Mega Man 3 (NES Review)

Mega Man 3
aka Rockman 3
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
Released September 28, 1990
Directed by Masayoshi Kurokawa
Developed by Capcom
Included in Included in Mega Man Legacy Collection

Mega Man 2 or Mega Man 3? That’s the question, right? But why is that? Having just played both games and posted my review of Mega Man 2, I expected this to be a much closer contest than it is. For a lot of people, Mega Man 3 rules the roost. I used to be with them, but I ain’t anymore. Actually, I was kind of stunned by how bland Mega Man 3 is. Oh sure, there’s the giant robot cat seen above, and a giant robot penguin in Gemini Man’s level and a f*cking giant helmet thing shows up at some point. But in terms of the level themes and bosses, I really think Mega Man 3 isn’t sniffing Mega Man 2’s robotic armpit. If you want proof of how bulletproof the Mega Man formula is, I actually think this is the best example, because Mega Man 3 is actually shockingly generic.

Don’t mistake this largely negative review for me arguing Mega Man 3 is bad. It’s awesome as an action game. The excellent controls are back and, for the first time, you can slide. This is heavily incorporated into the level design in exciting ways, including building one of the notorious Mega Man disappearing/reappearing block rooms around the slide. Huh, they finally made one of those rooms that didn’t suck. Nice. So the slide is a great idea and avoids feeling gimmicky. The item concept from Mega Man 2 returns, only this time they take the form of the debuting Rush, the transforming robotic dog. And the ways you use Rush are a lot more fun than the items from Mega Man 2 ever were. One of his modes is just a spring that launches you in the air, and it doesn’t have to be earned. You start the game with it. The other two, Rush Jet and Rush Marine, have the same problem as Mega Man 2 in that there’s no way to logically suss-out which boss you have to kill to earn them. It’s Needle Man for Rush Jet and Shadow Man for Rush Marine. Then again, randomness is sort of the theme with this game so it tracks.

This is also the final game in the main series that doesn’t allow you to charge up your pea shooter for a power shot. Honestly, I’d have been fine if they had left that part out as I rarely use it in the upcoming games anyway. Unlike Mega Man 2, there’s no insanely overpowered weapon like Metal Man’s. There’s a nerfed version of it that you nick from Shadow Man, but it only fires in five directions instead of eight and doesn’t have the unlimited range or the ability to spam it since it acts like a boomerang and you have to wait for it to return to you or hit an enemy before throwing another. The lineup of weapons you get from the bosses are every bit as weak as the bosses themselves. Needle Man’s weapon is basically the pea shooter, only with a pointy shape. Top Man’s is possibly the worst weapon in the entire history of the franchise. With it you spin like a f*cking ballerina. It’s the worst. Go figure the last boss’ final form can be one-shotted by it. Come to think of it, Mega Man 2’s final boss was weak to THAT game’s worst weapon. Okay, this is clearly an inside joke on Capcom’s part at this point, right?

Apparently that giant thing above is supposed to be a peace keeping robot co-developed by Dr. Light (is it Dr. Light or Dr. Right? I’ll ask Clash Man) and Dr. Wily. Because if you can’t trust a guy who claims to be reformed after his two failed attempts at taking over the world using robotic roosters and robotic gorillas, who can you trust? The story is that these two knuckleheads are teaming up to build Gamma, that thing in the above picture, which will somehow protect the world. I’m sure it made sense to them. They’re not called mad scientists because of their rationality. But Gamma won’t work unless they get eight special elements from different planets. Instead of sending Mega Man, they built eight BLANK Man robot masters to go to each of the eight worlds. But, wouldn’t you know, somehow those eight robots turned evil along the way. “Even Spark Man?” ESPECIALLY Spark Man! I guess Light didn’t notice Wily snickering the whole time and muttering “soon the world will be mine” while building the eight robots that literally were made to look evil. And then Light has the BALLS to act shocked when Willy betrays him.

The thing is, I would never have guessed the whole “traveling to different worlds” plot from just playing the game. Only one level, Gemini Man’s, feels alien. The rest are just really Mega Man levels like I’ve come to expect, and only a couple of them actually fit the themes of their bosses. Snake Man’s level is mostly made of snakes, has snake enemies, and even has gigantic f*cking snakes that coil while you try to kill them. I totally believe an evil robot named “Snake Man” would be found at the end of it.

