Mega Man 3 is what I consider to be a step up to 2 without all the weird gameplay decisions that made 2 a rather underwhelming improvement to 1.

Introducing several aspects that remain present in the series later (such as the Rush items, Proto Man, and Mega Man's iconic slide), levels are generally really solid with a challenging yet satisfying difficulty for the most part. Controls feel rather tighter this time around which I appreciate, and the addition of the slide makes maneuvering levels and avoiding attacks more interesting than in the previous 2 games. Furthermore, the Rush items were introduced which I would consider an improvement to the items in 2, as they're generally easy to use and levels seem to lend themselves well to utilizing them for the most part. Bosses this time around are also fairly challenging. While they lose invulnerability to most weapon like 2's bosses, their weapon weakness this time around doesn't completely obliterate them with one or two hits.

After the eight robot masters the game has an additional eight more bosses, 2 in 4 stages each. These are the "Doc Bosses", and are basically reused bosses from 2. While I don't mind this part of the game, as the levels and bosses I found enjoyable, I do feel it wasn't really necessary and the game could have skipped us directly to Wily's Fortress after beating the eight robot masters. Weapons this time around I also didn't think were as interesting as those of 2's, but this is more of a nitpick I suppose as you can still utilise them well enough against bosses and during levels.

Story is present in the game, however I assume you need the manual yet again to fully understand the context as most of it is only just before the wily fortress section of the game and after the final boss. Visuals are as usual good and I found the soundtrack to be more memorable than in the previous 2 games.

Now, onto my major complaint with the game: the slowdown. The slowdown in this game is far more notable than in 1 and 2, being present most of the time in almost every level and during most boss fights. It makes the game needlessly more difficult than it needs to be and can easily sour the whole experience. While I personally got used to it for the stages, it was a major annoyance in boss battles as it made avoiding their attacks and aiming with your weapons at them more difficult. I highly suggest that if you give this game a try, it should be through the legacy collection as I heard it has a "Turbo Mode" that lessens/removes the slowdown. Alternatively, if you're using an emulator, check if it has an overclock feature and see if that helps.

Overall, Megaman 3 is a fun time and a generally great improvement to the previous two games. The slowdown is really just my main issue with it, as my other complaints with it are not really enough to ruin my enjoyment with it otherwise. If you enjoyed any other Classic Mega Man game then I definitely recommend to give 3 a try.

i have nothing to say that hasn't been said. robot dog guy good (he's a submarine!!! he's a rocket skateboard!!!!), slide goooooood (adds just the right amount of complexity to combat, mm needed one more thing and this is perfect), skeleton robot look cool, make me replay four stages and fight bosses from a game that was shorter than this one bad, music still good, maybe not AS good as 2??? ETC ETC

I'm kind of torn here because i feel like the actual design of the levels is better than ever despite the lack of anything REALLY iconic here, and sliding is SUCH a positive game changer but i think the game is a little too difficult with enemy patterns and tracking bullets and much harder bosses than 1 or 2 and it's WAY too long what the FUCK what is wrong with eight robot masters and like four to six wily stages why is there anything more? I spent a lot of time with this game, which has some of the best FEEL of maybe any i've ever played just kind of being frustrated it wasn't a straight platformer, which is a bummer, because when you're in a good groove with the combat, the slide finally gives you a complete verbset and it really sings now.

PS SPOILERS FOR THE STORY CONTENT OF MEGA MAN 3 I GUESS LMAO

Proto Man is the funniest character of all time man what is his DEAL he just shows up and sucks a bunch and then at the end of the game mega man looks up at his force ghost in the sky like he died!!!! he didn't!!!! he just left!!!! proto man is in fact the only guy who was in that castle and DIDN'T die!!!!!!! what a loser

it's a good game i like it fine

Well, this is awkward. I just beat Kid Dracula a couple of days ago and basically talked about how it is just a mediocre Mega Man knockoff. I had done a second playthrough of Mega Man 2 not long before that, so I had that fresh in my head as I drew comparisons. Now here I am, having just finished Mega Man 3 for the first time, and some parts of it made me wish I was playing Kid Dracula again instead. Perhaps this is just early on-set fatigue with this series. After all, I still have 3 more NES games to go through and it's already getting stale. But it's not so much the repetitiveness of the gameplay, but more so how a lot of things here feel like a step down from MM2. Still, there are some obvious QOL improvements here such as:

