Gamma's Law: Explaining Why Mega Man 3 is a Released Beta

Gamma’s Law states “Whenever anyone questions anything regarding Mega Man 3 (such as boss design, controls, weapon concepts, or stage layout), the answer is always ‘Because Mega Man 3 is a released beta.’”
This video expands on why Mega Man 3 is an unfinished, broken game and how this happened. This is NOT a review, and should not be taken as such, instead of focusing on being a documentary of what caused Mega Man 3 to release in this state and what the consequences of it are.
Sources:
Mega Man (Capcom)
Mega Man 2 (Capcom)
Mega Man 3 [who would have guessed] (Capcom)
Mega Man 7 (Capcom)
Mega Man X2 (Capcom)
Mega Man Zero 2 (Inti Creates/Capcom)
Mega Man Official Complete Works (Udon/Capcom)
Moby Games: www.mobygames.com/game/nes/me...
Reploid Research Laboratory: kobun20.interordi.com/2012/12...
Mega Man 3 Manual: www.thegameisafootarcade.com/...
Super Mario Bros. Manual: www.nintendo.co.jp/clv/manual...
Daily Rockman: / dailyrockman
Fighting Games (KZbin channel): • Megaman Special Moves ...
Capcom Platinum Titles: www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/f...
Mega Man Knowledge Base (MMKB): megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Mega_...
Special Thanks:
Rhythm [r/megaman Admin, creator of Bass Comic Adventures]: Research help, voicing the introduction, creator of Gamma’s Law
/ pharos04
Ash Paulsen [Good Vibes Gaming]: Voicing Keiji Inafune’s quotes
/ ashpaulsen
/ gvgofficial
/ gvgofficial
/ gvgaming
De_Coded Void [Admin on the Mega Man X DiVE and Rockman X DiVE Discord servers]: Creating the Intro to the video
/ decoded_void
ShadowRockZX, MegaQuint, and MagnusZero: Inspiring me to create Mega Man content
Good Vibes Gaming, Bloops, and Jenny G: General inspiration to create video essays
Song List:
Title Screen (PS) [Mega Man 3 Sound Collection]
Stage Select ~Rockman 3~ [We Are ROCK-Men]
Shadow Man Stage [Super Smash Bros. for Wii U]
Spark Man Stage [Super Smash Bros. for Wii U]
Snake Man Stage [We Are ROCK-Men 2]
Wily Stage Boss (PS) [Mega Man 3 Sound Collection]
Boss (PS) [Mega Man 3 Sound Collection]
Gemini Man Stage (PS) [Mega Man 3 Sound Collection]
Ending (Rockman 3) [We are ROCK-Men]
Mega Man 3: Staff Roll [Mega Man: The Wily Wars]
Want to talk about Mega Man? The r/megaman Discord server is a welcoming place for people of all skill levels and identities, whether you’ve played one game or all of them! (I’m also an admin there lol)
discord.gg/megaman

[@jessicastoker8932]

Also, in the MM25 book, and in other interviews, Keiji Inafune had mentioned he was basically working on the game solo, and had to beg for help the whole time, getting colleagues to work in their free time. The reason the game has no opening cut scene, reuses content from previous games, as well as it's own content, is just a result of Inafune being worried that the game would be seen as inferior to the previous game without extra oomph.

[@jessicastoker8932]

Sorry, to clarify, it was easier to build entire levels and reuse assets than it was to generate an entire cut-scene under the kind of crunch they had to deal with. Generating unique assets, getting the triggers and timing right, and creating further content that would need to be translated was out of the question. Inafking further explained in some interviews he was embarrassed by MM3, but was always so grateful that people really enjoyed it. He also attributes his ability to gain autonomy at the company and to have an entire team ready to build further Megaman games to MM3's financial success, but he stressed to these new employees, who were fans of the series, that they would never make a game like MM3 again. So while concepts like "do these 4 levels, then do the Wily levels" persist afterward, the idea of reusing assets, skipping on cut-scenes, or putting in half-baked ideas, got tossed out, and further MM titles tended to lean heavily on tradition and boxing out ideas for weapons and enemies that would be universal through the game, only pulling back on this idea with the jet-bike concept - as it felt more like a "set-piece" than a failed Rush Equip idea.

[@cronoesify]

It was worth it bros

[@Nifterific]

Top Spin draining like it does isn't really a glitch but a huge oversight of how they made the weapon work. It functions like it does because it is constantly in a state of being able to damage enemies, and it uses 1 bar of energy each time it it's hitting something. So when Mega Man is in his invul frames from being hit (and as such, can't be hit out of Top Spin) and hits an enemy that Top Spin won't one shot (the met bulldozers, a boss who also has invul frames) the energy will drain rapidly. So when you jump into Shadow Man with Top Spin, you both get hit. You're in invul state and so is he, you jump back into him and Top Spin is hitting him every frame so even though he can't take damage it's using energy. Compare this to enemies it will one shot, like the hanging enemies in Hard Man's stage that drop down on you. Because you kill it in one shot it only uses one bar of energy, and Mega Man won't get hurt because they never had a chance to travel into his hurt box since the attack killed them on the first frame it made contact. They fixed this in Wily Wars (it only drains when enemies are vulnerable, so Shadow Man would still knock you out of the first one but the second one wouldn't use any energy until his invul frames run out) but all other re-releases like the PSone Complete Works, Anniversary Collection, Legacy Collection, and Virtual Console versions use the original. Edit: oh and the weakness pattern is worse than you let on. Like Shadow Blade does the same amount of damage to Magnet Man that Spark Shot does. Shadow Blade also does 2 damage to a few bosses making it better than buster only, but not a full strength weakness. It's good for Snake Man and Gemini Man, for example. I'm 100% sure that they hadn't actually decided on the boss order when the game shipped.

[@jessicastoker8932]

The weakness pattern wasn't just not established fully - you can see in the code (and also in interviews) that some of it was intentional - they wanted to reference the popularity of Metal Blade with Shadow Blade, but they wanted it to be less OP. The solution was a damage nerf, but the true power to Metal Blade and Shadow Blade is how effective they are at any angle. They're flexible weapons. So the effectiveness isn't just the damage, but the usability. The Top Spin thing is even funnier to me, because they TRIED to swap out Megaman's hurt box for a hit box - allowing him to deal damage with his body... but they didn't remove the hurt box, they just flicker on top of one another every other frame. So the reason it's so easy to take damage is because, rather than creating a hit-box that extended PAST Megaman's sprite - to make it easier to hit with, to make it more effective overall - they just straight-up failed to do what they even planned on doing, and because they had no time to fix it and bug test it, the broken product ended up in the game. Megaman either gets hurt, or hits the enemy... and it's far more RNG than people realize. And ANOTHER funny thing about the programming, is despite the code for change in elevation was complete garbage for MM1 (walk off edge, immediately fall to floor of screen, rather than "begin to fall"), they used very similar code for the Slide in MM3, which led to so many quirks and issues with it if you tried to use it in places other than just the intended areas. Sliding toward edges, jumping with the slide, shooting out of a slide - all were really odd in MM3, but were fixed by MM4... sort of. And literally every successive MM title had different sliding mechanics. It has never been the same one game to another.