But then you get to someone like Needle Man’s stage, which is a (checks notes) ship theme? I think? So they justify it by putting these giant needle-shaped spikes and porcupines in the stage. But where did they get “ship” from “needle?” Why not just put a pin in Needle Man and do Ship Man or Captain Man or something along those lines? The ninja Shadow Man’s level is this year’s fire-themed stage. Gemini Man’s level is this year’s water-themed stage. There’s no “twin” enemies in Gemini Man’s level until the end of the stage. For a large part of the game, there’s disconnect between the robot themes and the levels they’re contained in. The list of bosses is Spark Man, Snake Man, Needle Man, Hard Man, Top Man, Gemini Man, Magnet Man, and Shadow Man. Okay, which of them does this level belong to:

And the answer? Snake Man! Right?! How do we go from “snake-themed floor and snake-themed enemies with a snake-themed background” to “now we’re in the sky in what feels like a deleted part of Air Man’s level from the last game” in same f*cking level? A level I just heavily praised at that? Mega Man 3 is the first game in the franchise where I feel a nearly complete tonal disconnect from the robot themes to the actual levels. This isn’t a nothingburger, folks. This is why the whole thing feels so halfhearted and generic. Compare this to the last game especially, where the levels were near-perfect marriages to the robot themes. Even the tough-to-match ones. How do you do Flash Man? Well, his item pauses the game, FREEZES you if you will, so make it the cold level! Hey, I’m convinced! So how do we get from that perfection of Mega Man 2 to Mega Man 3’s “well, Gemini is twins so obviously the level should have giant robotic penguins and robotic frog eggs that hatch into robotic tadpoles when you shoot them.” OH OBVIOUSLY! How did I not see the connection?

The enemy roster is just not as good. In Mega Man 3, there’s these things that looks like evil robotic dumbbells (as in weights, not the bosses) and one plate flies across the screen and attaches itself to the other, then they chase you, because what else are evil dumbbells going to do? Get Mega Man so swole he can’t fit in his armor? Okay, well, they’re actually supposed to be nuts and bolts, but at least it’s an actual perfect fit for Magnet Man’s stage, right? Well, they’re in two levels and Magnet Man’s isn’t one of them. They’re in Top Man and Spark Man’s stage. There’s cannons that shoot you. Hard Man kind of looks like he has a cannon for a head, so that’s his thing, right? Nope, that’s exclusive to Needle Man’s stage. There’s bees that drop a cluster of other bees on you. Bees have stingers, which are like needles, so naturally they’re in Hard Man’s stage.

And to really hammer home how much this game wishes it were Mega Man 2, you actually fight all eight bosses from Mega Man 2 after beating all eight of this game’s robot masters. Not that I’m complaining because I love the roster of Mega Man 2, but it’s a reminder that you’re in an inferior game. And then you don’t even fight THEM, but rather their programming inside a generic robot. What’s even worse is you have to get to them by playing slight remixes of four previous stages, where two of the Mega Man 2 bosses show up in each stage. While I didn’t hate the remixes (the giant met shows up in Needle Man’s after being teased the first time around), it felt like padding to me. It is, frankly. The Wily levels are as lame as ever too, and the roster of bosses this time around are the weakest yet. This includes reruns of two of the Wily bosses from the first game: a slightly remixed version of the boring ass Yellow Devil and a clone of Mega Man, only this time it’s a triple clone with two being fake. Womp womp. Oh, and the generic “wave of robots” fight that every Wily stage has is turtles this time. Seriously, turtles? And not even giant turtles. Just Mega-Man sized turtles. Why would this be a boss when the whole franchise has been filled with robotic animals?

So no, I’m not on board with Mega Man 3 being possibly the best in the franchise. I actually think it’s the weakest overall so far. The level design is fine. The action is typical Mega Man awesomeness. Saying they ruined Mega Man would be disingenuous. Mega Man 3 is fine. BUT, in terms of an experience? Mega Man 3 is pretty damn mediocre compared to the previous two games. It feels like they completely phoned this sh*t in with generic bosses and generic themes. Mega Man 1 and 2 literally had generic names for the bosses (Ice Man, Fire Man, etc), but what it did with the themes of the levels connected to those bosses at least tended to match them and make the game feel immersive. Mega Man 3 feels comparatively random. Magnet Man and Spark Man being the only two levels that were really consistently themed to match the bosses, with Snake Man coming so close before you take to the sky in a level themed around reptiles famous for not having legs and crawling across the ground on their bellies. What the actual f*ck, Capcom?

Like I said, Mega Man 3 is proof the formula is what makes the series impervious to a NO! As poorly integrated as the themes and basic enemy design is (and it’s horribly done), the action is still really good. The platforming is probably the best in the series yet. They got a LOT of millage out of the Rush Coil, which I wasn’t expecting. But ultimately, I didn’t enjoy the tour of the levels anywhere near as much as I had the previous two games. Not even close. Seriously, why is this one of the beloved Mega Man games again? It’s like Mega Man with characters and level themes dictated by a game of Mad Libs. I actually remembered this as one of the best games in the series. Now I’m starting to wonder if it’s the worst of the main line games. I’d even rank it under Mega Man 1. Janky as that game is, at least the themes make sense and there’s no boss shaped like a f*cking top.
Verdict: YES!

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