Topic: Why does everyone like Mega Man 3 so much?

[DiveMissle]

I don't get it

[MacDaddyMike]

Because you get to refight the bosses from MM2 and it reminds everyone of how great of a game that was.

That and the soundtrack are the only reasons I could understand someone liking this game, as from a design standpoint it's probably the weakest of the NES games.

[DiveMissle]

Thanks for the response MacDaddyMike To be honest I thought I was going to be flamed by fanboys

[irgpie]

these threads.

[MacDaddyMike]

Joking aside, I would be interested in having an actual discussion as to why it's so often placed near the top of the classic series rating when there's so much wrong with it.

What is it that MM3 does better than 4-6?

[Police Girl]

Because you get to refight the bosses from MM2 and it reminds everyone of how great of a game that was.

Really now, because I honestly just see them as more bosses. Not a reminder of how "oh so great" MM2 was. Maybe because I don't really like MM2 that much, especially not now with it being the favorite pet.

That and the soundtrack are the only reasons I could understand someone liking this game, as from a design standpoint it's probably the weakest of the NES games.

I'm going to retort and say Megaman 5 and 6 are the weakest fun-wise. Two fortresses was interesting in MM4, but doing again in MM5 and MM6... it wasn't necessary. Also, less music, MM4 has two songs per fortress and MM5/6 have one for each one, it wears on you after a while. The games are far too easy and every boss can easily be beaten with the Mega Buster, MM5 had a kind of interesting story, but that was really it. 6 was just boring all around, some of the music was okay but most of it sounded as tired as the game felt. the Mr. X stuff was stupid too since it was obviously Wily, making even less reason for there to be two [tornado fang]ing fortresses. I get that I'm talking about the fortresses a lot but that's honestly the most I remember from the games, the bosses for the most part were forgettable, weapons ranged from only okay to worthless (POWER STONE). The best part of MM6 was the Rush Adaptors but those were very circumstantial in use and outside of using Jet or Power for shortcuts mostly pointless.

Megaman 3 is vastly enjoyable and I prefer it far over 2, which I find to be a flawed and unfun experience after about 6 levels (Said levels being Metalman, Flashman, Woodman, Crashman, Heatman and Airman) Bubbleman's stage is boring, Quickman's is a pain in the ass, and the Fortress... well Boobeams pretty much ruin that for me as the rest of the levels/bosses are far too easy and that one just... ugh. But you want some stuff that it does better?

Okay.

1) No Two Fortresses, again MM4 did it and that was cool since its not something you expect at first (maybe) but 5 and 6 did it too, and it got old FAST.

2) Weapons were useful, I can't recall many useful weapons in either 5 or 6 but I know 4 had Pharaoh Shot and the Drill Bombs.

3) NO WILY CAPSULE, Again, when 4 did it, it was novel, something new. Then every other game did it. 3 was the last classic game with a proper final boss that didn't have a disappearing gimmick.

4) Best Rush Jet. Though I believe they went on to say it was supposed to be how it was in MM4-6 rather than what it was in three so this was unintentional I guess.

[MacDaddyMike]

I see so many people pointing out Power Stone as a poor weapon, but it's actually one of the more effective and more fun weapons to use in MM5.  The game was designed around a lot of enemies that only take one hit to kill, and often putting them in areas of the room that are out of reach initially, so that you have to wait for them to close in on you before you can attack.  Power Stone can clear a lot of these rooms in one use, and even aside from that there are a lot of really great room layouts that take its shot pattern into effect.  I played a run of MM5 a while back where I tried to use the RM weapons more effectively, and Power Stone was a surprising hit.  I recommend you try to experiment with it more, you may find it worth your while in the end.

As for the points, I'd have to say that saying "it didn't have [blank]" is not a very strong argument when the alternative isn't any better.  For example:

1) Sure, there's one fortress, but it's the worst fortress of the entire series.  The stages are super short, it recycles two bosses from other Mega Man games (when there were only two others to draw from, yikes), and there's little to most of the stages (Wily 2 has three bee enemies in it and a forced Rush Jet segment that...requires no skill whatsoever).