[@Nifterific]

@@jessicastoker8932 I guess whatever it was that I read a few years ago (forum post, KZbin comment, I don’t remember) was a little off. I didn’t realize top spin was only active every other frame like that. The slide mechanics are hilarious though. I love how Mega Man can slide over 2 tile gaps in 3 if you slide at the right point.

[@costby1105]

@@jessicastoker8932 Weird, I've never noticed when I used on common enemies as any it has an effect on are destroyed in one hit which only takes one bar of energy.. Maybe I'm just used to it's jankiness? One note is that in both Mega Man World 2 for the Gameboy and the The Wily Wars Top Spin apparently works closer to how the salvaged version was intended to work. The original code for Top Spin was lost which is why we got the version we got in the final. Any ways the I watched a video about the programming of the game was slow due to multiple safety check in the code. kzbin.info/www/bejne/aIPIoKdnbr6nZ6M

[@YourIdeologyIsDelusional]

Honestly, the concept of Top Spin I think was doomed from the start. No matter how they tried to tweak it, it was likely going to be either useless, broken or overpowered. What Mega Man Maker did with it is about the best thing possible: They turned it into a pogo attack, letting you bounce on enemies heads, like the down attack from Ducktales or Shovel Knight. Which- perhaps unsurprisingly- actually functions super brilliantly in Mega Man, and entire sections of stages can be built around it.

[@ShadowdaHedgie11]

Honestly Top Spin is a really overlooked weapon, especially for clearing out minor-to-medium enemies. Becuase if Top Spin works on a normal enemy, it'll instantly kill them, and since a lot of the enemies Top Spin works on are enemies who insist on going with contact damage…

[@Darkkfated]

Related to Inafune's Top Man quote, this is also the reason why Top Spin is so broken. The existing (not-broken) version of Top Spin was also lost, along with the stage, and with there being massive crunch everywhere, the barely functioning version you get in-game is all they had time to re-implement before shipping the code off to the cartridge manufacturers. It's literally something somebody whipped up in like a day because the original version got deleted in the power cord whoopsie Inafune talks about.

[@ShadowdaHedgie11]

Top Spin isn’t really as broken as people think, they’re just using it on the wrong enemies.

[@wannabecinnabon]

ice slasher completely bodies spark shock. having 2 projectiles onscreen may sound neat and all that but it's nowhere near worth the downsides of: only 2 enemies paralyzed at a time (compared to ice slasher which could freeze as many things as you want) the inability to switch weapons after freezing something (which you can totally do with ice slasher which makes it infinitely better) like cmon how on earth can 2 projectiles onscreen be worth it when ice slasher literally completely solves the two fundamental issues with spark shock

[@runningoncylinders3829]

The only thing I ever felt off in MM3 was some slowdown and sprite flicker compared to others on NES. I figured maybe the length of stages or Doc Robot Mechanic was doing something. But 3 still brings a lot of good ideas to the table. Whatever could've polished the game before release would've helped.

[@jessicastoker8932]

A lot of the slowdown is actually covered in other KZbin vids about programming. They hired a new coding engineer to handle all the "checks" to see if the player was cheating or exploiting a system in the game, and they more than tripled the amount of code required for a single check to be made by the system. So, whenever ANYTHING changes on screen, be it a new sprite, a new effect, a new collision, the game was much, much slower at checking this stuff, and therefor you got the traditional NES sprite-flicker slowdown. Later MM games tightened up/condensed the code a lot, so you don't see this kind of slowdown, despite later titles having more detailed, more colorful, more animated sprites, with more effects sometimes happening on screen. MM3 was a series of decisions made in the heat of the moment that couldn't really be fully tested or fixed, due to it's development being a pain, and being so short.

[@theimortal1974]

megaman 3 was the first game where when you beat the 8 masters it's not time to go to the final fortress. i remember i was surprised by that.

[@dansmith1661]

@@theimortal1974 That MM2 had 8 masters was a first.

[@Darkkfated]

I've never gotten a clear answer on the Wily Stages being so short and underwhelming. is it because A) they were running out of cartridge space or B) they ran out of time and were just slapping rooms together and pretending they were "Wily Castle Stages"? Both are feasible given what we know of NES limitations and the insane development timeline of this game.

[@jessicastoker8932]

@@Darkkfated Cart size wouldn't have really affected the size of the levels, unless they were somehow on the bleeding edge of the cart size. I say that because, while modern games reuse assets constantly to generate content, classic games just used sprite-sheets for the bulk of the data. You'd just draw a single block on the sprite sheet, and you'd call upon that one single block every time you wanted to use it in a level, making levels nothing more than strings of code (which, strings of alphanumeric characters take up a very tiny amount of data). So I highly doubt this is the reason (though it's not impossible). I would assume that the reason is trying to control the pacing of the game (after the Skullbot levels being put in, and being entirely rehashed levels already present), but obviously, being a very quickly made game, they probably weren't able to fully balance the length of the level. Like, "I think/hope this level isn't too long or too short, moving on to the next." That's very likely overall, whatever the reason may be - first pass, first pass trying purposefully to make a shorter level - unless they fully divulge the development of the game (which will probably never happen), we'll never really know.

[@PeanutTechno]

The fortress stages being easy makes sense in-universe when you consider that Wily had to scramble to finish Gamma, who was very likely supposed to be his trump card, and had to cut corners on the fortress to do so, in addition to needing to keep up the appearance of being on Megaman's side. In addition, the in-universe reason one can consider Gamma to be incomplete is that...well, Gamma's pretty much a giant mecha. Unless you were to steal Gamma when he's complete (and good luck with THAT without immediately having your cover blown), you'd be forced to scramble for time too if an enemy comes knocking at your door. The one fanfic I consider to be a neat aversion to this (or at least the second point) is "Megaman 3 - Return Of The Forsaken", where the locations of the Energy Elements are on Earth (save for one, which is on the moon) and thus Gamma is more likely to be completed.

[@Thy_Boss]

That's more fan fiction than anything contained in the story. And if you're just going to make up stories, you can make up any reason it doesn't make sense, just like you can make up any reason it does.

[@AverageJoeMama]

I just realized something. Dr. Wily is jealous of Light because he gets more credit for inventions than Wily. You know who else gets credit for other people’s inventions? Thomas Edison, the man that was the apparent inspiration for Dr. Light, hence why they share a first name.

[@OneOneTwo112]

Good observation!

[@kitsunegiblaze8022]

So Wily is Tesla?

[@jessicastoker8932]

@@kitsunegiblaze8022 Visually, Dr. Wily is Einstein, the man's whose research led to the atomic bomb... in which 2 were dropped on Japan. You can see how that would make Einstein a polarizing, almost villainous, figure to the Japanese. As for thematically, Wily is less like Tesla. While Light gets the credit for what was accomplished, he shared more with Tesla - he believed robot should be sentient and be treated well and free of oppression or intervention. That they help mankind, and mankind help them - more like how Tesla believed his technology should aid people and not be for personal gain... while Edison was all about the gains, and Wily is all about the pursuit of personal power - that robots should serve their masters, and with these 'tools', he will conquer the world... and demonstrate how meaningful they are and how they shouldn't be underestimated or treated poorly? Megaman is a grab-bag of ideas that these guys thought up while developing entire games in less than 8 months usually. While some comparisons and similarities are intentional, others are just... interpretation. And because so many people have put hands on the series, the logic and motivation has constantly shifted throughout in subtle ways.

