Mega Man 3

I feel this is the best Mega Man game for the NES. Just like the two previous installments, you go through every stage, collecting power-ups like energy tanks and free lives. Eventually, after you've gotten through the hair-raising obstacles in each stage, you face the boss. After defeating him, you take his weapon and use it against other bosses. Even the strongest boss can be defeated in a few hits with the right weapon.


Here are the bosses. I usually beat them in this order: Magnet Man, Hard Man (tee hee!), Needle Man, Snake Man, Top Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, and Gemini Man. I take on Needle Man early so I can get Rush Jet, which saves my ass a lot.

Once you have beaten these dorks, you then get to face the Doc Robots. The four hardest stages (Spark, Gemini, Needle, and Shadow) are made even harder and lengthened considerably. In these stages, you get to face two robots each stage who have the powers of the robot bosses from Mega Man 2. You don't get to keep their powers, and I find Crash Man is much harder to defeat without the Air Shooter.
I personally loathe the Spark stage, since one of the obstacles is a long drop with spikes (which kill Mega Man instantly) lining the sides. If you die on this drop, you go back to the start, and have to get all the way to Metal Man and defeat him again, which really isn't difficult, it's just a pain in the ass.

Should you manage to make it this far, you'll have to face Break Man. I'm still not sure if he's supposed to be the same guy as Proto Man, whom you had to fight in the Magnet, Hard, and Shadow stages. This is a rather short battle, and if you die here, you suck.

Finally, you move on to Dr. Wily's castle. I think the best music ever composed for the NES is used for these stages.
In them, it isn't anything you haven't faced in the game before, it's the same shit in a different color and layout. To beat the Rock Monster at the end of stage two, I usually use the Shadow Blade and hit him in the eye a few times. At the end of the third stage, you face three clones of Mega Man. Before they appear, get to the top level and switch to Search Snake. If you hit the top clone four or five times before he disappears, you'll beat them all. Simple.

Not so simple is the next stage, where you get to defeat all the MM3 robot bosses again. The doors aren't marked, so you don't know which boss is behind each door, and I never bothered to memorize it or look it up. I usually conserve just the Shadow Blade and Search Snake since I use those in the next battles.

After defeating all those guys again, you face Dr. Wily in some crazy crabwalking machine. I typically go for the mega buster here, since there's a lot of jumping and shooting and I don't want to waste weapon power. A little diligence will get you through this battle. Eventually you'll beat Wily, but it's not Wily at all. It's a spring-loaded thing.

In the next battle, you get to beat Wily in a big-ass robot in the finest NES tradition. For the first half of the battle, I use Shadow Blade. After that, it's straight to Search Snake. While avoiding that spiked fist that suddenly flies out at you without warning and aiming a few well-placed hits, you'll beat Wily for real this time.

I won't spoil the ending for you. I told you how to beat most of the game from memory, so that should satisfy.

I loved this game. Still do, actually. It's one of those games that keeps you coming back for more. It has a decent level of challenge, and really doesn't go too overboard with it (besides the Doc Robot stages, anyway.) The music in this game is great, showing how Capcom took beeps and whistles and made them into an art form. I think it was issued on CD in Japan, which is a common occurence for video game music, which is much more respected there than anywhere else in the world.

I'm not sure I'd recommend buying the game since it's usually rather expensive, and costs more than the Mega Man Anniversary Collection does. With that package you get Mega Man 1-6 and couple others which I have never bothered playing. And you get it for $20, and it's available on Gamecube, PS2, and X-Box.
I got my copy of MM3 when a local video store was going out of business. I rented this game many times, and finally bought it for $7. It had no instructions nor box, but very few second-hand NES games do.

It's a fun game to play, and if you like the NES, one of the essential purchases.