Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3

Prerelease Info Notes

Debug Modes#

Standard Debug Mode#

A simple debug mode remains in the game, accessible by pressing Select 16 times while the game is paused. A blinking cursor should appear. Hold B and press Left/Right to move it. Press Up/Down to change the values of your number of lives, coins, hearts, and the timer.

Holding A + B and moving the cursor all the way to the left will highlight the Wario head; unpausing will change your current form (in the order of Small, Normal, Bull, Jet, Dragon). If this action is performed while in the air and A is held down while unpausing, the player can jump again and again, possibly allowing access to normally unreachable areas (such as where the Pouncer in course 4 really ends up going).

(Note that pressing Select a 17th time will make the cursor disappear. However, if you press Select 256 times after the initial 16 presses, the cursor will appear again. This happens because memory address AC85, which stores the Select presses, loops after 256 presses.)

Hidden Debug Mode#

A second debug mode is hidden in the game. To enable it, set memory address A8C7 to a non-zero value (Game Genie code 018-C75-E6A or GameShark code 0101C7A8).

In the Course Intro screen a level select is enabled. The level ID is shown in the lower right corner.

Pressing Up/Down will cycle between all the valid level IDs; pressing A or Start enters the level. Note that the level will only be marked as completed if it is located in the same sub-map.

It's also possible to disable debug mode in this screen by pressing Select 10 times.

In a level, pressing Select while the game is not paused will change the current form in the same way the other debug mode does.

If the game is paused:

• Pressing Select will activate a free-roaming mode instead. Use the D-Pad to move Wario around the level. Note that the game checks all the time if the debug mode variable is enabled or not, so disabling the debug mode during this immediately disables free-roaming mode.
• Holding Down + B and pressing Start warps to the ending.
• Pressing Select (16) while the game is paused brings up the other debug mode, with a single difference: highlighting the Wario head clears the level instead of switching between forms.

Unused Graphics#

Font#

The alphabet used for various hud elements and splash screens has all 26 letters accounted for (plus a few other symbols), however only half of those letters are used in-game.

This also features Mario's head, a leftover from the status bar in Super Mario Land 2.

Alternate Block Tileset#

Two generic blocks are unused. The first is an intermediary cracked block that probably would have appeared as Small Wario (you'd have to hit the block two more times to break it), while the second is an alternate version of the skull that appears above stage entrance doors.

Unused Block Tileset	Used Block Tileset

They were replaced in the main block tileset with the switch block graphics.

Level Tiles#

Sand/Wood Tileset#

Ladder tiles using Course 2's main tileset. Interestingly enough, the empty tile is not the one used everywhere else.

Stone Tileset#

Even this spike with unique graphics didn't make the cut.

Ladder tiles very similar to the ones in Course 2, but with different graphics.

Sherbet Land#

Full	Used

The frozen platform used in the Sherbet Land boss area has an extra row of tiles that aren't used. The final game opts to use waterline tiles instead, which helps explain how the penguin boss is getting those shell helmets. Shelmets.

Those tiles are loaded at the last part of Course 1 but never used. The last one seems to be a variant of the bottom part of the wooden boards seen on walls.

Parsley Woods#

While these tiles are technically used, the lower half is always obscured by the status bar.

Syrup Castle#

Syrup Castle has no spikes, but plenty of lava.

Final Boss

These tiles should have been put near the bed in the final boss' room, but they aren't.

The lower half of this block is obscured by the status bar. Again.

Unused Bobo Scene#

A significant number of tiles relating to Bobo are unused. Note that Syrup Castle is in the background. This makes up a very odd and interesting scene.

• Bobo never sits down.
• The emblem on Bobo's chest is different. The normal emblem has no horns and looks more like a skull.
• It's highly unlikely that Bobo even moved in this arena. The Bobo object actually moves around foreground tiles (a common trick that early Nintendo systems used) that compose the main Bobo body. Here, the background is far too complicated to have Bobo move around without severe graphical glitches.
• The overall design of this room doesn't really match the S.S. Tea Cup. It's possible that the Bobo fight was meant for Parsley Woods.

Map Screen#

The majority of these are alternate versions of existing tiles.

Overworld
Rice Beach
Mt. Teapot
Sherbet Land
Stove Canyon
SS Tea Cup
Full Used A part of the SS Tea Cup is always covered by the boss marker (or Wario marker after beating the boss).
Parsley Woods
Syrup Castle
Fixed In-game After destroying the first layer of walls, the map gains a few misplaced and/or unused tiles. Notice the top of the castle walls and the spots where dots appear.

Coin Mini-Game#

Unused	Used

An alternate variation of the round counter. Possibly changed because dark green on a slightly lighter shade of green might have been too difficult to read.

Object Graphics#

Turns out that the Wanderin' Goom may have had an attack at one point! This spitting graphic and projectile are all that remains.

A little boat that would have appeared in one of the areas in the world map, probably Rice Beach. Wario has serious arm strength.

Seems like the Stove Canyon boss Funfun was going to eat Wario at one point, since he has graphics for moving his tongue and Wario dying as a result.

The ghost boss in Parsley Woods also has graphics for throwing coins, not just spawning them out of thin air. There's an animation showing how they would have worked.

A pointing gloved hand is loaded in the Treasure Room, stored right next to the sprite for the coin pointer.

