A Critical Look at Mega Man 3 Stages: Gemini Man Revisited
The first section trades Pepe for Jamacy, which quickly crawls along the ground when it doesn’t have a ladder to climb. Pepe was a better partner for Nitron here as it was strong enough to provide a distraction, while this time both enemies die in one hit. However, the terrain is more deadly this time around, the Nitrons are more numerous and appear higher, and a couple of the Jamacys are placed where they could possibly knock the player into a pit, so it’s a decent tradeoff.
Pole was kind of interesting thematically, but it doesn’t have much to offer the gameplay and it’s overused here. Potton is the only other enemy for the rest of the first half and he’s not much of a threat by himself either.
After a pointless forced use of Rush, we find that Jamacys are crawling out of the broken walls. This one is alone, and beyond that is a new water section.
Now, the previous water section was hands down my favorite part of the game, and likely the most difficult. This is a joke in comparison. Instead of being attacked vertically and horizontally among complex terrain, we’re treated to a wide open path between two enemies attacking vertically, meaning we can just sail right through without hassle. We don’t even need to go after the refills, as it’s short enough that it only takes 2/3 of Rush Marine’s energy.
Rush Jet also works just fine in water, if you’re so inclined. Yet more Pottons fill the room afterward, though these at least have a chance at hitting since the player might go for the ladder instead of walking under them first.
This section is pretty great though. There’s a bunch of Jamacys falling from the ceiling, and they can climb down any ladders they run into. Having a horizontal section full of ladders was a brilliant move, as it provides a bunch of things for players to grab onto, breaks up the enemy movement, and there are plenty of possible routes to take, any of which are viable depending on the current position of the enemies. It’s not that difficult, but it’s one of the most interesting examples of stage design we’ve seen so far.
And then, an empty room. Okay.
This one does pretty well with half the stage, but also wastes too much space neutering the water section and spending a quarter of the stage on more Poles. Still, the new section was a great idea both mechanically and thematically.
Tags: A Critical Look at, editorial, Mega Man 3, Mega Man Classic
Filed under: Community Developments, Editorials, Featured
The ladder section is pretty boss. The Doc stages just annoyed me more than anything for some reason. Still enjoyed them, but it was something about knowing I was fighting the same guy at the end every time.
One of the stages how use the re design for a complete new feeling. The Jamacys section was unique and pretty awesome. I loved it back the days. Yeah, i’m a fan of the Gemini Man Stage Design but that underwater section was something useless. It was more like: Hey we have Rush Marine, let´s make something that make him look usefull. Argh, stupid. The Sperm, sorry Pole, Situation is and will ever be useless.
Wow. A critical look at this Doc Robot stage is finally featured, and what I thought would get some sort of criticism, only gets a notable mention. I’m talking about the “forced use of Rush”. Think about this:
If an inexperienced player stupidly uses up the energy for both the Rush Coil and the Rush Jet transformations, how will they advance past the area after the first Doc Robot battle? The answer to that question is: They can’t. And, from what I can remember, there’s nothing around to deplete your life energy, so you can never get a game over.
You’re not only forced to use Rush, here. If you find yourself in this situation, you’re forced to hit the reset button, too. And, to top it off, if you choose to go through this level first, after defeating the normal 8 bosses, you don’t even get a password to return to this part of the game, due to a glitch. So, now, you’re forced to fight the 8th boss once again(if you wrote down the password).
I love this game the most out of the classic series, but even I cannot let a flaw in level design like this go by without saying something, regardless of development schedule. I know it’s not very likely that anyone will be in this situation, but still. That should’ve been fixed.
@EngineR2
It is always shocking to find this kind of situation in a game. To Mega Man 3′s credit, this is very, very unlikely to happen; wasting Rush Coil’s energy takes quite a bit of effort. Also, the NES version DOES have the “player 2 controller” cheats, so you could super jump out of it that way (if you’re playing Wily Wars though…).
I was unaware this existed though, and it should be taken care of in a remake. Yyyyyup, Capcom should definitely remake Mega Man 3 ; )