From the Memory Bank: My History with Video Games

Mega Man 3 - The Longest Wait Ever
How Capcom managed to exceed a desperately-eager kid's sky-high expectations.

You could say that I was deeply in love with Mega Man 2. It was my new favorite game. I was playing through it almost every day and doing so no matter where I was, be it at home or at a friend's house. I was constantly talking about it with my friends and classmates. I was dedicating all of my artistic projects to it. It was dominating my thoughts to the point where all I could think about were its cool characters, its rockin' stage themes, its amazing level design, and its every other captivating aspect. No other game had ever captured me in the same fashion. No other game had ever taken over my mind in the quite the same way.

Though, my thoughts weren't just limited to what was in Mega Man 2, no. I also spent a whole lot of time thinking about the game in the abstract. I'd often wonder about what Mega Man 2 meant for the future. More specifically, I'd obsessively think about what a Mega Man 2 sequel might look like. And I'd do this because I had a desperate desire for more--for more of what Mega Man 2 was offering; I couldn't help but excitedly dream about a potential sequel and how it could top Mega Man 2.

"If Mega Man 2 can be that life-altering," I thought, "then just imagine how amazingly transformative its sequel could be!"

Really, I was fanatical about it. I'd spend entire afternoons and boring school hours drawing pictures of prospective Robot Masters, thinking up potential storyline scenarios, and wondering about how Capcom might expand upon Mega Man 2's formulas. I'd draw inspiration for these projects by playing through both Mega Man 2 and the original Mega Man, which I'd since come to love, and closely examining their every enemy, texture and activity and making extrapolations--guessing as to where existing trends might take us. And I'd further stoke the flames of my desperate desire by dreaming about a day when Capcom would come out and confirm the development of this hypothetical sequel.

And I was certain that such a sequel was in development. "Somewhere out there," I thought, "there has to be proof of it." 

Up to this point, I'd never been a regular reader of game magazines, but now I saw it necessary to become one. Game magazines were, after all, my only hope. So once a month, I'd head over to a local convenience store and purchase one (I'd randomly select between GamePro, Game Players and Electronic Gaming Monthly); then, quickly, I'd take it home and begin poring over each page and scrupulously combing through every paragraph with the hope that I'd find any news pertaining to a "Mega Man 3" or any information that so much as even alluded to the existence of such a game. "Somewhere in here," I'd always think, "there has to be a blurb that contains information about a secret Japanese event in which it was showcased, a credible rumor that speaks of its development, or, at the least, a blurry screenshot."

I would have been happy with anything--any piece of tangible evidence, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Sadly, nothing of the sort would ever appear. Month after month, for what seemed like years, I'd buy gaming magazines and never find anything pertaining to a "Mega Man 3" inside of them.

It was painful.

So skip ahead to the middle of 1990. That's when I became a subscriber to Nintendo Power. While my motivation for subscribing was chiefly driven by my increasing fondness for the NES on the whole, I was indeed partly influenced by the idea that subscribing to Nintendo Power would give me my best chance to gain access to information pertaining to a "Mega Man 3," which by this point I'd built up in my head as something completely mystical. Nintendo Power had to privy to such information, I thought. I mean, it was, after all, an official Nintendo magazine, so surely its owners had contacts within Capcom.

"It's probably the case that information regarding an in-development 'Mega Man 3' is already available," I believed, "and it'll be waiting for me in my first issue!"

However, my first issue, Volume 13, was a total bust. Hell--it wasn't even a standard issue; rather, it was the magazine's first-ever solely-focused issue; it was dedicated wholly to Super Mario Bros. 3. And while indeed I was (a) one of the many millions who had since been swept up by the excitement of Mario Mania and (b) someone would soon be counted among the slobbering masses who were feverishly anticipating Mario's biggest adventure yet, this was not what I was looking for (not at this time, at least). No--all I desired was to see the name "Mega Man 3" in print. I was hyped beyond belief for such an event. Truly the hypothetical Mega Man 2 sequel trumped everything. It was my most anticipated game ever. I so badly wanted for it to exist.

I eagerly approached the mailbox every day that July hoping that the next issue of Nintendo Power had arrived (even though I knew that the magazine was bi-monthly and I was probably weeks early), but time and time again I was disappointed. It was one empty trip after another.

The wait was becoming excruciating. Each week felt like months (that's a kid's perception of time for you). Soon I started to lose hope. "Could it be that a 'Mega Man 3' just doesn't exist?" I asked myself despondently. "Is it possible that Capcom never had any plans to make another Mega Man after Mega Man 2?!"

