Ooooooooooooh, here we go. I promised you folks back in the poll thread that I had a LOT to say about this game, and indeed I do. I'm not sure if I should break my separate talking points into different posts or not. I shall do so at one of the Moderator's requests if my filibuster is one that impedes accessibility to the information herein or the thread in general.
With that disclaimer out of the way, let us begin!
http://puu.sh/2IQKx.png < See that right there? that little jittery bit of misplaced pixels just above Shadow Man's window on the stage select screen? THAT right there made me think for years and years and YEARS that there was something wrong with my copy of Mega Man 3. that the game at any moment could go to a mess of garbage graphics and nonsense pixels all over the place. I thought something happened to my copy and I needed to get a new one.
Only, the same thing happened. Heck, even the ROM i'm using to capture screens for my posts here have this very minor graphical glitch, but it really sets the tone for how barely functioning Capcom allowed this game to be shipped out in, and how stressful of a development cycle it must have been for Mr. Inafune, who at the time was forced to ship out a game that while it stood on a proven engine and has some cool ideas, also suffers from many of these cool ideas being half-baked, ill advised, or the potential in an idea just not being realized properly. Mega Man 3 is my third least favorite classic series game next to Mega Man 7 and Rockman & Forte [not counting spinoffs, the game boy games, Wily Wars, the abominable DOS games, the Game Gear Mega Man V port, Or Rockman & Forte 2: Challenge from the future for the Wonderswan]
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Level design is a chief reason that the Mega Man series receives the accolades that it does. Levels are usually intuitive and promote some of the most brilliant examples of iterative learning in a video game. to this effect, they actually do a pretty good job of that by usually placing Hammer Joes in spots where you won't get hit by their hammer at first and you can clearly see their eye color change before they toss it, telling you something is up. There are instances of really, REALLY badly designed levels in this game, though. Things are pretty hunkey dorey outside the bugged out platforms form Snake Man's level that will push you into the abyss if you're standing on the pipe as it spawns them, or the really obnoxious placement of a hammer Joe just at a spot that requires Rush coil to get up to in Hard Man's stage, but those are small potatoes in comparison to the real horror of the Doc Robot stages.
Doc Robot was a good idea in concept. bring back 8 enemies that resonate with those who picked up our huge smash hit game as a set of bosses to face after you beat the new set of robot masters! because we know that the player has toughed it out through the robot master stages already, we can make these stages more difficult and put in more instances of mandatory use of the travel items and weapons! It all sounds great, but the truth to the matter is is that they recycle stage themes from the Robot Master stages, which starts to set in the only instance I can think of in the classic series where fatigue ever really set in from having to play through stages that use similar tile sets, enemies, and the same music from Spark, Shadow, Needle, and Gemini Man's stages. add in the fact that because there are 2 bosses to these stages with stretches of stage in between each boss, these stages are long. they also don't have very many checkpoints. THERE ARE NO CHECKPOINTS BETWEEN THE BEGINNING OF A DOC ROBOT STAGE AND THE FIRST DOC ROBOT IN SAID STAGE.
They even put in the little boss gates, which are usually an indicator of "Hey, here's a checkpoint before you fight a boss!" but this is all terrible lies that were never properly put into the game. Doc Robots themselves are terrible to fight as well. the beauty of the Mega Man series is that not only does a robot master tend to have a weakness to a weapon, these weapons usually tend to be something that is particularly situated to fighting that particular Robot Master. there are good examples of this in Mega Man 3, like Hard Knuckle being good for hitting a target that's only vulnerable while it's completely immobile like Top Man, or Search snakes being well suited to fighting Gemini Man, a robot master who only jumps when he's made a complete run to the walls of his boss arena. The point is that Mega Man 2 bosses were designed for Mega Man 2 boss arenas with Mega Man 2 weapons. Doc Robots are huge in comparison to the robots they are mimicking. This becomes a HUGE problem in fights like Flash Doc, Air Doc, and Quick Doc where strategies that previously worked in Mega Man 2 no longer work because it's nigh impossible to clear them with a jump or stand in a tiny nook of the room where they land from a jump to get in a few quick and easy hits.
There are no checkpoints between the beginning of a level and the first Doc Robot of a Doc Robot stage.
