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Mega Man X3...is a strange game, one
of the strangest I have ever played. When talking about this game, we are talking about
a game released for the Super Nintendo in late 1995 and early 1996, the fifth console generation
was already on it’s way and we have this game on the less advanced hardware. This game...which was
released after Mega Man 7, the 16 bit continuation of the Classic Series, confirming that Classic
Mega Man wasn’t going anywhere, these two could co-exist at the same time. Paving the way for more
Mega Man sub-series’ to be released alongside the classics and X games. X3, of any X game, is the
one with the most versions released each with their own unique elements that we will dive into
later. Mega Man X3 is most certainly the worst of the 16 Bit Mega Man X games for several reasons
that shall be explored before this video is done. With all that said, Mega Man X3 is another one
of my favorite games ever made, just like X1, X2, and X4. Spoilers for the X4 review, I
guess. But anyway that’s what we’re here to explore today. Mega Man X3 is a strange game,
one that I love to death. So, without further ado, let’s discuss the imperfect
perfection...of Mega Man X3.
Similar to X2, X3 opens with a backstory
only...this one goes on a little too long and isn’t that exciting, but regardless...the year is
21XX and a major change has taken place. A Reploid Scientist named Dr. Doppler created a cure for the
Maverick Virus, which I guess the games haven’t really specified up to this point, but many
Mavericks go Maverick because of a computer virus, alternatively called the Sigma Virus since that
floating head thing is the embodiment of it. Dr. Doppler’s achievement causes a town to
be built in his honor called Dopple Town. But Dr. Doppler turns evil and now has eight
new mavericks under his command as he launches an all out assault on Maverick Hunter HQ as Mega
Man X and Zero need to rush back and defend it. This intro stage is another fantastic one for
all the same reasons as the previous games, but the standout moment is when X gets captured
by a fellow maverick hunter turned maverick and to save him, you finally get to play as Zero for
the first time, who obliterates this guy in one Z Saber swing. But the functionality of Zero is
something we can get back to way later in the video. Once the stage is over, X and Zero need
to head into Dopple Town and defeat the eight mavericks working for Doppler before taking on the
mad scientist himself. Two stages in, you will see that Dr. Doppler sends out Bit, Byte and Vile
Mk. II to fight against you, and that, surprise, Sigma is behind the whole thing. But again,
these are all things we can get back to later.
By X3, you should be familiar with the formula.
We have eight new mavericks to face and you pick them in any order. In X2, I talked about the
game adding the Dash to X’s default moveset and the impact that had on the level design. In
X3, when asked about what has changed when it comes to playing as X between games, the answer to
that is genuinely nothing. X has no abilities or buffs at the start of X3 that he didn’t have in
X2. Although, the dashing damage boost has been nerfed to no longer work on bosses, but still
works on enemies. I guess that’s a change.
While nothing has changed about playing as X
himself, that’s not to say there is nothing unique about Mega Man X3 because this game tried to up
the ante in numerous ways, but to start simple, let’s discuss the level design. Originally,
I was going to say that the level design is a total downgrade from the previous games because
this game doesn’t really have much in the way of the set pieces that X1 and X2 had, especially
X2 since that game had the dash at default. It’s definitely true that X3’s level design
is much more straightforward than X2 since there will be many segments of you just going
forward and trying to blast whatever stands in your way. But when looking at the level maps of
X3, I think there was serious potential here. I think the most well designed level in X3 is
Toxic Seahorse’s stage. The first big moment of the level is this vertical shaft where you have to
dash jump between the walls to make it to the top, along the way there will be enemies positioned
on the opposite side you need to deal with, and enemies in the air to get in the way while
you also deal with with the rushing water coming from the sewer pipes. I think this area is the
peak of X3’s level design as it takes advantage of the X series gameplay pretty well. The rest of
the stage is also really good as the mid portion has two paths, one you need a ride armor for,
and the other you can run along the ground of. But in many other stages in X3, verticality is
not put to good use like in Blast Hornet’s stage, Gravity Beetle’s stage or Volt Catfish’s
stage where there is that verticality, but you just have to ride elevators up and down.
