Mega Man 3

aka: Mega Man III, Rockman 3: Dr. Wily no Saigo!?, Rockman 3: Dr. Wily's Time to Die!?, Rockman Complete Works: Rockman 3: Dr. Wily's Time to Die!?
Moby ID: 1558
NES Specs
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Description official descriptions

Mega Man 3 is a traditional side-scrolling platformer: you jump from brick to brick while avoiding pits and shooting robots. It's quite similar, in all respects, to other Mega Man games; however, this is the first time that you get a sidekick. It's also the first time you're allowed to slide instead of merely walking.

Rush is your dog who helps out by offering other modes of transportation when you need it. He starts out with the 'Rush Coil' ability to launch you to the top of the screen like a springboard; later he acquires the 'Rush Jet' ability to turn into a guided, floating platform to carry you wherever you need to go; and he also gets the 'Rush Marine' ability which is a submarine that works just like the jet except underwater and with the added ability to hop around out of the water (you can actually jump while on the jet but the jet continues to hover beneath you whereas you stay inside the submarine). All of these abilities function just like boss weapons.

When you defeat the boss at the end of a level you gain his power - or at least a similar power. You may pause the game at any time and switch to any single power you have. It supplants your regular Arm Cannon with a limited - but superior - ability. The weapon ammo is displayed next to your energy meter. There are eight of these, corresponding to the eight main levels, even though there are twenty-one levels in the entire game.

Enemies will often supply you with both energy and ammo refills. You can also collect Energy Tanks which can only be used once but will entirely restore your health. You start the game with three lives. Other features include Surprise Boxes lying around for you to find. There are infinite continues and a password feature to resume play at the beginning of any level.

Spellings

  • ロックマン3 Dr.ワイリーの最期!? - Japanese spelling

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Screenshots

Promos

Credits (NES version)

60 People (21 developers, 39 thanks) · View all

Needle Man Design
Magnet Man Design
Gemini Man Design
Hard Man Design
Top Man Design
Snake Man Design
Spark Man Design
Shadow Man Design
Character Designer
Sound Compose
Programmer
Planner
Sub Planning
Special Thanks
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 38 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 126 ratings with 6 reviews)

Mega Man is back, and so with new features.

The Good
So this is the third installment in the classic Mega Man series for the NES. The story is not the best I've ever seen, as doctor Albert Wily seems to not have taken his lessons last two times and created 8 robot masters again in the hope of taking over the world, but Mega Man will go stop them. Anyway, this is a nice excuse for a game, and don't worry because it's the last time in the original Mega Man series the story is that simple.

Nevertheless, Mega Man 3 has all its predecessors had (you gain the boss ability after defeating them) with some enhancements. First, you get a friend dog robot, called Rush, who can help Mega Man to jump to otherwise inaccessible places. After some bosses are defeated you get Rush Jet and Rush Marine, whose can help you to reaches other places as well. Additionally, Mega Man can now slide, by pressing down+B, he can pass in narrow places, and this is useful as hell in boss battle to avoid their attack. This is a great innovation.

Now the graphics are top-notch for the NES, and are definitely more detailed, but also darker than in both previous games (even if some sprites haven't changed, especially Mega Man himself). They still have their ski-fi look pretty much everywhere, and each stage looks rather unique. Now the stage are less elemental than in the first two games, as the robot masters themes are a bit different, they don't follow plain elements, but are a bit more varied, which can proof to be fun. The game is overall as inspired as the first two, which means it's very inspired.

A notable addition as well is the mini-bosses, whose you have to defeat first before continuing to progress. Most of them were large, detailed and fun (never I'll forget those cats in Top Man's stage throwing mouses at you, nor those giant penguins in Gemini Man's stage). Also, it's a nice fact that all enemies of the game are brand new and none of them ripped from any of the first two games (the traditional mets are still there, and you get a couple of different versions of them !).