Compounding this further are a couple of the Rush Jet required segments of these stages. Particularly, the Air Doc and Crash Doc stage where immediately after the frustrating Air Doc Fight where you discover the easy way to beat Air Man is gone because Doc Robot is such a fatty, you get greeted with a weapon energy capsule, the annoying Parasyu enemies from Shadow Man's stage, Yambows, and a very, VERY long expanse of bottomless pit. you're likely weak from fighting Air Doc, not aware of the walking in pits cheat unless you have Nintendo Power/internet, and probably not aware of how the heck to exploit Rush Jet's horrible design flaw that makes it the most broken version of Rush in -ANY- Mega Man game. the weapon energy doesn't respawn, so I hope you can make it in one go, or you're gonna have to farm Yambows for weapon energy, which aren't exactly the most ideal enemy to do that from. the inexcusable laziness of not providing at last an easier enemy to farm that has a higher drop rate of weapon energy here is inexcusable, and the lack of health after Air Doc is equally kinda devastating. It makes it a real slog and a chore. especially if you're not particularly well versed in Crash Doc's reactive attack pattern. Long story short, the Wily Castle is a REAL breath of fresh air in spite of being laden with recycled boss battles too [yay, we get to fight another Devil and another Clone like in the original Mega Man!] here from all the slowdown-laden, overly long Doc Robot Stages where you somehow have to figure out how to beat Quick Doc with the worst weapon in the game.______________________________________________________________________________________
"But wait, Clex!" you say. "Quick Doc isn't weak to the Top Spin!" you cry! That's absolutely correct! you know why? Because Top Spin is actually one of the BETTER weapons in Mega Man 3 when applied correctly. TOP SPIN:it's a robot master weapon that takes skill and finesse, yes... but it's essentially like the Instant Shield from Sonic 3 and Knuckles. it's energy efficient and takes out a lot of the regular enemies in the air in a fairly efficient manner. yes, you can lose all your weapon energy for it as it only drains weapon energy when you successfully connect with an enemy. Mega Man will also get pushed away from said enemy if you don't have any directional input held, and thus you can kinda harmlessly bounce off of incoming enemies and kill them at the same time with a well timed Top Spin.GEMINI LASER:Absolutley terrible. does about the same damage as a regular buster shot to most enemies and you can only have one of these slow moving projectiles on screen at once. doesn't go through walls because it rebounds off of them, making it take even LONGER to get your one shot off screen. also, you can't switch weapons while there's a Gemini Laser on screen! if you miss, you are totally defenseless! JOY!SPARK SHOT:Also pretty bad for similar reasons to the Gemini Laser. it's not very damaging, and when you use it to stun an enemy, you can't hit them again OR switch weapons. it's kinda handy for freezing Bikky at the peak of it's jump or Returning Monking, but otherwise, it's pretty useless except as a boss weakness weapon.HARD KNUCKLE:This might as well be a melee punch because there's very VERY few enemies that this is worth using on. it freezes Mega Man whenever he fires it, it travels through the air slow with a bit of directional input allowed, and hits hard if you manage to hit with it. I'd say it's kinda good for mini-boss type enemies if Needle Cannon or the buster didn't outclass it in raw DPS and rate of fire. it works best when you get up in the enemy's face and fire it. also good I guess for the first half of the Gamma fight.SHADOW BLADE:Let's nerf the Metal Blade! yeah, this one doesn't impress me too much because of the rate of fire thing I've been talking about. it'd be a lot more useful if you could shoot it at the downward angles you could for the metal blade or if it could pass through enemies to hit 'em twice. NEEDLE CANNON:Buster replacement, ho! Now this is what I'm talking about! it may not fire totally straight, but Needle Cannon is a wonderful way to butter through enemies if you're not good at mashin' the B-button with the buster. I suggest prioritizing Needle Man because he gives the two most broken weapons in the game.MAGNET MISSILE:This one's all right, I guess. outstrips the Shadow Blade in taking out enemies above and below you as it shoots out a projectile that will shoot up or down when it detects an enemy it can hit. at only 14 shots, it's kinda costly for the pittance of damage it does to some aerial enemies in comparison to Top Spin, but it takes a lot less spot-on accuracy to use Magnet Missiles, so it's a preference thing.SEARCH SNAKE: One of the best weapons in Mega Man 8 Bit Deathmatch is also an improved version of the Bubble Lead from Mega Man 2. does decent damage, has similar rate of fire to the buster with 3 shots on screen at a time, and climbs