A Black Falcon
Member
(Note -- GB Mega Man games use Roman numerals in their titles. NES ones use Arabic numerals. The first Game Boy game's full name is Mega Man in Dr. Wily's Revenge, so I may call it that sometimes.)
Mega Man III - Game Boy
Capcom, 1992
Mega Man III is a fantastic game. All five of the Game Boy Mega Man games are good, but the second one was by far the weakest. Mega Man II was quite easy, bland, had poor music for a Mega Man game, and more. Mega Man III is a massive improvement from the second game, and in addition to setting the series up for its greatest heights in Mega Man IV and Mega Man V, is a great game in its own right.
I got the game a few days ago when I ran across a loose copy locally for $4, which is well under the game's EBay price of $10-20. This makes the game more expensive than the pretty cheap Mega Man I and II, both of which had Million Seller re-releases while the later three games did not, but cheaper than the later titles. Mega Man IV goes for $20-40, and V $50 at least. The games are worth the cost, though, and really are some of the very best of the classic Mega Man titles. The fourth and fifth games are every bit as good as the NES games and better than some of them, and the first and third ones are great games as well.
As with all of the first four Game Boy Mega Man games, Mega Man III has four bosses each from two of the recent NES titles. In this case the game has four from Mega Man 3 and four from Mega Man 4. You fight the first four first, then play a small mini Wily level, then the second four, followed with the final Wily areas. As with all the titles, though, the level designs themselves are entirely new. Boss orders are not identical either. So the games are definitely not just ports. No one should skip them just because the level bosses are not new through the first four Game Boy Mega Man games.
So, Mega Man III. I played a lot of MM I, II, and IV on the GB years back, but never did play MM III, so the game is mostly new to me. Well, it's amazing, better than I was expecting even. It may not have all the features of Mega Man IV or V, such as the shop (first introduced in MMIV) or MMV's new gun and helper -- Tango the cat, who only shows up in MMV -- but it's just a fantastic Mega Man game, and that should be more than enough for anyone. From the graphics to the sound to the level designs, the game is exceptional. The game does have the charge shot like MM4, as well as the slide, so it has all the control features of the NES games that it takes bosses from. I love the charge shot and think Mega Man games are better with it, so this is definitely a good thing in my opinion. The bosses this time are Snake Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, and Gemini Man from Mega Man 3 in the first set, and Dive Man, Skull Man, Dust Man, and Drill Man from Mega Man 4 in the second set. The story is inconsequential and mosty not present in the game, as the Game Boy Mega Man games do not have intro cutscenes, but evidently involves Dr. Wily building an oil platform and trying to extract oil for some evil purposes, backed up with rebuilt versions of some defeated robots, so you have to stop him. That's all you need, an excuse to go after Wily and his robots again. The story's just fine, Mega Man games do not really need plots.
First, the graphics. The game looks fantastic, as all the Game Boy Mega Man games do. It does have slowdown, significant slowdown at times, but Mega Man in Dr. Wily's Revenge had bad flicker, and evidently Capcom decided that slowdown was preferable to flicker. They are probably right about that, but it's clear that there was still some optimization left to do. Particularly, there is usually slowdown when you're charging your Mega Buster, and you do that a lot. It can be distracting sometimes. I believe that the fourth and fifth games do have less slowdown, but I'd need to play them again to be sure. The sprites, backgrounds, enemies, and everything look great though. Many elements return from the past GB MM games of course, but new things are added, and it all looks quite good. You get used to the slowdown eventually and it doesn't hurt the game too much, but it is worth mentioning.
The sound is at least as good. Coming after MMII's pretty disappointing soundtrack Capcom had some work to do, but they do it here -- Mega Man III has a a fantastic soundtrack. The versions of the music themes from MM3 and MM4 are fantastic and sound very much like the original NES versions. Just great stuff! I don't know what more to say but that it's really, really good, and the music is very catchy and addictive, as good Mega Man music always is. This is great Game Boy music.