[@Gatorade69]

@@jessicastoker8932 Really well said. Great comment !

[@jessicastoker8932]

@@Gatorade69 Thank you!

[@TachyonAgnes]

I can't come to imagine how weird would the classic megaman series be if they had more time to complete the game and the slide happened to be one of those unfinished features, thankfully that was not the case.

[@jessicastoker8932]

It was unfinished. In fact, they changed the slide in every single MM title after 3. It's never the same in any two games. A lot of the buggy code for moving in MM1 was utilized for the slide mechanic in MM3, but it just has very few places where it CAN mess up if you aren't constantly abusing the technique. But try and use it off an edge, or into a jump, or out of a jump, and you'll start to notice that it's a bit quirky. They could never decide whether or not to keep Megaman's momentum, or to immediately end it at the end of a slide, and a lot of that has to do with error-checks, when they happen, how they happen, ect.

[@asteroidrules]

I almost wonder if it would have changed much at all. The Doc Robot stages were "finished" in time for release but they thankfully never returned in subsequent games, if the devs were still working on sliding they likely would have included it in 4 regardless.

[@Victory-in-YAHUSHA]

Mega Man 6 has the worst slide move. The movement momentum stops at the end of each slide. Whereas 3, 4, and 5's sliding were as smooth as butter.

[@TonyTheTGR]

A rental cartridge when I was young was an ACTUAL BETA of MM3 where Gemini and Magnet Man were swapped on the select screen, meaning that Gemini Man didn't have a Doc Robot stage, Magnet Man did instead! And it was BRUTAL. The entire first half had NO GROUND AT ALL. You navigated airborne obstacles by moving up and down on the flying magnet enemies and passing back and forth between them as they went in different directions (or you use the Rush Jet jump glitch like crazy). The whole second half was Yoku Block puzzles similar but slightly more devious than the regular stage - but NOW with the magnet pullers affecting your routing (there was one or two jumps you had to make USING the pull!! And one especially brutal one against the pull that was two blocks across but the pull hit you in the airborne state), and with the floors completely destroyed/missing or full of spikes. You could Rush Jet some of that if you navigated the first part the hard way. Being able to move up and down on the flying magnet enemies at the beginning wasn't really clear/intuitive, which is probably why the stage got scrapped, but it still works! And you can bypass the whole first half by doubling back at the beginning of the OG stage, and riding that enemy through it. Up/Down movement is still in the code too!

[@TonyTheTGR]

If you ever look up Rockman 3 Endless Mode hack, some of the stage pieces are featured in it. Personally, MM3 was always my favorite and I wish the vision could've fit into the cartridge, which is ultimately what I think was responsible for it's "weird" status; and why all the mainline MM games afterwards kinda stuck close to an identical formula - 8 RM stages, 4 "fake boss" stages, 4 Wily stages and the showdown. MM3 established precisely what the limits of the cart was, and that became the ongoing blueprint from there.

[@omegarugal9283]

@@TonyTheTGR now that you mention it, the game uses a combo of 256k+128k mask roms, very weird cosidering the mmc3 mapper can take 256k+256 and buying 2 diferent sizes of roms makes little to no sense

[@bandband4498]

Huh, so that prerelease image where thay swapped places on the select screen was actually a screen shot, not a mock up, huh. There are some unused sprites in the game seemingly made for Doc Robot Needle Man's stage, do any of those ring a bell? Also, do tou remember what Doc Robots you fought in that stage?

[@genyakozlov1316]

This is extremely interesting. Wish that beta would be found and uploaded to the internet someday. We have some lost media on our hands, and I really want to play it. I would also love a Mega Man 4 beta with the cut Sphinx miniboss, but this sounds way more interesting.

[@hunam1464]

@@genyakozlov1316 The Sphinx midboss was repurposed into T-Khamen in Mega Man V for Gameboy in Uranus’s stage. It looked and played far better than the state of the original Pharaoh Man midboss.

[@CyberneticSheep]

With all these problems it still managed to be one of the best mega man games in my opinion. It makes me wonder what could’ve been if they had enough time to fully realized their vision and fixed all glitches.

[@ScrambledAndBenedict]

It makes me wonder if the crunch actually contributed to its overall quality. Maybe the reason it's so good is they didn't have enough time to second-guess themselves and just had to devote to whatever worked without second-guessing it or trying to "improve" what they came up with. Apparently that was the reason Majora's Mask was the way it was, and it is still considered by some (myself included) to be the best ever Zelda game.

[@MasterTPK]

Super Smash Bros Melee is the best Smash game because Sakurai did not have time to ruin it. Majora’s Mask is the best Zelda and was done quickly from the re-used assets. Megaman 3 the best Megaman. I can see the pattern.

[@Mingodough]

@@MasterTPKyup, I hate people taking their time, I hate unions and stuff giving people fair working conditions. People with actual passion will be willing to do crunch, only babies will take their time

[@caiusmadison2996]

​@Mingodough yeah, that's the whole spirit of what everyone said. Be sure to tell the developer friends you don't have at the meet up that's not planned all about it later.

[@monolophosaurus]

Y’know… if they never made the Doc Robot stages… they could’ve made a prologue, and probably touched up on some of the boss fights too.

[@omegarugal9283]

prologue kzbin.info/www/bejne/jpzMhqSipseXo7s

[@jessicastoker8932]

Inafune actually explained this in an interview: It would take far longer to create unique assets for a title sequence, to time them properly, the have the proper triggers - everything. Everything they built, they built from scratch each and every time. Making games back in the day was hard, but also kind of dumb... Inafune got the idea to reuse game assets to build new levels to make up for what he considered the shortcomings of the game, because it was so much faster and easy to just take what was already there, and slightly tweak it. Even the bosses were a single new sprite, very limited animation for the Sprite (the Doc Robot/Docorobo/Skullbot), and reused code from MM2. He considered it a sign of shame and embarrassment that he couldn't finish the game properly, and used this as an apology... but then people liked the added stages, and 4 extra stages were added to each subsequent NES Megaman title (Dr. Cossack's Fortress, Protoman's Fortress, Dr. X's Fortress), before the Wily stages.

[@monolophosaurus]

@@jessicastoker8932 That’s really interesting! Thanks for letting me know

[@jessicastoker8932]

@@monolophosaurus Honestly, I'm just a huge Megaman fan/nerd, and I enjoy sharing this kind of stuff. But thank you as well! I like enjoyable conversations!

[@MatthewTheWolf2029]

Megaman 3 may be incomplete. And it may have its issues. But it will always retain a special place in my heart. In my view, it will always be one of the best games in the series, and of the 8-bit era.

[@X2011racer]

There are also additional issues that only apply to the Wily Wars version: 1. All the Weapon icons in the pause menu load Mega Man's palette, which not only makes the weapons blue, but it also makes Rush blue in the pause menu. On a side note, the inaccessible weapon glitch was also fixed. 2. Rush Marine is incredibly nerfed. You can only shoot one buster shot at a time inside Rush Marine. It was already useless enough. 3. There's a collision glitch with the slide exits that have no ground next to it. If you fall from an exact angle, Mega Man will continuously land on the corner and fall for one frame repeatedly if you hold the direction towards the exit. This will allow you to slide into these exits. 4. If you fire the Hard Knuckle at the right frame after Break Man is defeated, you can crash the game. 5. You cannot pause while your equipped weapon is on screen. This is a universal problem with Wily Wars which was likely made to fix the Multi-Hit Pause glitch in Mega Man 1, and the Rush Jet Weapon Switch glitch shown here. However, it's very counter productive. 6. You forgot to mention that two songs in the game are longer than what is usually played: Protoman's theme and the Wily Map. Wily Wars simply truncated the unused portions.

