It's new to me: Mega Man III

Capcom starts to find their portable Mega Man groove

This column is “It’s new to me,” in which I’ll play a game I’ve never played before — of which there are still many despite my habits — and then write up my thoughts on the title, hopefully while doing existing fans justice. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link.

Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge introduced the Blue Bomber to the portable Game Boy, and did so by remixing elements from existing NES Mega Man games into something new-ish. It was part of Capcom’s aggressive campaign that would see them releasing Mega Man game after Mega Man game on multiple platforms, utilizing multiple studios —such as Minakuchi Engineering, which created Wily’s Revenge — to make all of this happen, and because of the obvious rush and attempt to capitalize on the series’ popularity, the quality was not always there. Dr. Wily’s Revenge isn’t a bad game, but at this point, so much further into discovering what Mega Man can be and the superior games being ported to practically everything in existence, it’s not really for anyone besides completionists, either.

Mega Man II was developed practically at the same time as the game it was a sequel to in order to squeeze as much Mega Man out as quickly as possible, and it showed. While it solved some of its predecessor’s issues by giving the second wave of robot masters their own stages and improving upon (but not removing) the issues inherent to playing with large sprites on a tiny screen, it was also a technological mess with infamously horrid audio, and the first half of the game is a snooze. It’s a step forward in some ways, a step backward in others, which leaves you with the same conclusion: this one is, over three decades later, solely for people who just have to experience all of Mega Man.

Mega Man III still has some problems with unfair traps you can’t see and instant death, with the sprites still being large and enemies difficult to avoid, but everything, at least, feels as it it’s beginning to balance out toward being enjoyable instead of frustrating. It is yet another remix-style game, this time taking from Mega Man 3 and Mega Man 4 on the NES, but the level design is consistently solid throughout, and there’s some expected, welcome challenge this time instead of it being due to design flaws. There’s also that, of course, Mega Man III isn’t perfect, but it’s the first of this bunch that I’ve walked away from without being more annoyed than entertained.

Image credit: MobyGames

Now, this isn’t necessarily a universal opinion. Jeremy Parish, who, aside from being an authority on video game history, is also such a Mega Man Guy that he wrote the liner notes for a Mega Man LP that’s on my shelf, ranked all of the core Mega Man games for Polygon back in 2017, and preferred II to III. Parish’s feeling was that Mega Man II had many issues, but did a better job of balancing out the design ones than III, which was unfairly, cheaply difficult at times, while its worst offenses were more on a technical level — II sounded awful, for instance, but had fewer opportunities for aggravating deaths. I’m sympathetic to that view, but for me, the first half of II is just too boring, the lack of understanding of what Mega Man is supposed to even feel like too clearly on display. Not to speak for Parish, but we’re also splitting hairs here: III is a step up above II for me, a step below for him, but don’t misunderstand, they’re also too close and mediocre to be outright celebrated by either of us.

What works for me with III is that Minakuchi Engineering — who had returned to develop this sequel after Capcom’s disappointment with Thinking Rabbit’s Mega Man II — seemed to learn from some of their mistakes in Dr. Wily’s Revenge and latched on to the positives from II, as well. So, you once again have full stages for the robot masters in the second half, and while there are still some design issues caused by the small resolution and display area of the Game Boy, they are lessened in comparison, and without making a game that actively bores to compensate for them. Wily’s Castle is pretty brutal, but, at least to me, it was in a satisfying way. A gauntlet to be overcome, rather than an exasperating and unfair final test. The worst part about Wily’s Castle was that the final encounter with Wily was far too easy and forgiving, with some overly obvious safe zones and too-long rinse, repeat attack patterns that felt bland after a more vibrant and active final dungeon. Easy is one thing, boring is another, and this bout leaned a little too much toward the latter.

Whether Thinking Rabbit actually did a better job with II than Minakuchi did with III barely matters in terms of how Capcom felt: given how Keiji Inafune — series producer and self-described co-creator of Mega Man’s design — has spoken of that time period in series’ history, the former was never going to get near a Mega Man project ever again. In Mega Man: Official Complete Works, Inafune and other artists describe their work and experience drawing on decades of Mega Man titles. For Mega Man II — known as Rockman World 2 in Japan — Inafune is not shy about his dislike of both the game and the development process that created it:

We hired a different company to do ‘World 2’, and that was a total nightmare. They just didn’t understand Mega Man like the company that did ‘World 1’. This experience really made me realize just how important it is to ensure that the people working on Mega Man are people who really ‘get it’. This aspect is reflected in the game itself, so I’m sure the players know what I’m talking about better than anyone.”

…

The game was working out so poorly, and I think my very low level of motivation shows through in my design art. I mean, I didn’t use shadows properly or anything. I feel that this is something that should never happen, and I would like to offer my sincerest apologies to our players.”