The soundtrack is fast-paced and excellent. It sounds less techno than the first two games, and more "fast-rock" style. It feels a bit nostalgic at times. This suit the game well, and follow its change from overall style as well. The sound quality has greatly improved from the first two games, and all sound effects were reworked as well. Capcom did a great job in the sound department, as excepted.

In addition to the traditional 8 robot masters and the 4 doctor Wily's fortress stages, they added 4 intermediary stages, which are "short but hard" versions of 4 already beaten stages, whose contains two bosses each : Each time a robot mimic one of the bosses from Mega Man 2, but is harder to defeat than the real one in Mega Man 2. In short, those 4 stages are very hard, and you have to re-beat all 8 bosses from Mega Man 2 again. In addition to this, if you loose against one of them, you have to restart the whole half of the stage over, which can become frustrating. They also added a couple of battles against Proto Man inside some stages, for a mysterious reason (none of them is really hard).

Fortunately, the E-Cans (cans that can refill Mega Man's lifebar) come in useful, as you can collect up to 9 of them (unlike 4 in Mega Man 2), and the password keeps track of them. It's also easy to trick the password system to get more E-Cans. Those are almost necessary to defeat some of the harder bosses of the game (the Mega Man 2 bosses imitated by that weird robot comes to mind, as each hit from them removes a lot of energy to Mega Man).

The Bad
The only real annoyance is the places where they forced you to use Rush-Jet or Rush-Marine, but make it very hard to pass, and if you failed all your energy would be gone, and you'll just have to waste all your remaining lives to suicide in order to redo the stage with full energy on the Rush items again.

I also didn't like how most of the 8 weapons you get are not very useful. Only the Hard Man and the Magnet Man weapon has proof to be useful at all to me, I used the 6 others only inside boss battle. I know it's hard to make all 8 weapons useful, but still I found myself switching weapons much less often than in the first two Mega Man games, and when I had to switch it often was to use Rush instead to use a weapon.

The game is harder than the first two (except that the E-Cans really make the battles easier), and some boss battles, especially the last one, can become a pain in the ass if you're not prepared (especially on the PAL version, where the last boss glitches a lot due to bad programming by Capcom). If you don't use the good weapon you're going to just fail at your task.

Last but not least, the graphical glitches and flickering is extremely frequent, and a bit annoying sometimes.

The Bottom Line
Mega Man continues his was pretty fine, and as Mega Man 3 is not my personal favorite for some reason (but it's the personal favorite of a lot of people), I still like that game very much and think it's a good game overall. It makes a better use of the NES hardware than most NES games, and add a lot of stuff in the Mega Man series. If you like 2D platformers, I'd recommend getting it, or downloading it from the internet if you can't. As a plus, it's the first Mega Man game to have a decent cover !

NES · by Bregalad (937) · 2007

Arguably the best Regular Nintendo Mega Man

The Good
The Graphics have slightly improved over previous Mega Mans as in good amount of scrolling finally introduced.

The memorable music such as Sparkman's stage and Shadowman's Stage

This being the longest Mega Man in the Nintendo Saga

Memorable Bosses

Introduction of Rush and Proto Man

The Bad
To be honest nothing except maybe the game was too easy.

The Bottom Line
The best Mega Man in the entire nes set. The game has the perfect balance and is the longest Mega Man in NES history. The music in many cases is superb and there is many memorable moments to be had in Mega Man 3. The amount of improvements was vast compared to every other Mega Man game in the NES history and has innovated the most. Rush, Protoman, The revelation at the end of the game.....

In other words this is THE Pinnacle of The NES Mega Man series in my opinion. If you just love platform games with running, jumping and gunning then look no further then Mega Man 3!

NES · by Mr. Huh (105) · 2004

One of the best NES games ever, and the best of the NES Mega Man games.

