Positives:
- Ignoring all the fluff, it is still a good Mega Man X game at its core.
- The armour is really good, and the chips are a nice idea as well.
- Some really good music pieces.
Negatives:
- Everything surrounding Zero and completion.
- Difficulty has been ramped up by a lot--and not in a good way.
- Bosses suffer very highly from being stunlocked.
-----------------------------------
''Last time I reviewed Mega Man X2, which is a game I very much enjoy but didn't really have much to say about due to how similar it is to the first game, with a few improvements- and changes here and there. At first glance, you would think the same would apply to Mega Man X3. The graphics- and gameplay both look the exact same, but perhaps surprisingly, I have a lot to say about this game... both for the better, and for the worse.
So first of all is the overall game structure, which obviously hasn't changed much: fight 8 Mavericks, fight not-Sigma, game is over. This set of Mavericks is... slightly unremarkable however. I don't really dislike any of them, but there's also not really any of them that I really like. It probably also doesn't help that every single one of the Mavericks in this game suffer from the ''Spark Mandrill Syndrome'', either being staggered for a bit or put into an easily looping pattern. It makes them utterly pathetic, which is a contrast to when you fight them without their weakness because for whatever reason, Mega Man X3 decided to increase the damage X takes by a wide margin. It often only takes two touches from a boss to lose a life, and that is very easy to do. It makes these bosses either a nightmare- or a breeze, without much in-between. Until you get the armour upgrades and heart tanks I guess, but they too are surprisingly annoying to get with almost all of them being locked behind one upgrade or another. Unlike previous games where you could go in any stage and often leave with at least one of the collectables, the chart you need to follow here is very specific--so much so that it basically counters what I like so much about this system in making X stronger even if a boss is not defeated yet.
It also doesn't help that one of the collectables you absolutely need are the four separate ride armours, but to activate them in stages, you first have to find a single one in Blast Hornet's level... after having defeated Tunnel Rhino, whose stage has collectables hidden behind the buster upgrade and Volt Catfish's level. Revisiting levels is going to be a far more frequent occurrence than other X games. I can also assure you that I have not once met a person who actually cares for the separate ride armours, because the default one is plenty strong enough and the others barely add anything--not to mention that their sole purpose is just to unlock new collectables. The armour upgrades on the other hand, now those are pretty cool. The legs now allow for an upwards dash, the helmet shows a map with secrets when entering a level as well as what levels still have collectables remaining on the select screen, and the body armour reduces damage as usual. The buster really sucks though, with two consecutive charged-up shots becoming a wildly inaccurate wide shot. There are also four chips to further enhance each body part with nice effects like healing when standing still that also refills sub-tanks, but this has been made a bit complicated as you can only have one chip... or all if you had not collected a single one yet before reaching the final stages. It's a nice reward for waiting, but also a massive punch to the face if you didn't know beforehand, which you are unlikely to know anyway.
But if that wasn't complicated enough, just wait until I tell you about everyone's favourite robot: Zero! This game marks his playable debut, and it's one of the worst debuts a playable character has made in any game... ever. Sure, he's fun to play and his Z-saber can do nice damage after charging it up, but the game doesn't actually want you to play as Zero. The moment you even think about it is the moment you lose, because if you lose a life as Zero, he's gone. Forever. And then, there will never ever be a chance to play as Zero again. Convoluted? There's more! You also cannot enter a boss room while playing as Zero as he'll automatically switch out back to X, and if it ends up being a mini-boss room, you cannot switch back to Zero after the mini-boss room for the remainder of the level. So what purpose does Zero really have them? Simple: find returning character Vile in a random Maverick level, kill him but only with his weakness, then go to the second Doppler stage and enter the first boss room where he dies and gives you his weapon. His purpose is literally just to die. And yeah, it's totally logical to be assuming all of this right? Especially entering a boss room where he normally switches out? Thought so as well.
So completion is unnecessarily complicated, that much we've already figured out by now. But let's say that you are not a completionist, what's in it for you? Aside from us never becoming friends, you still have a competent Mega Man X game. I would say it takes a lot to mess up that formula, but Mega Man X6 is the worst game I've ever played so I can't exactly say that, but it at least applies for this game. Like I mentioned before, the armour upgrades are awesome and the controls are for the better because of it. I do like the level design overall, barring some minor issues like the changing level design after beating a Maverick returning from Mega Man X, but very specific and nonsensical. Also, ice physics suck, but what else is new. And for what it's worth, I do like the weapons better in this game than in Mega Man X2--if only because the buster upgrade here is so bad. And the music, oh I love the music so much. Yeah, it has absolute stinkers like Neon Tiger, but it also has absolute bangers like Volt Catfish, the intro stage and Doppler's stage. All three of those are very high up when it comes to my favourite 16-bit music pieces, even if they loop a bit too fast. Why does every compliment I give to X3 end with a ''but''...''