[@Peter_1986]

One subtle detail that I have always liked on the Doc stages is that the MM2 bosses actually match their environments very well: *Doc Spark Man* cogwheels, moving rotating platforms, rapidly blinking lights and fast-moving machinery; this sets the tone for Metal Man and Quick Man really well *Doc Needle Man* a stage with a high-altitude feel to it, which takes place in the middle of the night; this is fitting for both Air Man and Crash Man *Doc Gemini Man* very obviously designed as a flashing/blinking stage with underwater sections and tadpoles; perfect for Flash Man and Bubble Man *Doc Shadow Man* wood-coloured design, with red lava-like rivers, and some Japanese manga/anime stories sometimes have ninjas (such as Shadow Man) disappear in smoke and leave logs behind; this is ideal for Wood Man and Heat Man

[@JoeyCannoli]

I actually never noticed that about the Doc Robot stages. Thanks for sharing!

[@Hanesboi]

I agree that most of these flaws come from severe game crunch but I also don't think a lot of these are flaws. The 2 routes for robot masters' weaknesses is a good idea, you mention how "It means a player is likely to fight 2 bosses without their weakness but I think this is fine, in a first playthrough you usually don't know weaknesses and you're more likely to go 4 or 5 robot masters without using their weakness. The Dark Stages being much more difficult I'm also fine with, some of the level design in them was really cool, the lack of checkpoints was ass but you know I'm not sure whether that's game crunch or just wanting to make the game harder, since MM1 had you fight 3 robot masters before Wily and MM2 was a very easy game, maybe they wanted MM3 to be harder. Finally, the room before Wily having all those goodies could have been a debug thing, but I don't think that's bad. It's actually surprisingly modern design to give the player such a fighting chance on every attempt at the final battle, unintentional or not I think that isn't a flaw.

[@OneOneTwo112]

The health upgrades are completely useless in that room in Wily 6, they do nothing, and that many weapon energy pickups feel really out of place too.

[@jessicastoker8932]

The Doc Robot/Docorobo/Skullbot stages were made at the very end, after everything else in the game was finished. They were added to try and make up for the missing content in the game, because they were very easy to make using assets already present in the game, with one small addition (the Doc Robots themselves). The difficulty of the levels was due to not being playtested much at all, aside from internally, and the missing checkpoints is just down to not being able to fully finish the levels, or literally just forgetting to add them. They were a biproduct of the game being so rushed and unfinished, not a conscious choice to add to or change an aspect of the game. The final room before Gamma having extra stuff in it is, mostly likely as pointed out, a developer room, but again, is inconsistent with the design of the rest of the game, let alone the rest of the series. Is it bad design? Not necessarily. Is it what every other game in the series, given more time to be polished and properly developed, would do? No. Positive or negative in its effects on the player aren't in question - it's a flaw because it wasn't a purposeful expression of development by the game developers.

[@Hanesboi]

I've been thinking on this comment I wrote 3 weeks ago and I have to admit I was being pretty unreasonable I don't think apologizing makes sense but I do want to get it out of me that I don't stand by this comment anymore. I think MM3 despite being so rushed was still a great game and all the bugs or technical quirks (like Top Spin demolishing the Megaman Copies) are not so bad since someone playing the game for the first time, and especially someone in the 90s, wouldn't know of them. That said, I enjoy the Doc Robot Stage for Spark Man's stage but in the other's it was just ok, I agree now that the lack of checkpoints wasn't a conscious difficulty choice, so I was definitely wrong there. Only thing I contest a little is the energy in Wily Stage 6, the life energy is out of place but Wily Stage 5 and all previous Wily Stages were pretty generous with their energy and E-Tank distribution so I think it's somewhat consistent. I find it hard to believe the developers would just forget to remove the debug room, it was probably a rushed decision to keep the stages so generous, rushed but a decision nonetheless rather than forgetting. I kinda wish that despite it all, MM4 kept up the ambitions of MM3 since MM3's ambitions didn't fail due to console limitations but time crunch.

[@MagnusZero]

Very solid and well-researched documentary, especially with this being a new type of content for you. Keep up the good work, should you decide to explore this content more in the future.

[@OneOneTwo112]

Thank you so so much. It was certainly unexplored territory for sure haha, I'll see what I can do about future videos. And hope you enjoyed the shout-out! Your content rocks!

[@jessicastoker8932]

@@OneOneTwo112 I think stuff like this getting highlighted is great. You present a decent argument as to why MM3 was released too early/incomplete. I think it'd be cool if you did a vid about the development of titles like MM7 (which is a fairly similar story, but a more complete game), or even the GameBoy title Megaman 2, which was also a mess, but not fully exposed about the mess it was. MMX3 would be another great one... I'm sorry, I'm just kinda' dumping a bunch of stuff at once, and it's not my business what you do with your creative free time. I just think they're other ideas worth mining for controversial developments of MM titles. If I could, I'd offer than you could check out the Udon Published MM25, which has a lot of interviews in it about different games in development (it's like a more blown-up version of the Megaman Essentials book you referenced). As well, you are very animated in how you present things. I think, as a fellow fan, I know you're being passionate, but it sometimes came off as forceful. Straddling that fine line is difficult. I'd love to see more content like this vid, and I really appreciate the work you put into it. 😁

[@OneOneTwo112]

This comment will be updated every time I would like to make an addendum to the video or just think there's something cool to add: - The levels with water are Gemini Man Stage, Doc Robot Gemini Man Stage, and Wily Stage 1. I misspoke in the video when I said Shadow and Doc Shadow, sorry! - Minae Fuji was the composer of Mega Man 4, Yasuaki Fujita only worked on Sound Programming. Once again, I misspoke in the video, sorry! - The reason Gemini Laser slows the game down so much is that instead of the shot being one hitbox, it's three separate hitboxes stringed together, and since the game checks for collision on all three of them, it slows down the game. - Since Spark Shock is seen as a projectile, one enemy can push another out of the "shock". Other things can also deflect it entirely.

[@VanLupen]

😐

[@mlggd890]

7:46 Gemini Man

[@omegarugal9283]

the gemini laser is like shooting 3 normal shots at once, no big deal, what slows down the game i that the game check for collision every time for all 3 shots

[@OneOneTwo112]

@@omegarugal9283 I was not aware that was the cause of it, thank you for the clarification!

[@MateDrinker33]

@@OneOneTwo112 You may to pin this comment. Thanks! :)

[@SlickRCBD]

Honestly, with the game balance issues, I always thought Megaman 2 was more likely to have been rushed through development and released as a beta than Megaman 3. Megaman 3 was really good.

[@OneOneTwo112]

Well as I mentioned in the video, Mega Man 2 was also rushed, but not nearly to the same degree as this one time-wise.

