Mega Man 3 Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 4/1/2023)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Mega Man 3

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Genre(s): 2D Platformer

Platforms: NES

Release Date: September 28, 1990

If I didn’t have the future hindsight of knowing how long the Mega Man series would be prolonged to proportions that make Final Fantasy seem neatly bundled, here’s the entry where I would express how the third classic Mega Man game couldn’t have perfected the series peak of Mega Man 2 and it was time for Capcom to tie a bow on the series and bury it with the dying NES console. Alas, the series extended far beyond the days of Nintendo’s first home console, adapting to the times for years with several off-shoots and a couple of classic era renaissance titles. Eventually, Capcom themselves decided to freeze all of their Mega Man assets and leave the blue bomber behind to fester in the barges of their back catalog, resurrecting him only on occasion since. Because Capcom extended Mega Man’s lifespan past his glory days on the NES, it’s difficult to discern Mega Man 3’s place in the series, unlike Super Mario and Castlevania which had a select three games on the NES. Still, Mega Man 3 isn’t entirely an outlier from the third entry of other franchises simply due to Capcom lengthening the number of examples to use as a frame of reference when evaluating Mega Man’s evolution. Mega Man 3 is still a fading ring after the mighty crescendo of Mega Man 2, even if its predecessor did admittedly have some glaring flaws that needed to be addressed. However, the developers had established enough of an integral gameplay identity over the three titles so as not to repeat the same mistakes from the first game. Even with adding plenty of attributes like a standard sequel would, Mega Man 3 is still surprisingly rougher than Mega Man 2.

Let me preface Mega Man 3’s new plot premise with this statement: Dr Light. is an idiot. I understand that Capcom needed to make an effort to keep Dr. Wily as the central antagonist of the series by writing more roundabout ways to ignite his devious schemes other than on an evil whim. Still, the old man can’t be this naive to let Dr. Wily collaborate on a project involving a giant mech, along with the upkeep of eight conveniently numbered robots to assist in the labor. Batman may leave the Joker groveling at his defeat out of mercy instead of exterminating the pest, but he’d certainly never invite him into the Batcave to play with all the various doodads. We have to wonder if Mega Man keeps Wily alive after thwarting so many of his attempts of world domination to elongate his role as a heroic adventurer. It beats cleaning Dr. Light’s toilets like his sister, that’s for damn sure. Anyways, to no one's surprise except for the possibly senile Dr. Light, Wily takes the blueprints for their Gamma project and corrupts all eight Robot Masters. Once again, Mega Man has to venture off to defeat all eight of the Robot Masters and stop Wily from becoming the ruler of the future, even if I’d argue that he’s partially to blame for nonchalantly standing aside and letting it happen.

The changes Mega Man 3 makes to the blue bomber’s gameplay are relatively minor. However, the few advancements it does make persisted indefinitely as requisite staples relating to the blue bombers' identity. By pressing the jump button while holding down on the D-pad, Mega Man will execute a slide move. Mega Man will make the same pixelated gaping expression as he does while jumping, and the motion of the slide move is smooth and responsive. A part of me wishes that Mega Man could accelerate through levels by sliding instead of being halted back to his normal momentum after one move, but I suppose throwing caution to the wind in Mega Man’s stages would be libel to kill him. Mega Man’s slide maneuver is impressively utilized many times across each level of the game. He’ll mostly slide beneath narrow crevices, sometimes timing his movements to avoid a chain of hazards like the industrial needles in Needle Man’s stage. Those bulky hopping robots from the first game return, but not as damage sponges to stall Mega Man before he enters a Robot Master’s chamber. In Mega Man 3, one leap off the ground from these mechanical moon shoes is enough to mitigate their encounter with the slide. Mega Man has been given a platforming mechanic that is both unique and practical, a true stride in innovation for the character.

