Mega Man X is one of the quintessential Super Nintendo games. In typical Capcom fashion they weren’t one to leave a good idea to be. This is when they released an immediate sequel, and this too was met with resounding success. Then the next generation of consoles was released and Mega Man jumped ship to the more powerful hardware. That isn’t before a third game in the X series was released on the aging Super Nintendo however. They were already running out of ideas by this point and because of this Mega Man X3 is hardly the swansong you would expect.
X3 takes place following the events of the second game in this spin-off series. A new professor, Dr. Doppler, has created a special neuro computer that completely neutralizes the maverick threat. With all of the reploids returned to their original state this futuristic world is, for once, at peace. Suddenly Reploids begin going maverick again and form their own city called Doppler Town run by none other than the mad professor himself. His goal? Revive Sigma and take over everything. It’s up to X and the recently revived Zero (as per the last sequel) to set things right.
Mega Man X3 is an action side scrolling game just like the previous two. You can run, slide jump, and shoot your mega buster by default. The main character X has a life bar on the left side of the screen that depletes as you’re hit, but you instantly die when hitting spikes or falling from a cliff. After completing the first stage you can tackle the next eight in any order. At the end of each level is a maverick reploid based on an animal. When you defeat them you gain their primary weapon. Each of these boss characters are weak against the weapon of another. There’s a recommended order but you’re given the freedom to play however you want.
Games in this franchise are judged pretty heavily on the mavericks therein. Unfortunately Mega Man X3 is really disappointing in this regard. The first thing you’ll notice is that some of the animals they chose to base the robots on are really just… weird. There are three water based mavericks; Toxic Seahorse, Volt Catfish, and Crush Crawfish. Were they really already running out of ideas such that they had to base a robot on a crawfish, or worse yet, a seahorse? Yeesh! The rest fare better. I rather liked Gravity Beetle, Blast Hornet, and Blizzard Buffalo. Tunnel Rhino is okay but pretty basic. Neon Tiger, with it’s stage full of napalm based enemies, is probably in bad taste but it’s a decent premise at least.
The level designs are mostly full of recycled ideas from the previous installments, and there’s little to set them apart in this iteration. What’s more is the fact that they’re far more empty than in the prior installments. Almost comically so. The developers also thought it would be a good idea to focus on traps in this iteration. Some of these lead to an instant death. This isn’t a new idea, and it has worked in other games, but there are some issues with it in Mega Man X3. For starters, there’s often no visual cues to go off of. You have to learn by trial and error which just isn’t fair. When you have empty spaces in levels you just want to get through them as fast as possible, and the traps really hinder this style of play. The developers were clearly phoning it in with this iteration.
The worst offense however is X’s arsenal. This is by far the worst line-up of weapons in any Mega Man game. We want projectiles with different patterns and attacks. Instead we’re given re-hashes of ideas we’ve already had, items that are completely ineffective, or those that are too similar to one another. The gravity well for example is a ball that creates a high gravity zone that damages enemies. It’s just an orb that attacks nearby enemies. The parasitic bomb goes a short distance before landing on the ground and emitting some toxic bubbles. Those are the two most lame and hardly worth using except against boss characters that are weak against them. Frost shield and tornado fang are the same darn thing. The well of creativity was apparently dried up by this point.
One of my favorite aspects of the X series are the changes to each stage depending on the order in which you complete them. Unfortunately these are all insignificant here. If I didn’t read online about them I would never have noticed. You must also deal with some mid-bosses here. These come in the form of Bit, Byte and Vile. After completing two stages these guys appear in specific areas of the remaining levels. It adds a non-linear feel to the game but makes things overly difficult. Facing off against a tough as nails mid-boss and then continuing one of the normal levels is a little too much. In my recent play through I just couldn’t recover from the encounter and died. Depending on how you defeat them the Doppler stages will be slightly changed. It makes things easier at least.
Mega Man X3 is more technically impressive than the prior iterations. It makes use of a special chip which allows the rendering of polygons which is used for a few boss encounters as well as the weapon demonstration screen after defeating each boss. The character models are pretty much ripped from the older games including each frame of animation, and the new basic enemy designs are pretty much on par. Everything is played very safe here, but the few upgrades (such as the new effects on the charge up shot) are pretty nice. Some of the boss encounters, where they’re displayed in the background, are mighty impressive by system standards. The designs for the new mavericks however are pretty boring.
The soundtrack is decent, but for a Mega Man X game it’s very poor. There’s too much an emphasis on low grindy guitar synth that doesn’t really fit the series. It’s not horrible but it’s missing that sharp techno edge this franchise is known for. Everything sounds too similar and it’s all really forgettable. The only track that I loved was the theme for Gravity Beetle’s stage. Now this sounds like the music in a Mega Man X game! The rest just ultimately falls short. Mega Man X3 has the weakest soundtrack in the series which is really quite sad in my opinion.
