Mega Man X3

"A significant step down from X2"

When Mega Man X was released, fans of the original Mega Man series were impressed with the game's cool sound effects, great graphics, awesome music, and fun boss design. My first time playing the game is one of the most memorable moments for me in my gaming career of almost 20 years. The sequel, X2, didn't change much. The music was still great, the graphics were a little improved, and the boss designs were still cool and well-inspired.

Then Mega Man X3 comes along, right near the end of the 16-bit era. With top-notch 16-bit graphics and tons of hidden content, Mega Man X3 would be the best of its time, right? Unfortunately, no. Mega Man X3 suffers from uninspired boss and level design, repetitive music and many annoying special effects. In other words, it's weak in everything that MMX and MMX2 did a good job on.


Graphics: 7/10
The game uses an improved graphics engine from X1 and X2, so the graphics look pretty good for SNES. However, they were not put to very good use. Colors are dull compared to X1 and X2. Most of the stages just don't look that great; Tunnel Rhino's stage is just a long tunnel of tiled rocks, which makes sense but doesn't make for interesting level design. Blast Hornet's warehouse stage is just that; a large, olive greenish warehouse with very little else to speak of. Other stages look pretty good, and could be comparable to some of X2's levels, like Toxic Seahorse's stage.

It doesn't help that some of the effects which they've utilized in this game are more annoying than visually pleasing. X's armor upgrade doesn't just have him block with his arms anymore, he blocks with his arms, with a Sonic the Hedgehog-style shield that pops up for a while - very annoying, given the way this game plays. Another graphical "feature" is that some bosses will begin to "glow," filling their sprite with rainbow-like colors as they unleash their attack. It looks more stupid than threatening.

One of the biggest complaints I have here is in the boss design. These are by far the most boring looking bosses seen in a Mega Man X game, including X4-8. And to fit their boring design, they are also given boring introductions. While X1 and X2 had brief boss "introductions," like when Sting Chameleon shifts out of camouflage or Spark Mandrill's wrestling-like entrance, most of the bosses in X3 cheaply float down from the ceiling, much like what happened in the original Mega Man series. Part of what made the first two games awesome was that it had STYLE; we didn't just fight an evil penguin robot, we fought an evil penguin robot with PERSONALITY. In X3, we fight an evil beetle that magically floats down from the ceiling.

The bosses themselves look very uninspired. Some of them are poorly animated, The most glaring example of this is Crush Crawfish, whose face and body are forever stuck in the same position, facing the corner of the screen - his only moving body parts are his legs and claws. Then we have Blizzard Buffalo, whose animations range from standing still, with his back hunched over, gliding foward, with his back hunched over.

Given how important boss fights have been in both Mega Man series, the uninspired boss graphics really hurt the game. The graphics are high quality, but with poor animations, ugly colors, and uninspired artwork, they aren't used well.


Sound: 7/10
Good, as usual. Note that many of the sound effects have changed since X2, which is a little hard to get used to. The changes aren't an improvement nor a downgrade.


Music: 4/10
What the hell happened? Mega Man X had an incredible soundtrack, one that I would remember for years after I threw away my broken SNES. Almost every track stood out, especially Storm Eagle, Armored Armadillo, and the intro stage. X2 also delivered well, using mostly the same instruments and style as the first. Like the sound, the music instruments and music style in X3 were changed - only this time, for the worse.

The game uses loud, droning instruments with lots of slow low notes; a major change from the faster moving, higher pitched "guitars" used in the first two games. The music in some stages is so bad that it's distracting. For example, Neon Tiger and Tunnel Rhino's stages both feature the repetition of a 5 second long, slow moving riff that would easily put one to sleep if the instruments weren't so loud. Some stages, like Volt Catish, have their moments, but on the most part, the music is very bad. Yet another strong point of the Mega Man (and X) series that Mega Man X3 fails to deliver on.


Gameplay: 4/10
Mega Man X3's gameplay suffers from weak level design, boring boss AI, and poorly implemented additional gameplay mechanics which, though they add game time to X3, hurt the game more than they help. However, as a Mega Man X game, it still as its strong points, including a very, very large number of hidden items to explore.

The game contains some of the most boring, uninspired level design ever seen in any of the Mega Man games, including those on the NES. Even back in the NES days, every stage at least had some sort of theme going on: Fire Man's stage is some sort of fiery factory with flames shooting from the walls and the ground. Elec Man's stage is some sort of tower with electricity running all over the place and long stretches of ladders. Compared to the very first Mega Man on the NES, Mega Man X3 does a better job of graphically letting you know where you're at, but it fails to actually incorporate it into gameplay.

For example, Blast Hornet's stage is an airport with warehouses. How does the game let us know that? By having an area that has X fighting on top of a bunch of warehouse shaped buildings. The rest of the stage is moving through a building and killing stuff. Even worse is Gravity Beetle's stage, which, unlike Gravity Man's stage from Mega Man 5, doesn't have much to do with gravity. It's just a factory with robots in it.

The aforementioned boring, uninspired boss design is complemented with boring, uninspired boss AI. About half the bosses throw a minor projectile, then proceed to charge at X. Some bosses almost directly copy off each other, like Toxic Seahorse's bouncing acid and Gravity Beetle's bouncing gravity balls.

Like X2, Mega Man X3 adds a number of side-bosses to spice up the game a little. Unfortunately, they were rather poorly implemented. Unlike in X2, they are not optional, and there is no avoiding a confrontation with them, whether or not you are ready for it (with the right upgrades, weapons, etc). Also, every stage has a room especially made for their encounters, which are present whether or not you're fighting the boss. This means that, for 6 of the stages you play, you have to walk through an empty boss room corridor that simply functions as a "save point" if you die. Very annoying.

For those that enjoy collecting heart tanks and armor enhancements, X3 certainly delivers in that department. Every stage has at least three hidden items to collect, including heart tanks, subtanks for health, four pieces of armor enhancements, and new to the series a set of four Ride Armors that you can collect and summon at special points at any of the stages. The problem is that none of these Ride Armors get very much playtime except for when you're looking for secrets.

The extra upgrades for your armor (a second upgrade to your helmet, buster, boots, or chest) allows you only to choose one of them, which is cool for customization, but their entire purpose is ruined by the fact that you can't pick any of them up if you want the best armor in the game (that features the upgrades for all four of them).


Conclusion:
Megaman X3 is weak at every strong point of the Mega Man X series, but it's really not that bad. I've spent a lot of time talking about how bad it is, but that's really only in comparison to the first two in the series. It's still a decent game; one of the better sidescrolling action you'll find even today. However it is definitely a weak point in the Mega Man X series that could have been much, much better.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/08, Updated 06/23/08

Game Release: Mega Man X3 (US, 11/30/95)