The other change is more at face value but is still significant nonetheless. Capcom decided to spruce up the three platforming gadgets by reimagining them as the loveable, slobbering Rush. Everyone says that dogs are a man’s best friend, so Capcom thought the same adage should extend to robot men as well. As I previously stated, Rush as a concept is simply to give a repeated Mega Man mechanic some personality, whether or not they were in desperate need of some in the first place. In saying this, Mega Man’s canine companion is equipped with some functions unseen in the previous game. Rush’s default ability is the Rush Coil, in which hopping on the buoyant screw on his back will give Mega Man a single jump boost. Rush Jet is a hoverboard extension of the second item from the previous game/the magnet beam, and the Rush Marine is an underwater vessel that carries Mega Man through the drink. As functional as Rush is with each of these, some are greatly underutilized. Rush Jet can of course be used to gloss over the tedium of some platforming sections, and Rush Coil will be frequently equipped for reaching the heights of planted E-Tanks and extra lives. The Rush Marine, however, is only useful for one section of Gemini Man’s stage, and it’s arguable if it makes the calamitous pit of water easier to traverse through. Regardless of Rush’s sporadic utility, how can I be harsh to this metallic pooch? He’s still a good boy.

Across all of Mega Man 3’s stages, one might notice the exponential increase in visual detail. In three games on the NES, it is now evident that the Mega Man series has hit a graphical stride, showing how far the series has come since the blank backgrounds and the colored blocks that composed the first game, and we’re still using the hardware of the NES to display it. Funny enough, all it took for the developers to achieve a more immersive look is to implement finer detail in the colored blocks. The descent down Shadow Man’s sewer shows the dim, dankness of the underground construction among the radiant flow of lava. Snake Man’s graphical blocks in its foreground visually represent the intricate scales of the green serpent its Robot Master is themed after. Hard Man’s (reserve all of your immature snickerings for the end of this review) stage exhibits the rocky crevices of a cavern, and Needle Man’s metropolis rooftops exude a sense of a futuristic adventure with a visible cityscape in the background. Gemini Man’s stage is a surreal spectacle, using the strobe light effect from Flash Man’s stage to illuminate this strange, embryonic cave. Top Man’s stage is the most peculiar because its greenhouse stage shares the least commonality with its Robot Master. Would a Hanukkah-themed level be considered too racy? I’d prefer something like that because while the stages in Mega Man 3 look astounding, the range of level diversity is a bit lacking. The theme of Spark Man, Needle Man, and Magnet Man ultimately boils down to traversing through a factory with a different aesthetic and enemies.

Who can we blame for Mega Man 3’s seemingly formulaic level theming? Apparently, it's the fans. Capcom enlisted the creative efforts of Mega Man’s fans to craft the game’s core bosses, and the chosen few out of several hundred submissions came to fruition. Evidently, at this point, the elemental powers that shaped the Robot Masters of the first two Mega Man games became stale, and breaking out a thesaurus to find similar words to “fire” and “bubble” would’ve been lazy. The selection Capcom filtered through is more eclectic than those they previously came up with, but it does admittedly make the ordered trajectory of defeating them more difficult to process. Another factor of this that isn’t the fault of the fans is how shoddily executed many of the Robot Master’s weapons are. Of course, we can’t expect something as holy and divine as the Metal Blade for each iteration of Mega Man. Shadow Man’s blade serves as a fine surrogate, but it can only be thrown in five directions instead of eight. Unfortunately, a poor man’s Metal Blade is probably the best weapon featured here. The Spark Shock paralyzes enemies like the Ice Slasher, but Mega Man can’t change his weapon to even his standard blaster until the shock effect wears off. The Gemini Laser suffers from the same awkward utilization, as Mega Man must also wait until the beam stops ricocheting off the walls to fire another ray or switch weapons. The Hard Knuckle is too girthy (oh lord) to use on most enemies, and the Needle Cannon is basically the blaster that depletes the energy meter. I feel sorry for whoever submitted Top Man because his Top Spin is a laughably useless joke that does more damage to Mega Man than the enemy. I used the Metal Blade most of the time in Mega Man 2 because I wanted to, but here, I use the Shadow Blade and the blaster due to a lack of substantial alternatives.