The gameplay is classic Mega Man. Run and shoot your way through challenging levels as you try to beat bosses. You can play the bosses in each set in any order, and get a weapon from each one that will make one other one easier, so you have to figure out the best order. The Game Boy games cut back on the difficulty of this a bit by breaking things into two sets of four (or one set of four with just teleporters for the second four, in MMI's case), but you still need to figure out the best order. The weapons are interesting as always. It's interesting to be able to use the charge shot in levels from bosses from MM3, which of course did not have it. As I said above the game uses a similar formula to the past Game Boy Mega Man games, with two sets of four bosses, but this time the mini Wily Fortress in between the two sets was added. That fortress may be short, but it's great to have, and the feature would return in MMIV. There are no special items to collect as MMIV has (BEAT and WILY letters, P points to buy items with), so it's a more straightforward game, but that just reflects the style of the NES games, so that can't really be considered a negative. Original bosses may have been nice, but I never minded the returning bosses in the Game Boy Mega Man games. It was cool that the fifth game had all-new bosses, but really the first four shouldn't be considered much worse just because they don't. It's kind of cool to see all-new stages with the same graphical themes as the NES originals, and to hear the NES versions of the bosses' music tracks.
Now, difficulty. Mega Man games have often been challenging, of course, but the second Game Boy Mega Man game is the easiest MM game I have ever played (I beat it in under two hours the first time I ever played it... and it wasn't very hard along the way.), so again they had some work to do here. They do it -- this game is tough. It's not impossible, and isn't as hard as a Mega Man & Bass or Mega Man Zero game or something, but it's a real challenge, easily on par or beyond the difficulty of the NES games despite being a little shorter, as all the GB games are (smaller screen size, large Mega Man sprite, fewer Wily levels...). They may be shorter, but II excepted, they sure aren't easier. For instance in terms of the number of levels or screens MMI is the shortest Mega Man game ever, but it's pretty difficult even so. I'm not sure that MM III quite hits the level of frustration of the end parts of MMI, but it's a challenging game and I've found myself dying quite a few times in some parts. The only checkpoints in the levels are the beginning, midpoint, and end when you reach the boss, and you restart the level when you get game over, so you will be sent back upon death, and it can sometimes be frustrating. Dive Man's level here is quite a bit harder than the NES Dive Man level, for instance... There are a lot of tricky jumps in this game. It should be doable for anyone good at 8-bit Mega Man, though, and it's always a fun challenge that keeps me going back. This is, I would say, one of the "hard levels, moderate bosses" Mega Man games, because indeed, the bosses themselves are usually not as much of a problem as the levels, particularly if you have the right weapon. Getting there at all is the challenge. Overall I would say that the difficulty level is very well balanced, being just hard enough to provide a challenge for many gamers, but no so easy that it gets boring as MMII did and not so hard that it gets extremely frustrating and many people end up giving up, as with some more recent MM games like MM&B, MM Zero, or MM X6.
Overall, Mega Man III is a great game. Mega Man IV and V are even better, but this game shouldn't be overlooked -- it's a fantastic game too, and one that any classic Mega Man game should definitely play. Also, while you will most likely spend more for it than I did, even on EBay it's much cheaper than Mega Man IV or V are. The lower price should make it a bit more accessible than those games. I'd definitely recommend any Mega Man fan play it, and the first, fourth, and fifth Game Boy Mega Man games as well. All four are fantastic. II is the worst though, perhaps play it but don't expect it to last long or be as good as the others. Anyway though, overall the Game Boy had some great Mega Man games, and it's too bad that they stopped making them for the six years between Mega Man V's release in 1994 and Mega Man Xtreme's in 2000. Yes, Xtreme is an original GB game -- it's a dual-mode Game Boy and Game Boy Color game, and as usual for such games the GBC mode is just the original GB game, but colorized. 2001's Mega Man Xtreme 2 was GBC-only, but the first one was not. Unfortunately, though, both just recycle not just the bosses but the entire original MMX1-X3 levels instead of designing new stages,so they are not nearly as interesting games as the five classic series GB Mega Man titles.
Anyway, in conclusion, Mega Man III is great. I had always somewhat overlooked it, thinking that "I don't know if I care about that one, it doesn't have the stuff of Mega Man IV or V so I don't know if it's worth seeking out", but now I'd say that I definitely should have. It's a very good game that's a huge amount of fun to play.
If I was giving it a score, 88% I guess. Going by the classic mid '90s PC Gamer scale that I've always preferred, that makes it an Editor's Choice. (I know, later they changed the bar to 90%... but B+ seems good enough to deserve something too, I think...)