This can be bypassed with the leg parts of the third armor that I will get into in a moment, but
other than that you just have to stand there and wait. I think many stages in this game have good
moments like the conveyor belts of Blast Hornet, the ending set piece of Blizzard Buffalo where the
storm is affecting your control but you can knock it out by destroying the storm machine, I like the
ending of Volt Catfish where you have to carefully move around the electric panels and the enemies,
or this part of Crush Crawfish where you blast the generator of this ship that turns the whole thing
on it’s side and you have to climb up the area. My point is, there are a lot of highs in X3’s
level design, the game just doesn’t take advantage of every opportunity to do something interesting
like X1 and especially X2 did. Then there is a smaller problem with X3 needing you to take leaps
of faith and just hope enemies won’t be waiting for you, or worse, spikes or something like that.
So the level design is overall...a mixed bag, but then there’s the item game, probably the
most important part of Mega Man X for me. X3 is a very complicated game in this respect. As
usual, you have four sub tanks to find and heart tanks and four new armor pieces. The third armor,
where the leg parts are the best the series has seen thus far. It allows you to air dash like
in X2, but now you can dash upwards as well. Just by saying that, I am sure you can
imagine the ways in which it would be useful. The arm parts still allow you to charge
up special weapons and get an extra charge shot, but this one is not as good as X2. Here, you can
still fire two charge blasts, but if they combine you get this screen wave thing that doesn’t
do nearly the amount of damage on bosses that X2’s charge shot did. Also, is it just me, or does
this arm cannon look like a vacuum to anyone else? The body parts reduce the damage you take and when
you do take damage a shield is released around you that further protects you. And lastly you have the
head parts. This displays a map of the stage upon starting that shows you the locations of secrets.
Now this I think is interesting, since they have been trying their best with each game to give
the head parts a useful function, this is their best attempt thus far, however, it has problems.
I mainly don’t like the fact that you can only see the map when starting a stage. That, and it’s hard
to say where you are in relation to these red, blinking squares. Here’s what I think they should
have done. The SNES’ X button does not do anything during any of these games. Maybe if you pressed
it when you got the head parts, that would stop the action and release the map and it would have
a blinking blue square which shows your location in relation to the collectibles. I think that’s
a great solution that would make the head parts much better than it is now. Besides the map, you
also can see which items are located in the stage on the world map, a very handy thing, I’d imagine.
But here’s where things get tricky. X3 still has 10 more collectibles, now that we have gone over
the usual suspects. Let’s start with the four ride armors. Those beefy walking, punching tank things
from X1 and X2. In those games, you’d find them, you’d punch some stuff and that would be that.
Now, you collect them and can use them in stages. The Chimera Armor is the same as the one in X1,
you dash around and punch. The Kangaroo Armor is like the one in X2 with a charged attack, only
it can’t fly now. Instead, the Hawk Armor flies and has rockets on board. The Frog Armor being one
that can traverse underwater...and nowhere else, basically. This is required for the higher route
in the underwater portion of Toxic Seahorse’s stage that I mentioned earlier. So you can choose
one of four ride armors when these capsules show up. What’s wrong with this? Well, the baffling
design choice is that you can collect the last three I mentioned, but you can’t use any of them
until you find the Chimera Armor in Blast Hornet’s stage. Why would they do this? I just cannot
think of a single reason to design it like this, it limits the freedom and the exploration of
the game, for no good reason. To be honest, I don’t really even use these when they come
up, I just collect them because you have to. But if that seems convoluted, then you get the
Enhancement Chips where things really stop making sense. So there are the four parts of the third
armor we talked about, but the other four stages house pink Dr. Light capsules, each one enhances
one part of X’s armor. The head parts allow you to regain health while standing still, the body parts
further reduce damage, the arm parts give you the hyper cannon, where you can shoot charge shots
without charging and The leg parts allow you to double dash. As in, you can air dash and then
upward air dash, it’s actually pretty useful. All of these are actually pretty cool, but you
can only use one at a time. This isn’t the end of the world, but then you get the first Doppler
Stage where if you collect all eight heart tanks, all four sub tanks, all four ride armors, all
four regular light capsules and DON’T collect ANY enhancement chip, you jump down into this pit
at full health and you will find the Golden Armor which grants X all FOUR enhancement chips.
