History YMMV / MegaMan3

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: It's a ''Mega Man'' game, what were you expecting?

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Proto Man, one of the most popular characters in the series, debuted in this game. Shadow Man is also well-liked due to having a cool design (being the first ninja Robot Master helps) and a useful weapon.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The Doc Robot stages, since the Doc Robots themselves are [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere random and unforeshadowed]], make you essentially re-fight the ''Mega Man 2'' Robot Masters, and are never mentioned afterwards. One could cut them out and skip to the final Break Man fight and nothing would be affected. It can be argued that their appearance was meant to act as a hint that Dr. Wily was behind the ruse all along (since the ''2'' Robot Masters were his creations, and the Doc Robots also have a skull motif (albeit one that isn't apparently obvious at first, due to the artstyle)) and were a part of his plan to distract Mega Man while he hijacked Gamma, but little would be lost if the game skipped straight to the Wily Castle.
** The fight against Proto Man disguised as Break Man itself arguably counts as this as well, considering there's no given reason for why Proto Man decided to disguise himself, and there isn't any cutscene before or after the fight that would give context to this behavior whatsoever.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The Doc Robot stages, since the Doc Robots themselves are [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere random and unforeshadowed]], make you essentially re-fight the ''Mega Man 2'' Robot Masters, and are never mentioned afterwards. One could cut them out and skip to the final Break Man fight and nothing would be affected. It can be argued that their appearance was meant to act as a hint that Dr. Wily was behind the ruse all along (since the ''2'' Robot Masters were his creations) and were a part of his plan to distract Mega Man while he hijacked Gamma, but little would be lost if the game skipped straight to the Wily Castle.

** The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEf8gPFFZ58 title screen theme]] is often cited as one of the best tracks in the series' history (up there with Wily Stage 1's theme from VideoGame/MegaMan2).

* ThatOneLevel: Pretty much every Doc Robot stage. Being little more than "hard mode" retreads of older levels ([[DifficultySpike that are harder than the Wily Castle stages]]), having to fight two bosses (at least one of which acts as ThatOneBoss) per stage, suffering from CheckpointStarvation, ultimately gaining no reward like extra weapons and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment being insignificant in the overall plot]], it's no wonder that players usually use passwords to skip them entirely. Needle Man's stage is probably the worst of them, thanks to a very long BottomlessPit that can only be crossed with the Rush Jet, so pray you don't run out [[ItemFarming lest you take up the life of a farmer]].

* BetterThanCanon: The ''Mega Man 3 Improvement'' and ''Ultimate'' [[RomHack rom hacks]] fixed a lot of the game's issues and even provided an original intro cutscene, leading fans to consider them the definitive version.

* ScrappyWeapon: While the Top Spin [[LethalJokeWeapon can be used properly]] in [[SelfImposedChallenge boss weapon-only runs]], the Spark Shock really is useless. Unlike the Ice Slasher, you can't switch to another weapon to lay on the hurt on a paralyzed enemy, or freeze another enemy while the current shot's sparks are onscreen.

*** Additionally, most Doc Robots lack a weapon that can four or even two-shot bosses like in the [[http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Mega_Man_2_Damage_Data_Chart original game]]. The ''Mega Man 3'' [[http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Mega_Man_3_Damage_Data_Chart damage chart]] for the Doc Robots fairly closely resembles the Japanese version of the game, however.

** The Wily Machine 3, normally an AntiClimaxBoss, becomes this if the player is on a [[SelfImposedChallenge Buster-only run]]. It becomes a PuzzleBoss where the player needs to wait for it to descend and become vulnerable, which is hard when it keeps firing bullets to interrupt them. Crossing under it to the other side of the room becomes much harder without [[GameBreaker Rush Jet]].

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The Doc Robot stages, since the Doc Robots themselves are [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere random and unforeshadowed]], make you essentially refight the ''Mega Man 2'' Robot Masters, and are never mentioned afterwards. One could cut them out and skip to the final Break Man fight and nothing would be affected. It can be argued that their appearance was meant to act as a hint that Dr. Wily was behind the ruse all along (since the ''2'' Robot Masters were his creations) and were a part of his plan to distract Mega Man while he hijacked Gamma, but little would be lost if the game skipped straight to the Wily Castle.

** What is commonly assumed to be the moment Mega Man learns Proto Man is his brother, isn't. [[https://kobun20.interordi.com/2010/09/16/give-a-little-whistle/ It's been stated as late as]] ''VideoGame/MegaMan8'' that he doesn't know their relationship, and that ''3'''s credits are [[InternalReveal something only known to the audience]]. That many adaptations and mistranslations have Mega Man knowing Proto Man is his brother does nothing to curb this misconception.
* DisappointingLastLevel: This game's Wily Castle is one big anticlimax, considering its stages are arguably much easier than the Doc Robot levels preceding it. It is very dry of enemies and dangerous platforming and has a series of [[AntiClimaxBoss anti-climax bosses]], not to mention it's littered with E-Tanks and extra lives.