Mega Man III - Game Boy
Capcom, 1992
Mega Man III is a fantastic game. All five of the Game Boy Mega Man games are good, but the second one was by far the weakest. Mega Man II was quite easy, bland, had poor music for a Mega Man game, and more. Mega Man III is a massive improvement from the second game, and in addition to setting the series up for its greatest heights in Mega Man IV and Mega Man V, is a great game in its own right.
I got the game a few days ago when I ran across a loose copy locally for $4, which is well under the game's EBay price of $10-20. This makes the game more expensive than the pretty cheap Mega Man I and II, both of which had Million Seller re-releases while the later three games did not, but cheaper than the later titles. Mega Man IV goes for $20-40, and V $50 at least. The games are worth the cost, though, and really are some of the very best of the classic Mega Man titles. The fourth and fifth games are every bit as good as the NES games and better than some of them, and the first and third ones are great games as well.
As with all of the first four Game Boy Mega Man games, Mega Man III has four bosses each from two of the recent NES titles. In this case the game has four from Mega Man 3 and four from Mega Man 4. You fight the first four first, then play a small mini Wily level, then the second four, followed with the final Wily areas. As with all the titles, though, the level designs themselves are entirely new. Boss orders are not identical either. So the games are definitely not just ports. No one should skip them just because the level bosses are not new through the first four Game Boy Mega Man games.
So, Mega Man III. I played a lot of MM I, II, and IV on the GB years back, but never did play MM III, so the game is mostly new to me. Well, it's amazing, better than I was expecting even. It may not have all the features of Mega Man IV or V, such as the shop (first introduced in MMIV) or MMV's new gun and helper -- Tango the cat, who only shows up in MMV -- but it's just a fantastic Mega Man game, and that should be more than enough for anyone. From the graphics to the sound to the level designs, the game is exceptional. The game does have the charge shot like MM4, as well as the slide, so it has all the control features of the NES games that it takes bosses from. I love the charge shot and think Mega Man games are better with it, so this is definitely a good thing in my opinion. The bosses this time are Snake Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, and Gemini Man from Mega Man 3 in the first set, and Dive Man, Skull Man, Dust Man, and Drill Man from Mega Man 4 in the second set. The story is inconsequential and mosty not present in the game, as the Game Boy Mega Man games do not have intro cutscenes, but evidently involves Dr. Wily building an oil platform and trying to extract oil for some evil purposes, backed up with rebuilt versions of some defeated robots, so you have to stop him. That's all you need, an excuse to go after Wily and his robots again. The story's just fine, Mega Man games do not really need plots.
First, the graphics. The game looks fantastic, as all the Game Boy Mega Man games do. It does have slowdown, significant slowdown at times, but Mega Man in Dr. Wily's Revenge had bad flicker, and evidently Capcom decided that slowdown was preferable to flicker. They are probably right about that, but it's clear that there was still some optimization left to do. Particularly, there is usually slowdown when you're charging your Mega Buster, and you do that a lot. It can be distracting sometimes. I believe that the fourth and fifth games do have less slowdown, but I'd need to play them again to be sure. The sprites, backgrounds, enemies, and everything look great though. Many elements return from the past GB MM games of course, but new things are added, and it all looks quite good. You get used to the slowdown eventually and it doesn't hurt the game too much, but it is worth mentioning.
The sound is at least as good. Coming after MMII's pretty disappointing soundtrack Capcom had some work to do, but they do it here -- Mega Man III has a a fantastic soundtrack. The versions of the music themes from MM3 and MM4 are fantastic and sound very much like the original NES versions. Just great stuff! I don't know what more to say but that it's really, really good, and the music is very catchy and addictive, as good Mega Man music always is. This is great Game Boy music.
