I've abandoned, checks notes, 13 of the 22 games I've played so far. It's the nature of games in 1990. Many were designed to be unbeatable within a rental period, so the devs made their games annoyingly (or if you played these back in the day, endearingly) difficult.
Never have I however actually "rage quit" any of the previous 12 games, until I've played Mega Man 3 that is, a platformer developed by Capcom and initially released for the NES on September 28, 1990. I found myself extremely frustrated throughout my entire time playing this. The only time I was really vibing with the game was when I didn't move and just listened to the amazing soundtrack. Maybe that's a bid too harsh, but we'll go over everything one by one below, so you understand where my frustration comes from for a game that does plenty right as well.
STORYTELLING | 3/10
While I call this the "Storytelling" section, it really is a review on storytelling, but also the plot itself, the characters and how they interact with each other. And as far as characters go, this legendary series has introduced a couple pretty important ones for the series in Rush, the robot dog that helps you jump to higher surfaces in this game, and Proto Man, who shows up in almost every level for a quick battle to test your skills. He appears to what has to be the most satisfying whistle sound I've ever heard.
The setting and the plot here are not explained in the game, only in the manual, and actual advancement of the plot only happens much later into the game. The set up goes like this: Two scientists are working on a "peace-keeping project" and need a few more energy crystals to finish their work. They send Mega Man to collect them, but Mega Man will have to face a bunch of bad guys to get to them.
This comes from the short conversation printed onto the manuals. In-game, you simply see a screen with Mega Man in the middle of a 3x3 display, with each of the other squares showing a portrait of a boss. You can freely decide which level/boss you want to face first and will be brought back here to select the next once you're done. All bosses have unique looks and abilities, but they don't talk and they don't taunt or something along those lines for them to have any personality, unlike Proto-Man, who's part in the story gets explained the further you go.
Overall, the story that is here has a bit more than your average one, where you get some text at the start and at the end of the game, but nothing in between. Here, you get nothing at the start, but a bit more towards the end with a nice little twist.
GAMEPLAY | 7/20
First of, we gotta address the performance in this game. I thought it was due to my emulator but no, the game has lagging issues throughout and it really is irritating. Obviously it wasn't such a big deal back then, as it was sold over a million times, was placed 3rd in the Nintendo Power Awards for 1990 and got 9/10s and 4/5s from many magazines at the time. By today's standards, or even by my comparably lower standards for 1990 games as part of this challenge, a game that requires so much precision just got that much more frustrating to play when every time you used a specific weapon that shot multiple projectiles, the screen would lag significantly. This would happen when too many enemies where on screen at once as well.
But in general, the timing and precision required just was a bit too much for me. Not only that, but the game forces you to stand still, step back, wait for an opening and take a precise shot multiple times per level, or you'll be having a bad time. Add to that the amount of cheap hits you get in this game by things like clouds popping into frame just as you jump into mid-air, leading you to miss a platform fall to your demise, and it just wasn't an enjoyable time for me for most of the time. There was also a moment where I managed to avoid all clouds, only for the platform beneath me to clip Mega Man in an unfortunate way and torpedo him dozens of feet into the sky before dropping him out of the screen.
With all of this however, I managed to beat all levels at some point, but I just couldn't beat the bosses a lot of the time. I'd say it's lack of skill on my end for the large part, but also exposes some of the game's flaws again. Once more, I have to mention the poor performance of this game, which made using many of the weapons you collect by beating bosses a chore. It's not like many of these are effective per boss anyway, but have the game lag when using almost all of these also messed with my timing, which, as a new player, I suck at to begin with. With your basic starter weapon, the battles just are very tough because you have to dodge so many things at once and find an opening to attack yourself (with little damage output). It doesn't help that this is another game where you cannot turn your character until he finishes his attack animation, and when you press attack 0.001 seconds before you press turn, he will shoot in the wrong direction as well. Some of you might say this is fair, you might be right, but it just didn't translate to fun to me.
To explain the game more objectively to wrap this up, you pick a boss on the select screen and go through a few-minute long level to face him. If you win, you get the boss' power and can use it in future boss fights. The way you go through these is optional, but unless you are really patient, you will not want to face bosses with the wrong powers and have them take too long. Some bosses can be killed in a few hits with the right weapon for example.
Most levels have a fight with Proto Man as well, you have your dog Rush that lets you jump to higher surfaces and you can collect items that give you points, health and 1 Ups.
This was my first Mega Man game to play and the difficulty in addition to the terrible performance did leave a bad taste in my mouth, but I will obviously try out future Mega Man games and considering how popular the series is, I'm sure I'll enjoy some of the future releases much more than this one.
MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 8/10
No voice acting. The sound design I found to be pretty average for a game from this year, I've certainly heard them all in other games already. The MVP in this game for me is the soundtrack, which ranged from good to amazing throughout. Even if you didn't play this game, but you enjoy 8 bit soundtracks, this game's OST is definitely worth a listen. It already starts with the intro theme, it continues with the oh-so satisfying Proto Man whistle which I already mentioned, and then you got an individual track per stage as well. My favorite definitely was the Spark Man track (and on a soundtrack that has so many bangers, I think Spark Man's track still stands out a lot).
GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 8/10
The game looks pretty good in my opinion. Each boss has his own individual level, often with a unique theme. Shadow Man's level for example has a part where the stage darkens from time to time and the only thing you can see is the enemy coming at you. The Hard Man's level features rocky terrain, Spark Man has placed obstacles charged with electricity everywhere and Gemini Man's world offers **two** settings. Sprites look pretty good as well.
ATMOSPHERE | 6/10
The game is supposed to take place on mining worlds. Now I don't know what that means, because most of the stages didn't really look like they were used for "mining" purposes, but disregarding that, most feel pretty atmospheric, but mostly in a cheery sense. Even the darker levels have cheerful music playing in the background, which makes sense due to the style and target group of these games. But due of that, it does waste some of the potential to create a more exciting and diverse atmosphere. Whenever the levels are colorful and cheery-looking as well however, the music fits very well.
CONTENT | 5/10
On the surface, this appears to offer a lot. A bunch of boss fights, a little bit of storytelling, multiple different weapons and even the ability to choose the order of the fights yourself. In reality however, all of this is not only overshadowed by the regular lag issues, but there isn't as much here overall.
If you like Mega Man games and played these before, you maybe don't mind the lag by now. If a fellow newcomer to the series were to choose Mega Man 3 as their entry however, I don't know how many of that sort would be willing to stick with this.
Being able to choose boss fights randomly is correct, but I'd assume that unless you are very skilled, you will not be able to beat them in any order you want, but will have to rather rely on picking specific ones earlier to get specific weapons to make future boss fights that much easier. The weapons themselves do offer some variety, but since you can mostly use the basic weapon during the actual stages (where I personally died to gravity the most) and only need to use specific ones when you face bosses, I don't feel like they have as much purpose as I would have liked to see.
LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 4/10
As I mentioned above, being able to choose one of 8 bosses to start is cool, but you'll need to choose a much more specific order to get through this game in all likelihood. I also don't like how the stages themselves are designed in a way that you'll be taking cheap hits a lot and enemies pop into frame in a lot of unfortunate situations (like when you are mid-air), which forces you to anticipate this by jumping forward and back. Not only that but you're forced to stand still and wait a lot to be able to damage the enemy or at least walk pass without taking damage (if you're precise). Overall I found the game a bit too hard in the wrong places to find much enjoyment out of it, though I did like how each level had its own style and many of its own, unique challenges.
CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 6/10
The game innovates in a few pretty notable ways from Mega Man 2, namely introducing your companion Rush and giving you the ability to slide. The stages are also a bit longer (and I believe there are more stages overall as well), but other than that, the game doesn't do much else and is pretty similar to Mega Man 2, which I assume is what fans wanted in the first place. From what I've read however, Mega Man 3 is less adventurous with the design of stage challenges, bosses and weapons, which sounds like a step back to me.
REPLAYABILITY | 3/5
Not as much replayability as I would have thought based on the boss structure, but still more than your typical 1990's platformer.
PLAYABILITY | 3/5
It works, but the constant lag/slowdown just makes it an unpleasant playthrough for a lot of the time, especially since I don't bring any of the enthusiasm that someone who maybe has played the earlier versions back in the day, or some of the later more refined versions.
OVERALL | 53/100
My experience with Mega Man 3 was ultimately disappointing, though I will remember it fondly for its soundtrack. And even though I didn't like a lot about the gameplay, I did enjoy other parts of it and I can see how people enjoyed both this, and later entries a lot, so I'm still looking forward to playing all the other 60 Mega Man games that have come out since. Next one on the list is Mega Man: Dr Wily's revenge on the Game Boy, which came out in July, 1990.
WHAT THEY SAID AT THE TIME
- Tobar the 8 Man for GamePro, Issue 16 (Nov 90): "It's got everything that a great video game should have: incredible challenge, exceptional game play, stunning graphics and some nifty weaponry."
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