Mega Man 3 was released in the U.S. in early 1991. It stands as not only the very best game of the Mega Man series, but also one of the best games created for the NES, or any 8-bit system for that matter.
Much like The Empire Strikes Back, or the 5th season of The Simpsons, Mega Man 3 shows how wonderful a series can be when it reaches its creative peak. This means that it is the culmination of all previous endeavors, along with putting to shame all attempts that follow it. And there are a plethora of reasons why Mega Man 3 is the very best in Blue Bomber side-scrolling.
In January 1991, the video game world was still a relatively simple place. It would still be nine months until the American release of the SNES, which would spark the memorable 16-bit wars. Although the SegaGenesis was very popular, most gamers were still content to play Dr. Mario, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super C, and the rest of the library of the good ‘ol NES. It was among this backdrop that Mega Man 3 was released. The last truly great NES game.
It had been almost 2 years since the release of the fantastic Mega Man 2. Fans were hoping for Capcom to give them another reason to rush out to Caldor or Woolworth’s and spend $59. They were not disappointed. No Mega Man game possesses the attention to detail belonging to Mega Man 3. How many of us can hum more than half of the tracks from Mega Man 3? How many remixes have we heard? I’m sure we can’t say the same thing about Mega Man 8 or Mega Man X4.
The Robot Masters of Mega Man 3, as well as their levels, were fresh and exciting. GeminiMan dwelled on an eerie moon, inhabited by fish eggs and giant robot penguins. TopMan’s garden was teeming with robot cats. HardMan shook the ground with a fury. ShadowMan baited you with a few hops before he slid in for the kill. The levels were well-conceived arenas, building on the theme of Mega Man 2 that the stage was as important as the boss. Future Mega Man games would have woefully nondescript stages, none that sparked the imagination. The bosses themselves were beautifully original, something later Mega Man games cannot attest to. Does WindMan remind you of AirMan? Perhaps BlizzardMan reminds you of IceMan? Perhaps FlameMan reminds you of HeatMan AND FireMan? It is sad and pathetic what kind of poor excuses for robot masters litter the wasteland that are the more recent Mega Man sequels.
Finally, Mega Man brilliantly introduces the DocRobot stages, in which Mega Man returns to battle bosses from Mega Man 2 in previously uncharted regions of earlier stages. This was the first Mega Man game to have “pre-Dr. Wily” stages. Later games would have Dr. Cossacks’s castle, or Protoman’s castle. But nothing compared to revisiting old stages and having to fight Mega Man 2 bosses with Mega Man 3 weapons. That was just plain fun.
When Mega Man 4 came out only 12 months later, it was the beginning of the end for the series. Like season 6 of The Simpsons, the product was still quality, but a decline was noticeable. As Mega Man appeared on 16-bit, 32-bit, and eventually 64-bit consoles in painful rehashes, it became more and more evident that this series should have stopped long ago. Not that Capcom has a penchant for too many sequels, or anything.