- Images in the weapon selection menu so you're not scratching your head on what the initials stand for
- Free control of Rush Jet
- Weapon energy gets refilled after each stage
- Slide mechanic

But these are just minor things and don't make up for its other shortcomings. I feel like this is when they started running out of ideas. Weapons are worse than in MM2. They just aren't as interesting. Stages for the most part aren't as good, either. They're still fun, but the second half of the game is a somewhat miserable experience. A gauntlet of boss after boss that leaves you praying that the next one will be the last. Seriously, why the hell are there so many bosses? Most of them are re-used, no less. We even get a variant of the Yellow Devil from the first game. It doesn't help that this game turned up the difficulty dial way up again. Sure, maybe I got spoiled with MM2, but hey, I beat MM1 without save states. I don't mind a challenge, but did the devs really have to make you go through this many hoops in the second half?

This game is still decent for what it is, but it's oversaturation of boss fights in the second half makes it drag more than it should. And I am aware that the "Robot Masters Revisited" stage is a recurring thing, but then they should have cut the part where we had to revisit all the MM2 Robot Masters. If MM4 makes me revisit the MM3 robot masters, I will have a stroke.

What the hell was Dr Light thinking when making Proto Man?
A battle robot that just jumps around like a bitch?

Imagine being a conscious robot with free-thought, designed by your creator, while he was drunk and thought it would be funny to make you never stop jumping, only to throw you in the trash after he sobered up and realised how useless you were, then started work on another robot.

I'd seek revenge too. Too bad I wouldn't be able to kill him because I can't stop FUCKING JUMPING

Yeah, I guess I have to review this one too. Again, played through Wily Wars-- and this time it actually matters.
Mega Man 3 is such a nothing game. I myself am struggling to find things to say about it in this review. The game is your bog standard Mega Man fare. Yeah, this game introduces the slide and the first endgame section that is not the Wily Castle, being the Doc Robots... but it doesn't do anything with them at all.
If Mega Man 3 isn't being incredibly basic, then it's being bad: it has the worse weapon set thus far-- so much as to even have the "useful in absolutely no situations" Spark Shot, and in the original game the Doc Robots are frustratingly designed. But otherwise... there's nothing. You can fucking kill the final boss in a singular hit with Top Spin, and you want me to give an in-depth review? This game doesn't deserve one.

I haven't felt this empty playing something in a very long time, so props to that.

A prova de que nem sempre maior é melhor. Apesar de trazer algumas adições muito bem vindas à formula de Mega Man (criticamente, o dash), seu tamanho acabo por prejudicá-lo. Toda a segunda parte do jogo poderia ser removida sem prejuízo, tornando o game uma experiência mais sucinta e com um ritmo melhor. Alguns estágios também são estranhamente longos e, pior, têm checkpoints bem esparsos, obrigando o jogador menos habilidoso (e.g.: aponta para si mesmo) a ter que repetir seções bem grandes antes de prosseguir.

Mas pelo menos temos o Proto Man. Vida longa ao Proto Man!

Great game, There are Only Two Things I Don't like About This Game.

1- We use Marine rush Very little, it Would be Nice to Have More Levels to use it.
2 - The doc Robots some of Them are Very Unfair (Skill issue) and Sometimes the Battle Room Doesn't help.

Those Things Aside, The Game is Pretty Fun to Play!

Completed as part of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the Nintendo GameCube.

Boss order: Magnet Man, Hard Man, Top Man, Shadow the Hedgehog Man, Spark Man, Snake Man, Gemini Man, Needle Man.

Oh boy, it's more Mega Man! Some would even say it's the most Mega Man since Mega Man 2. Although the formula is very much the same as it was for the last two games, Mega Man 3 does introduce a few new elements to keep things fresh: the slide, Proto Man, and Rush. You know what that means? I finally get to talk about a good Mega Man game.

