Mega Man X3

"A Low Point in the Mega Man X Franchise"

The year was 1995. The age the Super NES was drawing to a close, as was the age of 16-bit consoles in general. The Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation were rising on the horizons, great titans from overseas. Nintendo kept stringing people along with its Ultra 64 project. Some fools bought Atari Jaguars or the system from 3DO. Capcom brought out its final Mega Man X game on the Super NES in the waning days of that year: Mega Man X3.

Things have gone well in X's world since Mega Man X2. Dr. Doppler - a Reploid - has created a device that prevents Reploids from going Maverick. He's built a thriving new city for Reploids, and the world looks on the brink of a new Golden Age. Only... all is not what it seems. Dr. Doppler uses the massed Reploids in his city to launch an attack on the Maverick Hunter headquarters. His forces assault across the globe.

Only X and Zero stand in his way.

Doppler sends his two minions, Bit and Byte, to stop X and Zero before they can interfere with his plans too much. A mysterious shadowy figure with a shape that's awfully familiar to those that played the first Mega Man X also joins in the hunt.

One nice innovation in Mega Man X3 is the ability to switch between X and Zero while playing, though Zero's gameplay is rather limited. You cannot, for example, fight bosses while controlling Zero.

Another innovation, is the ability to summon the Ride Armor of your choice at certain locations in the various stages. Ride Armors are large powered armor suits that can be piloted by X. They have various capabilities that range from powerful melee attacks, to flight, to traversing through water easily. Unfortunately the game doesn't capitalize on this feature, and Ride Armors tend be rather extraneous to the actual flow of the game.

Once again, X is staring down eight Mavericks in eight stages. Though this time the Maverick design is a little... uninspired. We're treated to the likes of Volt Catfish and Crush Crawfish. Really, I think X3 sets a record for the number of sea life-based bosses in it. From fighting the bosses, they tend to be more about just running into you, instead of using their powers. Or maybe their powers are based around running into you. I'm not sure, but I don't care for the boss design at all, neither concept, appearance, nor their abilities.

The actual stages aren't much better than the bosses. There's some nice use of abilities in them to unlock secrets, but for the most part they're boring, stocked with sparsely distributed, repetitive and uninspired enemies. Terrible level design. Scattered through the levels you can find the typical X-series power ups - Heart Tanks, Sub Tanks, Upgrades - as well as some new ones in the form of collectible Ride Armors and 'chips' which are much like Upgrades.

Sub Tanks and Heart Tanks work like in previous Mega Man X games. The former giving X the ability to refill his life meter at any time, while the latter extends the life meter so X can take more punishment.

Upgrades run the gamut of previous X-games. An arm upgrade to give X the ability to charge up his special weapons, as well as giving him a 1-2 powered up combo with the X-buster. The leg upgrade lets X dash in mid-air, including straight up. This latter feature is mostly only useful to acquire certain other power ups. There's also the head upgrade, which tells X what power ups can be found in a given stage, and also once the stage is loaded brings up a map that gives a rough idea of the power up's location.

There are four Ride Armors to be found in the game, which have various abilities. They can be fun to play with, but for the most part there's no need to collect them at all, unless one is trying to get all of the other upgrades, in which case they may prove useful.

Finally, there are the chip upgrades, which work similarly to the normal upgrades X can find. They improve various facets of his abilities. There is also a secret 'golden' chip upgrade that can be found during the final stages after defeating the Mavericks. To get it, X needs to have acquired all of the other power ups, but not any of the Chips. If X meets that requirement, he can get the Golden Chip, which changes his armor's color to gold instead of the typical blue color scheme - along with getting the benefits of the other chips.

One of the key features of a Mega Man game is the acquisition of new weapons when a boss is defeated. X picks up a new weapon he can use from each of the Maverick bosses and often is able to use the new weapon to defeat one of the remaining Maverick bosses. The weapons are also useful for 'activating' things in stages which make getting some of the power ups possible.

The music is absolutely terrible. I couldn't stand it. The sound effects aren't anything special. They're certainly not an improvement over the previous games. I ended up listening to a CD while I was playing.

Mega Man X3 is not a bad game. It just doesn't compare well to the previous entries in the Mega Man X series. If I hadn't ever played Mega Man X or Mega Man X2, I'd probably have enjoyed Mega Man X3 a lot more

Gameplay: 7

While the controls are tight and precise as always for a Mega Man X game, the gameplay is hindered by terrible level design, boring and uninspired bosses, and repetitive normal enemies.

Graphics: 8

The fancy effects that are occasionally done in the game actually detract from the graphical presentation. Otherwise they're fairly solid - poorly designed bosses notwithstanding.

Sound: 5

The music is a deal breaker for me. I just can't stand it. I'm sorry.

Replay: 4

There are lots of things to do to in X3 and lots of reasons to replay it to do them. Like fighting a certain boss in his own stage, or various other things that are spoilers. Unfortunately the rest of the game just doesn't stack up enough for me to justify replaying Mega Man X3. I'd rather play through Mega Man X2 or Mega Man X4 again instead.

Other:

Not letting you use Zero during boss fights is definitely pretty weak. They should have rethought that idea.

Overall: 6

This rating is mostly a judgment based on the existence of the rest of the Mega Man X franchise. There are other, much better, games in the series worthy of your play time. If it wasn't for them, Mega Man X3 would probably net a 7, as it is still far above average for the most part.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06