The last of the SNES Rock Man X games, Rock Man X3 picks up the torch where X2 left off. While it is very clearly highly derivative of the previous two games, and while it definitely still has some shaky relationships with just how it handles its hidden stuff, it manages to combine that with some really solid design otherwise and make something that manages to stand out despite its tough competition. It took me about three hours to get all the collectibles and beat the Japanese version of the game.
X3's story is very much like X2's in that it is more or less just changing the flavor of Sigma you're fighting rather than providing any larger or more thought provoking experience. Dr. Doppler manages to invent a "vaccine" to help stop reploids from turning into Mavericks, but suddenly the good doctor goes mad and the Mavericks he supposedly cured start rioting and breaking stuff up. Turns out, surprise surprise, that Sigma is behind it all in the end, but either way it's up to X and Zero to go and put a stop to all of this. We get a few new cool faces like Doppler and his two cronies Bit and Byte, as well as the return of Vile from the first X game, but it's really all just "does what it needs to" set dressing that the early to mid-life Mega Man games are so well known for. In a cool change, this game actually makes Zero playable instead of just an NPC! But it comes with the huge catch that, while he may be super strong and powerful with his Z-Saber, he only has one life. If he dies, you never get to use him again. You also have a lot of other weirdness in terms of hidden collectibles and secrets. Bit and Byte aren't hidden like the Counter Hunters were in X2, but they'll just randomly appear in a designated room in a stage whose Maverick you haven't beaten yet, but unless you beat them with their weakness, they aren't actually dead and they'll come back later. Vile has the same thing with him, but his stage is actually hidden and you'll need to use a teleporter hidden in another stage to reach it, but only AFTER defeating Bit and BEFORE beating Byte. You also have special chips you can get to upgrade yourself (instead of the super one-shot kill moves X1 and 2 have), but you can only pick one. But if you pick none of them, there's a super secret super chip that has the power of all four that's found in one of Sigma's stages but it'll ONLY appear to use if you have full health when you enter the space it's hidden in. It's all stuff that's very manageable if you have a guide to help you like I did, but it just goes full bore on hidden weirdness in a way that I'm not a super huge fan of if you're going for a more gestalt experience. That said, the stage and boss design has gone way up in quality from X2, and I honestly like it even more than X1 in most ways. Bosses are actually super fun to fight with the mega buster in a way I never really found to quite be the case with the first two games, and the stages have fun but not intrusive gimmicks, and are mostly concerned with just being well designed stages. They even fix the two-step powered up buster from X2 to be far more useful, and your normal armor parts are also much better. Your air dash that the leg upgrades give you is very good, just like they were in X2, but now you can even air dash directly up! That ability is honestly pretty finicky and one of the least good parts of controlling this game, but it's thankfully rarely used, and the game otherwise controls and plays just as excellently as you'd expect a Rock Man X game to play. The presentation is also far more up to snuff in this game than in its predecessor. Bit and Byte have really cool designs as do the Mavericks, but as an extra bonus this game also has a banging soundtrack that X2 was sorely lacking. It definitely doesn't have quite the level of iconic status that X1's soundtrack has, but it's actually bringing something to the table unlike X2's did. Verdict: Highly Recommended. I really loved this game. I think your enjoyment of it will definitely vary depending on how much you do or don't gel with all the weird hidden and secret stuff, but even then, what's there beyond that is still excellent. This is definitely going to be a game I replay just like I do with X1, because it is just that fun to go through and do those fights and stages again.
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AuthorI'm an avid gamer who likes to detail their thoughts about what they play in the hopes it might aid someone else's search for a game to play. Archives
April 2024
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