Mega Man 3 (also called Mega Man III) is a 1990 video game created and released by Capcom for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It is the third game in the original Mega Man series and was first released in Japan on September 28, 1990. The game came out in North America later that same year and in Europe the following year. The story happens after the events of Mega Man 2 and follows the main character, Mega Man, as he helps his creator, Dr. Light, and a former enemy, Dr. Wily, gather parts for a robot that will help keep peace. They must do this by defeating several malfunctioning Robot Masters.
Mega Man 3 uses the same basic structure as the first two games in the series. As Mega Man, the player must complete different levels in any order. Beating a level’s boss gives the player a special weapon that can be used anytime during the game. New features in Mega Man 3 include Mega Man’s dog companion, Rush, and the ability to slide on the ground. Unlike the first two games, the artist and designer, Keiji Inafune, said making Mega Man 3 was very stressful because of time limits and his other responsibilities during development.
After the success of Mega Man 2, which was released two years earlier, Mega Man 3 sold 1.08 million copies and received positive reviews. Critics praised the game’s design and gameplay, though some found it challenging. Like other Mega Man games, Mega Man 3 has been released again on other platforms, mobile phones, and in collections of Mega Man games. A follow-up game, Mega Man 4, was released in 1991.
Plot
Mega Man 3 takes place during a year in the 21st century, though the exact year is not known (20XX). After the events of Mega Man 2, Dr. Wily, a mad scientist who previously failed twice to take over the world, claims to have changed and begins working with Dr. Light on a project to build a peace-keeping robot named "Gamma." However, eight Robot Masters—Top Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, Magnet Man, Hard Man, Snake Man, Gemini Man, and Needle Man—who are in charge of mining worlds, become uncontrollable and steal Gamma's eight power crystals. Mega Man is sent on a mission, this time with a dog named Rush, to recover the crystals from the mining sites. During his journey, Mega Man repeatedly faces Break Man, a masked enemy with powers similar to his own. After defeating the eight Robot Masters, Mega Man returns to four of the mining sites to battle eight "Doc Robots," which have the same abilities as the Robot Masters from Mega Man's earlier mission. Once the crystals are recovered, Dr. Wily returns to his evil ways, takes Gamma, and flees to his new fortress. To stop Wily's plan to conquer the world, Mega Man destroys Gamma and defeats Wily in a final battle. As the fortress collapses, Break Man arrives just in time to save Mega Man but is too late to save Wily, who is crushed by falling debris. When Mega Man wakes up in Dr. Light's lab, Dr. Light tells him that Break Man is actually his older brother, Proto Man.
Gameplay
Mega Man 3 is an action game that keeps the same way of playing as the first two Mega Man games. The player controls Mega Man as he moves through eight different stages that can be chosen in any order. The main weapon used to fight enemies is a blaster. Players can collect power-ups in each stage, such as health points, special weapon ammo, extra lives, and "E-Tanks," which fully restore health when used. At the end of every stage, the player must defeat a Robot Master boss: Magnet Man, Hard Man, Top Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, Snake Man, Gemini Man, or Needle Man. Each boss has a unique weapon and a stage connected to that weapon's power. After defeating a boss, their weapon is added to Mega Man's collection. Some Robot Masters are weak to weapons from other bosses, allowing players to choose the order of stages to make battles easier.
Mega Man 3 introduces a new move called the slide, which lets the player move under enemy attacks and low barriers. After completing certain stages, Mega Man's robot dog companion, Rush, gains new abilities. These include the "Rush Coil" for jumping higher, the "Rush Jet" for flying, and the "Rush Marine" for swimming underwater. Throughout the game, players encounter Proto Man, who is called Break Man in this game. After defeating him, he opens paths to help the player progress. The game also adds more stages between the initial eight Robot Master stages and the final fortress of Dr. Wily. A password system allows players to return to the game with most stages already completed. After defeating all eight Robot Masters, players face the "Doc Robots" in the Spark Man, Needle Man, Gemini Man, and Shadow Man stages.
Development
Development of Mega Man 3 started at Capcom more than a year after Mega Man 2 was released. Akira Kitamura, who led the first two games, left the company during that time. Artist Keiji Inafune, known as "Inafking," said Mega Man 3 was one of his least favorite games in the series because of the challenges during its creation. He believed the team had good success with Mega Man 2 and felt his new leader did not understand Mega Man as well as the previous leader had. During production, the main planner left the team, so Inafune took over that role to finish the game. Inafune described the last two months of development as very difficult, as he had to assign tasks and check progress for team members who were not meeting deadlines. The team had to release the game earlier than planned, in September instead of the usual December. Inafune said, "I knew we could improve the game with more time, but the company wanted it released. The way the game was made was not what I preferred. Games one and two were exciting to create, but game three was very different."