[@jessicastoker8932]

All Megaman games had rushed developments if you consider how long they SHOULD have been given. Most games in the NES era are miraculous in their quality - simply because a single game would be given 6 months at most to develop, and that was a LOT of time. It was insane that the first Final Fantasy had nearly a year in development, and literally got it's name because the devs thought it would be the "final" game they got to make. MM2 has less content, but is more polished overall, save for a single bug that allows for "zips" in the game... which coincidentally, is entirely why MM3 has so much slow-down and sprite-flickering (the bug was a "collision" check-sum error, in which Megaman is supposed to collide with walls, but if he travels too fast, he can clip into certain walls, and then the check-sum tries to force him out of a wall in a certain directions. For MM3, they hired a new coder who added THREE TIMES as much check-sum code, for EVERTHING in the game, so the slow-down was caused by the game doing 3 times the work for every single frame of animation of any given sprite to make sure it wasn't doing something it wasn't supposed to). MM2 is also, simply put, a finished idea. It's a refinement of MM1, and used all the lessons learned from that one game, and mastered them. MM3 tried to introduce new ideas, like the Slide technique, which added more work to a game already starved for time. Rush did much the same, leading to lots of quirks with both of them. MM2's oversights weren't due to time management issues, they were due to "we think this is a cool idea, oops, it's a bit overpowered," like Metal Blade, but issues with Top Spin highlight not a failure to implement a cool idea in a balanced way, but to fail at implementing it at all. The ability is meant to replace Megaman's hurt-box (where he takes damage) with a hit-box (where he deals damage), but instead, the two are overlapped, because they didn't have time to even test it, so you get a bunch of RNG as to whether you hit the enemy, or get hurt by the enemy. Similar issues come up in many abilities in the game - not a failure to balance the abilities, like some of MM2's issues, but a failure to fully implement them or to accurately gauge how they should be implemented. MM3 is a fun game. It's a great part of the Megaman franchise. But it's still a very, very flawed member of the family. Not quite MM1 flawed, but flawed.

[@thomasffrench3639]

Mega Man 2 had a short development cycle, but it wasn’t rushed, they were just really passionate about it. Mega Man 2 is basically just Capcom releasing a game they didn’t sign up for. They basically said “if you finish it, we will release it.”

[@fgfhjfhjfbhfghf5771]

I always forget just how late in the NES lifetime even the first Megaman game was given that they managed to pump out 6 games plus a couple of spinoffs on it. I know its because the X games were the "next gen" MM experience but even the fact that they were only halfway through within a year of the SNES launch is wild to me

[@sorastitchi]

I can't tell if I like the fact you seem to be yelling the whole video, but this was extremely informative nevertheless! It's a real shame that this game was crunched to hell and back, although it kind of also makes intensely interesting in hindsight. The fact you went through what was cut and where it showed up later was great too. Would have never guessed about Rush Drill being for Megaman 3 originally or even heard of Cocoron if not for this video. I def started hearing about this situation but this is the first video to really go into detail about why exactly it's half-done.

[@OneOneTwo112]

Thank you! Yeah admittedly my projection is naturally a bit loud so I suppose that can come across as a bit weird in video form haha. It is fascinating to see the many ways 3 influenced the series, as you said, with Kitamura's departure and game concepts like Rush Marine. I highly recommend picking up the Mega Man Official Complete works if you'd like to learn more as there's a lot of great stuff in there.

[@sorastitchi]

@@OneOneTwo112 Oh thank you! I'll be on the lookout for that then, always been fascinated with the production of projects a lot.

[@marx4538]

this is a pretty good video, but there are some issues: -rush marine is just as useful in 3 as in other games - at best there are two stages that allow it's use in a later game. 4 for example only had Dive Man and Wily Stage 1, and while Dive Man is a longer one, it's not as much sections. rush jet on the other hand while unbalanced, is definitely not the biggest of signs - pretty much each NES MM game except 4 had an extremely overpowered tool to use, be it for offense, defense or movement. the glitches related to jet are definitely a sign, though, since those are obviously not intended and rather gamebreaking. -weapons being just variations on already existing concepts is not new and stayed in the series for even way longer - magma man's weapon takes the charging from atomic heat, skull barrier is another shield weapon, bright man's weapon is a variation on time stopper, etc. plus, still taking damage from frozen enemies is something other games have too, such as World 1 for the Game Boy having an Ice Slasher like that, even if you could switch weapons there to shoot it, whereas i am pretty sure Crystal Hunter-frozen enemies stop existing when you switch to another weapon. -the double-order is more-so an attempt at innovation and works in game without much problems, so i am not sure if that can be considered a sign, it's weird. -Doc Robots being a spark in difficulty isn't that unnatural, even if some (Wood and Quick) are obviously unbalanced. second sets of bosses in GB games and fortress stages in 1-2 were also definite spikes in difficulty all other arguments are very good points though and you did some great research

[@wannabecinnabon]

rush marine is way more useful in 4 than in 3 imo because while marine is genuinely helpful in gemini man's stages rush jet literally does what it does but better so there's no point in using it unless you haven't fought needle man yet in mm4 it saves you from like, the hardest jump in the game at the end of the water section in wily 1. that's gotta count for something. skull barrier is super different from leaf shield because it doesn't pierce through enemies but can be carried around when walking which makes it a lot more generally effective as a shield. beyond them both surrounding you with a hitbox to begin with, their utility is very different. there's a reason why all the later shields are skull barrier variations and not leaf shield ones. also mm2 wily castle isn't really a very big difficulty spike imo when we had quick man and heat man levels in the game, which were complete nightmares to go through unless you had flash stopper and item-2 respectively. plus the wily castle in that game is just really short and easy besides wily 4. not gonna say that wily 4 isn't easily the hardest stage in the game but it's the only actually hard wily stage in that game. wily machine 2 is only hard if you're doing it without crash bombs or etanks.

[@marx4538]

@@wannabecinnabon my bad, most of what you said is true not all later shields are skull barrier variations, though, since junk shield and... whatever pump man and acid man's were named weren't. as for wily machine 2, the problem is how likely a new player will probably run into such a situation - wily stage 4 drains lives, e-tanks and crash bombs, while getting a game over means no e-tanks, and the only one possible to get in 4 will probably be used on the boss, and the game also encourages the player to use weapons in refights, which makes it even more unlikely to have both if you're a new player

[@Peter_1986]

There are actually two good reasons to use Rush Marine during the underwater sections: Mega Man cannot accidentally fall off Rush Marine if he collides with a platform, and the shots from Rush Marine fire at a lower height than Rush Jet, and this can make it easier to hit low targets.

[@CLTurtle]

Great video! It's cool to see someone finally compiling all this information together to create a video showcasing the game's unfinished state. Most of the information you've shared (such as all the glitches and unused sprites) were stuff I've heard of before, but I never thought they were the result of a rushed development cycle. One thing that made me raise an eyebrow was pointing out that the there were two people who made music for this game and that people noticed a difference, honestly I didn't notice any difference when playing through, and if there were any different music that stuck out, it would've been Top Man, Magnet Man, and Wily Boss for being so dang catchy. Other than that, I enjoyed watching it. Can't wait to see more of your work! PS, the Doc Robot's difficulty possibly being a result of the rushed development was definitely one that stuck out. I always assumed that it was because the devs didn't know how to balance the game, but after hearing what you thought on it, I felt a lightbulb finally lit up in my head

[@TheOneFreakservo]

Beta? Nah. This game was simply rushed. The point is it's playable, completeable, and most importantly, _stable._ Beta-builds in videogames are lacking at least one of these features.