Though, not long after, something magical happened.

In mid-August of that year, Nintendo Power Volume 14 (the one that has Disney's Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers of the its cover) showed up in my mailbox. I took it into my den and, as I always did, began flipping through it, looking for games in which I had a direct interest. And I found one all right: When I got to page 24, my eyes caught a glimpse of it--of something incredible. The sight of it was enough to bring me to a complete stop. In that moment, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Suddenly, there it was: Mega Man 3! It was real! It actually existed! And it was right there in front me, on full display! "Finally!" I shouted.

The long wait was over. What I dreamed about had come true: My desperately-desired Mega Man 2 sequel was on its way! I was so ecstatic that I could hardly contain myself.

Mega Man 3 was being covered in the magazine's recap of the 1990 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Though, there really wasn't much to said coverage; it was rather minimal; the game was relegated to a but a small portion of page 24's bottom-left corner. The information was limited to a tiny, blurry screenshot and a snippet that briefly summarized the game's plot. The previewing text stated that Dr. Wily had come to his senses and reunited with his old friend Dr. Light (or "Dr. Wright," as it incorrectly referred to him), and the two of them were now working together on a top-secret project; additionally, it provided reassurance that its development team was the same one that produced the previous two series entries. The screenshot depicted, from what I could tell, Mega Man jumping to avoid two robotic tadpoles in a bubbly, aquatic-looking stage.

The information was only bite-sized, sure, but I was hardly disappointed by it. No--much to the contrary, a little had gone a long way, and my thirst had been sufficiently quenched. So what if the first-ever coverage of Mega Man 3 amounted to nothing more than 53 words and a barely decipherable screenshot? The amount of content wasn't important to me, no. The only thing that mattered to me was that the game had been confirmed to exist. No longer was it merely a product of my imagination. No longer was it hypothetical. No, sir--Mega Man 3 was real, it was coming to the NES, and there would come a time when I'd be able to blissfully enjoy playing it. And having access to the knowledge, alone, meant the world to me.

And now that Mega Man 3 had been confirmed to exist, it was destined to take the top spot on my Christmas list for that year and insofar stand far above every other item. Nothing else could possibly come close to it. Nothing else really mattered.

But it wasn't long before the feeling of euphoria started to subside and the thirst began to re-intensify. That's when it became abundantly clear to me that no--I wasn't fully satisfied. I wasn't content with a storyline summary and a single screenshot. Really, I needed to see more--any type of follow-up to the CES coverage. There were so many things I still needed to know. "What's going to be different about this game?" I wondered. "What will they name the Robot Masters? What new weapons will it feature? Who will be the the villain in Dr. Wily's place? And what's the full story?"

I couldn't wait to find out the answers.

Unfortunately, though, it would be a long, long time before Nintendo Power started providing them. So once again we were back to the old routine of checking the mailbox daily and hoping that the latest issue would contain the desired information. Only in this instance, time seemed to be moving much slower than before. It felt like a literal eternity. And in the meantime, all I could do was continue to dream.

The torturous wait continued for three whole months. In that time, I'd been pushed past the point of exasperation. I even started to think that something might have gone wrong--that maybe the game had been delayed indefinitely or that it had been shelved. "Where the hell is this game?!" I continued to wonder, my pain ever-increasing.

But then one day, it finally happened: Nintendo Power Volume 18 arrived with news I'd been waiting to see for seemingly years. It was all contained within the magazine's Pak Watch section, on a page that was dedicated entirely to Mega Man 3! And it was rich with important details: It displayed the game's official art (in which he now actually resembled the Mega Man we see in the games) and numerous intriguing-looking screenshots, and it included several paragraphs worth of information pertaining to the game's story and mode of gameplay. It was beautiful. All of it.

No longer able to contain myself, I raucously celebrated the moment. Oh man did I let loose. In an embarrassing display, I entered into an N64 Kid-level state of euphoria and began to repeatedly pump my fist in the air and shout "YES!" during each motion--to such an absurd degree that Vince McMahon's WWE should recognize it as a pioneering event and start retroactively paying me royalties. This was a total overreaction, sure, but hey--I'd been suffering for an insanely long amount of time; I needed the release. I'd earned the right to do it.

I wasn't even mad that the silly schmuck who wrote the preview completely spoiled major elements of game's plot, like Dr. Wily's double-crossing of Dr. Light and the Mega Man 2 Robot Masters making a return in some form. Hell--I was excited to know that Air Man, Bubble Man and the rest of Mega Man 2 Robot Masters were returning. To me, Mega Man 2's was an iconic cast, and news of their inclusion worked to send my hype meter into overdrive. I couldn't wait to see them again.