The gameplay is classic Mega Man. Run and shoot your way through challenging levels as you try to beat bosses. You can play the bosses in each set in any order, and get a weapon from each one that will make one other one easier, so you have to figure out the best order. The Game Boy games cut back on the difficulty of this a bit by breaking things into two sets of four (or one set of four with just teleporters for the second four, in MMI's case), but you still need to figure out the best order. The weapons are interesting as always. It's interesting to be able to use the charge shot in levels from bosses from MM3, which of course did not have it. As I said above the game uses a similar formula to the past Game Boy Mega Man games, with two sets of four bosses, but this time the mini Wily Fortress in between the two sets was added. That fortress may be short, but it's great to have, and the feature would return in MMIV. There are no special items to collect as MMIV has (BEAT and WILY letters, P points to buy items with), so it's a more straightforward game, but that just reflects the style of the NES games, so that can't really be considered a negative. Original bosses may have been nice, but I never minded the returning bosses in the Game Boy Mega Man games. It was cool that the fifth game had all-new bosses, but really the first four shouldn't be considered much worse just because they don't. It's kind of cool to see all-new stages with the same graphical themes as the NES originals, and to hear the NES versions of the bosses' music tracks.
Now, difficulty. Mega Man games have often been challenging, of course, but the second Game Boy Mega Man game is the easiest MM game I have ever played (I beat it in under two hours the first time I ever played it... and it wasn't very hard along the way.), so again they had some work to do here. They do it -- this game is tough. It's not impossible, and isn't as hard as a Mega Man & Bass or Mega Man Zero game or something, but it's a real challenge, easily on par or beyond the difficulty of the NES games despite being a little shorter, as all the GB games are (smaller screen size, large Mega Man sprite, fewer Wily levels...). They may be shorter, but II excepted, they sure aren't easier. For instance in terms of the number of levels or screens MMI is the shortest Mega Man game ever, but it's pretty difficult even so. I'm not sure that MM III quite hits the level of frustration of the end parts of MMI, but it's a challenging game and I've found myself dying quite a few times in some parts. The only checkpoints in the levels are the beginning, midpoint, and end when you reach the boss, and you restart the level when you get game over, so you will be sent back upon death, and it can sometimes be frustrating. Dive Man's level here is quite a bit harder than the NES Dive Man level, for instance... There are a lot of tricky jumps in this game. It should be doable for anyone good at 8-bit Mega Man, though, and it's always a fun challenge that keeps me going back. This is, I would say, one of the "hard levels, moderate bosses" Mega Man games, because indeed, the bosses themselves are usually not as much of a problem as the levels, particularly if you have the right weapon. Getting there at all is the challenge. Overall I would say that the difficulty level is very well balanced, being just hard enough to provide a challenge for many gamers, but no so easy that it gets boring as MMII did and not so hard that it gets extremely frustrating and many people end up giving up, as with some more recent MM games like MM&B, MM Zero, or MM X6.
Overall, Mega Man III is a great game. Mega Man IV and V are even better, but this game shouldn't be overlooked -- it's a fantastic game too, and one that any classic Mega Man game should definitely play. Also, while you will most likely spend more for it than I did, even on EBay it's much cheaper than Mega Man IV or V are. The lower price should make it a bit more accessible than those games. I'd definitely recommend any Mega Man fan play it, and the first, fourth, and fifth Game Boy Mega Man games as well. All four are fantastic. II is the worst though, perhaps play it but don't expect it to last long or be as good as the others. Anyway though, overall the Game Boy had some great Mega Man games, and it's too bad that they stopped making them for the six years between Mega Man V's release in 1994 and Mega Man Xtreme's in 2000. Yes, Xtreme is an original GB game -- it's a dual-mode Game Boy and Game Boy Color game, and as usual for such games the GBC mode is just the original GB game, but colorized. 2001's Mega Man Xtreme 2 was GBC-only, but the first one was not. Unfortunately, though, both just recycle not just the bosses but the entire original MMX1-X3 levels instead of designing new stages,so they are not nearly as interesting games as the five classic series GB Mega Man titles.
Anyway, in conclusion, Mega Man III is great. I had always somewhat overlooked it, thinking that "I don't know if I care about that one, it doesn't have the stuff of Mega Man IV or V so I don't know if it's worth seeking out", but now I'd say that I definitely should have. It's a very good game that's a huge amount of fun to play.
If I was giving it a score, 88% I guess. Going by the classic mid '90s PC Gamer scale that I've always preferred, that makes it an Editor's Choice.
(I know, later they changed the bar to 90%... but B+ seems good enough to deserve something too, I think...)