Now, this is an interesting system on paper, you can take short term benefits or wait
for long term benefits. Not a bad idea, but the game just does not communicate this to
you at all. Making the Golden Armor something most players would just never find without a guide,
especially since the map thing from the head parts doesn’t even work in the Doppler Stages.
The game design in X3 is just ass-backwards, as you can probably tell with all these new
systems that don’t really get fleshed out and are poorly explained. Another one of those
things would be Zero as a playable character.
In the pause menu, you can press R and then
select Zero as the player character. However, he’s just not that good. His health bar is bigger
than X’s, but so is his hit box, making him a bigger target with slower movement. X is better
for just about everything. Now, you might say: “But Zero’s bigger health bar and powerful
Z Saber surely must be useful for bosses?” Well, Zero can’t fight bosses, or even mini
bosses because X will just say “I’ll take this one Zero” and the game will force back
into being X. Once the mini boss is done, you can’t even switch back to being Zero. It’s one
time per stage. If Zero was put in to be a pure novelty, rather than a functioning gameplay
element, I guess I must say job well done, but I just think it doesn’t make any sense,
because Zero is basically useless since he can’t collect anything, can’t fight any bosses
and when he dies, you can never select him again. I just don’t know where they were coming
from with a lot of these decisions.
I was on the subject of bosses a moment ago,
which brings us into that conversation. Honestly, I think many of the bosses in this game have
interesting patterns. You will get a Tunnel Rhino who just rams back and forth, and a Blizzard
Buffalo who spends a lot of the fight off screen, but others like Gravity Beetle and Blast Hornet
will have these attacks that are pretty fun to dodge while dealing with the boss themselves,
like when Gravity Beetle fires two gravity wells on screen that you need to time your wall
clings alongside. However, the problem is that the boss attacks are very readable, I mean, super
predictable. So to combat the bosses all being really easy, the damage output from basically
everything in X3 is super high at the start. This is what allows a boss like Gravity Beetle to kick
your ass, if you make the smallest of screw ups, you will probably lose most of your starting
health bar. Seriously, a boss like Neon Tiger has some really slow ass animations and wind up but
if you get hit by it you are basically screwed. Of course, once you throw weaknesses into the
mix, then all the difficulty goes out the window. But that was only one example, almost all of them
are like this. You know my stance on this, it’s just extremely broken. Like I said, if a weakness
makes your win a literal guarantee, regardless of how much health you have, then there is a problem.
Why even fight the boss at all at that point? But I will say this, the special weapons in this game
are fantastic. Offensively, you have weapons like Triad Thunder or Spinning Blade which tear into
enemies with massive damage. Defensively, you have weapons like Frost Shield which makes enemies
drop health in the SNES version of the game, and a weapon like Parasitic Bomb which holds small
enemies in place, allowing you to slip past them. But I am getting off topic. The sheer amount
of collectibles in this game might make you wonder what the Least Backtracking Route
in X3 looks like. Back in 2015, this was actually the hardest one to figure out, because
I could identify ways in which you could do it, but then it was a matter of execution. The run
goes like this...Tunnel Rhino, Blizzard Buffalo, Blast Hornet, Neon Tiger, Toxic Seahorse,
Gravity Beetle, Volt Catfish, and Crush Crawfish. With you having to backtrack to Tunnel Rhino
for the upgrades you missed in his stage. Then collecting the Gold Armor in Doppler 1.