I returned to that Pak Watch feature every day, and each time I spent several minutes poring over every word and examining every screenshot, trying to extract from them as much information as I could. The more I'd read it and look at it, the more excited I'd become. I needed to have this game soon, though I knew that I couldn't. All I could was wait. Christmas was, after all, four whole months away. I wasn't sure that I could survive that long.

That 120-day wait was unbearable, I tell you.

But eventually, after a seeming eternity, Christmas of 1990 arrived. The magic day I'd dreamed about for so long was finally here. That morning, following a largely sleepless night, I ran downstairs and did everything I could to quickly gather the family into the living room so we could hurry up and commence with the present-opening. Using some aggressive tactics, I managed to get everyone together in record time.

And after receiving my parents approval, I started to excitedly tear the wrapping off of all of the NES-box-sized gifts with the hope of seeing one specific title logo. Moments later, the unbelievable occurred: Mega Man 3, which for so long had existed only in my mind, was right there in front of me, in my hands. I didn't say anything (outside of "Thank you") or show any emotion because I couldn't; I was frozen in a state of awe. "This is real," I thought to myself. "I'm actually holding this game in my hands right now."

Once I snapped out of it, a feeling of elation began to set in, and quickly my excitement-level hit a new high; it was practically off the charts. "I have to start playing this game now," I thought to myself with great enthusiasm.

It was early in the morning--a few hours before our friends and relatives were set to arrive--so there was plenty of time available, I thought, for me to take the game upstairs and engage in some robot-blasting action! So that's what I did. And I didn't even have to beg anyone to let me do it! My parents recognized that I was so very eager to try out my new game and gave me permission to do so. And so I sprinted directly up to my room!

Now, my normal practice was to thoroughly read through a game's manual so that I could go in fully prepared. However, at this particular moment in time, there was no chance of my initiating such a process. I couldn't. I was too stoked about the idea of finally getting to play Mega Man 3, for which I'd waited so damn long; I didn't want to delay it much longer. So what I did, instead, was hyperactively flip through the manual and take a quick glance at the text on the box's backside and therein glean whatever little bits of information I could. I was simply too animated to do anything more.

And the moment I was done, I hastily popped Mega Man 3 into the NES, grabbed my controller, and prepared to start blastin' some bots!

I didn't care that the game lacked for a powerful, table-setting intro scene like the one that played at the beginning of Mega Man 2. I had no desire to remain parked at the title screen and listen to the game's main theme. I just wanted to get the ball rolling. I wanted to jump right in and start shooting up some new foes, earning some new powers, and finding out what surprises the game had in store for me!

So there I was playing Mega Man 3 for the first time ever. And, man, as I ran, jumped and slid my way through the game's environments, I was in my glory. From the moment I selected my first Robot Master stage, it was pure ecstasy. There was nothing else in the world I would rather have been doing. There were no other games I would have rather been playing. Mega Man 3 was the only thing that mattered to me. And here I was, now deeply immersed in it.

It was an incredible first experience. For as long as I live, I'll never forget those first few hours I spent with Mega Man 3 on Christmas morning of 1990.

I spent the morning hours and few between-meal breaks attempting to conquer the first eight Robot Masters. I decided to begin with Snake Man's stage (which forevermore would be initial choice) because he looked the coolest and because he occupied the Air Man slot, which seemed to be a subtle hint that he was the easiest to defeat with just the Mega Buster.

But, well, that didn't turn out to be the case. Not at all. Rather, I had a little bit of trouble taking him down. And when I say that, I mean to imply that Snake Man kept absolutely destroying me. It was ridiculous: My shots weren't even strong enough to drain one tiny sliver of his health, yet he could inflict a crippling amount of damage with just simple contact--drain about a quarter of my health each time he crashed into me. And because his sprite was so large and his chamber's surface had a hill shape, it seemed impossible to avoid contact with him as he continuously maneuvered about back and forth, from one side of the screen to the other. Pattern-recognition meant nothing here.

It took me multiple attempts to beat him, and when I finally did, it wasn't because I'd performed skillfully. No--it was quite the opposite: My strategy was to mash like crazy and hope for a favorable pattern--one in which he'd consistently stop at the room's center, the hill's peak, and toss out two Search Snakes, with which I could then deliberately make contact and therein take less damage than I would have had I instead ran into Snake Man, himself. It just happened to work that one time. And even then, I couldn't do it without using energy tanks, which I'd picked up in other stages--those I'd sampled in between failed Snake Man attempts.