Inafune wasn’t just displeased with the final product, but the development itself hurt morale and caused quality issues with the art he was creating for the game. No wonder he has such a longstanding grudge against Mega Man II. As for what Inafune said about Mega Man III in Works, “I decided to look at ‘World 3’ as a fresh new start, and I remember digging into it with renewed zest.”

It wasn’t just his own work he expected much more from this time around, as he had high expectations for the game as a whole and the art of others working on it. Hayato Kaji, a designer and artist from Capcom who first worked on the series for Mega Man 4, said in the same section of Works that, “For some reason, Inafune was set on having background landscapes in the main illustrations for the ‘World’ series, even though we had never included backgrounds for the NES titles. I did several backgrounds for the ‘World’ series, but I remember having a hard time getting my work approved. (laughs)”. Related to this, the level of graphical detail in Mega Man III is so much higher than it was for Dr. Wily’s Revenge and II. The backgrounds are noticeable and appreciated, the enemy sprites have multiple animations, and there are occasionally so many objects on screen that there can be some slowdown — in these instances it feels more like because the hardware is being pushed than because of a technical issue that wasn’t addressed, so it’s a welcome kind of slowdown, even.

The North American Mega Man box arts are deranged works of art, but still, Japan gets the nod for drawing the actual characters as they look in-game in a bright and colorful way. Image credit: MobyGames

In the end, this represents what makes III the better game, to me. It has its frustrating moments, yes, but it feels like the game was treated more seriously in development by everyone involved, and to borrow Inafune’s words, in a way that is “reflected in the game itself.” Yes, some of Mega Man II’s issues are more on Capcom than they are on Thinking Rabbit — it’s not their fault that they had no experience with Mega Man and were tasked with making a game practically overnight to meet a ridiculous deadline, anyway — but that doesn’t detract from the fact that it feels like a cash-in rush job, whereas III feels more complete and intentional.

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Mega Man’s robo dog pal, Rush, is back to help once again in Mega Man III, through the use of Rush Coil — a springy trampoline to help Mega Man reach some high ledges and items — and Rush Jet, which is basically a hoverboard that’ll go until it crashes into something (and it will). There’s also Flip Top Eddie, a tiny robot buddy who looks like a futuristic anthropomorphic treasure chest who occasionally appears to give Mega Man a random item, be it health, a weapon power refill, or an extra life if you’re real lucky. These three team together to take down eight robot masters — four from Mega Man 3, and four from Mega Man 4 — plus Dr. Wily’s latest “Mega Man Killer,” Punk. Oh, and Dr. Wily, though that should go without saying at this point.

For the first time in a Game Boy Mega Man title, you have the chargeable buster cannon, giving you Mega Buster shots that do more damage. Introduced in Mega Man 4, the charge shots felt like an afterthought in terms of design that didn’t quite mesh with the levels themselves, but here it has its uses. It helps that you can charge it up whenever and just hold the button without having to lose the charge to slide or jump or while moving screens, so you can always have one ready to go for enemies instead of having gameplay come to a halt so you can charge up. Its greatest utility, though, is in battles against some boss enemies, some of which require a charged shot to damage them at all. This forces you to be much better about timing your shots as you avoid a foe’s own blasts: you can’t just spray and pray, and the added element of the strongest charged shots being able to go through enemies and hit additional ones is another wrinkle that forces you to consider what you’re doing and when.

There are still a few too many instant and cheap opportunities for death in Mega Man III, owing to situations where you can’t see what you’re jumping on, or enemies with far more range and weapon spread than you have making it nearly impossible to avoid attacks. And Punk is a house who has to hit you just three times to defeat you, while being able to absorb far, far more damage from you. Familiarity can help with much of this, though: you learn where these rough spots are, and go in prepared. You figure out Punk’s timing and movement patterns, and it doesn’t matter how hard he hits, because he’s not going to hit you. That Mega Man III is decent about making sure you find extra lives and plenty of health recovery helps offset some of the feelings of cheapness, too. Build up a supply of lives if you can, and storable Energy Tanks to refill Mega Man’s health as needed, and you’ll be just fine. The password system is there to handle the rest, as far as trying again goes, and none of the robot master stages are so long as to be a nuisance to replay, anyway.

Your tolerance for the game will likely come down to your patience and willingness to retry after dying, because that’s going to happen. It’s far more tolerable with save states and rewind and such in the present day, but there’s no official Mega Man III release with the second of those — the 3DS re-release on the Virtual Console, at least, has the save states, and they can help with the aggravation.

If none of this sounds appealing to you, don’t worry: Mega Man III is still in that realm of “just for completionists” that its pair of predecessors comfortably fit into, so it’s safe to skip for everyone else. It’s a more enjoyable game than either of those, but its greatest success is in showing that these games can get better, and that Capcom was interested in making sure that happened instead of just riding out the power of the series’ name. Capcom didn’t succeed in making Mega Man III a must-play title, no, but it’s enjoyable without as many caveats as past portable entries, and that’s not nothing.

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