o’ wires flooded with spikes in all directions, leaving very tight space ’tween them, & birds lurking to charge @ you from both horizontal directions with short warning. In Wario Land 3 fashion, & also not unlike Super Mario 64, the best path is not obvious & players need sharper perception than most platformers to navigate thru. This is fitting for a menacing forest — what is, technically, the final level o’ the game, a dark mirror to the very 1st level, the lighthearted forest whose pathways are obvious, & much less dangerous. Playing thru these challenging pathways gives you the opportunity to sharpen your skills in navigating thru them so that by the 3rd treasure ( the 4th treasure relieves players o’ having to go thru the right path ) you should be able to go thru them much mo’ quickly, in contrast, to, say, solving the fire puzzle @ the beginning o’ “Tower of Revival”, which can only be optimized so much ( without exploiting obscure glitches ) & still involves slowly waiting for Wario to run thru all torches & fall back into water & climb all the way up the ladder…
This level highlights its brutal nature also in a typical Wario Land 3 way, by having a section where getting the gray key forces you into a area you need to climb back out, giving a risk-reward treatment to the gray key, similar to what “The Volcano’s Base”’s blue treasure does — tho ironically, considering this treasure comes much after, the area you need to climb out is much easier & shorter than “The Volcano’s Base”’s, & is specially much easier than navigating the main room. It just requires climbing up a ladder & dodging a few Zombie heads — nothing new @ this point.
What’s most interesting is the way the key is placed, which on the surface looks very slapdash, but is carefully orchestrated: there are wire nets going downward on the left, the lower o’ which is hard to see from the topmost, & then a pipe on the left that you can’t enter ( it’s where you exit from the “danger zone”, as we’ll call it ) & the gray key & a hole quite a bit wider than the gray key to the right. I’m curious if anyone has e’er missed the key while falling in the hole. I haven’t, ’cause whene’er I play this level I always just drop down from the topmost wire, miss the bottom wire since I don’t react in time, get zapped by the spikes ’tween them & the bottom, &, due to the weird nature o’ this game’s physics, get knocked all the way to the right & land right on the gray key, which is also hugging the right wall ( there’s a rarer possibility the player turns back & is facing rightward as they drop down, causing them to get knocked all the way left onto the pipe; but it’s basically impossible to get knocked into the hole near the middle ). Such carefully-orchestrated environs are nothing new or rare in platformers, but ne’er have I seen one so bizarrely done as this, not the least ’cause getting hit by the spikes is clearly an expectation, & yet makes perfect sense for a weird Wario game where getting yourself knocked round as power-ups is core to the gameplay.
That being said, you have to be a nerd looking closely @ the level map to really notice this. For a normal player, this part goes by in a flash & most o’ your attention will be on the base wire maneuvering & the rather weak climb out o’ the “danger zone”.
14. E7 Forest of Fear – Blue
Sometimes aesthetics make big difference, e’en in a game like this, which doesn’t have the most impressive visuals or music. In a game full o’ sections where you have to cross areas while dodging zombies, e’en a section as basic as this 1’s — or e’en as similar to ’nother’s, as this is to “A Town in Chaos”’s red treasure, — this 1 stands out due to its presentation, with the fog-pale pea-soup-green woods with graves & gnarled boughs with sinister faces on them. E’en the way this treasure is unlocked, with a vial o’ blood that brings the zombies out in this graveyard that was beforehand e’en-mo’-eerily empty, is memorable.
It helps that this treasure has a rather clever way to get the blue key: it’s locked ’hind a spike wall surrounded by torchlights, so the player has to drop from right ’bove it so the player can lurch thru the spikes as an invincible zombie without touching the torchlights & turning back to normal.
13. E3 Castle of Illusions – Blue
If this treasure stands out for anything, it’s for being 1 o’ the hardest treasures in the game & the hardest owl challenge in the series, with very li’l space in the tight corridors walled by spikes, especially round turns. E’en the Para-Goom on the platform in the section on the way to the spikes can catch players off-guard & knock them off the owl if not paying attention.
1 thing I like ’bout this treasure is the way it integrates the 2 floors filled in with the block treasure in the green & blue chest rooms: the 1st you encounter, the green chest room, leads to passageways clogged by throw blocks that lead to an owl, but ’hind a section too high to reach. In order to access said owl, the player needs to go back to the green chest room & continue on to the blue chest room, whose block section leads to the owl, who can now fly thru the now-unclogged passageway to reach the spikes ’bove, which eventually leads in a circle to the blue key ’bove the door to the blue chest. Unlike treasures like “Above the Clouds”’s red treasure, e’erything here is positioned to minimize redundant travel: you don’t have to keep going back & forth ’tween the green & blue treasure rooms. The way this treasure creates a circle with the blue key ’bove the blue chest room without allowing the player to skip directly to it is clever: it’s way high up & surrounded by cracked blocks, so Wario can’t reach it on foot & can’t break the blocks while riding the owl. The only way to break the blocks & access the key is to reach the top so Wario can land on it by dropping from the owl; howe’er, he needs to go all the way round, as the key is also surrounded from below by spikes.
What I’m less fond o’ is the way the spike passageways split @ the beginning, with the top leading to just a music coin, especially since that path being straight up instead o’ up & to the right makes it seem like the mo’ natural path. But it’s not a huge problem & does add an exploration aspect to this level, I s’pose.
12. S6 Above the Clouds – Green
This treasure is a surprising breather for the hardest level in the game, beyond climbing all the way up to the balloon near the top o’ the level, — & possibly having to do so again if the player didn’t do the minigolf game @ the start o’ the level, as this is finally the treasure that requires it — as you just need to become zombified & plow thru a bunch o’ birds & a giant toad, falling thru the thin platforms, before reaching the key @ the bottom right & then climbing up the conveniently-placed thin platforms back to the chest @ the start o’ the room, with only the 1st series o’ birds requiring you to legitimately dodge them. ( Tho, as a twist, the music coins require you to be normal Wario so you can break thru the cracked blocks in their way, so you do have to legitimately dodge birds all round the room. ) It is a very cathartic breather, tho, not only ’cause o’ this level, but also ’cause o’ these birds, which are some o’ the most annoying enemies in this game.
In fact, I would argue that requiring the minigolf game for this treasure — instead o’, say, the blue treasure, which needed it mo’ for the blue key — wasn’t the best idea, since it weakens the breather aspect o’ this treasure. Sure, you could consider it a subversion o’ said breather aspect; but the breather aspect was already a subversion on this level.
11. S6 Above the Clouds – Gray
What is probably the most brutal platforming level, where you’re constantly hopping from appearing & disappearing cloud platforms to avoid falling down, starts with a very fitting challenge: the gray chest is @ the beginning o’ the level & the gray key is right @ the beginning o’ the room you find after a short section o’ platforming. Howe’er, in order to get this key, you need to fall down a long shaft, & in order to reach the chest back @ the start, you need to climb back up to escape, up appearing & disappearing clouds while dodging the angled light balls that the roof slimes constantly spit in your direction, all o’ which threatens to knock you back down to the bottom. While long & repetitive, here it works well to hammer in the brutality o’ this treasure. Granted, a bit o’ enemy variety — maybe some birds to dodge — while keeping the length certainly would’ve improved this treasure.
My 1 nitpick is that the chest is in a weird place: it’s not right where you start, but clearly in view when you jump up the initial platforms. I think it would’ve been cleverer if they hid the chest in the large empty space to the side o’ the start to better hide it.