2) Bad to pick out MM4 as your example, as it had the most well-balanced weapon set of the series until 9 came out.  Pharaoh Shot is aimable and chargeable, Ring is piercing, Dust can multi-hit, Dive can home, Toad is screen-clearing and ignores defense, Bright stops time, Skull is a barrier, and Drill is powerful, fast and can be manually ignited to get around certain defense layouts.  Every weapon is useful and every weapon is UNIQUE, among the others in that game anyway.

Look at MM3's weapon set:
Search Snake - ground-traveling attack, can climb walls
Shadow Blade - projectile, fired in a straight line, can be aimed in multiple directions
Needle Cannon - projectile, fired in a straight line, fast attack
Gemini Laser - projectile, fired in a straight line, bounces off of surfaces
Magnet Missile - projectile, fired in a straight line, trajectory can be changed once without player input
Hard Knuckle - projectile, fired in a straight line, trajectory can be slightly altered by player input
Spark Shot - projectile, fired in a straight line, can freeze enemies, does no damage
Top Spin - aerial melee attack, incredibly glitchy with response to energy usage, trajectory of jump can be affected by enemies, hitbox inconsistent

Suffice to say, a lot of it is "samey", and there are a couple that are complete duds.  Top Spin could be viable if there was any situation in which a projectile would be worse than a melee attack, but that's never the case, and it's so glitchy that it's a danger to ever use it in the first place.  Hard Knuckle is too slow to be effective in most encounters.  Spark Shot doesn't actually damage anything.  Gemini Laser is both slow and weak, and if you miss your shot you have to wait for it to run out before you can shoot again or switch weapons.  Needle Cannon is just a fast Mega Buster, and the game isn't designed with the Search Snake in mind, as there are very few situations in which you're above enemies and that's where the snake movement pattern would be most effective--as it is, it's again too weak of a weapon.  Magnet Missile and Shadow Blade are the only two that I could ever see being useful throughout the entire game.

I'd argue that MM3's weapon set is by far the worst of the series.  You have 7 projectiles that all fire directly in front of you whose specific characteristics are mostly not very effective, and one melee attack that's glitchy and dangerous to use.

3) No Wily Capsule, but the final boss of MM3 is beyond pathetic.  You can stand underneath him indefinitely and not get hurt, and then he dies in one hit.  I'd take any of the series' Wily Capsules over this fight (except MM7, cause that fight's so annoying).

4) Rush Jet was completely broken and made every platforming segment in the entire game skippable.  Changing it to the MM4's Jet was definitely a much-needed change.

[Police Girl]

2) Bad to pick out MM4 as your example, as it had the most well-balanced weapon set of the series until 9 came out.

Yeah... I'm not going to say 9 had a bad weapon line-up per se but I find it bad level design to force usage of said weapons to progress, never once did I find use for Tornado Blow or Concrete Shot outside of using them to dull out some obstacle, and in the case of those [tornado fang]ing lasers in Wily Fortress 4 half the time the stupid thing would miss and I'd run out before getting to the teleporters. And even then I never found actual use in Black Hole Bomb, Magma Cannon, Plug Ball, or Jewel Satellite (Outside of farming for Telly drops). Hornet Chaser was good for a few things, primarily Angry Rock and Laser Trident was the best weapon in the game. Not that its saying much since I loathe Megaman 9.

Also:

2) Weapons were useful, I can't recall many useful weapons in either 5 or 6 but I know 4 had Pharaoh Shot and the Drill Bombs.

I should point out that I really enjoy Megaman 4, its easily my favorite 8-bit right behind 3. I do find some weapons useful, but a lot of them were just not very useful to my playstyle (For example, I don't use barriers outside of boss weaknesses or for stupid [parasitic bomb] like Telly swarms, and some weapons are just too conditional to be of much use elsewhere.) Its cool and all that you can find uses for stupid [parasitic bomb] like Power Stone or Charge Kick or hell maybe even Centaur Flash but I sure as hell can't.