* GameBreaker: The Rush Jet is ludicrously useful in this game, making a platform that can move in any direction and only using energy when Mega Man's feet are touching it. With a trick, you can get it as early as the second stage. It gets severely {{nerf}}ed in subsequent games. It does become somewhat of a necessity, however, as the energy pellets collected to fuel the jet across wide gaps (such as in Needle Man's stage revisit) are not restored if you lose a life.

* ItWasHisSled: The reveal that Proto Man is Mega Man's older brother. Also, Wily did not reform at all.

** Surprise Boxes, non-respawning containers found in some levels that are guaranteed to drop a random power-up when destroyed, usually located in hard-to-reach areas like 1-Ups and E-tanks are. Unfortunately, they pull from ''every'' power-up in the game, so while they can drop extra lives or E-tanks, the player could just as easily get screwed over with a small health or weapon energy power-up. Fortunately the concept was refined in later games with the inclusion of Eddie, who's unable to drop small power-ups.

* ThatOneLevel: Pretty much all of the Doc Robot stages. Being little more than "hard mode" retreads of older levels ([[DifficultySpike that are harder than the Wily Castle stages]]), having to fight two bosses (at least one of which acts as ThatOneBoss) per stage, suffering from CheckpointStarvation, ultimately gaining no reward like extra weapons and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment being insignificant in the overall plot]], it's no wonder that players usually use passwords to skip them entirely. Needle Man's stage is probably the worst of them, though, thanks to a very long BottomlessPit that can only be crossed with the Rush Jet, so pray you don't run out [[ItemFarming lest you take up the life of a farmer]].

** Western fans and pundits will tell you that Break Man is Proto Man's alias for the entire game...when really, he only goes by that name for one fight (with unused sprites suggesting it was intended to be a powered up state); the Japanese manual never even mentions "Break Man", and refers to the character upfront as Blues.

** Rush Marine is frequently derided for not only being such a situational device (it can only be used underwater), but in this game especially being completely redundant as Rush Jet does the exact same thing except you can use it out of water as well. It doesn't help that the Marine drains energy so quickly, that it becomes risky to use in water sections with [[BottomlessPit bottomless pits]] like in Gemini Man's stage. ''Mega Man 4'' would change the Rush Jet so as to not make the Rush Marine obsolete, while none of the games after it have featured Rush Marine.

** Shadow Man is a BullfightBoss. On every third jump he will either fire the Shadow Blade (slide under this) or he will immediately slide towards you and then cancel it into a jump when he's right in front of you (properly time your jump over him). Basically you can beat him as long as you back away and give yourself enough time to twitch away when he does something, and control your distance. It doesn't help that Shadow Man's weakness is the Top Spin, meaning you have to be close to hit him. It also doesn't help that he's really, really fast (Not so much in ''Wily Wars'' where the speed of everyone is considerably slower, but that came with the cost of how you can no longer slide under his Shadow Blade). Trying to fight with the Mega Buster alone is asking for trouble (it can be done, but it's ''very'' hard).

** Western fans and pundits will tell you that Break Man is Proto Man's alias for the entire game... when really, he only goes by that name for one fight (with unused sprites suggesting it was intended to be a powered up state); the Japanese manual never even mentions "Break Man", and refers to the character upfront as Blues.

* ItWasHisSled: The reveal that Proto Man is Mega Man's older brother. Also, Wily's not reformed at all.

** The Yellow Devil returns in the Wily Castle as a Mk. II version and puts up a greater fight than anything else in the endgame. It's not as hard as it was in the first game thanks to the slide and E-Tanks, but it's harder to hit it with its weaknesses (Shadow Blade requires you to get fairly close and Hard Knuckle has a long delay to its shot) and it gains a new attack where its segments bounce across the floor with very tight gaps to avoid taking damage in. Also, the game doesn't checkpoint before its boss room.

* MostAnnoyingSound: ''Mega Man 3'' started using new sound effects compared to the first two games, and they continued using the new sounds for the rest of the NES games.
** Mega Man's shot is now harsher and screechier.
** The sound of a health bar filling up is louder than in the first two games, making it more irritating to hear this time around, especially at the beginning of a boss fight.
** The high-pitched clang the Bolton and Nutton make when they connect.

