Mega Man III
| Mega Man III | ||||||||||||||||
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NES - USA - 1st Edition. |
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Mega Man III is an action platformer made by Capcom, released for the NES on 1990-09-28, as the third game in the Mega Man series. The game was later ported to the Playchoice-10, BlackBerry, DoJa, and J2ME. This game introduces Rush (Mega Man's robot dog companion), Protoman, and sliding.
In the game's story, Dr. Wily claims to have mended his evil ways and is helping Dr. Wright build a new peace-keeping robot named Gamma. They need eight power crystals in order to finish it, but they're in the hands of robot masters have gone berserk! Mega Man must defeat the robot masters, and retrieve the crystals for Dr. Light and Dr. Wily. However, once Mega Man collects them all, Dr. Wily double-crosses Dr. Light and uses the crystals to turn Gamma into a powerful machine he'll use to take over the world.
This game lent it's title to several reworkings: there is a Game Boy game, an MS-DOS game, and even an LCD game, but all three of them are different from the original, and each other. The game's story was also made into a comic book.
Contents
Personal
| Own? | No. |
|---|---|
| Won? | No. |
I remember seeing screenshots of Mega Man III from a poorly-made video game strategy guide which incorrectly identified the bosses and gave useless advice, but being a big fan of Mega Man II, I was still very eager to play it. My brother borrowed it from someone not too long after it was released and we played it in our parent's basement. Rather than start the game from the beginning, my brother had a password for the start of the last couple Dr. Wily stages, so we started there. We didn't get far since we didn't yet know about the new game functions or which weapons worked on which enemies, but we still had fun with the new power-ups. I didn't know why Rush submarine wouldn't work on land, and my brother dismissed it to being a bug in the game. He returned the game before we could do much else with it.
Months later, my friend Chris got the game and we spent a lot more time playing it from the beginning. We beat all the robot masters, and made our way deep into the final Dr. Wily stages, but never beat it. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure I played III before the original, because I don't remember recognizing the Yellow Devil.
Over the years, I've halfheartedly tried to beat the game, but, as I get older, I started finding the Mega Man game style to be less and less rewarding, so I haven't tried much since.
Review
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 |
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| 6 | 5 | 7 | 6 | 5 |
Best Version: NES
— This section contains spoilers! —
Good
- The game has great graphics. The background art is very attractive, the large enemies are creative (if ill-fitting), and the bosses are well-designed.
- The music, this time composed by Yasuaki Fujita, is once again fantastic.
- The game does a lot of revisiting which is a nice homage. You replay through some of the levels in hard mode (I especially like the boss metalls in Needle Man's stage which are hinted at in the first play-through) and you also revisit the robot masters of Mega Man II, and even bosses from the original Mega Man.
- The game's manual is really nice.
Bad
- Like many NES games, it's too hard. There are a lot of frustrating parts of the game where you can too-easily fall to your death, and learning which weapons best work at different stages, is a time-consuming chore.
- Although the game does introduce some new features, it still isn't much different than its predecessors.
- Top Man is too childish, and Hard Man is phallic.
- There are at least six ways to soft lock yourself in the Dr. Wily stages by running out of Rush Jet and Rush Catapult just before a high jump which requires one of them.
Ugly
- Nothing.
Media
Box Art
The original Japanese art shows Rock and Rush flanked by the robot masters and some of the game's other enemies. It's a bit primitive for a cover, but definitely fits the game's theme. The lettering is great.
The US box looks more like it should be a Battletech cover. Mega Man looks very creepy, and I don't care for the lettering.
The European box art is similar to the Japanese box, only it's a bit more detailed, with the US lettering. Wily looks like a psycho murderer in the back.
The Japanese-only PlayStation remaster focuses on Rock and Rush, with Protoman in the back. This is my favorite cover.
Documentation
US manual.
US advertisement.
Maps
Spark Man's stage.
Snake Man's Stage
Needle Man's Stage
Hard Man's Stage
Top Man's Stage
Gemini Man's Stage
Magnet Man's Stage
Shadow Man's Stage
Spark Man's Stage revisited.
Needle Man's Stage revisited.
Gemini Man's Stage revisited.
Shadow Man's Stage revisited.
Break Man's Stage.
Dr. Wily, Stage 1.
Dr. Wily, Stage 2.
Dr. Wily, Stage 3.
Dr. Wily, Stage 4.
Dr. Wily, Stage 5.
Dr. Wily, Stage 6.
Documentation
Red balls are introduced into the password.
Videos
Play Online
Famicom, NES (Europe), NES (USA)
Representation
| Strong female character? | Fail | Roll makes a brief appearance, but she's very minor. |
|---|---|---|
| Bechdel test? | Fail | There is only one woman. |
| Strong person of color character? | Fail | All the human characters are white. |
| Queer character? | Fail | There are no queer characters. |
Credits
Titles
| Language | Native | Transliteration | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Mega Man III | ||
| Japanese | ロックマン3 Dr.ワイリーの最期!? | Rokkuman 3: Dr. Wairi no Saigo!? | Rockman 3: The End of Dr. Wily!? |
- MAME code: pc_mman3
Links
- Video Games
- 1990 Video Games
- Video games developed by Capcom
- Video games published by Capcom
- BlackBerry Games
- DoJa Games
- J2ME Games
- NES Games
- PlayChoice-10 Games
- PlayStation Games
- Video Game Genre - Platform shooter
- Video Game Genre - Platformer
- Video Game Genre - Shooter
- Media Theme - Action
- Media Theme - Cartoon
- Media Theme - Science Fiction
- Software Distribution Model - Commercial
- Video Games I Don't Own
- Video Games I Haven't Beaten
- Video Game Rating - 6
- Video Game Graphics Rating - 7
- Video Game Sound Rating - 6
- Video games which can be played online
- Video games without a strong female character
- Video games that fail the Bechdel test
- Video games without a strong person of color character
- Video games without a queer character
- Video Game Prime Order - Action, Adventure, Strategy
- Game Mechanic - Boss Rush