There actually is some room for variety here because you could do Neon Tiger third, and even
Toxic Seahorse forth, but this one just works the best for me. In 2015, the challenge with this
run was that you had to beat Blast Hornet and Neon Tiger without weaknesses, and even Tunnel Rhino as
a starting boss might give you trouble. I am very, very used to them all now, but still I really
spammed the Wii U’s restore points system when trying to learn these bosses because they hit
like a truck, which potentially could jeopardize the whole thing. But on the flipside, that also
made this my favorite one to do. In this case, I was overcoming a great challenge by figuring out
X3, transforming this game from one I did not like at all my first run, into one of my favorites. But
that story can wait for the end of the video. This game being one of the main reasons I wanted
to do least backtracking runs of these games, because the weakness run of X3 is a madhouse.
For this video, I did several runs of this game. When I did the run on Playstation, I did the
weakness order that begins at Blizzard Buffalo. By the end of this run you have to backtrack
to several stages in order to pick up some tiny collectibles you missed, like the heart tank in
Gravity Beetle, the ride armor in Toxic Seahorse, the body parts in Volt Catfish, the Ride Armor
in Crush Crawfish and the list goes on and on. The amount of time you spend on this is
so worthless that I tried to come up with something different, and here we are today.
When actually collecting stuff in X3, there’s another problem. The game doubles down on X1
needing a particular upgrade for many later ones, when X2 allowed you to get almost everything
without some other upgrade. In X3, you start with Tunnel Rhino in my route, because you need his
weapon to get the Heart Tank in Blizzard Buffalo’s stage, which is where the foot parts are. You need
both of those things to get the Arm parts in Neon Tiger’s stage, which is then required to get the
Body Armor in Volt Catfish’s stage, his weapon is then required to get some other upgrades. The game
uses the same items repeatedly to get multiple upgrades, and at that, getting these often feels
very arbitrary. Like the heart tank and head parts in Tunnel Rhino’s level are gotten via you
smashing the ground with a charged Triad Thunder when the thing in your way is a rock held by rope.
Wouldn’t you think Spinning Blade would do the job better? Or even, Acid Burst? Who is going to think
of this? Or the Heart Tank in Gravity Beetle. It’s blocked by these crates, but if you simply beat
Blast Hornet’s level, it just...won’t be there. That’s what I am talking about...super arbitrary
stuff like that affects the design of X3.
Now that we are about halfway through the video,
you might be wondering how the title could be true with all that I have said. And...all I will say
is that the conclusion will explain everything. In the meantime, let’s get back to the game
and talk about something else I brought up at the beginning. The fact that there are a
bunch of different versions of this game.
At the top I mentioned that X3 was a game for
the Super Nintendo released in 1995 or 96, depending on the region. This was around the
time of the jump to the next console generation, the Playstation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64,
although that last one doesn’t matter here. Capcom decided to release Mega Man X3 on the Playstation
1 in 1996 in Japan and 1997 in Europe, an American port was apparently planned but never saw the
light of day. In terms of what had changed, in regards to game design, absolutely nothing, Mega
Man X3 on the Playstation is the same game it was on the Super Nintendo. What has changed are the
little cosmetic details. First, the game uses the technology to have better graphical effects like
a higher degree of transparency on this water or these clouds, and they implemented FMVs in place
of the opening, a cutscene before the intro stage, a cutscene showcasing the maverick you are
about to fight before their stage, and other cutscenes at the end of the game. Besides that,
they replaced the entire soundtrack with a CD Redbook version. In terms of music, I know this is
a hot take, but X3 is absolutely top tier for me, in both versions. Starting with the SNES
soundtrack, it is absolutely up my alley. Many have complained that I love the X3 music, but
give a lot of heat to the soundtrack of Mega Man Zero 4 on Game Boy Advance. I don’t really
feel like I am contradicting myself here, I just think the GBA didn’t have the tech to
do Zero 4’s music any justice. But with X3, I think the instrumentation works for me because
of how it can mix in those high pitched sounds as well as the low pitched ones, so I don’t
really get annoyed by any of the sounds in this game. I enjoy the entire soundtrack, in
spite of how criminally short the loops are. The soundtrack on PS1 is equally good. For X3,
you’d expect the music to be all head bangin’ guitars, but the PS1 music often doesn’t take
that approach, leading to an interesting sound across the board, while still producing
bangers for the likes of Toxic Seahorse. Now, Doppler Stage 1’s remix is a crime against
humanity, but other than that I really like the music here. But if you really want some
bangin’ Mega Man X3 remixes, amongst other Mega Man tracks, check out Lenny Lederman.