[@skunkface_]

Mega Man games generally came out in December, but 3 dropped in September. Capcom likely wanted it to beat the Super Famicom's release in November, since they knew it couldn't play Famicom games

[@OneOneTwo112]

This is a great point I didn't consider 2 years ago!

[@misterbadguy7325]

Spark Shock is actually a nerfed version of Ice Slasher, which allowed you to freeze any number of enemies at a time and enabled you to switch weapons and finish them off.

[@jeremyn2626]

I always use Rush Marine in Gemini Man's stage so.... That's already wrong here. Also, there's not really anything wrong without having a full circle of weaknesses. In fact, Mega Man 2 has probably the best rotation since every robot master is weak to at least two weapons, meaning you can go through the game in many ways. Mega Man 3 was the last to have this to SOME degree. Every other game has been a straight loop which is worse. ALL that said, I do agree with you, Mega Man 3 is so buggy and clearly a beta.

[@RoninCatholic]

Yeah, it was _Gemini Man's_ regular and Doc Robot stages that Rush Marine is used in, not Shadow Man's. Still not many stages to use Marine in, and Jet can be used underwater making the imbalance even more hilarious.

[@SaanMigwell]

I was 9 when it came out. I borrowed it from my little brother's friend who thought it was too hard. It took me a good two months to finally get past the shadowbot stages with 9 E tanks and 9 lives. I loved that game. 9 was a good year.

[@rickotheclassicarcadegamer]

Honestly I never had a problem with this game.Still my favorite even though I never really knew the story in this third game.

[@TaranAlvein]

5:15 - I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be a bird, not Wily's capsule. I think they just reused the asset to save space.

[@Ekce]

You keep saying this "does not at all comment on the quality of the game" however, your entire argument rests on observations about the quality of the game. I think, really your argument is: "The quality of the game indicates that this is potentially a released beta, however there are no comments from the staff confirming this other than comments about crunch which were the norm for games of that era." I clicked on this video because I thought someone had confirmation but it seems to just be some reddit person with an oversized opinion.

[@aranryan-9440]

I don’t care, it’s one of my favorite mega man games and GAMMA is my favorite character in the series. Some sort of HD remake of mega man’s 1-3 with some parts of all games reimagined would be good

[@Flabby555]

Every day this video gets a thousand more views. I don't know why this great video is only getting attention now, but I'm glad it's happening.

[@evenoddprime]

I can literally pinpoint the exact streets you’re on when you were yelling into your Samsung Galaxy ZX2. Fantastic audio capture, mate.

[@Thy_Boss]

It's interesting... I can't say that many of us cared about or even expected a story from a NES side-scroller back in 1990, just as you suggest, so none of us noticed something missing we didn't expect to find. Occasionally we got detailed stories, but the _Mega Man_ series told the player where they could go so directly that a story seemed superfluous. Maybe in a different era it would have been more obvious that the development of the game was rushed from the story alone.

[@mylam658]

21:34 Bass comic adventures? Now that's a throwback! That stuff was my childhood

[@MKVarana]

I had hoped we'd see the "complete" game as Megaman Powered Up 3, but that sadly never came to be...

[@zinfuldreams1709]

STOP SHOUTING, JUST LOWER THE MUSIC VOLUME PLEASE

[@brushrolla8379]

I like top spin ending the last boss quickly. Oversight or not, its neat in that the most apparently useless weapon is the best by the very very end.

[@GrizonII]

10:06 I'd say Spark Shock is pretty much always worse than Ice Slasher; having two shots out at once isn't really much of a buff considering that Ice Slasher penetrates and it leaves the screen while the stun persists, meaning multiple enemies can be stunned by a single shot (and it can go through shields iirc) and it can be refired while still having the enemies stunned (since the stun outlasts the projectile), plus for the same reason the player can swap weapons during the stun.

[@uandresbrito5685]

Nice sum of the problems in 3. I really doubt people actually think these things are good for the game design, but things such as the debug codes and bosses being weak to their weapons are pretty fun and not harmful at all. Also... Mm3 staff: oh no, we only had 8 months to finish our game!! It's such a mess right now... Mm7 staff: How come we have 1 week left? It's been 3 months already 7 is a miracle

[@OmegaBlacky]

I think the reason why Mega Man 7 ended up as good as it is was due to the teams experience with all the other Mega Man games,by that time Mega Man X1 and 2 were already out with X3 on the way,although I do wish they had more time with Mega Man 7,I can't stand the final boss.

[@uandresbrito5685]

@@OmegaBlacky I don't know, they did terrible with X6's crunch and they had way more experience for that game. Maybe it was a different team??? Yes the final boss is unfair, but it's intentional, they wanted it unfair for some reason.

[@OmegaBlacky]

@@uandresbrito5685 Crunch doesn't favor any game in development,especially x6 but the way I see it is,classic Mega Man probably is a lot easier to develop than the X series. Theirs so much more that goes into an X game,compared to an entry in the classic series.

[@uandresbrito5685]

@@OmegaBlacky Usually I'd agree, but just compare the games. They had to create 7 from scratch and there are tons of new features never seen in the series. X6 has SOME new features, but a lot of things, specially visuals, were just carried over from the past 2 games. Of course being rushed can affect games differently, but how can 7 be so good even with such time constraints?? My only bet in this comparison would be that X6 was designed badly, so regardless of how much time they had the game would suck, but that defeats my whole comparison, doesn't it?

[@OmegaBlacky]

@@uandresbrito5685 I wouldn't say Mega Man 7 was fully made from scratch,I'm sure they implemented stuff from the old games and made it compatible with mm7,but what I'm saying is while x6 did recycle things from the prior entries,the x games in general have more content compared to the classic series games,theirs the new armors,the story and designing stages and bosses for both x and zero could possibly take more time than it does designing one for og Mega Man,then that nightmare system had to be a nightmare to develop. classic Mega Man may not require the time,energy and recourses that the X games required.

[@IidosGamingDen]

I had no idea the MM3 stages all took place on different planets.. that's kind of mind-blowing.

[@anonymousanon9647]

Minor nitpick, needle cannon cannot shoot faster, it just allows you to rapid fire by holding the button down like quick boomerang. It goes at the same speed as the mega buster.

[@RewindArcade]

There’s a lot of really interesting information in here, nice work! I’m not as big of a fan of MM3 as everyone else, but I still certainly enjoy it. The only thing I’d say is that short dev cycles of 3-6 months were pretty common during those days at Japanese studios with, like you mentioned, insane amounts of crunch taking place to meet deadlines. MM3 certainly does feel pretty rushed though. Thanks for the video man!

[@mllarson]

17:15 As a kid I would place a second controller on the ground, and use a kitchen chair to hold down the right direction to gain the super-jump and would intentionally "die" in a pit to beat tough bosses (baiting enemies to attack me in the pit to drain life, or finding random kill spots by walking around, using Rush Coil to gain my weapon back). Didn't know about the other options, and really don't hear many people even mention this "debug" feature.

[@xxraverxxonxtacy]

MM3 will always be my fav from the series cuz you basically get 2 games in one (16 different Robot Masters Boss battles), 2P controller hack (fun super jumps/ empty health guage) and catchiest Soundtrack other than MM2/MM1.

