Dr. K's Waiting Room

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January celebrates two notable dates in science-fiction history, “National Science Fiction Day” on January 2 and Arthur C. Clarke’s HAL 9000’s birthday on January 12. Accordingly, I’m dedicating January to celebrating sci-fi with an event I call “Sci-Fanuary”.

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Released: 7 June 2024
Originally Released: 11 December 1992
Developer: Minakuchi Engineering
Also Available For: Game Boy and Nintendo 3DS

A Brief Background:
Mega Man (Capcom, 1987) successfully saw Capcom graduate to the growing home console market and. by 1992, the Blue Bomber was a Nintendo staple thanks, in part, to the challenge offered by his titles. In 1991, Capcom outsourced the development of Mega Man’s Game Boy debut to Minakuchi Engineering, resulting in the highly regarded Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge. Though it borrowed elements from Mega Man’s main console outings, the portable adventure was followed by a 1991 sequel so divisive even series artist Keiji Inafune allegedly believed the inexperience of developers Thinking Rabbit was to blame. Thus, Capcom reunited with Minakuchi Engineering for a third handheld title, one that was noted to have produced something much more akin to the mainline games. In keeping with its predecessors, reviews are somewhat mixed (despite notable improvements), especially concerning the limitations of the hardware and the recycling of elements over creating something truly unique to the series. While a collection of the Blue Bomber’s portable adventures was cancelled, Mega Man games continued to appear on the Game Boy and were later ported to Nintendo’s online shops and services.

The Review:
Mega Man III takes its inspirations from Mega Man 3 (Capcom, 1990) and Mega Man 4 (ibid, 1994), maintaining many of the same gameplay mechanics as the previous two handheld adventures and deviating very little from the established formula. When you first start the game, you must battle past four stages and defeat the Robot Masters waiting at the end. As you’d expect from a Mega Man title, each Robot Master has a specific weakness so it’s best to tackle them in a certain order. I’d recommend this more than usual because Mega Man III is particularly unforgiving, even for a Mega Man game. The restricted screen space of the Game Boy and the large sprites and hit boxes remain a constant headache, but I also found the game to be full of far more insta-kill hazards (bottomless pits and various spikes) than usual, and that enemies were far less likely to drop health and weapon power-ups. By default, Mega Man is armed with his signature arm cannon, which you fire with B or X. For the first time in the handheld series, you can charge up a shot by holding either of these buttons and this is far more useful here for cutting through the constantly respawning enemies. B lets you jump and pressing down and B lets you slide under enemies and projectiles (a feat trickier than it sounds thanks to their large hit boxes), through tunnels, and under ceiling spikes. You can replay any stage until you reach Doctor Albert Wily’s new sea fortress and the game comes with the usual password feature, though the Nintendo Switch’s save states and rewind features make this redundant. They were, however, far more essential here than usual as the game is littered with enemies and hazards, with airborne robots, projectiles, and temporary platforms screwing up your jumps and dropping you to your doom.

Players of Mega Man 3 and Mega Man 4 will instantly recognise the stages on offer here, and Mega Man III does a commendable job of recreating its 8-bit counterparts. One positive I can definitely say is that the developers were becoming more familiar with the Game Boy’s limited hardware and adding more depth and detail to the backgrounds and foregrounds. Snake Man’s stage, for example, boasts rippling snake platforms and fireball-spitting turrets; Gemini Man’s stage features a catchy tune and a beautiful crystalline aesthetic; and Shadow Man’s stage begins set before a rushing waterfall. Each Robot Master is fought in a claustrophobic, enclosed arena that makes it near-impossible to avoid taking damage. Thus, it’s recommended you “farm” nearby enemies to bump up your health and weapon energy. Each one drops a Special Weapon that’ll defeat another, and they all function exactly as in their home console counterparts. The Search Snake sends little snakes slithering across the floor and up walls, the Gemini Laser ricochets about, the Shadow Blade can be directed, and the Spark Shot fires a powerful electrical blast. Battling the Robot Masters is compounded by the atrocious slowdown and sprite flickering at work here that crops up in stages with larger enemies, such as Jumbigs, Pickelman Dadas, and frustrating Skeleton Joes (who reassemble far too quickly for my liking). As before, besting the first four Robot Masters sees you taking on four additional ones in four more stages. You’ll battle through Dust Man’s junkyard, avoiding being sucked up by him, and acquire his slow but explosive Dust Crusher, navigate Skull Man’s boneyard stage and hop around his Skull Barrier to gain a temporary shield, test your platforming skills in Dive Man’s flooded damn and grab his useful homing Dive Missiles, and blast through Drill Man’s mine to fire the Drill Bomb, which can also be remote detonated.