I have been a subscriber of his for almost a year now and his remixes never fail to impress
me. So really, check them out if you haven’t.
Anyway, the PS1 was not the only console to
receive X3. Said Playstation port was also released for the Sega Saturn in Japan and Europe.
This one actually got some pretty bad scores, but when I played it, I was kind of surprised it
wasn’t really doing anything terrible the other ports weren’t doing. Well...ignore that jittering
X, I just assume that is my emulat...console screwing up the graphics. I always heard
the Saturn Port was super slow, but I can only conclude that it must be the European version
running at 50hz, because the Japanese version ran just fine. The Saturn version does add these tacky
borders on top of the game, and that’s because X3, as an SNES game was natively 8:7, something the
Playstation was able to handle, as well as other bizarre aspect ratios like the Crash games. Your
CRT would just stretch the image to the normal aspect ratio. The Saturn, didn’t have that ability
to handle different aspect ratios, I guess...so they put a border in to fill the space. The
Saturn version does have a save feature though, so that’s neat. Said save feature made it into
the Windows 95 version of X3, the first 5th gen version of X3 that actually did reach the States,
and I even own it. I can’t play it at the moment since my current PC doesn’t have a disc drive,
but like I said it comes with the save feature and an easy mode that lessens the damage you
take from enemies and bosses. The weirdest version of X3 is this bootleg version of it that
got released on the Genesis...and...oh god, every time I revisit this as a joke, I always forget how
puke-inducing this “version of X3” is. So...forget I said anything. The 5th gen version of X3 was
given mainstream access to western players when it got included in the PS2’s Mega Man X Collection,
which is how I first experienced this version, and the typo in the Blizzard Buffalo cutscene
where his name got spelled...Bilzard Buffalo. The 2018 Mega Man X Legacy Collection included
the SNES version though, so if it matters to you which X3 you play, I figured I’d mention that.
But last and certainly not least, is Mega Man X3 The Zero Project, a rom hack of the game developed
by XJustin3009X, I have been singing the praises of the Zero Project for years now, and what’s
great is that the project has only gotten better since 2016 when I did the original X3 review. The
final release came out a couple of years back, and I have no problem saying it is absolute
perfection. What the Zero Project offered before was a version of this game where Zero was a
fully implemented playable character who can fight bosses, collect heart tanks and dr light capsules
and all that. Now, many more changes have been made to make this the definitive X3 experience
as Zero can no longer use Light capsules, to keep in continuity with the later games, but he
starts with a double jump and the ability to smash these rocks in Tunnel Rhino with his Z Saber. This
completely blows the item game of X3 wide open. Because of this, you no longer need to
backtrack to Tunnel Rhino’s stage at the end, and in fact you can get the Head Parts
as the first armor piece. The Head Parts also got an upgrade that halves the special weapon
ammo that X uses, when Zero’s doubled at default, really highlighting the idea that Zero is more
powerful than X at the start, but X becomes more powerful later. You can then go to Neon Tiger
and get the arm parts via Zero’s double jump. Look at this...X can’t achieve this at all in the
original game. X’s arm part charge shot is faster and more fun to use, some items are given more fun
ways of getting, the ride armors can be used after collecting one, regardless of whether or not you
found the Chimera armor first… it’s improvements like that which allow you to just enjoy X3
more than you ever could in any other version. The Zero Project is a perfect Mega Man X
game, and I have no problem saying that. Showing how close X3 is to being that, but the
game just fumbles on it’s new ideas, but luckily a fan was able to step in and give such a perfect
rendition of X3, even including a save feature and a new game plus option. I cannot recommend
the Zero Project of X3 enough, it’s fantastic. Kind of a shame the X2 version got cancelled,
but I understand why, he had been doing the X3 project for years and you just get burned out, I
imagine. Although it is funny, what was done for Zero Project of X2 got released, and I played it
as soon as it did, I forget how far back this was, and this is actually what taught me how dumb my
raging at X2 for not having a reward for beating the X Hunters was. I mean, it’s playable Zero,
which is nice...but...it doesn’t really change much about X2, and it shows you, there wasn’t much
to change, the game was pretty damn cool already.
