Mega Man 3

The Good
I bought this game the second it came out! Man, it seems like yesterday. Here is what Mega Man 3 added:

-Rush the dog!-

Instead of the three 'special items' you had in Mega Man 2, you would 'upgrade' Rush (a robotic dog you could summon). At the beginning, Rush has a spring that Mega Man can use to jump really high. The upgrades includes the Rush Jet, which improves over the jet sled before as you can guide it up or down, and the Rush Sub, which is a Submarine Rush that Mega Man can pilot underwater.

-Proto-man-

In the middle of various stages, whistles would be heard and Proto-man would appear. After taking enough hits, he would run off. His addition to the game is mind-boggling but interesting nonetheless.

-Slide-

Mega Man now can slide! It is a nice addition and very useful during boss fights.

-Mega Man 2 bosses return-

When you defeat the 8 bosses of Mega Man 3, something strange happens. The corner bosses get replaced with four new bosses. When you play these stages, they are identical to the bosses that were there (Gemini Man, Needle Man, Spark Man, and Shadow Man). However, they are much darker in tone and the level, though similar and familiar, are changed. They are completely new levels but seem like an evil presence had smashed and rearranged the previous boss's level to his own liking. It's a very nice effect.

Two of the eight Mega Man 2 bosses are in each level. It is fun to use Mega Man 3 weapons and your new slide against them!

-Control-

This game's control somehow surpassed Mega Man 2's and is the best of the NES series.

-Kept doing things right-

It kept all of the things that Mega Man 2 did right. The music, the graphics, the unique levels (from Magnet Man's magnets sucking you around to shooting through hundreds of bubbles in Gemini Man's stage), to the classic gameplay.

-Content-

This game is the longest of content of the NES Mega Man games. It is just another plus as to why this game is so good.

The Bad
The game is much darker than Mega Man 2. A dark introduction rather than the energetic upbeat one in Mega Man 2. The levels are considerably darker in tone as well. The four levels that follow the bosses are considerably dark. The game lacks its 'happy pace' of Mega Man 2. Not that this is considerably bad. It just makes Mega Man 3 less charming than Mega Man 2.

The game also isn't consistent as Mega Man 2. There are parts of the game that become frustrating and a little bit boring.

The Bottom Line
This game cemented Mega Man as a franchise. The following NES titles are solid but do not match the design/gameplay heights that the third incarnation achieved. Mega Man 3 is the title that is the critics' favorite.

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.

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 !