A Critical Look at Mega Man 3 Stages: Spark Man
After one Peterchy, we meet the Electric Gabyoall. These move back and forth slowly and fire an electric beam between them now and then.
This robot made of plugs is Elec’n, who drops from the chutes above and fires sparks in eight directions. They’re soon combined with Gaby, making for a fun section that looks difficult but can be run through without stopping if the Elec’ns are shot in time. The next room is another Hammer Joe by itself.
These platforms move upward quickly once stepped on, so the player needs to quickly jump to the next before being crushed against the spikes at the top. However, not all of them can be reached right away, so each jump has to be timed properly as well. The arrow is also a nice touch, giving players a good chance to guess what’s going to happen on the first go. The next screen mixes a couple Gabys with pits, which can be dangerous if a player gets caught between them. Beyond that is a simple enemy and free items.
The next hallway has a bunch of Peterchys followed by a long drop.
At the bottom is a series of chutes that spit blocks of trash in your way. These can be destroyed, but it’s easier to just move over them before the second one has a chance to fall. The next screen simply has a few more freebies.
The last section before the boss combines the moving platforms from earlier with small platforms and Bolton/Nutton combos. A player could try to kill the enemies at each safe platform or keep moving and run under them, but both options require more precision than anything we’ve seen so far.
This stage does a great job of introducing a couple new traps and mixing them up with increasing difficulty. The parts that don’t involve Elec’n and the moving platforms are mostly filler, though the drop and trash chutes are at least thematically interesting.
The placement of the Hammer Joes seem to be a problem for this game, as they’re really not dangerous or interesting enough to deserve a room to themselves. With two other mostly harmless enemies (Peterchy and Pickleman Bull), the level fluctuates wildly in difficulty, though some players might appreciate having something simple to shoot between platforming challenges.
Though the stage’s wall tiles are just blocks of electronics, the flashing lights and moving machinery help it stand out, and having enemies pop out of the chutes helped establish it as a place that’s being used for something. The music remains at the high quality we should be expecting from this game now.
Tags: A Critical Look at, editorial, Mega Man 3, Mega Man Classic
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Never understood why Inafune seemed to have qualms against Mega Man 3.
I found Spark Man Stage was to easy, like nearly every stage of Megaman 3. I mean, the jump n run section with the upgoing blocks are easy to manage. But the second one with the Bolton/Nutton increases the difficult a bit. Problem is, it was not that hard as you excepted it. When you play Megaman 1 and 2 this was piece of cake.
The Electric Gabyoall can easly be glitched out, so no problem either to get trough the passages. The dust block spitters are a challenge, when you dont know how to handle them.
Hm, Megaman 3 was a good game. But way to easy for me. The difficult increases only at the 8 Doc Bots, but not nearly far enough for a real challenge. But good review as always, keep it going.
MegaManSonicDude: Because they didn’t get to properly finish it before it was released. It went on to be this great thing, but he’s always known that it was meant to be better still.
I never really got into Spark Man’s stage for some reason. Maybe it’s because I never thought the music, awesome though it be, seemed to fit the stage. Not sure why. Anyway, I’m sure that’s just me. Game still rocks, though.
@megamansonicdude
Take off the nostalgia goggle and stat analyzing critically, you can see flaws everywhere.
@Lumine1412
Yeah, it has some weird glitches and bugs. But, that’s why i love it. I mean, when you have a second controller you can do nearly everything without dying. You can even fly out of the screen and walk over the level. Everything goes.