Unused Blocks#

There are 3 types of [!] blocks : 32, 38 and 39. Block 38 is not used in any map. It has its own unused block behaviour code, unused ExActor code for the visual effect when the block is hit, and even saves its state to an otherwise unused variable at A9ED. However, that variable isn't used anywhere else, so activating it does nothing. Additionally, unlike the other [!] blocks, this one isn't in the blacklist for blocks which can't be clinged on with the Bull Hat. As a result, it's possible to cling on it and activate its hit animation continuously.

Unused 16x16 Block Mappings#

To do: This game has a lot of unused blocks. They are perfectly valid even though most display as gibberish (possible leftovers from other tilesets).

The generic block isn't used here.

Platforms that can be jumped through are also completely absent.

Upside-Down Wario#

There are multiple copy/pasted variations of the subroutine that draws sprite mappings. The one used for drawing Wario's gameplay sprite happens to not display any vertically-flipped sprite mappings, even though the code to check for them exists and works properly.

This can be seen by setting bit 6 of Wario's sprite flags (0xA916). Wario's sprite mappings were never meant to be displayed this way since their origin is at the bottom of sprite, leading to a a plethora of visual oddities.

Note that the variation used for the Map screen, which is identical code-wise other than for using different addresses, does display vertically-flipped sprites.

Syrup Castle's Flag#

When Course 40 is marked as completed, the game displays a flag on top of Syrup Castle. The catch is that the game doesn't go through the normal level clear sequence when beating the final boss, and even if it did, the level is specifically set to not update the submap's completion bits.

The bit can be set anyway by entering what would be Course 39's secondary exit, since secondary exits implicitly use the bit immediately after the one for the normal exit. Course 39 does not have one, however it just so happens that:

• There's a scroll glitch which tricks the camera to move below the level, making the game use out of bounds scroll data. This data corresponds to the one for the next level.
• Going by level IDs, the flooded version of Course 03 immediately follows Course 39
• Course 03 has a secondary exit
• In Course 39's layout, there's a door in the sector where Course 03's secondary exit door would be

The scroll glitch can be triggered by infinite jumping, a side effect of updating Wario's powerup state which can be done at will in Debug Mode.

Note that there's normally unreachable logic that would have started the ending cutscene when Course 40's bit is set, possibly a leftover from a previous iteration of the cutscene. This logic is not meant to be triggered when going through the normal level completion sequence, so it malfunctions:

• Before resetting the game, when attempting to return to the map, the initial part of the ending cutscene will always play, then Course 39 restarts instead of continuing to the Genie scene.
• After resetting the game, the cutscene won't trigger anymore because the game won't see Course 40 as the last cleared level anymore, but the music in the submap is still silenced in preparation for the cutscene.

Save Data Error#

When the Save Selection screen is initialized, the game verifies the signature and checksum of each save file. Each save file is stored twice, and it gets immediately wiped out if both copies fail the validation.

Additionally, if exactly one save file is marked as bad, the game displays the message at the right.

Since the message doesn't appear when more than one save file is corrupted, it's very hard to trigger it. The easiest way to pull it off is to abuse glitches that crash the game, but even then chances are that every save file gets corrupted, preventing the message from showing up. Though it can happen when the game's save battery goes bad.

Oddities#

Inaccessible Blocks#

After draining water from Course 31, some of the heart blocks become inaccessible. To stop Wario from hitting them, programmers put in four invisible blocks, but they're also impossible to hit.

Standing on Mt.Teapot's Bridge#

To do: Move to a Bugs page

Overworld position (sMapWorldId) A79F:07 is for Mt.Teapot's bridge, which is how the secondary entrance to the Mt.Teapot submap is implemented.

Wario's overworld position is set to that value when exiting Mt.Teapot through Course 08's secondary path, however there is special logic to automatically move Wario to the left when the overworld loads, normally preventing Wario from staying at that location.

Due to a bug, holding B while the overworld loads breaks this logic. This is the only way to allow the left directional arrow to show up on this location.

Specifically, the automatic movement is done by faking a left keypress to the newly pressed keys (which are valid for one frame only), but it forgets to also overwrite the value for the held keys. Holding B on the overworld allows you to look around the map, and the check for that is made before the game checks if Wario wants to move to a particular direction. Since Wario doesn't move when looking around the map, the faked keypress has no effect and gets quickly discarded once the frame ends.

Parsley Woods' Name#

The "patch" tilemap with the empty lake also contains an incorrect copy of the zone's name.

Before	Patch tilemap	After

In other words, after emptying the lake the zone's name changes.

Invalid tiles#

After hitting the [!] block in Course 26, head for the normal exit. In the last part of the level (the one with the crocodiles), there are 4 invalid tiles, as an effect of the [!] block.

Unexpected water tiles#

In the next-to-last room of Course 17 (before player jump into the water), there are 4 tiles on the top marked as being underwater when they're not supposed to be. By jumping into the rightmost one and holding A, you can swim indefinitely in the air.

The same glitch exists in Course 01 (flooded). At the end of the level, above the exit door, there is one water tile.

Revisional Differences#

Virtual Console Changes#

The original Game Boy version had a glitch that made it possible to skip certain levels or worlds on the map screen. The 3DS Virtual Console version fixes this glitch so that it is no longer possible to perform.

Despite this fix, the glitch has returned and is once again possible to perform in the Nintendo Switch Online release.