This was certainly a change from Mega Man 2, in which bosses would take three or four slivers worth of damage each time they were shot. Mega Man 3's Robot Masters, it seemed, were in a different class. "Why are these guys so ridiculously tough?" I questioned, slightly concerned.

That was the continuing trend: The stages were manageable, but the Robot Masters were super-tough. These guys could absorb a hundred Mega Man Buster shots and still come out with half their health remaining. "This is nuts," I thought.

Up until this point, I believed it to be the case that the difficulty-level of Mega Man 2's "Normal" mode was the series' true standard--that the original Mega Man's rock-hard difficulty was an anomaly and something "corrected" by its sequel--but now I had to question that reasoning. "Could it be that everything I 'knew' was wrong?" I was forced to think.

It had to be that I was wrong. The disastrous results of my battles with the Robot Masters, and particularly with Snake Man, said as much. They told me that I had it backwards--that is was, in fact, Mega Man 2's standard difficulty that was the anomaly. And oh boy did they slap me in the face with that cold hard reality.

So one thing was clear: If I had an "A game," I was going to have to bring it. Otherwise I was going to get embarrassed.

But, honestly, I wasn't at all bothered by the fact that its difficulty-level was way higher than I was expecting, no. Nothing had changed: I was still as ecstatic as I was when I inserted the game's cartridge and powered on the NES. I was in my room playing Mega Man 3, my most anticipated game ever, at the most joyous time of the year. Everything about the world was perfect.

That day, I completed the first third of the game (I beat the first eight Robot Masters, basically) and did so with much trouble. It wound up taking me a couple of hours to complete the process of discovering the Robot Masters' weaknesses and effectively putting my new weapons to use. It was quite a trial, yeah, but I enjoyed ever second of it. Really, I enjoyed every aspect of Mega Man 3 experience; I had a fantastic time observing the game's cool visuals, learning about the stages' layouts, speeding my way across surfaces using Mega Man's new sliding maneuver, being introduced to a new assortment of minor enemies and particularly to the new Hard Hat forms (if you're any kind of Mega Man fan, you're always looking forward to finding out what new forms the Hard Hats/Metalls are going to take in an upcoming entry), becoming intimately familiar with my new friend Rush and all of his transportation-based abilities, and wondering about the intentions of Proto Man, a mysterious new figure.

The game's music wasn't quite as amazing as Mega Man 2's, no. Its title-screen theme wasn't as powerful. Its Robot Master-select screen wasn't as memorable. And its stage themes weren't quite as rockin'. Though, still, the soundtrack was pretty damn good. It was just that its tunes had a somewhat different tone to them; they were more subdued and more atmospheric (the game's music has this distinct flavor, I learned, because it wasn't created by Takashi Tateishi, who composed Mega Man 2's soundtrack; rather, it was brought to us by two different composers, each of whom had his/her own unique approach to making game music). I liked it. I liked it a lot. In particular, I was fond of Snake Man and Magnet Man's respective themes; theirs, I thought, were two of the series' best.

Everything about Mega Man 3 was great, I thought. Nothing about it was disappointing.

I didn't want to stop playing that day--really I didn't--but I had to. This was, after all, Christmas Day, when the most important thing was spending time with your family. There was gift-giving to be done. There were fun conversations to be had. There were card games and other once-a-year activities to be initiated. So Mega Man 3, no matter how much it was calling to me, would have to wait.

It would have to wait, that is, until December 26th, the second-best day of any kid's Christmas break.

Still, for the rest of the night, I couldn't stop thinking about Mega Man 3. I couldn't wait to get back into it. I couldn't wait because I knew what was coming next: the Mega Man 2 Robot Masters, all of whom I loved! The thought of being reintroduced to them was raising my excitement-level to new heights (to whatever comes beyond "off the charts")!

I just wanted to see them again. I wanted to observe how they fit into Mega Man 3's world, which was aesthetically different from Mega Man 2's in that it was colder and darker.

Come the next day, I hurriedly got all of my morning activities done and wasted no time in firing up the NES. It was time to revisit some old friends!

And, well, things didn't go quite like I was anticipating. I was a bit disappointed to learn that they were being split into groups of two, with each pair being shoved into four of the already-conquered Robot Master stages; I was hoping that each would occupy his own uniquely designed stage--one with an exclusive music track and newly introduced enemies. "Too bad," I thought.