** Shadow Man is a BullfightBoss. On every third jump he will either fire the Shadow Blade (slide under this) or he will immediately slide towards you and then cancel it into a jump when he's right in front of you (properly time your jump over him). Basically you can beat him as long as you back away and give yourself enough time to twitch away when he does something, and control your distance. It doesn't help that Shadow Man's weakness is the Top Spin, meaning you have to be close to hit him. It also doesn't help that he's really, really fast. Trying to fight with the Mega Buster alone is asking for trouble (it can be done, but it's ''very'' hard).

* ItWasHisSled: The reveal that Proto Man is Mega Man's older brother. Also, Wily's not reformed at all.
* ItsHardSoItSucks: Probably the main reason why this game isn't quite as well-remembered among mainstream gamers as ''2'' despite being as well-regarded (if not even more so) by fans of the series is that the Robot Master battles can be punishingly difficult if you don't tackle them in the correct order, with the Doc Robot stages also throwing in a steep difficulty curve.

** A glitch with Rush can transforms any Mega Buster shot into another weapon's attack. Normally, the player cannot switch weapons when one of Mega Man's shots are on screen; having Rush onscreen, however, allows players to bypass this restriction, allowing them to perform seeming impossible things such as hitting a boss with the Top Spin from afar.
* HilariousInHindsight: Years after this game, Mega Man would go on to fight [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Greninja]] in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosForNintendo3DSAndWiiU', who is essentially a frog version of Shadow Man (who himself fights with a frog in ''The Power Fighters'').

** The Yellow Devil returns in the Wily Castle as a Mk. II version and puts up a greater fight than anything else in the endgame. It's not as hard as it was in the first game thanks to the slide and E-Tanks, but it's harder to hit its weaknesses (Shadow Blade requires you to get fairly close and Hard Knuckle has a long delay to its shot) and it gains a new attack where its segments bounce across the floor with very tight gaps to avoid taking damage in. Also, the game doesn't checkpoint before its boss room.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The title screen theme and the ending / Proto Man's theme are especially popular.

** Rush Marine is frequently derided for not only being such a situational device (it can only be used underwater), but in this game especially being completely redundant as Rush Jet does the exact same thing except you can use it out of water as well. ''Mega Man 4'' would change the Rush Jet so as to not make the Rush Marine obsolete, while none of the games after it have featured Rush Marine.

* AntiClimaxBoss: All the bosses in the Wily Castle except for the Yellow Devil mark II, but Gamma's second phase stands out in that it can be destroyed easily with just a single Top Spin, even though its the ''final boss''.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The Doc Robot stages become this since the Doc Robots themselves are [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere random and unforeshadowed]], make you essentially refight the ''Mega Man 2'' Robot Masters, and are never mentioned ever again afterwards. One could cut them out and skip to the final Break Man fight and nothing would be affected. It can be argued that their appearance was meant to act as a hint that Dr. Wily was behind the ruse all along (since the ''2'' Robot Masters were his creations), but again if the game skipped straight to the Wily Levels, little would be lost.
* BrokenBase: The Doc Robot stages tend to get a divided opinion from fans. On one hand, many dislike them for essentially being revisits of earlier stages, except edited to be [[ThatOneLevel incredibly frustrating]], and also for forcing the player to refight bosses from the previous game. On the other hand, many like them for giving the game more content than several other classic ''Mega Man'' titles.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Proto Man, one of the most popular characters in the series, debuted in this game. Shadow Man is also well liked due to having a cool design and a useful weapon. [[GratuitousNinja Also ninja. The first Ninja Robot Master, in fact]]

* GameBreaker:
** The Rush Jet is ludicrously useful in this game, making a platform that can move in any direction and only uses energy when Mega Man's feet are touching it. With a trick, you can get it as early as the second stage. It gets severely {{nerf}}ed in subsequent games.
*** It does become somewhat of a necessity, however, as the energy pellets collected to fuel the jet across wide gaps (such as in Needle Man Revisited) are not restored if you lose a life.
** There's also another glitch with Rush that transforms any Mega Buster shot from Mega Man into whatever he switches into. Normally, the player cannot switch weapons when one of Mega Man's shots are on screen; having Rush onscreen, however, allows players to bypass this restriction, allowing them to perform seeming impossible things such as hitting a boss with the Top Spin from afar.

* HilariousInHindsight: Years after this game, Mega Man would go on to fight [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Greninja]] in the fourth ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' game, who is essentially a frog version of Shadow Man (who himself fights with a frog).
* MostAnnoyingSound: Mega Man 3 started using new sound effects compared to [=MM1=] and 2, and they continued using the new sounds for the rest of the NES games.

