It is considered one of the best Virtual Boy games and its background gimmick served as inspiration for multiple titles, including Donkey Kong Country Returns (2010) and Mutant Mudds (2012).

Wario stumbles upon a cave full of treasure and attempts to claim it as his own, however, he collapses deep underground and must find his way back to the surface.

[1][2][5] Each level in the game contains one of ten artifacts hidden inside secret chambers and the ending depends on whether Wario found them all and the coins he collected.

[5][8] It was co-directed by Hiroji Kiyotake and Hirofumi Matsuoka, who had previously served as director and artist on Mario Paint, and produced by Gunpei Yokoi.

[9][10][11] Satoshi Matsumura acted as one of the game's co-programmers, while the music and sound effects were composed by Kazumi Totaka, which was his final project with R&D1.

[25][27][31] Nintendo Power felt that the game made excellent use of the Virtual Boy hardware with some of the 3D graphics and gameplay elements.

[36][37][38][39][40] Agustin Olvera and Stephen Smith of Kombo felt that its cavernous setting helped the Virtual Boy emphasize subtle visual details, while Play's Dave Halverson returned to the game often and praised it for not getting tiresome to replay.

[41][42] AllGame's Scott Alan Marriott found the game fun, highlighting Wario's controls and diverse moveset, as well as the detailed graphics and bosses, but noted its short duration.

[7] Nintendo Life's Dave Frear lauded the game's use of the 3D effect in the visual design and replayability, but lamented the lack of additional levels.

[16][43] Writing for 1Up.com and Nintendo World Report, Neal Ronaghan enjoyed the background gimmick but felt that it did not work as well as it could in exploring the concept.

[8][48][49][50] Virtual Boy Wario Land served as inspiration for multiple games from several developers due to its background gimmick, including Donkey Kong Country Returns (2010) by Retro Studios, Mutant Mudds (2012) by Renegade Kid, and Shantae Advance: Risky Revolution (2025) by WayForward.