[DiveMissle]

I think Gamma is the worst Mega Man final boss ever.It's because he's so EASY.Here's how I beat him:Shoot him with shadow blade upward and then for the second half jump on the fist and hit him with top spin and then you beat him

[MacDaddyMike]

Dude, Charge Kick is top three weapons in the entire classic series.  Most people don't even know that you're INVINCIBLE when you use it.

[DiveMissle]

I always like to pull out charge kick when I beat a robot master and just slide back and fourth

[kuja killer]

when i was 5 or 6 years old, i went over to my next door neighbors house one time to play my friends NES, and megaman 3 which he had, was the very first megaman game i ever played in my life.

that's why 3 was my favorite, because it was my first experience ever for a mm game.

[Gauntlet101010]

3 was the first MM game I ever played and one of the first NES games I ever played.  So a lot of it is nostalgia.

It has great music.  I loved the glitches.  They were a real blast back then.  Rush Jet is in it's best, most broken iteration back then.  I liked Doc Robot.  True story: for kicks I was trying to enter in a password in MM3's password screen and just happened to get one that took me right to the Doc Robot stages with one set defeated!  It blew my mind and they looked very creepy in their 8-bit mugshots (less so in actual official art of them.  And Protoman was cool.  His music was cool and his secret as MM's brother was cool. 

My little kid self even liked Top Spin.  As useless as it was I'd still go top-spinning down long drops, endlessly amused by the animation.

I think it's best to remember that, at the time, Topspin's 1-hit kill on Gamma was completely unknown.  Back then Search Snakes were the recommended way of beating Gamma in every strategy book.  And the Doc Robot stages, while quite long, did dole out passwords, so it's not like you had to beat them all in one sitting.

[MacDaddyMike]

The appreciation for the Doc stages always surprises me.  I figure you can either think it's a good idea or a bad idea, but for both the end result should be disappointment.  I'd rather have brand new stages instead of retreading already-used stage layouts and fighting bosses I already fought before in the previous game, so the whole thing comes off as lazy to me.  But let's say you like the Doc stages--why only 4?  Why can't we revisit Magnet, Top, Snake and Hard Man's stages too?  Even if you like the Doc stages, you're at best getting half of a good idea.

[Gauntlet101010]

8 may be overdoing it.  The game's already the longest MM game, do we really need an additional 4 stages added to that?

It's unfair to say the Doc Robot stages have the same layout as previous ones.  They have the same skin and music, yes, but the layout's different.  That's the point of them.  Personally, I think it's cool that the MM2 bosses are kinda back in Doc Robot form.  It's neat that the height different makes a few of them harder than before.  And it's nice to see the nod to a previous game, again, something that didn't happen before in the series.  I guess it's diluted now, with bosses reappearing all the time, but it was neat to be able to refight bosses, but with your new abilities.

[MacDaddyMike]

It's weird to me that 3 gets so much credit when it has the least amount of new content of any of the NES games.  There are 8 new robot masters, but 8 old ones.  4 re-used stage layouts with different enemy placement and one forced jet and marine section.  Only 1 new fortress boss, aside from the final bosses, in what is already the shortest fortress of the entire series.  I don't think the slide and Rush makes up for all that, especially since MM4-6 have that and so much more.

[Gauntlet101010]

8 old robot masters don't negate 8 new ones AND it's the first time robot masters were reused, itself new content.  The 8 Doc Robot stages can even be seen as a precursor to the "fake castle" seen in most other MM games.  

Again, the doc Robot layouts are different.  You're nuts if you think they're the same with different enemy placement.  Go look up the maps.  Parts are similar, sure, but the same?  No.