Back to the main game, you know the drill, we’ve
done all the stages, gotten all the upgrades, it’s time for the final levels. Doppler’s
fortress in the center of Dopple Town. I already let the cat out of the bag on the first one of
these Doppler levels housing the Golden Armor, The Zero Project allowing Zero to gain
access to his Black Armor from here, like the Ultimate Armor Capsule in X5. At the
end of the stage, you get one of two bosses. If you killed Bit and Byte in the Maverick Stages,
you fight this boss in the garbage disposal, but if you didn’t kill Bit and Byte, they
team up in a new form. But I guess that begs discussion of Bit and Byte. Throughout X3 you
will repeatedly find these empty boss rooms, and the purpose of them is that this is
where Bit and Byte will try and jump you. It’s not totally random how this happens. Bit will
be the one you face first, in any of your third, fourth or fifth stages. So in my route, any
stage between Blast Hornet and Toxic Seahorse. Byte will then do the same in one of the last
three stages you play. To beat them you just need to use the X Buster, but that will cause
them to run away. To kill them you need to use one of their two weaknesses, Frost Shield or Triad
Thunder for Bit, Tornado Fang or Ray Splasher for Byte. In the Zero Project, it actually is random
which one of them you will face, but if you play any one of Tunnel Rhino, Blizzard Buffalo, Volt
Catfish or Neon Tiger as your first two stages, you will have the fire power needed to finish
either one of them off. These two don’t affect the game like the X Hunters did, which is a bit
of a shame since like I said last time, I thought that system added a lot to the last game in terms
of risk versus reward and exploration. Here, it’s just another system to throw into the X3 mix. But
then you get stage 2, where there are two versions of this level. If you beat Vile Mk2 in the
maverick stages, then you get this clean Doppler Stage 2 with the toughest enemies in the game. But
if you don’t, the stage is trashed and you have to fight Vile here. I usually don’t bother facing
Vile in the maverick stages because I think it’s more climactic at the end of the game. But if you
do, Vile is hidden in secret spots throughout the game and when you find his secret capsule you get
warped to his area where you will then fight him, same rules from Bit and Byte apply, use
his weakness, Ray Splasher to kill him, otherwise he will run away when his health bar is
depleted. Either way, you have to then escape the area before it explodes. Why this matters now is
for what might be the most convoluted item unlock in Mega Man history. X1 and X2 had these Street
Fighter Super power moves that killed bosses in one hit. X3 has a super power move, but instead
of a Street Fighter technique, it is Zero’s Z Saber. To get this, you have to first...kill
Vile in the Maverick Stages. Then, you need to make sure Zero is alive, so never use him.