Mega Man 3 added new characters and gameplay features to the series. While Inafune thought the gameplay was less simple than before, he believed the slide ability helped players control Mega Man better during battles. Mega Man's dog sidekick, Rush, was designed by combining three tools from Mega Man 2 to help players move through stages more easily. Rush was originally planned to have a "drill" mode for underground movement, but this feature was not included. A new character, Proto Man, was introduced in a way that made it unclear if he was a friend or enemy to Mega Man. His design was inspired by anime, and he wore a scarf and shield to look stronger than Mega Man. The team wanted Proto Man to have visible hair, but they used a helmet in advertisements and manuals instead. Proto Man's Japanese name, Blues, was changed to "Proto Man" by Capcom's North American team, even though Inafune disagreed. Capcom made the change to match the English name "Rockman" and because they thought "Blues" did not make sense. Inafune argued that "Blues" had a musical meaning connected to other character names. While Rush and Proto Man were created by the developers, Capcom asked fans for ideas for the Robot Masters, as they had done for Mega Man 2. About 50,000 designs were submitted, but only eight were used in the game. Harumi Fujita, called "Mrs. Tarumi," was the original composer but left the project after having a baby. She completed songs for Needle Man, Gemini Man, and the Staff Roll. Yasuaki Fujita, known as "Bun Bun," finished the soundtrack and composed most of the music.
Reception
Mega Man 3 received praise from many print and online sources. Lucas M. Thomas of IGN, Christian Nutt and Justin Speer of GameSpot, Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser ("The Lessers") of Dragon, Dan Whitehead of Eurogamer, Edward J. Semrad of The Milwaukee Journal and Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), and the staff of Nintendo Power all agreed the game had good graphics, enjoyable music, and challenging gameplay. Nutt and Speer called Mega Man 3 a "top-notch game" and said it was Capcom's best NES game. IGN's Colin Moriarty said Mega Man 3 was better than the original Mega Man and even better than the highly praised Mega Man 2. He explained this by pointing out the game's improved story, longer length compared to other classic Mega Man games, and the inclusion of all eight Robot Masters from Mega Man 2 plus its own. Brett Alan Weiss of AllGame said the game succeeded as a sequel by bringing back the fun and excitement of earlier games while adding new levels, characters, and challenges. A reviewer in Famicom Hisshohon said the game felt a bit plain, noting it lacked the exciting weapons from Mega Man 2 and still had some issues from the previous game.
Some critics thought Mega Man 3 was very hard. GamePro's McKinley Noble joked that tasks like "pulling teeth, lifting a car over your head, or performing open-heart surgery" were easier than beating the game. Whitehead said players had to jump precisely, defeat enemies quickly and accurately, and often felt nervous about what challenges the next level might bring. The Lessers also noticed that the game sometimes had flickering when too many characters appeared on the screen at once, which made the graphics less clear for a short time.
Since its 1990 release, Mega Man 3 has sold more than one million copies worldwide. EGM named Mega Man 3 "The Best Sequel to an Existing Game" in its 1991 Video Game Buyer's Guide. Readers of Nintendo Power voted it the third-best game of 1990 in the magazine's "Nintendo Power Awards." The publication listed Mega Man 3 as the 11th best NES game in its 2008 20th anniversary issue. IGN ranked it number 16 on its "Top 100 NES Games of All Time." GamePro placed Mega Man 3 as the third-greatest 8-bit video game of all time.
Legacy
Mega Man 3 has been released on many consoles and devices since its first release in 1990 on the NES. In the United States, a simplified version of the game was made as a handheld LCD game by Tiger Electronics. It is the only Mega Man game included in Nintendo's PlayChoice-10 arcade collection. In 1994, the game was recreated for the Sega Genesis as Mega Man: The Wily Wars, with improved graphics and sound. In 1999, a version of the game was released on the Sony PlayStation in Japan as part of the Rockman Complete Works collection. This version included arranged music, artwork galleries, and a "navi" mode to help new players. The NES version of the game was also part of a 2004 North American compilation called Mega Man Anniversary Collection, which included ten games from the series and was released for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox. In 2005, Mega Man 3 was bundled with other Capcom games as part of a Plug It In & Play TV Games peripheral by Jakks Pacific. The game was released on mobile phones in Japan in 2005 and in North America in 2008. The NES version became available on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console in 2008. The Complete Works version was released on the PlayStation Network in Japan in 2010 and in North America in 2011. In 2012, Mega Man 3 was made available for download on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console in Japan. In 2018, Mega Man 3 and its predecessor, Mega Man 2, were included in the Super Retro-Cade collection, a dedicated console featuring 90 arcade, NES, and Super NES games.
Mega Man 3 introduced several features that later games in the series continued to use. These include the characters Proto Man and Rush, the ability for players to slide, and additional stages placed between the eight Robot Masters and Dr. Wily's fortress. However, with the release of Mega Man 9 in 2008, some elements from Mega Man 3 and other games from the third through eighth installments were not included, as the developers focused on returning to the simpler style of the original games, Mega Man and Mega Man 2. The creators of Mega Man 9 called the game "the new Mega Man 3" because they aimed to improve upon what was achieved in Mega Man 2.
The game was adapted into the Archie Comics Mega Man series over time. In the "Redemption" story arc, Gamma is introduced and has its power source stolen. The full adaptation of the game appears in the "Legends of the Blue Bomber" and "The Ultimate Betrayal" story arcs. One major difference in the comic adaptation is that Super Adventure Rockman was included in the story timeline before Mega Man 3, meaning the Robot Masters from Mega Man 3 first appear in that adaptation. This also connects Shadow Man's ruins to the Lanfront Ruins from Super Adventure Rockman and links his history to Ra Moon. A flashback in the "Legends of the Blue Bomber" arc shows that Shadow Man's history is also connected to a mysterious robot who fights Duo at the start of Mega Man 8. In the game, only one "DOC Robot" appears, which has the weapons and personality data of the Robot Masters from Mega Man 2.