Though, I did find consolation in the fact that the stages weren't merely recycled but instead completely redesigned (even if, really, there were some structural similarities). I loved the idea that there was more to these Robot Master stages than what I'd seen--that each was actually a multidimensional metropolis that spread out in all directions and housed unseen-but-complex systems. I thought it was great, too, how some of the stages' events had been foreshadowed in their previous incarnations--like how the Giant Metalls appearing in the redesigned Needle Man stage wasn't an unforeseen event because I'd seen their helmets (or parts of their helmets) encased within metal structures in the stage's original incarnation.

I started with Spark Man's stage because something in my brain told me to (and it's been telling me to ever since).

Everything was building up to my first fight with a Mega Man 2 Robot Master. It turned out to be Metal Man, who appeared roughly halfway into the stage. Now, I already knew, because Nintendo Power spoiled as much, that I wouldn't be fighting the Mega Man 2 Robot Masters as they appeared in the original game--that after a Robot Master had been introduced, he'd instead come to possess a generically designed, all-purpose host robot called "Doc Robot," which would merely mimic the movements of the Robot Master in question (my guess was that Capcom took this route because they ran up against cart-space limitations).

Still, though, I continued to perceive the return of the Mega Man 2 bosses as something astonishing--as something wild--even if I wasn't completely happy with the form they were taking. I was tickled by the sight of the static Metal Man sprite being lowered down into its host. The battle in following wasn't a perfect recreation of the original, no--palette limitations demanded that Metal Man's blades were colored orange instead of the usual gray--but it was still one of the most memorable encounters I'd ever had with a Robot Master. 

Forevermore I'll vividly recall both it and everything that led up to it.

It was the same story with the rest of the Mega Man 2 Robot Masters and their battles: They weren't perfect recreations. The colors were a bit off (I didn't remember Crash Man being pink); the Robot Masters' movement- and attack-patterns and general scripting weren't an exact match (it was almost impossible to dodge both Wood Man's Leaf Shield and the falling leaves); and the Doc Robot's increased height and width altered the dimension of the battles, making it incredibly difficult to jump over the Robot Masters (as a result, battles like those against Flash Man saw a significant increase in difficulty).

But I was too overjoyed to care about any of that. I was having a great time of it. I was having so much fun spotting the differences and figuring out the Robot Masters' new weaknesses. Also, I liked that the game would sometimes reward me for remembering which weapons which they were originally weak against and using that knowledge to discover their new weaknesses. It was gratifying to correctly deduce that, say, Wood Man was weak to the Needle Cannon because it was "sharp like the Metal Blade." Such was a cool occurrence during this second cycle, where the weaknesses were otherwise all over the place (each of these Mega Man 2 Robot Masters had two weaknesses, in fact, and there was rarely a sound logic to either).

True to the game's nature, these Robot Masters, too, were tough--much more so than their Mega Man 2 incarnations. Hell--enduring these battles was a challenge even when I was using weapons against which the Robot Masters were weak. And attempting to take them down with just the Mega Buster was an exercise in futility because like the eight starting Robot Masters, they, too, were bullet sponges and were coded to have an excessive amount of invincibility frames. Magnifying their threat were the reconfigured stages, which were brutally difficult--way harder than their original incarnations--and would often do a number on me to where I was arriving at the Robot Masters' chambers with half my health or less. I endured these stages by using a lot of energy tanks, which were available in great abundance, and by abusing the Rush Jet's free-roaming ability.

Then there was that weird Break Man fight. I didn't know what to make of it. I wasn't sure what it was meant to signify. All it did was leave me with a few unanswered questions: "Who is he supposed to be, and why am I fighting him?" I'd come to wonder. "Is this just simply another one of Wily's distractionary tactics, or does his appearance have greater significance? Could it be that this is who Proto Man was training me to fight? Or is it that this is actually Proto Man, himself, now engaging in nefarious deeds while wearing a strange cyclops-like visor that he hopes will be enough to conceal his true identity, as if it doesn't work to instead paint him as an even-more-obvious Clark Kent?"

There was never any follow-up to this fight, so the meaning of it was lost on me.

Though, I didn't devote much mental energy to it during this first play-through because I was currently too preoccupied with thoughts of returning to Skull Castle. I was heading there because Dr. Wily had "run off with Gamma (the peace-keeping robot that he and Light were constructing)," as I was told; this storyline twist had already been spoiled for me, yeah, though I found it to be nonetheless intriguing (but only this first time). It had me hyped for the final act. It made me wonder about what was awaiting me in the newest version of Skull Castle--about what Wily had been hiding there.

"What's going to greet me in that place besides the Rock Monster (whose return had been spoiled for me by Nintendo Power Volume 20's feature coverage of the game. If it was my fault for reading it; I just couldn't help myself)?" I was inspired to wonder. "What amazing visual displays will I witness? What kinds of stages will I traverse? And will there be any other returning foes, like, say, Elec Man or Guts Man?"