- Ignoring all the fluff, it is still a good Mega Man X game at its core.
- The armour is really good, and the chips are a nice idea as well.
- Some really good music pieces.
Negatives:
- Everything surrounding Zero and completion.
- Difficulty has been ramped up by a lot--and not in a good way.
- Bosses suffer very highly from being stunlocked.
-----------------------------------
''Last time I reviewed Mega Man X2, which is a game I very much enjoy but didn't really have much to say about due to how similar it is to the first game, with a few improvements- and changes here and there. At first glance, you would think the same would apply to Mega Man X3. The graphics- and gameplay both look the exact same, but perhaps surprisingly, I have a lot to say about this game... both for the better, and for the worse.
So first of all is the overall game structure, which obviously hasn't changed much: fight 8 Mavericks, fight not-Sigma, game is over. This set of Mavericks is... slightly unremarkable however. I don't really dislike any of them, but there's also not really any of them that I really like. It probably also doesn't help that every single one of the Mavericks in this game suffer from the ''Spark Mandrill Syndrome'', either being staggered for a bit or put into an easily looping pattern. It makes them utterly pathetic, which is a contrast to when you fight them without their weakness because for whatever reason, Mega Man X3 decided to increase the damage X takes by a wide margin. It often only takes two touches from a boss to lose a life, and that is very easy to do. It makes these bosses either a nightmare- or a breeze, without much in-between. Until you get the armour upgrades and heart tanks I guess, but they too are surprisingly annoying to get with almost all of them being locked behind one upgrade or another. Unlike previous games where you could go in any stage and often leave with at least one of the collectables, the chart you need to follow here is very specific--so much so that it basically counters what I like so much about this system in making X stronger even if a boss is not defeated yet.
It also doesn't help that one of the collectables you absolutely need are the four separate ride armours, but to activate them in stages, you first have to find a single one in Blast Hornet's level... after having defeated Tunnel Rhino, whose stage has collectables hidden behind the buster upgrade and Volt Catfish's level. Revisiting levels is going to be a far more frequent occurrence than other X games. I can also assure you that I have not once met a person who actually cares for the separate ride armours, because the default one is plenty strong enough and the others barely add anything--not to mention that their sole purpose is just to unlock new collectables. The armour upgrades on the other hand, now those are pretty cool. The legs now allow for an upwards dash, the helmet shows a map with secrets when entering a level as well as what levels still have collectables remaining on the select screen, and the body armour reduces damage as usual. The buster really sucks though, with two consecutive charged-up shots becoming a wildly inaccurate wide shot. There are also four chips to further enhance each body part with nice effects like healing when standing still that also refills sub-tanks, but this has been made a bit complicated as you can only have one chip... or all if you had not collected a single one yet before reaching the final stages. It's a nice reward for waiting, but also a massive punch to the face if you didn't know beforehand, which you are unlikely to know anyway.
But if that wasn't complicated enough, just wait until I tell you about everyone's favourite robot: Zero! This game marks his playable debut, and it's one of the worst debuts a playable character has made in any game... ever. Sure, he's fun to play and his Z-saber can do nice damage after charging it up, but the game doesn't actually want you to play as Zero. The moment you even think about it is the moment you lose, because if you lose a life as Zero, he's gone. Forever. And then, there will never ever be a chance to play as Zero again. Convoluted? There's more! You also cannot enter a boss room while playing as Zero as he'll automatically switch out back to X, and if it ends up being a mini-boss room, you cannot switch back to Zero after the mini-boss room for the remainder of the level. So what purpose does Zero really have them? Simple: find returning character Vile in a random Maverick level, kill him but only with his weakness, then go to the second Doppler stage and enter the first boss room where he dies and gives you his weapon. His purpose is literally just to die. And yeah, it's totally logical to be assuming all of this right? Especially entering a boss room where he normally switches out? Thought so as well.
So completion is unnecessarily complicated, that much we've already figured out by now. But let's say that you are not a completionist, what's in it for you? Aside from us never becoming friends, you still have a competent Mega Man X game. I would say it takes a lot to mess up that formula, but Mega Man X6 is the worst game I've ever played so I can't exactly say that, but it at least applies for this game. Like I mentioned before, the armour upgrades are awesome and the controls are for the better because of it. I do like the level design overall, barring some minor issues like the changing level design after beating a Maverick returning from Mega Man X, but very specific and nonsensical. Also, ice physics suck, but what else is new. And for what it's worth, I do like the weapons better in this game than in Mega Man X2--if only because the buster upgrade here is so bad. And the music, oh I love the music so much. Yeah, it has absolute stinkers like Neon Tiger, but it also has absolute bangers like Volt Catfish, the intro stage and Doppler's stage. All three of those are very high up when it comes to my favourite 16-bit music pieces, even if they loop a bit too fast. Why does every compliment I give to X3 end with a ''but''...''