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. 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.

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. 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. 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.