only one of the best games out at the time, it would become a lot of people's favorite game ever made. Capcom see's the huge amount of money they could be sitting on with the Blue Bomber and it doesn't take them long to start pumping these games out.Mega Man 3 is a great game, but it is the start of the proverbial milking of the series. Between 1990 and 1995 alone Capcom released 25 Mega Man/Rockman games. That's about 5 a year. Imagine if Nintendo pumped out Mario like that? Hell, Sonic is milked pretty bad and he's not even close to Mega Man in terms of game numbers.
Still Mega Man is a formula that works, even if it's predictable. Some people find Mega Man 3 the start of the series downfall, others place that at 4 or 5, but it's not really a matter of something being wrong with the games themselves per se, it's more a matter of the games in comparison to earlier Mega Man titles. Mega Man 3 holds a dear place to my heart because it was my first venture into the series at a very young age. I don't play it as much anymore compared to 1 and 2, but 3 is what hooked me and I'll always love it for that.
New Features
- Mega Man can now slide by holding down then pressing the Jump Button
- The Items from Mega Man 2 are now replaced with a new side kick for Mega Man, a robotic dog named Rush.
- A new mysterious character joins the frey, Mega Man's brother Proto Man.
- This game starts the tradition of 8 levels instead of 4 after beating the robot masters, thus making it the longest Mega Man game at the time.
- E-Tanks now carry over with you after a Game Over
After being defeated twice by Mega Man already (3 times later Retconned after the release of the first Gameboy Game), Dr. Wily has reformed and is helping Dr. Light on a new peace keeping robotics project in building a new robot named Gamma. To complete the project, Dr. Light and Dr. Wily need energy crystals which are obtained through various mines, but Uh-Oh, those
mines are being taken over by out of control Robot Masters! It's up to Mega Man to go in with his new companion Rush and stop these mad robots and retrieve the energy crystals.Only one of the stages could even be considered to look like a mine though... Mega Man is not a game for people looking for stories....
Anyway while searching for the crystals Mega Man is accosted by a mysterious robot several times named Proto Man, who fights Mega Man each time they meet. His motivations are unknown, but he is quite strong... or incredibly weak depending on your skill level...After defeating the 8 robot masters, more disturbances pop up in the places Mega Man had just returned from involving a new Robot named Doc Robot. Strangely Doc Robot seems to be using powers of the old Wily robots Mega Man had previously faced only a short time ago. After defeating Doc Robot, Mega Man is called out by Break Man, who is Protoman in disguise with a Sniper Joe helmet. (If you couldn't figure that out god help you.)
After beating "Break Man" Mega Man returns to Dr. Light, but woe and behold, Dr. Wily has stolen Gamma and flown off to his new skull shaped fortress! After fighting a robot frog generator, the return of the Yellow Devil, himself, and the 8 Robot Masters again, Mega Man finally confronts Dr. Wily now controlling Gamma. After destroying Gamma, with of all things Top Spin, Dr. Wily and Mega Man are crushed under rubble of the skull fortress, which I guess was collapsing from the fight the two had. Mega Man is saved by Proto Man, but it's too late for Dr. Wily who gets crushed by a rock.The credits roll with Mega Man finding out that Proto Man was originally a creation of Dr. Light and Dr. Wily that would serve to be the prototype of the new robots, and a prototype of Mega Man himself. Unfortunately Proto Man ran off, with an imbalance in his energy core that would one day cause his systems to fail and ultimately kill him.
We later find out Dr. Wily would extend Proto Man's life by altering his energy core which is why Proto Man decided to help out Dr. Wily in the first place. While Mega Man looks up into the sky a strange UFO can be seen flying off in the distance.
The short version of the story is, kill 8 robot masters, take their weapons, beat Wily.
Aesthetics
Visually Mega Man games never looked better. There's much more highlights and shading in all the enemies, environments and even weapons. For NES standards, Mega Man is a pretty game. The new slide animation looks good, and Rush's transformations look great. Enemies have much more fluid movements and creative actions, like the enemies that try to pole vault into you, or the Giant Snake machines.
The backgrounds are nice too, with a variety of environments ranging from an actual mine, to outer space to ... I dunno... a lava factory? If not making sense, at least they're creative.
The Robot Masters designs have branched away from simple elemental designs and we're seeing robots made out of Tops, robots made into ninjas, robots made out of snakes, robots with silly names like Hard Man. Yellow Devil returns with a visual boost as well and Gamma, although not the hardest final boss fight is really cool to look at. Visually the game is ahead of it's predecessors by far.
Sound
The music in this game is superb. Proto Man's theme would go on to last the series, and it encompasses the ending/beginning themes well. Mega Man 3 doesn't open with Rock and Roll but with Blues (Proto Man's Japanese name). Snake Man's music is great, hell they're all great. My personal favorite being Gemini Man's. There's no real significant differences otherwise from past games in terms of sound effects though.