** Top Spin drains every frame it's in contact with an enemy. This is why it drains to nothing so quickly when used on an enemy that's invulnerable to it, and one reason why it has to be used carefully against Shadow Man (who has MercyInvincibility). Learning how to avoid draining the weapon in this way is necessary to use this effectively.
** Rush Marine is frequently derided for not only being such a situational device (it can only be used underwater,) but in this game especially being completely redundant as Rush Jet does the exact same thing except you can use it out of water as well.
** Surprise Boxes; non-respawning containers found in some levels that are guaranteed to drop a random power-up when destroyed, usually located in hard-to-reach areas like 1-Ups and E-tanks are. Unfortunately, they pull from ''every'' power-up in the game, so while they can drop extra lives or E-tanks, the player could just as easily get screwed over with a small health or weapon energy power-up. Fortunately the concept was refined in later games with the inclusion of Eddie, who's unable to drop small power-ups.
* ScrappyWeapon: While the Top Spin [[LethalJokeWeapon can be used properly]] in [[SelfImposedChallenge boss weapon-only runs]], the Spark Shock is really useless. Unlike the Ice Slasher, you can't switch to another weapon to lay on the hurt on the paralyzed enemy, or freeze another enemy while the current shot's sparks are onscreen.

** Shadow Man is a BullfightBoss. On every third jump he will either fire the Shadow Blade (slide under this) or he will immediately slide towards you and then cancel it into a jump when he's right in front of you (properly time your jump over him). Basically you can beat him as long as you back away and give yourself enough time to twitch away when he does something, and control your distance. It doesn't help that Shadow Man's weakness is the Top Spin: You have to be CLOSE to hit him.
*** It also doesn't help that he's really, really fast. Trying to fight with the Mega Buster alone is asking for trouble (it can be done, but it's ''very'' hard).

*** It doesn't help that [[FanNickname Doc Quick]]'s AI pattern has actually changed from the original Quick Man's; instead of a 3-jump pattern that happened to bug against the outer walls (which could sometimes keep Quick Man from throwing boomerangs), Doc Quick jumps a ''deliberately'' random number of times and is more guaranteed to throw boomerangs.

*** Additionally, most Doc Robots lack a weapon that can 4 or even 2 shot bosses like in the [[http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Mega_Man_2_Damage_Data_Chart original game]]. The Mega Man 3 [[http://megaman.wikia.com/wiki/Mega_Man_3_Damage_Data_Chart damage chart]] for the Doc Robots fairly closely resembles the Japanese version of the game, however.
* ThatOneLevel: Pretty much all the Doc Robot stages. Being little more than "hard mode" retreads of older levels ([[DifficultySpike that are harder than the Wily Castle stages]]), having to fight two bosses (at least one of which acts as ThatOneBoss) per stage, suffering from CheckpointStarvation, ultimately gaining no reward like extra weapons and [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment being insignificant in the overall plot]], it's no wonder that players usually use passwords to skip them entirely. Needle Man's stage is probably the worst of them, though, thanks to a very long BottomlessPit that can only be crossed with the Rush Jet, so pray you don't run out [[ItemFarming lest you take up the life of a farmer]].

* MostAnnoyingSound: Mega Man 3 started using new sound fonts compared to [=MM1=] and 2, and they continued using the new sounds for the rest of the NES games.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Proto Man, one of the most popular characters in the series, debuted in this game. Shadow Man is also well liked due to having a cool design and a useful weapon.

* AntiClimaxBoss: All the bosses in the Wily Castle, but Gamma's second phase stands out in that it can be destroyed easily with just a single Top Spin, even though its the ''final boss''.

* ScrappyMechanic: While not that bad of a weapon overall, there can only be one shot from the Gemini Laser on-screen at any one time. If it misses, you can't fire another shot or even ''pause the game'' until the shot either leaves the screen, runs out of energy or hits an enemy, which is doubly problematic if you're fighting a boss and low on energy, since it'll temporarily prevent you from using any energy tanks that you have.

* AccidentalInnuendo: Poor, poor Hard Man. The fact that his weapons involve [[RocketPunch fists]] does not help his case.

** Surprise Boxes; non-respawning containers found in some levels that are guaranteed to drop a random power-up when destroyed. While they can drop 1-Ups and E-tanks, they're more likely to just to drop small health or weapon energy power-ups. Fortunately the concept is refined in later games with the inclusion of Eddie, who's unable to drop small power-ups.

** ? Cans, containers found in some levels that are guaranteed to drop a random power-up when destroyed. While they can drop 1-Ups and E-tanks, they're more likely to just to drop small health or weapon energy power-ups. Fortunately the concept is refined in later games with the inclusion of Eddie, who's unable to drop small power-ups.