Although the levels, Robot Masters, and weapon powers are overall less memorable than those of the previous two games, I think Mega Man 3 makes significant improvements to stage design and difficulty balancing. There's much fewer cheap shots taken against the player, some (generally) better checkpointing, and the slide is fun to use both in the context of level design and as a utility move to gain extra momentum on jumps and slip under projectiles. Speaking of things that are just more fun, Rush is a perfect replacement for Mega Man's tools. First of all, he's a big goofy dog, so that's already a mark in his favor. Second, jumping on his back and launching yourself with a spring or riding Rush around like a hoverboard feels better than fussing around with the magnet beam or Mega's stupid little platforms from 2.

Wily's castle is also better than it was in the last two games. Each stage is fairly concise, and the gimmicks therein range from enjoyable to inoffensive. My only real gripe is that getting a game over during the boss rush sent me all the way back to the start of the castle. To be fair, in some bizarre recognition of how shitty that is, Capcom rains extra lives down upon you during these levels, which... I mean, I guess that's one way to address it? My second run went very smoothly, however, and I had so many lives and E-tanks by the end that I was able to brute force my way to the credits. Mega Man 3 also subverts the player's expectation by not sending them to Wily's castle immediately after defeating the eight Robot Masters. Instead, you have to run through four previously completed levels first and take out Robot Masters from the last two games along the way. While this initially caused me to groan, I actually found these remixed levels to be some of the strongest out of the entire game, but maybe I'm just a sucker for "hard mode" versions of levels I'm familiar with. I did buy the hard mode DLC for Sonic 2006, after all. I'm a sick freak.

If I had one thing to hold against Mega Man 3, it's that the rock-paper-scissors design of the weapon powers and Robot Masters is even more baffling than it's ever been. Magnet missiles are useful against Hard Man. Ok, I get that. He's a big guy who is visibly made out of dense metal, so magnets would stick to him. Snake Man is weak to Shadow Blades, though? Is the implication that you could just like, cut a snake in half if you had something sharp? Hey, what do you think shadows would be weak to? Probably the Spark Shot, because electricity can be used to create light and illuminate a room. IT'S SPINNING TOPS!? ARE YOU KIDDING, AM I BEING PRANKED!? WHY ARE TOPS WEAK TO FISTS, THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE, YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS TO ME I DONT UNDERSTAND

Anyway, I'm just kinda mad that I had to start the game over because I could not make heads or tails of any of this. That's why my boss order is straight up what the first Google result is for "best Mega Man 3 boss order." The Proto Man fights are also pretty weak, he just runs back and forth taking shots at you with his buster, so a lot of his presence here gets by on how cool his character design is and that dope whistle theme.

Anyway, it's been a long week. If any of you need me, I'm going to be hanging out at Top Man's grow-op.

Alright, so starting off with general gameplay changes; pretty much just an improvement on all fronts? The added now-iconic slide changes SO MUCH you can do with the game and makes everything so much unbelievably smoother than Megaman 2 (an already incredibly smooth game to play).

So, I'll be doing the same thing I did in my Megaman 2 Review and go through my experiences stage by stage.
Magnet Man Stage: Not a terrible start, and normally I don't mind the kaizo blocks popping on and out but having to deal with the magnetizing block was actually just kind of awful. As for Magnet Man himself, pretty fun fight; I do think his magnetizing attack lasts a tad too long sometimes, but it adds tension so it's whatevz.
Hard Man Stage: Not too memorable but I do like how some enemies are designed around the slide mechanic, like the Hammer Joes and the monkey enemies that jump around like they're on cocaine. Hard Man himself wasn't a bad fight either.
Top Man Stage: I dunno how this stage relates to Top Man besides the final section before the final boss. Still, pretty fun design and the cat bosses were cute. Top Man himself was kind of a pushover though.
Shadow Man Stage: Now THIS was a fun stage, I love how they play around with the enemies that take away the visibility and the long platforming sections; it's a ton of fun honestly. As for Shadow Man himself, he's fine. I think Top Spin kind of forces you to just get in his face so there's almost no point in learning his attack patterns.

Oh yeah, and I should probably mention Proto Man. Pretty fun fight as long as the ground is either completely flat or shaped like a... |---| stage. I don't know how to describe it. Again, completely love how you're supposed to slide under him when he jumps. The slide is so fucking cool.