[@4BlueHero]

I am a long time MegaMan fan. MegaMan 3 was my first MegaMan game that I played on the NES so it holds great memories for me. I never noticed alot of these "flaws/bugs" till now, though I do admit I realized how effective Rush jet was. Those MegaMan 2 bosses were always the hardest part for me. Whats funniest for me after watching this video is that I never knew the story of MegaMan 3 till now!

[@JennyGeistVids]

Great video, especially for a first! As a merely casual Mega Man fan it taught me a lot. Thanks so much for the shout-out in the credits, I can't wait to see what other things you make! (also, hi Ash!)

[@OneOneTwo112]

Of course! Your content is awesome and I'm more than happy to give a shout-out. I'm also extremely glad you came away learning a lot from the video, as that certainly was the primary intention. Thanks so much :)

[@MrRubmeister]

Provided that you had no access to the high jump code, there are three spots in the game which you would literally be stuck if you had no rush energy

[@thancrus]

ive known about right on the second controller since i was a kid. It was one of my favorite things. You can cheese so much with the partial invincibility it could cause. It will always be my favorite one.

[@vstalbain]

This video is really speculative. While I'm sure some of these things have to do with it lacking polish (e.g the end of Wily Stage 1 needing to be changed), it's also true that Mega Man 3 is an old game, and what seems obviously bad in 2022 just seemed totally reasonable in 1990. There's quite a few mechanics you point out to prove your thesis, while also pointing out that the same mechanics existed in other games. Furthermore, just because something is broken (e.g Rush Jet is very OP) doesn't mean it's unfinished. If that were true, you could make the argument that just about any game is an unreleased beta, since emergent gameplay leads to people finding mechanics/abilities that were clearly stronger than developers realized. This happens all the time, and is the crux of glitchless speedruns, for example. So, while there's no disputing that the game is unfinished, this video just takes a stab at every weird thing about it and its development process as proof (e.g pointing out that the composer changed during development? Would you call Chrono Trigger a released beta, as well?), without wondering how much of it was simply standard design procedure at the time.

[@jonothanthrace1530]

I still remember buying Megaman 3 around its release date and being confused by things in the manual being straight up wrong, like the password system described being the one used in MM2. I completely forgot that the stages were meant to take place on other planets and always assumed they were just places that exist on earth (construction site, factory, cannabis farm, etc.)

[@slygambit9775]

Even though Megaman 3 is my favorite of the classic games and definitely the most fun/repayable Imo, I never understood why some people said why this game felt unfinished outside of the DOC stages( fuck those stages) this video definitely helped me see why. Very informative and interesting to learn about 👍

[@CardboardBots]

If Mega Man III is a released beta, all games could be considered released betas.

[@solarflare9078]

^^ Exactly. Most people haven't played enough (retro) games to know that.

[@Flabby555]

@@solarflare9078 Explain how *all games* could be considered released betas?

[@DeskoDev]

@@Flabby555 A large amount of retro games made back in the day were made under heavy crunch, often with insufficient beta testing.

[@Flabby555]

@@DeskoDev Unless you can bring up some examples and give me some links that said this, I'm not believing it, because we aren't the developers, and we don't know what they are thinking.

[@thomasffrench3639]

@@DeskoDev Just because many retro games were made under crunch, doesn't mean that the games were unfinished.

[@RippahRooJizah]

Okay, so while I'm a Megaman fan I don't have much experience with the original series (6 and 8 were my favorites, though). This is an interesting video, although this doesn't quite scream to me "Released Beta". Perhaps I have a different view of what a "Beta" would entail, but keeping crunch in mind it seems more like a Rush (Hurr Hurr) job with some questionable mechanics and perhaps an attempt to give more game while having less to work with. It could have used more time in the oven but "functionally incomplete" just doesn't seem quite fitting, as it seems functionally complete, just not always functionally sound. Like, Action 52 feels like a "released beta", MM3 just lacks some polish due to time constraints.

[@CarlosXPhone]

The video was not wrong. I discovered Mega Man 3 at a trade show. It had Mega Man 3 playable 6 months before release. Gemini stage was playing on the second screen above the player. I remember that like it was yesterday. I got Mega Man 3 that same Christmas. 🙂

[@PinClockFuntime]

I didn't know about the Rush Jet Lemon Special Weapon Damage trick and now I want to try it

[@UndyingEnergy]

IMO, outside of Top Spin, it's a stretch to assume the other weapons were unfinished or poorly tested. I always felt that the changes (like Shadow Blade being a nerfed version of Metal Blade) were intentional, having seen how OP a lot of 2's weapons were. Same goes for the imbalanced difficulty between the Doc Robot and Wily stages. There are other classic games (4 springs to mind, especially) where the difficulty is all over the place. It isn't unique to 3. Still plenty of valid points, though. The story was always jarring to me, the way that Gamma was referenced in a way that made it feel like the player should already know about it and its importance to the overall plot. It's definitely obvious that MM3 was rushed or unfinished in some areas, but I think some of these critiques can be found in lots of MM games.

[@Kydrou]

If you held Left + A on the second controller for the High Jump, you can also stay alive if you fall in Pits. And if an enemy falls on the pit or shoots to your central position, it will "kill you" by draining all your hp, but since you're in a pit you're not actually hit. So long as you jump out of the pit when music goes away, you'll not actually die and be indestructible, so long as you avoid all HP pickups and spikes.

[@owlyus]

Video games are not designed for the secondary market. The story being in the manual that comes with the game is not evidence of an unfinished game

[@jamesshipley9164]

One of the very first games I ever played as a little kid, and it's still very special to me and I give it a shot every now and then. I absolutely suck at it, but the music is pure nostalgia.

[@emailchrismoll]

I would like to see an NES re-release of Megaman 1 with a few tweaks. 1. Give it the tighter controls of Megaman 2 2. Remove anything related to points. 3. Change the energy drops to look like they do in Megaman 2 4. Have the magnet beam also be an item that you can just pick up on the first Wily stage at the start. This would make the experience so much better.

[@marx4538]

what's the problem with points? it's not the most fun game in terms of scoring, but i always liked those.

[@emailchrismoll]

the points don't serve a point@@marx4538

[@RappingNinja]

Storyline being relegated to the manual was pretty common in the NES times.

[@CopShowGuy]

I found that debug thing as a kid back in the day. Didn't know you could freeze enemies though. I just used the super jump/no death part of it.

[@omegarugal9283]

i always though the stages were weird, now i now they are supposed to be diferent planets, makes sense you forgot to add that after beating the doc robots you get t select protoman´s stage, which goes directly into a boss fight...why? you shot him a few times and then you go to wilys stage 1

[@OneOneTwo112]

To be fair there are other games in the series that have just a boss fight on a stage (such as Mega Man X5 with Dynamo), so I didn't necessarily think that was due to time constraints especially as that makes sense story-wise, with Proto Man distracting Mega Man with a battle while Wily stole Gamma.

[@RoninCatholic]

It's still my favorite classic Mega Man game, _but_ it could still have been better if it had more time to realize its potential in development.

[@dineauxjones]

I remember when I was a kid and playing this game when it came out. Perhaps one of my all time favorites. Perhaps I didn't think about it then but yeah, the game did feel "unfinished" compared to MM2. I do remember being frustrated at the slow downs and sprite flicker then.

[@JJMcCullough]

This was a solid video. I loved Mega Man 3 a lot as a kid, but it struck me as a little "off" even then. The Doc Robot stages in particular were just odd. I heard the name "Doc Robot" is some confused mistranslation as well, which led to a weird character in the Captain N series.