Not only will the player find more difficulties in figuring out the weapon-related weaknesses of Mega Man 3’s Robot Masters, but they’ll also have to wrack their brains in translating this game’s weapons to the bosses of Mega Man 2. Before Wily’s Castle, Mega Man must trek through four additional stages comprising geographical locales of the main stages. In each of these four stages are two different bosses from the previous game, whose spirit floats down into a generic Robot Master avatar. Not only did I fail to see the point in reoffering Mega Man 2’s bosses in this slog of a section, but I disagree with the way these stages progress. One familiar Mega Man 2 boss encounter happens at a halfway point and if Mega Man dies, the defeat of the first Robot Master will not initiate a checkpoint. It seems rather harsh to force the player on a test of endurance after defeating a boss, considering this was always a penultimate achievement that ended the level up until this point. That, and they also have to flip through their arsenal to find a weak point and wish for the best, considering that the logic behind defeating the Robot Masters made for these weapons is shaky as it is. As for Wily’s Castle, the real climax of any Mega Man game, it's comparatively more underwhelming. The only shock here that hit me over the head like a whizzing dodgeball was the return of my old nemesis, The Yellow Devil, in a fight that mirrored the same one from the first game that made my first playthrough of the first game come to a screeching halt. Fortunately, even without the saving grace of the pause glitch, gulping down a six-pack of energy tanks was an option I took that wasn’t available in the first game.

Most people claim that all of Mega Man 3’s cumbrous elements as listed above are due to the game suffering from a rushed development time. However, I am puzzled by this revelation because the Mega Man 2 boss rush seems like an augmentation that took valuable development time to implement rather than something that wasn’t finished. The one point of consideration in contextualizing Mega Man 3’s feeling of being misshapen can be traced to one new element. At certain points in a select few Robot Master stages, Mega Man will stop in his tracks at the sounds of a western-esque whistle. This catchy sound is the theme of a red robot of Mega Man’s relative stature who dons a shield, a sharp scarf, and a pair of shades. He’ll proceed to duel Mega Man with little intimidation because his jumping pattern and bullet spread are highly predictable. Once Mega Man reaches the end and defeats a corrupted Gamma controlled by Dr. Wily, the mysterious vagabond that interrupted Mega Man’s pacing in the Robot Master’s levels rescues Mega Man after a cube of garbage falls on him. After Mega Man regains consciousness in Dr. Light’s lab, he explains to Mega Man that the being that has been pursuing him is “Protoman,” the prototype of Mega Man created first by Dr. Light. Protoman made a valiant sacrifice in rescuing his younger brother, but all I saw was the escort after Mega Man had been hit. In fact, most of the exposition involving Protoman is told in the game’s manual. If I had to guess, the mystery element in the game’s narrative was the factor that stressed the development period. If it had been fully composed, perhaps it would piece together all of the other attributes of Mega Man 3 that don’t make sense.

The classic Mega Man series on the NES is clearly one that is defined by its repeated idiosyncrasies. Mega Man 3 adds plenty to Mega Man’s foundation and while it’s nice that Mega Man can slide and he has a trusty animal sidekick at his aid, it doesn’t do all too much to elevate the series. Choosing between eight levels with themes based around their bosses and then trekking up to Dr. Wily in his towering domain is what defines Mega Man. Mega Man 3 is the entry in which Capcom realized that Mega Man had a tried and true formula, but they couldn’t let the series lose its luster so quickly. Even if their attempts at invigorating the same plot with a mystery character succeeded, I’m not sure the NES could support that kind of narrative. All the same, it’s nice to see that Mega Man 3 still marks a time when Capcom was willing to change up the familiarities of the blue bomber, and that effort translates well regardless of its faults.

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Hehe. Hard Man. Hehe.