I knew of at least one other returning foe: The Mega Man clone, who I'd read about in that same issue of Nintendo Power. It also gave away that you could one-shot him with the Top Spin. "And if they're going so far as to throw this guy in there," I thought, "then there's a good chance that there will be others--that there are going to be even more in the way of reunions!"

Nintendo Power Volume 20 also supplied me some helpful tips. It illustrated for me, for instance, how you could effectively deal with an early obstacle in the reconfigured Spark Man stage--how you could easily take out the ladder-climbing Jamacy (the little spider robot), which served to obstruct your path and make ascending up the ladder impossible under normal conditions, by quickly firing a Gemini laser either left or right, into a wall, and destroying it with a rebounding shot. And that wasn't all: The writer noted that you could also take it out by throwing a Shadow Blade upward.

More relevant to my current plight was the writer's tip for dealing with the parapet-placed Hammer Joe in Skull castle's first stage: Rather than approaching him using a Rush adapter, you could more easily take him out by firing a Gemini laser at the lower wall on the left; if you could time your shot correctly, the fired laser would travel diagonally upward, sail over the Joe's head, rebound off the wall to the right, and then strike him while he was winding up for a hammer toss and therein vulnerable.

I appreciated the advice because, up until I started the reconfigured Robot Master stages, I really wasn't getting much use out of the Robot Master weapons. I just couldn't think of or identify any instances in which their use would be applicable; as a consequence of such, I felt less compelled to use them on minor enemies--less compelled to experiment with the weapons and thus discover the lesser bots' weaknesses. Though, I did very much want to find reasons to use them; I was hoping to find instances in which their use would help to make life easier. After all: A Mega Man experience always felt more complete when you were putting your weapons to use in logical and creative ways. By using the Gemini Laser to this effect, I'd taken the first step toward that destination.

So credit to Nintendo Power for dropping that knowledge and encouraging me to use the Robot Master weapons. I'll forever remember those helpful tips; for as long as I'm a Mega Man 3 player, I'll continue to utilize the tactics they taught me in each and every play-through.

The final act didn't play out the way I was expecting it to: As I continued to advance deeper and deeper into Skull Castle, I was finding it increasingly difficult to shake off the feeling that Wily's new haunt just wasn't as epic as the one through which I battled in Mega Man 2. I felt that the first stage and its boss--the "crab machine," as I called it (its actual name is "Kamegoro Maker," I've since learned)--were really kinda weak. I was hoping for so much more--for a spirited, galvanizing stage theme. For a grandiose setting and inventive level design. And for an amazing setup for the first boss encounter--something that could top Mega Man 2's thrilling Dragon chase, which was just one element of an awesome multi-part sequence.

There was nothing of the sort. Instead, Mega Man 3's Wily 1 stage came off as drab and mundane. There was a brief exterior segment in which very little was going on; then an unexciting water segment; then a single room with an uninspired (and glitchy-feeling) disappearing-reappearing-block sequence; and then the boss--a small tentacled drone that dropped crabs and then exploded after I destroyed just five of its children. That was it. That was the entire stage.

Nothing about this first stage stood out to me. Nothing about it made me feel pumped. That was a continuing theme.

Still, this new Skull Castle did indeed bring with it some exciting moments. Most memorably, it had me jazzed to be re-engaging with the Rock Monster (as we were still calling it back then), who looked better than ever and had a new trick to show me! He was the first castle boss whose weakness wasn't immediately obvious, so it was satisfying to discover through experimentation that he was weak to the Hard Knuckle; it felt even better to pump Hard Knuckles into his eye when he'd finally open it up after an attack cycle. He was slower and thus a whole lot less terrifying than his Mega Man incarnation, sure, but that didn't matter. It was still a cool fight.

There weren't any big surprises, no--no additional reunions, no spectacularly innovative boss fights, or anything else I had imagined--but there were still plenty of interesting bits. Well, technically, there was a reunion of sorts: In the boss-gauntlet stage, I encountered the boulder-tossing Junk Golems, who I was certain were the exoskeletons of Guts Man clones. I got a kick out of seeing them.

The point is that there was a lot of fun to be had in Skull Castle even though it really wasn't as awe-inducing as the previous one.

My two-day first-ever play-through of Mega Man 3 concluded with a wild, unforgettable battle with Gamma, who Wily had reprogrammed. It was the first castle battle to wow me with its presentation; it was amazing in scale; I mean, both of Gammas' forms filled the entire screen! This made for an intense-feeling encounter.

