Mega Man X3

"Wonderboy and Young Nastyman joined forces..."

As dusk descends over the future, X is looking forward to his first peaceful night after months of endless warfare. The Mavericks – robots that were corrupted by a programming malfunction and evil taint of their leader Sigma – have been finally defeated. This abrupt end to the fighting is a direct result of Dr. Doppler, a scientist who designed a special system to fix any of the robots' abnormalities. As peace began to prosper, Dr. Doppler set up his own town where humans and robots could coexist...At least, until the inevitable cliched (yet oh-so convenient) plot twist happened. Sane robots go homicidal again, Dr. Doppler turns out to be evil, and chaos ensues once more. Who couldn't have seen that one coming? On top of all that, these Mavericks are determined to turn our heroes into scrap metal. With a vicious assault being run on the Maverick Hunter base, it's up to X and the newly reanimated Zero to bring peace back to future.

Wow. How original.

Okay. Dr. Doppler's got a small army of brainwashed robots, each one programmed for the sole purpose of destroying the Maverick Hunters. Armed with nothing more than his trusty laser blaster, X must fight through the city's various areas and take down anything that gets in his way. There will be bipedal tanks spewing missiles, wall-mounted cannons, monstrous dragonflies, laser defense grids, deadly snowflakes, and more spiky floors than you should probably shake a stick at. Utilizing his incredible gliding and jumping abilities, X must figure out how to get past all the cleverly-placed platforms and enemy strongholds lest he fall down a bottomless pit or get himself shot to hell. Once he's made it through the level, he'll have to take on one of Dr. Doppler's more powerful Mavericks, each with their own specialized attacks and strategies. Should X win the battle, he'll get to walk up to his opponent's flaming metallic corpse, pluck the weapon off its arm, and convert it for his own use.

If you've ever played the previous Mega Man X games (or any of the older Mega Man games, for that matter), this should seem all too familiar to you. The whole platforming/shooting baddies/stealing bosses' weapons routine has been done to death. But to make the game seem less of a rehash, Mega Man X3 adds a little extra to the gameplay formula: Zero. After being limited to a few badass cutscenes in the first two games, Zero is finally playable. Unlike X, whose basic attacks are limited to a charged up laser shot, Zero comes packing with a few extra surprises; not only can he charge up his gun, but he can store an additional level energy into the attack as well. Should you max out Zero's attack, he'll shoot out a single blast, then dish out an even more powerful shot, then follow it up with a quick slash of his signature laser saber. On top of all that, you can switch between the heroes at almost every point in any given level, which makes the game a tad more interesting.

Aside from Zero's introduction as a second hero, nothing else has changed. The levels are still peppered with a small assortment of baddies, most of which take a fully charged shot or two to take out. The various bosses all have specific weaknesses to different weapons, but they don't show the same kind of challenge as the previous bosses featured. Though the platforming aspects of the gameplay have been retained, they've been put on the backburner in favor of smaller and simpler level designs. The game may come off as lacking in difficulty, but the sheer amount of hidden items, health boosters, and armor upgrades will leave you itching to scour the levels a few times before progressing. On top of all that, the storyline progresses via cutscenes and brings three additional antagonists to the table, including a certain mini-boss that Mega Man X fans will be glad to revisit.

But if there's anything that makes Mega Man X3 stand out from its predecessors, the game's amazing graphics are it. You'll get to wander through dense forests filled with realistically shaded trees, slide across patches of ice, and watch as an airship ascends through the clouds, then passing by a giant tower and a blood-red sky as you turn the level's boss into scrap metal. Your enemies come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, forcing you to reckon with gigantic hornets, a poison-spewing seahorse, a neon-colored tiger with laser claws, and a crawfish with pinchers sharp enough to tear you apart in mere seconds. Despite their fearsome appearance, you'll probably remember their intro animations better than the actual battles. The game is stocked with a wide variety of anime-esque cutscnes, something that neither of the previous games could boast. Mega Man X3 has only one drawback from its predecessor: the music. The epic soundtracks of yesteryear have been replaced with horribly repetitive and generic tunes. But with so many additional features, it's likely you'll too busy saving the day to notice.

After giving gamers two of the finest action games ever released on the SNES, the Mega Man X series finally expanded onto multiple platforms. In their usual style, Capcom fell back on their usual strategy of simply recycling the older games and presenting it as something new. However, it's not an entirely bad thing. The basic gameplay formula hasn't changed at all, but Mega Man X3 has a few new features to keep seasoned gamers wanting more. Zero, the epitome of Mega Manliness, has finally stepped into the spotlight as a playable character and all-around improvement on the series' main character. The levels may be a little shorter and easier to navigate, but at least your foes still present some form of challenge. As the series develops further, we can only hope that the next title can improve on its predecessors as much as this one has.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/15/06