Spark Man Stage: Not a terribly memorable stage, but I did like the weird stage hazards on the ceiling and floor that shock you and the conveyor belt platforms.
Snake Man Stage: Awesome stage theme, awesome stage visuals until you go outside for some reason? Not much else to say as at this point. Snake Man himself is decent enough as a boss.
Gemini Man Stage: Super strange visuals but I dig them, I like digging through the bubbles and sliding past. As for Gemini Man, I'm not sure his fight was very fun but at least he went down semi-easy.
Needle Man Stage: Not very memorable sadly. Needle Man is at least fun to fight though.

The Doc Robot fights are pretty similar to how I felt about the original bosses in Megaman 2 with a couple of exceptions.
Heat Doc Robot: Actually much more of a pain. I dunno why he's a lot harder here than in Megaman 2. I think he doesn't do his heat dash very often which is why?
Flash Doc Robot: The arena is AWFUL and I really don't know how you're meant to avoid not running into him. I had to use like 2 E Tanks on this guy alone.
And of course, Air Man came back to haunt me. I HATE AIRMAN SO MUCH

The Proto Man final fight was really cool, if short. I wish he got a healthbar though.

Well, that's that. Onto the Wily Stages.
Stage 1: The stage itself isn't too memorable, but the turtle boss is actually really fun. I was surprised by how I was enjoying myself after slogging through the Doc Robot fights.
Stage 2: Again, not much to say on this one. It's a short ride with Rush Jet. That said, you do get to fight Yellow Devil! I kind of gave up on Megaman 1, so it was nice that I still get to fight him, even if it's not the iconic fight where you have to memorize his pattern.
Stage 3: The darkness enemy comes back! Very fun. I was surprised at how fluid the platforms moved in the final section, definitely a memorable stage just for that alone. At first I was dreading the fight, but then I vaguely remembered something about how the Copy Robot didn't have any I-Frames and that you could supposedly make your Buster Shots do Top Spin damage if you're using Rush Coil swap in the middle of shooting. To my surprise, I actually pulled it off first try and the boss exploded in like 3 seconds. I don't feel bad about it because it seemed like an awful fight anyway.
Stage 4: Boss rematches, good ol' Megaman.
Stage 5: Wily Machine No. 3... is really mediocre?? I spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do until I tried Hard Knuckle and then it became just a really tedious waiting game.
Stage 6: I simply Rush Jet to the top right, popped a couple Hard Knuckles, finished the boss with Top Spin. I'm not sure what the boss is supposed to do, but I'm sure it's a fun boss if you do it legit.

Colorblindness Rating: A-
Again, you can confuse some abilities by the color of the armor if you forget the acronyms, but thankfully you have weapon icons that give you a pretty good indicator as to what they do.
This is a ginormous nitpick honestly, but I think it's still important to think about these things.

After the massive success of Mega Man 2, Capcom decided to make Mega Man a household name, and thus, less then a year later, Mega Man 3 came out. Following up with the universally acclaimed second entry was always going to be quite the task, but this game manages to succeed in that regard. I wouldn't consider it better than the previous entry, but it is pretty close to doing so.

The story differentiates enough to be different from the previous game while also remaining similar, the graphics and art style are still extremely appealing and colorful, the music is once again fantastic and iconic, the control is as tight as before, the gameplay continues to be addicting and fun as fuck, the boss fights are pretty fun and challenging (for the most part), and the new mechanics/characters in the game, such as the sliding and Rush, are very helpful and fun to use.

However, this is where a problem of the series starts to show up: the padding. After beating the main 8 robot masters, you then have to replay four of the stages you just done, only harder, while also technically refighting all the robot masters from Mega Man 2. This does provide more to do in the game, but I feel it's unnecessary, and just an excuse to make the game longer, which I welcome, but it could be done better.

Not to mention, Wily's Castle in this game is the EASIEST in any Mega Man game ever made. Not only are the levels easy, and the bosses can be defeated very quickly, but they also practically shower you with items to where you should never die once while in there. Sure, it is a nice breather, but for the final set of levels in the game, it should provide the most challenge, while it instead does the opposite.

Overall, this is an almost perfect follow-up to Mega Man 2, and while it does have its share of problems, they weren't enough to stop having fun with the game. Also, thank god that the cover art is much better, although, Mega Man's face is now fucked up, so, that's a thing.