Design
Mega Man 3 is a good game, but it suffers from some major problems. First off, the Doc Robot stages are so boring. I absolutely hate this part of the game. Backtracking is annoying in most games, and even though it isn't technically backtracking, it is reusing pretty much all the same stuff from the 4 levels Doc Robot takes over. I love the of fighting the previous games bosses, but I hate these stages.
The Shadow Man Revisit level is particularly painful for a lot of players. First off, there are a few "fuck you" spike placements added to the level, as well as a section where these swoopers come down and knock you off of teeny tiny ledges. Second, the Doc Robot fight against Woodman is a hell of a lot harder to dodge than it was in Mega Man 2 and doing this without an E-tank is next to impossible.
Speaking of E-tanks though, this game hurls them at you. Many stages have 2 E-tanks right next to each other. There are so many in this game I start ignoring some of them to save time myself. E-tank placement alone is a cause for a significant drop in difficulty, although some players may find this to be a welcome.
The boss patterns are more concrete this time than even in Mega Man 2, so figuring them out is pretty easy. Some are a bit tough like Needle Man and Shadow Man, but most are easy enough to buster duel it out.
Stage wise the game has more "Mini-boss" like encounters than last time. The Hot Dogs from Woodman's stage have evolved into Robot cats and giant mettaurs.
The game makes use of Mega Man's new buddy Rush, having some sections require the Rush Jet adapter to progress. Rush Marine is, unfortunately completely useless, as there are three sections in the game where you can even use it, and many times it's either faster to just jump past it or safer to use Rush Jet which travels underwater just as well.
The weapons have taken a decline as well. Gone are the days when you'd throw away the P-Cannon for the likes of Elec Beam or Metal Blade. Most weapons are situational such as Magnet Beam or Hard Knuckle or completely useless like Top Spin and Gemini Beam. Gemini Beam... good god, Gemini Beam is such a horrible weapon. You can fire one shot at a time and it bounces off of walls back and forth until it hits something or eventually moves off screen. While this is happening you are left completely vulnerable to attack, and using this on bosses requires precision aiming.
Shadow Blade is a bit like Metal Blade in the directional aiming department, but has less range and is overall slower. Spark Shot freezes enemies instead of killing them, but if you touch a frozen enemy you still take damage so what the hell is the point? Another great thing is that Magnet Missile homes in on projectiles thrown at you, sometimes completely missing the enemy you are aiming at. This is especially noticeable against Metal Man as it's his weakness and your damn Missiles are chasing after his blades.
Rush Jet is fantastic though, giving the utility of both Item 1 and Item 2 from Mega Man 2. Needleman is a tough fight, but it's almost worth it to go after him first to get Rush Jet so you can skip many of the tough platforming sections of the game.
Overall the design is a step back, but not a big one.
Playability
Not an extremely glitchy game, but a few here and there are actually beneficial. For example, jumping while using Rush Jet depletes the energy much much slower. Use this to get past Needle Man's Revisit stage with ease. Another glitch allows you to skip a Proto Man section in Gemni Man's stage by sliding through the screen transition and jumping through where he lands.
Speaking of, the new mechanic of sliding helps a great deal with dodging projectiles (Air Man is cake with it) and the controls are pretty responsive. There are few Mega Man games that control awkwardly so I usually don't have much to say here.
Extras
- The order of bosses is a bit weird in this one. Snake Man, Needle Man and Gemini Man's weakness chain loop around so you're looking at two buster duels this time. Snake Man is the easiest of the three here, but the end of his level is a bit annoying without Rush Jet. Gemini Man has two E-tanks, but coming here without Rush Jet or Rush Marine takes some time. Needle Man is the toughest fight by far, but survivable with the E-tank it gives you and you win Rush Jet as well. Still, I don't tend to bother with the three of them till the end, so my personal order is Top Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, Magnet Man, Hard Man, Needle Man, Snake Man, Gemini Man. Top Man's weapon is useless but he's easy to fight and Shadow Man has a decent weapon. You may consider getting Rush Jet before Shadow Man, Snake Man and Spark Man's stage however, as it is considerably helpful.
- Top Spin through doors is fun.
- Using Top Spin almost always damages you. You can avoid taking damage, but it's hard to do. Luckily it does a lot of damage to those you use it against (Shadow Man, Heat Man, Gamma).
- Use E-tanks when you're in trouble. The game throws a ton of them at you.
- Proto Man is an easy fight most of the time, just try to get behind him and shoot him while he is facing away from you.
- The only practical use for Spark Shot is to freeze the giant jumping enemies found at the end of a few stages. Just like the Big Eye's in Mega Man 1, a Spark Shot in mid-air will allow you to safely walk under them.
Playthroughs
How Break Man got his groove back: Let's Play Megaman 3! by Oyster
Speed Demo Archives run by Sattik 'Tiki' Ghosh
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