The Good
The graphics were clean and pretty amazing at the time, with little slowdown. Mega Man still had his same old animation for running, gunning, etc. but with a new slide thrown in for good measure. Sound-wise, the game's music shines as being the best Capcom's put out for the NES. It's amazing how much they could coax out of the NES for the sound. Gameplay is the typical Mega Man game: choose a boss, fight it out with the boss, get the boss' weapon, use the boss' weapon on another boss. Lather, rinse, and repeat. Granted, Capcom made a nice swerve after beating the initial eight robot masters (why didn't they do something like this in later games?). The game's challenge rating falls somewhere between moderate and easy, though one particular boss (Rockman aka Yellow Devil) is a pain if you don't know what weapon to use.

The Bad
Probably the fact that this was the last really good Mega Man game, and that those that followed were cookie cutter made (you knew who you were up against all the time, in reality), with some truly strange choices for robot masters. As for Mega Man 3, the disappearing platforms that Capcom loved to throw in throughout the Mega Man series rear their ugly heads again, and can become annoying if you don't know the pattern. Plus, one sequence does require the use of the Rush Jet for an extended period, and if you mess up and have to restart with a less than full energy meter, you're in for a world of hurt.

The Bottom Line
Simply put, the game is one of the best the NES offered, and truly was Nintendo's 'other' NES mascot. While Mario might be the king of action/adventure for the NES, Mega Man was right up there as well. Grab this game and don't let go.

NES · by CaptainCanuck (1062) · 2005

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

Legacy

Rockman 3 marked the appearance of nearly every standard to the Rockman formula: Rush the dog, Rockman's slide, Blues, and the occasional reappearance of old Wily Robots. Just remember though: that's most of the standards. Others like the Teleporter Room (go through eight teleporters and beat all the Wily Robots again) and Rock Buster appeared in Rockman 2 and Rockman 4, respectively.

Music

Harumi Fujita was originally hired to compose the sound for this game, but could only compose the Gemini Man and Magnet Man themes and part of the Staff Roll theme before dropping off the project (and eventually leaving Capcom) to give birth. Her husband Yasuaki was then hired to complete the project. Harumi is credited in Special Thanks as "Mrs. Tarumi".

NES version

In the original NES version of this game, players could access secrets by plugging in a second controller. For example, if the player holds right on the second controller and presses A on the first controller, Mega Man will do a super jump, and if the player holds right on the second controller when falling into a pit, Mega Man won't lose a life. However, these codes cannot be used in the Rockman Complete Works, Mega Man: The Wily Wars, and Mega Man Anniversary Collection versions. The reasons are unclear, but it is likely that this was because a sort of debug mode was accidentally left in the final NES version.

Sales

According to publisher Capcom, Mega Man 3 has sold 1.08 million copies worldwide since its initial release (as of June 30, 2016).

Awards

  • Electronic Gaming Monthly
    • October 1990 (Issue 15) - Best Sequel to an Existing GameInformation also contributed by Alexander Michel

Analytics

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Related Sites +

  • Howard & Nester do Mega Man 3
    A regular feature in Nintendo Power magazine, Howard & Nester was a comic strip about two game whizzes who would one-up each other, while disclosing hints and tips, in the settings of various recently-released games for the NES platform. In Volume 21's two-page installment, our heroes defend themselves (and Rush, the robot dog) from evil clone-robots, thanks to the Needleman boss' weapon.
  • Mega Man Central
    Information on all Mega Man games, including little known titles such as the PC series and Japan only games.
  • OC ReMix Game Profile
    Fan remixes of music from Mega Man 3.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 1558
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Contribute

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Warlock.

PSP, PlayStation 3 added by GTramp. Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, Arcade added by Michael Cassidy. BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone, Android added by Sciere. DoJa, J2ME added by Kabushi. Wii added by gamewarrior. NES, PlayStation added by Satoshi Kunsai.

Additional contributors: Zovni, Satoshi Kunsai, Jeff Koerner, Alaka, Alexander Michel, gamewarrior, Pseudo_Intellectual, formercontrib, TheAlmightyGuru, CalaisianMindthief, Thomas Thompson, ryanbus84.

Game added June 6, 2000. Last modified November 24, 2023.