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                                                              Works on: External / 3.55 KMEAW

The Short

Pros
- Perfect evolution of the Mega Man formula from the NES
- New additions dashing and wall jumping add a whole new level to the series
- Stages are a perfect blend of difficulty and reward
- Replaying stages to find secrets is an absolute blast, especially since the stages are dynamic based on who youve defeated
- Controls just like the NES Mega Man games, which is to say...perfectly
- Absolutely incredible soundtrack
- Gorgeous graphics
- One of the finest platformers Ie ever played

Cons
- Stages can be a bit easy and short, while the final fortress is a massive jump in challenge
- Story is sort of non-existant
- Sigmas fortress can be a bit unfair at times
- What the heck is a "Kuwanger?"

Mega Mans back, baby!

The Long

Luckily, Mega Man X dont need no story to rock!

The core gameplay of Mega Man X is extremely similar to the NES Mega Man games, and anyone familiar with them will be able to jump right in and feel right at home. X moves at a very similar clip as Rock did, all the way down to jumping, fire rate, and charge time. If it aint broke, dont fix it. But Mega Man X does mix things up in two very crucial ways: wall jumping and dashing.

Plus you ride a giant punching robot suit. AMAZING.

The stages are also different from the original Mega Man. In Mega Man, each level was broken up between sets of screens, each providing a unique but brief challenge before it would pan to the next one. This was obviously a design choice and not a hardware limitation (or so Id think; games like Mario 2 had massive scrolling worlds), but it made the series unique. Mega Man X chucks this for a more traditional style of level: a long, streaming world to explore and backtrack. It does feel a bit weird at first, but it still has the boss doors (and you can still jump through them) so its forgivable.

Burn, baby, burn.

Im going to take a second to gush about something thats hard to express in words, and thats how incredibly good this game feels to control. Again, thats really something you cant describe but have to experience, but when a game gets it right the experience becomes so much more enjoyable. Mega Man X is probably the best controlling game Ive ever played, hands down. Its so incredibly responsive, I never felt like I died or failed on a jump because of the games fault. Jumping and falling all feel exactly how they should, momentum from your dash perfectly translating into far jumps, and wall slides are easy to master and darn satisfying when you do a tricky leap from one tiny spot to another. Its a Super Meat Boy kind of feeling, except perhaps even more so. After just a few minutes of playing I knew I was gonna love this game based on feel alone.

Hes just mad cause he looks like a purple Boba Fett.

The formula here is a standard one: burn through the game, kill mavericks, get their powers to kill other mavericks, replay levels to get secrets, face the final fortress. If theres anything I can complain about its that the stages themselves (for the mavericks) arent nearly as difficult as the ones found in the NES Mega Man games (Mega Man 2 excluded), and seem to have a weird variance in length. Some are super short, while the underwater stage feels like it drags on and on. Overall, however, they feel a lot shorter, which makes sense since they were designed to be replayed.

In the year 200X, Dr. Wily created eight...hey, wait!

Graphically, Mega Man X is beautiful. It pushes the SNES to its limits with excellently designed enemies, stunning environments, and awesome effects. It does stutter a bit with framerate drops on some stages (specifically when riding the mine carts), but when it matters the game is smooth and looks absolutely incredible.

"HADOKEN!"

The Short


Pros
- Has the sad, sad honor of be the first Mega Man game I ever played
- Stages are actually sort of non-linear, which is totally different from all other Mega Man games
- Has a stage where you spend most of the time swimming, which is also kind of unique
- Actually isnt the worst thing ever if youve never played another Mega Man game

Cons
- Is pretty much the worst thing ever
- Graphics for robot masters ripped from other Mega Man games
- No music. At all.
- Looks awful in general.
- Sound effects are the usual "3 1/4 floppy DOS" fare. Read: Quant, but awful.
- Controls are abismal
- Seriously, I cant believe this is how I was introduced to Mega Man

This is NOT the Mega Man 3 youre looking for.

Shark AND Wave man? Two water themed enemies?

So way back when I was a lad my parents only let me own a computer, because they hated video games. Fair enough, normal stuff Id imagine. But as a young lad who only had a Windows 3.1 computer, I heard from all my NES owning friends about how awesome this "Mega Man" guy was. After some digging at a local video game store with a friend I discovered that, amazingly, there was a Mega Man game on the PC! (actually there was two, but I never found that one, thank goodness)

Oh sweet mother of mercy.

Thats right, fat-faced, ugly Mega Man 3 on your COMPUTER! Incredible! Starring Robot Masters totally ripped off from the NES Robot Masters of previous games! No, seriously, look!

Its like they didnt even try.

So...what is Mega Man 3: The Robots are Revolting (seriously, thats the subtitle, though it only shows up on the back of the box) all about? What makes it tick? If you are a hardcore Mega Man fan who didnt know this game existed, do you have to boot it up to experience the full range of the Mega Man spectrum?

If it looks like that boss isnt animated, its because it isnt. Seriously.

Ok, so first things first: this game is garbage. There are so many differences between it an actual Mega Man games its almost impossible to cover them all, but what the heck: lets try.

They put Torch Man in a sewer, and his boss room is in water. No, seriously.

Next is the actual gameplay itself. Aside from the controls, which are stupendously clunky, this game doesnt play like any Mega Man game ever made before or since. It actually plays more like the old DOS platformers, like Commander Keen. You have one massive, somewhat open-ended level that you have to traverse. There are no linking screens or linear pathways or bits of perfectly crafted level design. In fact, most of your obstacles are in the environment. Fire, oil drips, goo drips, etc.

Based on his expression, Mega Mans making an oil stream in his pants.

Weirdly enough, I kind of like the change in pace. I mean, its awful and the levels are horribly designed, but having bigger ones that are all interconnected gives a different sense of scale. You never really went back in Mega Man on the NES, but in this one youll see areas far off and work your way towards them. Thats...sort of cool, I guess, if not like Mega Man at all.

If hes a robot, wouldnt water be bad for him AW SCREW IT.

Is there anything here thats Mega Man-esque? Well...a little bit. You still get powers from your enemies in the form of their super-lame weapons, though it makes the other Robot Masters a total cakewalk. Each one goes down in exactly four shots from their weaknesss weapon, so once you figure the order out the bosses (who, remember, have no real attack pattern) are stupid easy.

Thought that sprinting, legged fish man might be my favorite enemy in any game ever.  Just...LOOK AT HIM!

Whats really weird is this game is actually...hard. Enemies, as mentioned before, take a lot of hits and hardly ever drop any power-ups or health items. Because the jumping is so clunky and the shooting so poor its easy to get overwhelmed or make stupid mistakes (especially since some levels require some crazy jumps or youll fall and have to do the whole level over). Dr. Wileys stage is also absurdly long with very difficult enemies and no health to be seen. So I guess they got the "difficulty" thing right, if in the most asinine way possible.

Like Shredder, Dr. Wiley rises from the goo.

This was my first Mega Man game. And so, when I watch the extremely limited number of videos of it on YouTube, I still get that funny nostalgia feeling. Back in the days when DOS was the best we could do, when games were simple and in 256 colors (or less) and highly pixelated. Back when you could hear the floppy disc drive grunt and groan, and when floppy discs were actually floppy. When youd have to type "dir" to find install files on discs in DOS, and remember drive names and commands to run programs. And when "Shut Down Windows" took you to a DOS prompt, where youd have to hard-power down rather than have the system know to do it automatically.