His first form, with its tiny blue head and obvious Shadow Blade weakness, was no great threat, no, but his second form--the completed, fully operational Gamma, who now sported drill horns and spewed plate-shaped projectiles--was pretty tough (in this very first encounter, at least). I knew what I had to do: work my way up the platform in the room's middle-right portion, then up to the smaller platform on the left, and from there attack Wily's podded cockpit with the Mega Buster or a Robot Master weapon. The problem was in the execution: I had trouble getting up to the rightmost platform because I had no patience and continued to stubbornly attempt to tank through Gamma's periodic arm attack and his plated projectiles. It turned out that safely landing on the traversable portion of Gamma's spiky arm was difficult when your strategy entailed getting hit by everything.

Eventually I came up with an effective plan: forget attempting to spring off of Gamma's arm and instead Rush Coil my way up to the platform. You know--instead of waiting, just take a cheap shortcut (had I been smart, I would've used Rush Jet instead, since you can't be knocked off of it). From there, it was a matter of discovering his new weakness. It turned out to be the Search Snake (I didn't try Top Spin because there was no way, I thought, that it had any practical application here), which was entirely inconvenient because the attack had no arc to it; rather, the snakes immediately dropped straight down upon release. So that meant that I was going to have to get up close and personal with Gamma if I hoped to land an attack. Though, getting close to him was dangerous, I knew, because it carried the risk of bumping into Wily's pod and taking heavy damage; I'd already done that a few times.

But because I'd procured plenty of energy tanks, health wasn't really an issue. No--victory was only a matter of conserving my weapon energy and demonstrating some competent button-mashing skills. A few moments later, Gamma was destroyed, and the demoralized Wily was on all fours, groveling and begging for mercy, just as he had in the past. It was a great way to end a fantastic game.

But it wasn't over yet: There were still some storyline issues to resolve. In the following scene, both Mega Man and Wily were subsequently crushed by falling debris. Seconds later, a shadowy figure who bore resemblance to Proto Man teleported in and made the save, the impact of his landing working to shatter the boulder that was crushing the unconscious Mega Man. Interestingly, the figure showed at least partial allegiance to Wily by concernedly wondering about doctor's whereabouts; though, because the castle was about to completely collapse, the figure had no choice but to bail immediately and leave him to die (apparently).

The following scene, in which a now-conscious Mega Man and Dr. Light conversed, confirmed that it was indeed Proto Man who made the save. Light plainly stated as much, though he provided no insight as to what the seemingly-conflicted Proto Man's motivation was. Though, the final scene did reveal something particularly interesting about our new friend: It turned out that he was Dr. Light's very first robot creation! That's what was made evident in the final scroll, which showed pages from Light's notebook; the displayed entries profiled his first eight creations (Rock, Roll and the six Mega Man Robot Masters) and listed them in reverse order for the purpose of dramatically counting down to 000 and suspensfully disclosing who that number represented. It was of course Protoman, who additionally, we learned, was Mega Man's brother.

I have to admit, though, that the true meaning of this final scene was lost on me until years later. In that early period--maybe because my brain was late in experiencing its first growth spurt--I viewed the listing as some random, unrelated event. I thought, "Oh neat--they're showing the Robot Masters from the original Mega Man and describing their abilities ... for, like, some reason."

How I made it to 35 without accidentally walking off a cliff is anyone's guess.

One other thing was clear: Wily was still alive. In the game's final shot, you could see his ship flying around in the distance and landing atop a tree. Though, this event barely even registered with me the first time I witnessed it because I was still too busy thinkin', "Oh, so Cut Man uses his shears to cut down trees!" 

And then the credits began to roll. It was over. I'd completed Mega Man 3, the game that I'd waited so very long to play--the one that ranked as my most-anticipated-ever. In that moment, I wasn't yet prepared to compare Mega Man 3 to its predecessors or decide whether or not I thought it was superior to them. That's not where my head was at. Rather, all I could think about was the experience I'd just had. All I could think about was Mega Man 3 and how much in love with it I was.

Mega Man 3 had delivered big time. It had exceeded just about all of my expectations. That the Skull Castle stages were underwhelming wasn't really an issue. The rest of the game's content more than made up for it; every bit of it was tremendous. I was eager to re-experience all of it all over again in successive play-throughs.

And return to it I did--multiple times over the course of that Christmas break. And I liked it more and more each time. During that stretch, it became my new favorite game ever. In short order, it came to replace Mega Man 2 as the game to which I'd turn whenever I was hungry for some fast-paced, satisfying Mega Man action. Mega Man 3 had everything I looked for in my action games: Tight controls, level design that invited speedy maneuvering, great music, terrific stage settings, and a degree of difficulty that worked to keep me alert and focused.