Rush and the abilities he brought with him were new.  The Rush Coil was FAR superior to items 1 and 3, while jet was superior to 2.  Sure, every other game after it had Rush.  That's how MM works. But it was 3 that brought the dog into the series and he changed the way MM games were conceived of.   Because 3 brought in Rush other games brought in Tango, Beat, and Teble.  None of that would have happened without Rush.

The Triple clone is completely different than copy rock in MM1.  Don't see how they count as the same.  Sure the final fortress is smaller, but you have 4 doc robot stages with two bosses a piece, so it's not like length is a problem.  

Protoman's also all new to 3 and he's a BIG inclusion.  Rush and Proto were the first time Megaman's cast was expanded and they've had an undeniable impact on MM's world.

Another thing 3 established was the "Wily didn't do it" shtick.  4's more known for it, but 3's story was the first time Wily pretended not to be behind attacks by robot masters.  This didn't affect anything in-game (aside from some batteries in Magnet's level), but it did set a precedent that would take over the series for a long time.  

Also, I get you don't like Doc Robot, but we'll just have to agree to disagree on that one.  

And you're wrong to discount the slide so quickly.  It really changed boss patters and it was the precursor to the dash.

Edit: Another new thing introduced in 3: first time a boss pattern changed at half health.  That started with Gemini.

[Pyro]

3 sounds more like a refinement of its predecessor like 2 was a refinement of the original game in that respect.

[MacDaddyMike]

8 old robot masters don't negate 8 new ones AND it's the first time robot masters were reused, itself new content.

Reusing old content is not new content.  It's reusing old content.

And the Doc stages aren't the "same", but they're not "new" either.  Same music, same visuals, same enemies (for the most part), and the only Doc stage that's significantly different in the shape of its map is Needle Man's (Doc Shadow is even the exact same shape as Shadow Man's stage).

But it was 3 that brought the dog into the series and he changed the way MM games were conceived of.   Because 3 brought in Rush other games brought in Tango, Beat, and Teble.  None of that would have happened without Rush.

By that logic, Rush would have never happened without the items in 2.  And the items in 2 would have never happened without the Magnet Beam.  I like Rush as much as anyone else, but when MM4-6 use him BETTER, then I don't think MM3 should be getting the credit just because they used him first.

The Triple clone is completely different than copy rock in MM1.  Don't see how they count as the same.

The clone and the Devil both point to the same problem with MM3--it's lazy.  Why make new bosses when we can just change some old ones a little bit?  Why design new stages when we can just alter some old stages?  Why design new bosses for those stages when we can just copy-and-paste bosses from the last game (for no explicable in-game reason, for that matter)?  This game reeks of designers not putting in effort, and you can make all the excuses you want about it being rushed or whatever, but that doesn't change the fact that the final product is lacking.

Protoman's also all new to 3 and he's a BIG inclusion.  Rush and Proto were the first time Megaman's cast was expanded and they've had an undeniable impact on MM's world.

If you're giving the game credit from a gameplay standpoint, I've gotta disagree.  The Protoman fights were silly and easy and unnecessary, and the "Break Man" fight was a waste of time.  If you're giving the game credit from a story standpoint, then I've also gotta disagree, because the story makes zero sense unless you read the instruction booklet, and that's never a good sign.  An opening cutscene would have helped that, but whoops, I almost forgot how lazy and sloppy this game is.

Another thing 3 established was the "Wily didn't do it" shtick.  4's more known for it, but 3's story was the first time Wily pretended not to be behind attacks by robot masters.

4's more known for it because a) it did it better, and b) because I'm willing to bet that over half of the people who played the game had no idea that Wily pretended to not be behind the attacks, because the story in this game is found only in the manual.

But yeah, the slide is cool.  MM4-6 has it too.  If more people were really willing to give credit to whatever games started trends that were bettered in the sequels, Mega Man 1 would be at the top of everyone's favorite list, I think.

[Gauntlet101010]

Reusing old bosses for the first time is new content.