Reach Doppler 2, make it to this mini boss door, switch to Zero and then battle the mini boss as
him, if you die Zero is gone just like the rest of the game, but if you win, Zero gets battle damaged
and gives you his Z Saber, which kills bosses in two hits when you fully charge your buster. Recall
what I said before, this game is ass-backwards. I suppose this isn’t more convoluted than the
Haduken in X1, but there’s just so many steps here that are completely unrelated. And then asking
you to fight a mini boss as Zero is ridiculous when the whole game has been telling you it
can’t be done, I really have no idea how anyone was supposed to find this without Nintendo Power
or whatever. Although, props to the Zero Project again, at this point in that game, if you meet all
these conditions and try to walk into this boss door as Zero, X will warn you to be careful, just
to remind players who might have forgotten, that the Z Saber is still in the game, and is still
gotten the same way. Whenever I play this game, I usually just skip past this upgrade since it gives
the bad ending, and I like getting the best ending if I can. At the end of Doppler 2, you have what
belongs on the list of worst Mega Man segments. This snail section where you have to wait on robot
snails that will take you up this shaft. Need I say more? I get you can easily get past it if you
master Neon Jumping, but I won’t be doing that. After the one time I spent like an hour trying to
do the iceless jump in Boomer Kunwager’s stage in X1, I gave up on speedrunning strats. As I was
saying, I usually don’t get the Z Saber, and you really feel it in this awful boss rush stage where
you...have to refight these long battles and watch their long explosion animations. Which reminds
me...this game has a real hard on for those damn explosions, now even mini bosses take 15 seconds
to explode! But once that drag ends, you fight Doppler who reveals Sigma controlled everything
and that he’s got a new battle body. The story of X3 is a real nothing burger…I mean, nothing
of consequence happens in this game, so...
This final boss segment is pretty infamous. The
first phase is actually pretty fun to do on a buster only run as you can clearly tell there is
a pattern to his attacks, they just move too fast to dodge. But the strat is to cling onto the wall
until his third to last shot where you jump down, avoid the last two blasts and get a charge shot
in, repeat until you win. Or just cheese it with the spinning blade. The final boss is the real
challenge as Sigma will drain your subtanks, even with all the unlockables you have at this
point, since everything from the missiles to the bombs to the lasers just hits well...like
an X3 boss. Worst part being how you need to shoot him at this precise angle, or else the shot
won’t do any damage. As if that wasn’t enough, you then need to escape a rising fire sequence and
if you fail because of a cheap shot from Sigma, you need to do the whole thing again with no sub
tanks. However, if you make it you get one of two endings, if Zero is alive then he will defeat the
Sigma virus, and if he’s not, Doppler will destroy the Sigma virus. Either way, the text of the
ending is the same. I love the music here, it’s really melancholic. Don’t have anything to say on
the ending itself since...it pretty much is the same thing as the last two games, just now it sets
up some kind of X vs Zero fight for a later game.
And that was...Mega Man X3. What I find
so interesting about this game is that, as stated at the top of the video, this is one of my
favorite games of all time, and yet, here we are, reviewing it for the second time and...almost
nothing has changed from the original review. I think X3 is the opposite side of the coin from
X2. At the end of the X2 review that just came out, I said that X2 is a game that got unfairly
maligned by me in 2016 thanks to my incredibly bad attitude towards making videos at the time.
In the X3 review, I said this: “but the foundation it was built on was perfect so by no means was
Mega Man X3 a POORLY designed game, far from it, the game just has problems that cannot be ignored,
and I believe I’m a competent enough reviewer to segregate how much fun I have while playing a
game, from the actual quality of the design.” Like I said, little about this has changed. In
both that review and this one, I don’t wish to tell you why Mega Man X games are fun to play
because I have already laid that groundwork in the X1 review. Both of them. So saying any of
that again would be redundant, to say the least. Instead we are left with what is unique about
Mega Man X3 and in that case, I just think most of these systems don’t really work, like Enhancement
Chips, Ride Armors, that sort of stuff. They crammed a lot of mechanics in this game
and most of the new ones aren’t very good. Despite the fact that the game is fun at
it’s core because it’s a Mega Man X game. So, regardless of the attitude I carry into videos
now, X3 still comes out in an unfavorable position from a scripting standpoint. But here is where
the difference lies between the two videos. Mr Analytical over there thought he was being
smart by casting aside the emotional stuff and just roasting X3 for it’s faults. It’s a
difference in attitude, like I said. I have absolutely ZERO shame in saying that I love Mega
Man X3 because guess what? I don’t care that this game has Enhancement Chips that are designed in an
odd fashion or that you need the Chimera Armor to use any Ride Armors, because I already know all
of that stuff so my playthrough is not affected by that at all. It’s not just a case of my having
played so many times that I am numb to the flaws, what it really is, is that I know all of these
problems, but in the case of X3, this game means a lot more to me than I could properly explain,
but I will try and I will try to do it briefly since I don’t really want to recount many details.
