Nintendo has finally added Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 to Nintendo Switch Online, and it only took three years.
Nintendo Switch Online's Nintendo Classics lineups are weird. The release schedules are strange; sometimes absolutely essential titles don't appear while the weirdest games possible show up – N64 still doesn't have Super Smash Bros, but we do have Iggy's Reckin' Balls.
However, the absolute weirdest of those is the Game Boy, which got licensed titles like the licensed game of Warner Bros. Quest For Camelot before Super Mario Land or Donkey Kong '94 arrived.
Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins arrived at launch, while the original – literally the first Game Boy game ever released – took a year and three months. The same goes for Wario Land, the Switch app launched with Wario Land 3 back in February 2023, with the original or its sequel nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, Wario Land 4 hit GBA last year, Wario World arrived on GameCube, and Virtual Boy Wario Land launched alongside the new app this year, making the entire series, barring the first two (and the Wii-exclusive, The Shake Dimension), available.
That changes today however, as almost three-and-a-half years down the line from the Game Boy's introduction to the Switch Online library, Nintendo has confirmed that the first game starring Mario's bulky rival Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is on Switch Online. The game drops alongside Fortified Zone and The Sword of Hope 2, while the GBA app is getting Dr Mario and Puzzle League (two games that are available in multiple forms on other apps, but still a good game regardless).
Nintendo fans have a tendency to accuse Nintendo of having some beef with franchises that are rarely seen – see: Metroid from 2010-2017, Star Fox before 2026, F-Zero, Mother fans who can't accept the series is just over – but Nintendo is so consistently weird with Wario Land that I can't help but wonder how people at the company feel about it. Wario's representation in Super Smash Bros. for example is almost entirely based around the WarioWare series with only his dash attack shoulder barge being from his first series, and it's been almost two decades since the last entry – which released the same year he was added to Smash Bros.
With the resurgence of Wario-like indie titles like Pizza Tower and Antonblast, hopefully there's some fire to go along with the smoke of a new Wario Land game, of which rumors emerged last month.
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