Three Great Things About Mega Man III
At long last, there's a new mainline Mega Man game in the works. Mega Man: Dual Override (basically Mega Man 12) is on its way in 2027, and as a huge fan of the Blue Bomber's classic adventures, I couldn't be more excited. And what do I do when I'm excited? I look back on how we got here!
For the next, well, however long it's going to take for Dual Override to come into existence, I'm going to be running through the entire classic series of Mega Man games and coming up with 3 things I like about them. Obviously, there will be some games that I like more than 3 things about. But in the interest of brevity, I'm sticking with the first three that come to mind.
So, without further ado, here are three great things about Mega Man III.
Enhanced backgrounds
Continuing the tradition of using robot masters from 2 different NES games together, Mega Man III took aspects from Mega Man 3 and 4 and mashed them together. In a completely unnecessary but ultimately awesome move, Capcom really tried to spruce up the already pretty darn cool looking stages from Mega Man 3 by adding animation to the backgrounds. Snake Man’s stage now has trees that move in the wind. Gemini Man’s stage has wiggly… I don’t know, netting? That stage is still super weird. Anyway, this may have been a little less bold in a lot of ways when compared to Dr. Wily’s Revenge and Mega Man II, but these little touches really helped it feel like a brand new game.
NES songs coming out of a Game Boy are cool
While the first two Game Boy Mega Man games featured almost entirely original soundtracks, Mega Man III features straight up Game Boy renditions of the NES originals, and while that may be a little less flavorful than what we got before, it’s still ultra cool to hear. The Game Boy creates such wonderful sounds, and some of these original compositions are some of the best in the series. So sure, it would have been nice to get some more original tunes, but these remakes sound pretty darn good in their own right.
Mega Man’s face on the cover
What’s going on here? The whole cover for this game is kind of crazy. He’s zooming along on rush at blinding speed with Drill Man standing there probably wondering if he’s going to get to fight Mega Man or if he’s just going to move on with his life. But the real fun is the deranged look Mega Man is giving that weird dragon bot. Just look at him. What’s going through his head? And why is it more awesome than anything we could likely comprehend?
And that about wraps things up for Mega Man III. Next time we move onto Mega Man 5, a somewhat underrated NES entry with a killer soundtrack. See you soon!
