A Rock Solid Adventure for the 3DS VC



First off a little warning here. This is my first public I guess you will call it review. I will admit I love writing but honestly structure is not my high points. I apologize if this review is wordy and at times I may seem to ramble.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity and any comments or concerns please let me know either below or in a PM if you are more comfortable with that. I dont mind criticism or comments as long as they are the truth, if it sucks than feel free to say so I wont take offense to that nor will I take it personally in truth I look at is as a way for me to improve and grow.

Anyway thank you all for reading it and for your support and I hope you enjoy it. Without further ado I give you......



When people list the great games of the NES era it comes as no surprise that Mega Man III is on most people’s list. In case you have missed this game during the NES era or maybe you just want to play it on the go, than you will be happy to know that Mega Man III has made its way to the 3DS Virtual Console.

Mega Man III as you can tell is the third game in the Mega Man series that will eventually go on to have ten games in this series not to mention spawn a bunch of spinoffs. Now this game is an important staple in the series because it introduces a few things that will become permanent fixtures in the series.

For one it introduces Mega Man’s brother Proto Man to the series along with Mega Man’s canine sidekick Rush, both of which will continue to play major parts in the series to come. Now while Proto Man’s part is a small one in this game compared to future games, in all honestly he is more of a glorified mid boss in some stages it’s important to the series as this tells us some of his origins which I won’t get into here so I don’t spoil it in case you haven’t played it.



As for Rush he can have a big role depending on how you use him. Like the various utility items you got in Mega Man II to help you cross chasms or get you up to an otherwise inaccessible ladder, Rush does the same.

You start off just having the Rush coil which allows you to reach higher places that you can’t normally jump too but after a while you get a Rush jet which acts like the Number 2 item from Mega Man II only you can control it and the Rush marine which as the name implies is a submarine that lets you travel the watery depths of Mega Man III. Besides characters Mega Man III also introduces the slide mechanic to the game which allows Mega Man to slide under low ceilings for example, under enemy’s shots and even the enemy itself.



The slide move that was introduced in this game will remain in the series until its removal in Mega Man 9. Another staple to the series that was added to this game that continued onward is a series of set levels after the initial 8 robot masters and before your encounter with the final boss.

In this game it takes the form of the Doc Robot stages, 4 of the initial robot masters levels are redone this time at a higher difficulty in the form of added baddies and traps and ending with a battle with a “special guest”

As far as story goes it is your typical Mega Man game. The story this time is that Dr Wily has given up his evil ways and has decided to build a peace keeping robot with Dr. Light however eight energy crystals are needed to power up the robot so it is up to Mega Man to head to the mining colonies of eight robot masters to acquire the crystals.

As Mega Man you run along the various levels while shooting down a variety of enemies while jumping over bottomless pits and using disappearing/reappearing blocks over death spikes which at the end of the level awaits a battle with one of the robot masters.



As robot masters goes this game has some of the most member ones which include Snake Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, Top Man, Hard Man, Magnet Man, Gemini Man, and Needle Man each with their own unique weapon which you get as a reward for beating them.

However one drawback to this game that I have found is some of the weapons that you get are just well plain out disappointing. One prime example is the Spark Shock which when is used on an enemy cause paralysis which sounds good however you are unable to switch to another weapon until the paralysis wares off making it useless unless you just avoid the enemy.

Another equally disappointed weapon is the Top Spin which I don’t know if it’s broken or if that’s just the way the programs wanted it but it seems that when you use it you not only take damage since you have to actually physically hit the enemy to cause damage to them, but how much energy it uses is very unpredictable.

That saying it could use the whole bar up on the one enemy using it the one time.



Music wise the chiptunes don’t slack in this game compared to the previous installments in the series. A lot of tunes in this game seem to fit in with the robot master’s levels.

From the energetic Spark Man them to the space sounding theme of Gemini Man’s stage this games has some of the best music during the NES era. As far as graphics go the colors are bright and vivid when need be say like Top Man’s level or Needle Man’s level but they can also be dark like Gemini Man’s or Snake Man’s and really add to the overall pleasure of the level design in Mega Man III.


While some may say that Mega Man’s best adventure was the second one and others argue that this game is the best all can agree that this game is important for adding to the Mega Man mythos. Even if you are one of the people who think that nothing can top Mega Man II you will be surprise at how good Mega Man III is even with the “weak” weapon design on some of the weapons.



Mega Man III is a great example of how the positives out weight the negatives. This game showcases one of the best games during the NES era and the fact that it’s now portable should make it a reason for anyone to pick this up on the eShop.

If you have never played a Mega Man game before well now would be the best time to begin.

Overall Rating: 9/10