the terrain. overall, I like the little guys a lot, and I actually would suggest using these to kill Gamma's second form over Top Spin if you're inexperienced with Top Spin.RUSH COIL:Ah, yes. Robot's best friend was an idea introduced in this game, and to give it a push, many bits of level design are clearly meant to try and get you to use the red pooch as much as possible. Mega Man 3's required bits of level that have Rush Coil are an interesting idea that potentially dooms you to energy farming if you use too much and die before a checkpoint. still, It has to count for something that Rush Coil is a movement utility that lets you fire, unlike the previous Magnet beams and items the series had up to this point.RUSH MARINE:Cool idea on paper, not very useful in practice. if you have Rush Jet, use it instead.RUSH JET:More unbalanced than Metal Blades. You heard me right. This game's version of Rush Jet is pretty much a god-tier Mega Man item. fill enemies on the screen no matter where they are with Buster lead, AND trivialize any and all platforming challenges with it's ability to move any direction without hindrance. FUN FACT! Rush Jet does not consume it's weapon energy if Mega Man's Feet are not touching it. this means most of the time you 'ride' rush jet, you should actually be riding it like you're a newb playing your first fighting game and doing nothing but jumps. http://puu.sh/2ISl3.png seriously, I think you can get like... 3 minutes of flight out of Rush jet by just hopping on it all the time.
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Speaking of new series additions, there's a couple of other big ones that Mega Man 3 brought to the table... namely, the Slide and Protoman.
The Slide is about the best idea in Mega Man 3. it provides two VERY much needed things to Mega Man in giving him a way to move a bit faster from his usual plodding jog, and away to shrink his hit box in a way that can't be abused like a duck and promotes using good timing to dodge the telegraphed attacks of the Robot Masters.
Proto Man, however... as much as I LOVE Blues and his Racer X-esque qualities, I can't help but feel he's a very half-baked idea. that could have been SO much more grandiose than what we actually got. there's actually another series that had an NES entry that did this kind of character in a way that was great.
http://www.meta-knight.com/info/gameinfo/2.jpgBefore this handsome fellow was toppin' the tiers at Super Smash Bros. Brawl Tournaments, he was a menacing mini-boss type situation that would show up unexpectedly to either lend Kirby a hand or challenge and test him. We never actually got to see Meta Knight's actual fighting abilities through the course of the game, only that he wielded a sword and had a very similar body type to Kirby. It built this tension as he threw his minion waves at Kirby, which were enemies you wouldn't normally face through normal levels, and you had to figure out how to get through the mall.
Picture this, if you will; Proto Man has been challenging Mega Man as a mini-boss, but uses various different robots to challenge him and test his abilities rather than doing it himself. that is saved for the actual Break Man battle that serves as a pretty pointless stop-gap between the Doc Robot and Wily stages in the current game.
This last Proto Man fight is pointless as you've faced far tougher challenges in the Doc Robot stages, and literally nothing changes about Proto Man in this fight other than the arena and his appearance. But if you hadn't fought him before and found out he has a similar Skill set to Mega Man, but one thing even better; He can Charge up his Buster shots and Fire them at you in a large burst!
Dr. Wily's Revenge was already in development when this game came out for the NES, and in that you fought a new rival enemy that gave you one last power for the Wily fortress... And Proto Man as of late has always been shown to be the one with the chargeable buster and have that unstable reactor that gives him such power that he won't let Dr. Light replace. How wicked would it have been if the Mega Buster was your prize for beating Break Man before the wily stages? oh well.
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There's a few other little attentions to Detail I could note, like talking about how you can get Weapons and Rush adapters early because of the poor implementation of the menu screen, or how there always seems to be this weird colored flicker when ever there's horizontal scrolling or how you can enable odd Debug codes by holding button combos on Controller 2 [I used to do that with my feet when I was a kid.] or wacky other bits of trivia and such, but I feel that this post shall have to suffice for now.
I'd like to congratulate those who managed to brave this word soup. As I said before, I can edit this post and split the various points of it into individual posts if need be, Dr. Metts.
Topic: RFN RetroActive #27: Mega Man 3 - Official Discussion Thread (Read 28096 times)