[@the_sixxness]

I loved the game dispite it's flaws.

[@MarieMoments335]

Great first video essay! I echo everyone else's feeling pretty much, it's well researched, I learned a lot and I can tell you have a strong passion for the topic here.

[@the_rolling_creeper]

It would be interesting to see how different it would have been if they had enough time to finish and polish what they had.

[@ils4844]

Holy shit all the yelling

[@OneOneTwo112]

Yeah sorry about that, admittedly my tone of voice is REALLY loud and when I asked for advice while making the video, people actually told me to turn the volume UP instead of down, I'll keep this criticism in mind for the next vid.

[@kinomon]

i was 11 when i first played it and i enjoyed it the DOC robot thing did blew me off guard tho lol

[@feenix219]

I actually saw all of that stuff as "advancement" as a child and was disappointed that you couldn't fight MM3 bosses in MM4, and what not. I loved the 2nd controller "walk-in-pits" trick and just thought of it as a cheat, not as a beta-testing mode. I loved having full control over the Rush Jet.

[@DarkZide8]

11:47 I love the two weakness loops in Mega Man 3 though. It's what the game needed to be a bit different from 1 and 2. The later Mega Mans would just play it safe and have one weakness loop in a boring way

[@_polpon]

I didn't perceive this game as incomplete when I was a kid, I didn't care that much about story back then either. I did think the submarine was pretty useless though, there should have been more uses for it.

[@rob4576]

Wow this is one of my favorite MM games. Thanks for the information.

[@timsimpson399]

I'm surprised how many people are bashing the Doc Robot stages. When I was a kid I thought bringing back the previous robots was one of the coolest elements ever. I also thought all the fortress stages of MM4-6 always felt too similar and got boring; I appreciated that the Doc Robot stages meant some of the additional levels after the first eight got took place somewhere other than a fortress.

[@AlvaroCardoza]

Great video man! Keep up the great job!!

[@nicholasfokas4292]

Great job! This was a lot more enjoyable to watch then I was expecting. You should make more edited videos like this when you get the chance. Also discord gang I guess

[@matttyree1002]

I remember using the cheat where you hold right on the second controller and jump in a pit to get the super jump and infinite health, when i was a kid. i found a paper weight that was heavy enough to press the d pad down.

[@Gaia_BentosZX5]

Consequently, I feel a released beta is holding back many fan designs as to what they COULD be. While visually, everything else should be MM6 in quality, the designs should stick to MM1~3. This unintentionally creates an endless tug-of-war in the community.

[@karlhernandez617]

Mega Man 3 will always be special to my. Especially the secret way I have of obtaining RJ without having to beat needle man first

[@ldsviking]

Nice job highlighting this game. It's interesting to see some of the "features" from a different perspective. I don't agree with you on all the points you seem to think are inherently bad game design. (For example, Rush Jet being able to move every direction--why not give the choice to the player, considering the upgrade was a reward in the first place and they still have to manage the fuel resources anyway? not to mention that it feels like a natural upgrade from what was available in MM2.)

[@OneOneTwo112]

Ah so Rush Jet was something I think I explained poorly 2 years ago. The issue isn't player freedom, it's the fact that it's easily exploitable because you can continuously jump to avoid draining the weapon energy and the free-flow nature lets you skip a lot of platforming puzzles. Mega Man 4 and on fixed this.

[@dvp84]

How is it that I've been playing this game for almost 35 years and didn't know a single one of those glitches? 😞

[@Gatorade69]

Cool vid. The algorithm has chosen it ! Mega Man 3 was the first Mega Man game I ever played. However I only owned 2 at home, so in some areas I do think 2 is the better game but I am wearing nostalgia glasses. Still you can't go wrong with either of them.

[@shivasthong4924]

The bad menu, as well as the graphic glitch on the selection screen are sure signs.

[@justifiedfun9811]

Greatest Beta ever

[@Quetzen]

Sadly, when I was a kid, my parents bought the game second-hand during their honeymoon, this means I played the game with no manual. This means we wasted a ton of time trying to figure things out with absolutely no context clues other than our prior memories of MegaMan 2, so it took us a long time to understand we could actually slide by pushing many buttons at once, or trying to figure whatever RC meant and why sometimes there is a dog.

[@OnePieceObsessed]

Anyone interested in how a proper full version would look should play the Mega Man 3 Revamped hack.

[@Waffletigercat]

It's very true that Mega Man 3 is an unfinished beta, and some parts of the game certainly show those rough edges. But it's still a damned good game in spite of those issues, and it definitely holds up compared to other NES games.

[@bloodykenshiro8218]

I always more or less saw MM3 under a less than flattering light. Now I understand why that is.

[@greenhxify]

I can’t believe my favorite megaman game is incomplete. Insane

[@Jayteaseepiirturi]

I might point out that the two boss circles on Mega Man 3 seem to be more of an oversight. But if you look at Mega Man 2, you'll find that it's completely out of whack in that regard. The weakness map is all over the place. PLUS... there seems to be this feature in the first eight levels that, you can go to an easy boss first but miss 1UPs or E-tanks because of that choice.

[@Madmike772]

It is a masterpiece in its own way. And the OST is untouchable for its time imo.

[@Krang100]

(11:49) While Megaman 3 was a great game, its weakness is the Robot Master has two cicles. However Shadow Blade works well with Snakeman (is much faster than the buster). Shadow Blade would work on Needle man, if Needleman weren’t too fast.

[@davidgusquiloor2665]

This was a very well done video. It's unfortunate how many times Mega Man games have been rushed because of Capcom. MM3 is a specially weird case bcause MM2 was a such a massive hit, and yet they didn't let them get a more sensible development time.

[@OneOneTwo112]

Thank you for the kind words! Yeah, I have no idea why they didn't give enough time for MM3 especially when MM2 already was crunched.

[@gtsavestheday6569]

I’m just gonna say this right off. Mega Man 3 was my intro to the series and I immediately fell in love, it’s still one of my favorite games to this day.

[@framedthunder6436]

I wondering how the Sega Génesis remake stack up with the original versión Is the complete Megaman III experience?

[@solarflare9078]

No. It's worse. This video is a MM3 hate bandwagon video anyways

[@RawrX32009]

​@@solarflare9078It's not, pointing out the flaws in a good game Isn't "hate"🤦‍♂️

[@conradojavier7547]

I feel like Sigma is an Evolution to Gamma.

[@thesmilingman7576]

14:47 I was thinking its a good luck you're going to need it rooms that are placed before hard bosses

[@Starslayer9095]

Great video 112!! I feel like I came away from it more educated on Mega Man, 3 especially! I'd love to see you make more video essays like this in the future!

[@OneOneTwo112]

Thanks so much! The fact that you feel more knowledgeable about Mega Man 3 means I did my job well, it means a lot. In terms of more video essays, I've been considering it but I mainly try to pick topics I am both extremely knowledgeable in and also aren't talked about as much on the internet, which is why it took me so long to make a video like this in the first place lol. However, should the inspiration strike, I certainly will make more content.

[@Starslayer9095]

@@OneOneTwo112 That makes total sense! Honestly I'm tempted to do a video essay on something I'm passionate about (kart racer track design) but I just haven't done it.