When I got into the Mega Man X series in 2015, it was 8th grade, by that point, I’d say I was
liked by most people around me, however I didn’t keep that many close friends. I’d say I had two
people who I talked to more than anybody else. If you watched my video “Why I stopped Making
Mega Man Videos” You’d know this story already, one of those friends stopped talking to me
completely. 8th grade shit, what can I say? Like I said in the aforementioned video, it really
did a number on me at the time. My other best friend was super busy at the time, so I couldn’t
hang out with him. What I chose to turn to, was the Mega Man series, and in particular,
replaying the X games I already got into. I remember that after my first playthroughs of X1
- X5, I decided that every run after that I would just use cheats and passwords to unlock everything
from the start and have a grand old time. But then one day, I decided I wanted to go further
with it, I wanted to actually learn how to 100% the game for myself. It was in that moment when I
tore up the paper I had all the passwords written on, because I was never gonna use them again.
This is when my interest in least backtracking runs started. But like I said, X3 was the most
rewarding because it was also the most difficult. It felt great. I had uncovered the secret
to X3. A game I really didn’t like at first, but had grown on me through all this. But all my
favorite youtubers still don’t like it, so I’ve got to tell the world about this, then everyone
will enjoy this game as much as me! I can’t speak for everyone here, but for myself, as a 14 year
old content consumer, you want your favorite youtubers to share all of your opinions because
then they can convince everyone to think like you. When they don’t, you want them to see it your way.
This led to an embarrassing moment in 2015 that I still cringe at the thought of to this day.
Looking back on this almost seven years later, it’s interesting how things turn out... I kind
of get that same thing from 2000s Sonic fans in my comments who feel betrayed by my not
giving them the Colors and Generations rant videos they wanted. I can only imagine that with
all the build up I put into bashing those games, people felt let down by my just...having a change
of heart and not wanting to do that anymore. But here’s my message to everyone. This is why
I tell people to just make their own videos, because it’s completely free to do. When
I started doing youtube, my attitude on a lot of things had changed, including this
nonsense about hoping youtubers think like me, because I don’t need to do that, I mean, I hope
I would have stopped being an annoying 14 year old without YouTube, but still, my point is that
I will use my own platform to spread my thoughts out there, and that’s what I have been doing,
for better or for worse, since 2015. My opinions not being represented in videos online is what
got me fired up to really want to do it myself, and now I have 100K subscribers, thanks for
that, genuinely, to all the people who continue to watch all these videos. And you can do it too,
maybe your channel won’t blow up overnight, but I am just saying, if you have a passion for sharing
your opinions, like I have since I was like 2 years old, then start doing it. It’s free. Anyway,
I can never dislike Mega Man X3, or say anything bad about it in passing because this is one of the
most important games in my life. Got me through a really bad depressive episode, it and the other
X games, taught me an important lesson when going from content consumer to content creator. And
it has kept bringing me entertainment...and you guys I suppose...for the years that have come
after that. Which is why I love Mega Man X3, even though if I were to review it a million
times, it would always turn out like this, because this game is very flawed. It’s imperfect. But
it’s perfect for me. It’s Imperfect...Perfection.
