Mega Man 3

"Have my babies, Mr. Blue Bomber."

Mega Man is one of the series' on the NES that didn't immediately go downhill at the third one. While a lot of series' fail at the third part, I felt that Mega Man 3 was the best of the original three, which in my opinion had the strongest NES feeling. Mega Man 3 blows the original Mega Man out the window, and even kills off Mega Man 2.

The storyline's a tad bit better than Mega Man 2's, although it can get incredibly confusing at times. After Dr. Wily's defeat from Mega Man 2, he apologizes to Dr. Light. Then Dr. Wily and Dr. Light work on a powerful robot called Gamma, which can't be complete until eight elements are gathered. And something that doesn't come as a surprise is that they're guarded by eight robots: Spark Man, Shadow Man, Top Man, Hard Man, Magnet Man, Needle Man, Gemini Man, and Snake Man.

For all your nutcases who have never heard what happens in a Mega Man game *gasp* there are eight stages in the game, in which you can travel to in any order you wish. After the stage is through, there is always a Robot Master you must fight. After all of the stages are complete, you can go to Dr. Wily's castle (but after something else I won't reveal). Although it may sound quite linear, Mega Man 3 is far from that. Every time you beat a boss, you'll gain their special weapon, in which you can use at your leisure. Every boss has a weakness to a special weapon, in which you have to figure out on your own. And some weapons also work better than others against certain enemies.

Control is the classic Mega Man: good, good. As always, A is used to jump, and B is used to fire your Buster. Mega Man 3 also gives you the ability to slide, by holding the down button and then hitting A. Unfortunately though, you cannot yet charge your Buster, a slightly disappointing thing, but it really isn't that necessary yet. Plus, the sliding feature allows more fun in the boss fights, as sometimes you'll have to choose whether you want to pass under them, jump, attack, or slide.

This game also marks the beginning of Rush, a robotic dog (who really doesn't have anything to do with the storyline though). There's the Rush Coil (you start out with this), which allows you to make larger jumps, the Rush Marine, which is a boat you can use to cross water, and the Rush Jet, which will allow you to move through the air. This is another extremely innovative feature that was implemented to the series, and you'll learn to love that dog anyway.

One of the reasons that Mega Man 3 was one of the better entries in the series (in my opinion) was because it had a lot more variety in its stage. Whereas the first two were more on platform jumping and the like, Mega Man 3 has extremely interesting puzzles where you'll need to figure out how to get E-Tanks, and tons of fascinating occasions when Rush needs to be used, or when you have to slide. This is the reason that Mega Man 3 was such a success.

Although it's one of the most interesting Mega Man titles, it's not extremely challenging compared to some games on the NES, but it is definitely one of the hardest ones in the original series. Since there are lots of puzzles, and the bosses have some really interesting attacks in this one (an example being Needle Man), and to top it all off most of the enemies are a bit tougher, Mega Man 3 is definitely enough to make the average gamer spend a bit of time. This is also the longest game in the series, as you'll discover when you beat the robot masters.

Mega Man 3 was the evolution of the graphics in the series. The backgrounds are a lot more colorful than they were in the original two Mega Mans, and everything is more clear, and animates even better. Some of the enemy designs are also excellent. For example, take a look at those heads in Snake Man's stage. The bosses also look just as good as always; good examples are Snake Man and Shadow Man. Also, Hard Man is hilarious. Everything that has to do with graphics in the series has gone up from here.

In my opinion, this also has the best music in the entire series, except maybe Mega Man 5. THIS is how it should be done, as almost all of the music fits perfectly into the overall stage. I loved the feeling of Shadow Man's theme, and Top Man's theme is just excellent. Although the Dr. Wily themes aren't quite as great as Mega Man 2's (I play Mega Man 2's themes a lot via ROM because I love them so much), they're still great, and also fit into the overall stage. All of this game's music is awesome, and if I could find one I'd probably buy a soundtrack.

There's a reason that Mega Man 3 is my second favorite game in the original series on the NES. The game looks great, sounds great, and plays great. This is the mark where the Mega Man series turned fun, and got great stages to play through. I still come back to this game a lot, since the innovative levels and bosses are addictive. This is definitely worth $20, so you have no excuse not to buy this on eBay or somewhere.

As long as you don't buy Mega Man 4.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/29/04