Game #46

>Play the game normally, beating the 8 Robot Masters like you normally would
>Get to the Doc Robot stages
>Reset the game
>Input this password

That's how this game was intended to be played.




(Proper reviews of this alongside the rest of the Classic series will come some day, still currently playing through each of them when I'm typing this).

Esse jogo tem de tudo que eu poderia querer em Mega Man clássico, ele é épico, adiciona mais recursos e fases, revisita elementos dos primeiros jogos e da um baita desfecho pra trilogia, que evidencia muito bem a temática da franquia. Porém, algo nele sempre me deixa indiferente. Talvez com a adição de slide tentaram torna-lo o mais aproveitável possível e ficou só com um skill gap nojentinho, com intervalos bem curtos pra você usar ele. Os inimigos comuns de fase também são umas esponjas de dano desgramadas, o que atrapalha até coisas legais como os mini bosses no meio das fases que tudo mais enrolado. Sem falar no slow down gritante que me tirava bastante da gameplay no início também. Sei lá, ele é só meio punitivo e truncado além do ponto, muito difícil de se evitar dano quando se está começando a jogar. Nem teria zerado ele se não tivesse me motivado com a live do Victor Kratos zerando isso aqui sem morrer. Triste não ter sido uma experiência genuinamente ideal de Mega Man mesmo com seus ótimos bosses, músicas, poderes e tudo mais

Algum dia quero ficar bom nesse jogo

Rockman 3: The End of Dr. Wily!? is probably one of the most poorly aged subtitles in the history of video games.

The Robot Master stages in this are absolutely grand, probably the most enjoyable stages so far as I've been replaying these games. Things are active, stage-specific gimmicks, not too much bullshit like the last game, etc. The weapon balance is also better, which really doesn't take much after Metal Blade just busted the last one wide open, and the Robot Master fights feel more fleshed out and less simple. It's unfortunate that the RMs are also tougher to beat without their weakness thanks to it, but the next game I think would help try to ease up on that with the charged shot (which was op, but hey). The slide is also so welcome, jesus christ did Rock seriously need some mobility in the first two games.

Of course, there is the massive elephant in the room that is the Doc Robot stages. I'm gonna go ahead and ignore that they're called "Doc Robot", because it's been three games and it seems stupid to address the engrish now after the first game had "Pickelman". Either way, the stages for these guys are horrific thanks to the checkpoint starvation in-between their fights which in themselves are absolutely terribly implemented with the Quick Man one probably being the worst. I have no idea what they were thinking making this guy do as much as damage as he does while having a large hitbox and no time stopper to lay down free damage like in MM2. Their poor implementation along with the fact they literally have no bearing on the plot makes sense for the game's rushed development. Part of me really wonders what would've happened if they had went ahead with the original plan of one Doc Robot stage for every Robot Master stage. Would they have been better balanced or just more bad filler? Either way, don't really like them but I'll take fifty Doc Robot fights over one Boobeam Trap.

The slowdown is also pretty bad at least in the original Famicom version I played, it once again lines up with the game's troubled development. The way Gemini Laser just turns the game into a chugging IBM computer as soon as it fires makes me avoid using it unless I'm fighting Needle Man the first time or the Quick Doc Bot, and that's not even talking about how it keeps you from pausing the game to access your items while the shot is on screen.

Oh yeah, the game also gave us Racer X and a doggy. They're pretty cool too!

Favorite Enemy Name: Oh man this one's kinda hard actually, it's between "Bolton and Nutton" and "Petit Snakey". I think I'll go with the former.

Favorite Music: God, this one's also hard. This game's full of bangers. It's gotta be Proto Man's theme I think, it's that or the title screen music.

It's just Mega Man 2 again, but worse. Worse boss fights (There's a couple cool ones like Gemini Man and Shadow Man, but most of them are pretty forgettable), worse stage design and the Doc Robot fights are the most unfun fights and unnecessary padding just to make the game longer for the sake of it plus the final fight was super lackluster.

However just because everything about this game is inferior to Mega Man 2 doesn't mean it's a bad game, it's not awful or great, it's just kind of ok. I will say I respect how this game was the first to add the slide feature and Mega Man's dog Rush which certainly help with platforming, but other than that there's not much here to care about.