Dr. Wily’s personal defences are somewhat lacking this time around; you’ll battle the Giant Suzy twice, a fight I found extremely aggravating thanks to being stuck in a narrow corridor and the erratic robot attacking at random each time I rewound. Dr. Wily puts a lot of faith in his new “Mega Man Killer”, Punk, who makes a dramatic entrance and attacks by spinning at you like a buzzsaw and firing similarly themed projectiles. He’s not too tricky but also varies his high and low attacks, making him an unpredictable foe who I’m not how you’d defeat with the rewind feature. Dr. Wily attacks in a ridiculously large machine that hops about and fires diagonal missiles in its first phase. Thankfully, you can avoid damage completely by staying at the far left of the screen, but it can only be damaged with a well-timed, fully charged blast of your Mega Buster to its pupils (not the eyes; the pupils!) In its second phase, it stays still and spits out bouncy spheres at reflect your attacks. You must position yourself between them and chuck the Screw Crusher at the cockpit to reduce Dr. Wily to tears and destroy his base. Stages are the usual affair here, featuring many repurposed gimmicks such as ladders (with and without damaging clamps), vertical shafts (with and without spikes), lightbulbs that must be destroyed to light up dark areas, disappearing and reappearing blocks, long gaps that must either by leapt across or crossed using Rush Jet, higher areas you can only reach with Rush Coil, and a tense gimmick where the ceiling tries to crush you and you must blast blocks to reach safety. Dive Man’s stage was a standout for me thanks to the large Moby enemies and the rising/falling water gimmick recreated from Mega Man 4. Skull Man’s stage was also great because of the giant bones and skull theming, and I especially liked the swaying trees in Snake Man’s stage. Unfortunately, Mega Man III had a hell of a sharp difficulty curve, with some stages assaulting you with offscreen enemies right at the start. Tricky jumps, timed explosive platforms, and Hammer Joes were all placed in the worst locations and the margin for error is so frustratingly low thanks to the tiny screen size and the ridiculously large sprites (as impressive as they are).

The Summary:
I’m not against a challenge as long as it’s fair and fun. In this day and age, with quality-of-life features like save states and rewinds, it seems hypocritical to complain about a game’s difficulty. But Mega Man III is quite possibly one of the cheapest games I’ve ever played. It’s easily up there as one of the hardest Mega Man games I’ve experienced, and not in a fun way. The number of times I had to rewind or reload a save state tells me that I probably wouldn’t even clear a single stage if I was playing “legitimately”. Three games into the Blue Bomber’s portable career and the developers still haven’t figured out to just zoom out a bit, or reduce the size of their fun, expressive sprites. Sure, they’re way more detailed and impressive than the home console sprites, but they take up far too much screen space. It was almost impossible to avoid taking damage, especially with the brutal slowdown and sprite flickering slowing the game to a snail’s pace. Enemies respawn way too quickly, flying and jumping at you in the smallest of spaces and eating away your health in the blink of an eye. Sure, you can find the odd E-Tank to refill it, but that’s not going to help you when a couple of enemies appear at just the right position to batter you into an explosion of pixels. The Special Weapons were more useless than ever; considering their energy drains so quickly, you don’t want to waste them on anything but the Robot Masters so you’re stuck charging your Mega Buster. The Robot Masters were more unfair than ever, clogging up the screen and peppering you with their signature shots; Gemini Man was the worst thanks to him duplicating, firing a regular shot, and bouncing his Gemini Laser around. The Game Boy just couldn’t handle all that and your movements and attacks so the battle was an aggravating one. Sure, the sprite art in the ending and between stages is impressive, as is the soundtrack and the impressive recreation of the home console games. But the Game Boy just can’t handle everything happening onscreen and Mega Man III suffers because of it. The difficulty spike is immediate no matter which stage you pick and playing this game was a chore as a result, making it one of my worst experiences with the franchise so far.

My Rating:

Could Be Better

Did you find Mega Man III a challenge and a half? Do you think the Game Boy’s screen size was too small for the action? Were you disappointed by the lack of other bosses? What did you think to Punk and Dr. Wily’s obnoxiously large final machine? Which of Mega Man’s handheld games is your favourite? How are you celebrating the science-fiction genre this month? Whatever your thoughts on Mega Man III, share them below and be sure to check out my other Mega Man reviews!