For the next fifteen years, whenever someone would ask me the question "What is your favorite Mega Man game?", I would reply, earnestly and without hesitation, "It's Mega Man 3, the best one."

Though, relationships change over the years. At some point a relationship is no longer new and special. It's then when you start to become more critical of your beloved. It's then when you start to see the flaws in its behavior and personality.

That's what happened with Mega Man 3 and I. Over the course of several years, and after I'd played through it a countless number of times, the game's numerous flaws started to become more and more evident to me. In the early going, I didn't pay them much attention because I was too captivated by the game's newness factor and otherwise successfully distracted by Capcom's manipulative, well-calculated use of fan-service. But as time went on, it became hard not to notice that, say, the level designers were sloppy in their handling of energy tank provision--that they oversupplied energy tanks to the point of absurdity and in too many cases just placed them right out in the open, in flat unprotected spaces. If you didn't have nine of them by the time you reached the third Skull Castle stage, you were doing something wrong.

Otherwise, it was hard to ignore that the Skull Castle stages were abbreviated, middling in quality, largely unchallenging, and nowhere near as memorable as those traversed in the previous Wily castles. That the game handed out 1ups like DUIs at a Spears-family motorcade. That you could abuse Rush Jet's free-roaming ability to trivialize platforming challenges and boss battles--particularly the one fought against Wily's pinbot machine. That there was too much jokey stuff, like all of the Robot Masters being weak to their own weapons and bosses that could be one-shotted with a single Top Spin strike. That in the first cycle of the Mega Man-clones battle, the one seen running about the top level is always the real one, and it's all too easy to quickly approach him and one-shot him with the Top Spin. And that designing it to where there are two separate Robot Master weakness chains (a three-man chain and a larger five-man chain, with two intersecting points) was confusing and unnecessary.

Then there were the obvious technical issues: There were multiple instances in which the action would slow to a crawl because the level designers decided to jam too many enemies and objects--way more than the processor could handle--into one single space. In some instances, there would be so much activity--such a processing overload--that the screen would begin to flicker like crazy, to the point where the game would be unable to display Mega Man's health meter, dropped items, or even whole characters. Also, for whatever reason, part of the screen, on the left side, was cut off by a single-color vertical bar, which wasn't so much distractionary as it was unattractive-looking. And even the Robot Master selection-screen had a noticeable visual defect: At all times, you could see a glitchy, distorted line of pixels cutting across the top of Shadow Man's profile slot.

I wasn't sure if any of this was the result of a development team letting their ambitious spirit override their programming sense--of there being a lack of proper restraint--or if it was happening because the designers haphazardly shoved in as much stuff as they could as quickly as they could because they were working under a strict deadline (the latter, I would later learn, was the true reason).

And this is how I feel about Mega Man 3 currently. I don't love it quite as much as I once did. It used to be that it was my favorite entry in the series and specifically my favorite of the first three Mega Man titles, but it has since relinquished that title. Now, rather, I slot as my third-favorite behind Mega Man and Mega Man 2.

Now don't get me wrong: Even though I no longer consider Mega Man 3 to be the series' best entry, I still regard it as a great action game and one of the NES' best. Hell--it's one of the best action games period. I'll take it over 99% of the stuff that's currently out there. Mega Man 3 is always worth a play.

I'm sad to learn, though, that series co-creator Keiji Inafune regards it as his least-favorite of the six NES works. While he's correct in his criticism that the game lacks polish because it was rushed, I don't understand how he can see it as being the worst when those latter three entries exist. If you compare it to Mega Mans 4-6--to those stale, formulaic "yearly installments"--you find that it has much more in the way of meaningful content, even if some of it is merely fan-service.

Simply put: Mega Man 3 is the last great original-series entry. It's the last great original-series Mega Man game released by Capcom before its creators lost their innovative spirit and let the series fall into a state of endless iteration. None that followed would ever capture me or exhilarate me like Mega Man 3 did.

So here's to Mega Man 3, a game I hold dear. In the years ahead, it might fluctuate about my list of "Top 3 Mega Man Games" or even drop a bit in my estimation, but there's one thing about it that will never change: It will forever play the leading role in one my standout video-game memories--in the story about a Brooklyn kid's agonizingly long wait for a desperately desired sequel that upon arrival delivered more than he could have ever hoped for.

Mega Man 3 proved that some things in life are worth waiting a small eternity for.