While the shape of Doc Shadow's stage is similar, the traps are different. Different stage. 

Rush wouldn't have happened without the items, but 3 still introduced him.  If you're going to nix Rush from 3 you may as well nix every single item and armor upgrade in the entire franchise because they all ultimately stem from the Magnet Beam in 1. Other games may use him better (which is arguable since 3's Jet is the best IMO), but he got his start in 3.  And you're completely ignoring his place in the franchise outside of just the games.

The clone's TOTALLY different than 1's.  Is it the sprite that's throwing you off?  Because the boss is completely different in and of itself.  You're obviously not satisfied with the graphics and the idea of resuing bosses .... too bad!  Some of us don't mind it.  To you it makes the game lacking, but I like the usage of old bosses.

The Protoman fights were great.  Loved them as a kid.  Agree on "Breakman" being a waste, though.  And who cares if the story makes zero sense without the manual?  Stories were explained in manuals back then; it wasn't unusual.  It's only odd in context of the MM series as a whole, but not in context of the era.

Sure 4 did it better.  So what?  You said 3 didn't introduce new elements, but guess what?  it did.  Whatever or not you think other games did the idea better it got it's start in 3. 

[MacDaddyMike]

I didn't say MM3 didn't introduce new ideas, I said that the new content didn't make up for how much lazily-borrowed content there was.

If you're honestly convinced that refighting the MM2 bosses is in any way "new content", then there's no way we're ever going to agree on what "new content" is.

If you're satisfied by half of the game's bosses being reused--HALF--then I don't know what to tell you.  When I buy a new Mega Man game, I expect a fresh experience, not half of a game that feels like it was cobbled together from Frankenstein pieces of the last MM game I played.

When I look at MM3, I see a game that took little effort in comparison to the rest of the series.  Absense of story.  Reusing bosses.  Reusing stages.  Uninspired Protoman fights that you have to do four times.  Uninspired weapon set.  Horrible fortress stages.  The most laughably-bad final boss in the series.  Glitches abound.  Rush Jet so poorly tested that nobody realized how it completely broke the game.

The only things I can actually say I enjoy about MM3 these days are the soundtrack and the Gemini Man fight.  The other games just aren't as sloppy as this one.

[Protoman Blues]

The most laughably-bad final boss in the series.

Okay, I'm just gonna chime in here since trying to explain why someone likes something is both pointless and silly, but how is MM4's final Wily Capsule not laughably-bad? He is so easily beaten with the uber-powerful glitched Pharaoh Shot that it's a goddamn joke. Even Arino beat him on GCCX for christ sake.

For the record, the ONLY Final Boss that actually offered a challenge is the MM7 Wily Capsule, which I find hiLAAAArious considering how many MM fans [sonic slicer] about how difficult or unfair it is. Pansies. PANSIES THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU! 

[MacDaddyMike]

It actually takes some degree of involvement to fight the Wily 4 capsule.  You have to dodge his attacks, react quickly to his spawn location and attack before you miss your window.  With Gamma you can stand underneath him, go make yourself a sandwich, write a short novel, have grandkids, and when you come back you'll still be fine.  And then you can attack him from underneath with the Shadow Blades without any fear of getting hit, and then when he gets to his second form you can kill him in one hit.

Wily Capsule > Gamma

[Protoman Blues]

It actually takes some degree of involvement to fight the Wily 4 capsule.  You have to dodge his attacks, react quickly to his spawn location and attack before you miss your window.

All of which is in-[tornado fang]ing-SANELY easy to do, especially when there is no goddamn threat of EVER losing your Weapon Energy in that fight. As I said before, the only time that doing what I just quoted is actually a challenge is in MM7 but apparently...

I'd take any of the series' Wily Capsules over this fight (except MM7, cause that fight's so annoying)

...it's too hard/annoying for some people!

[MacDaddyMike]

Hey SHUT UP 

By the way, I've been in the middle of the Gamma fight during this whole topic.  Haven't been hit yet.