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2* AccidentalInnuendo:
3** The infamous western boxart where it looks like Mega Man [[GroinAttack shoots Spark Man in the crotch]].
4** Poor, poor Hard Man. The fact that his weapons involve [[RocketPunch fists]] does not help his case. Nor does the fact that one of his attacks is [[BullfightBoss lunging in with that giant phallic head and getting stuck in the ground...]]
5* AntiClimaxBoss:
6** For all the buildup the fight with Break Man gets, he's a very easy opponent. He has an incredibly basic pattern, doesn't seem to track Mega Man's location, and lacks any real MercyInvincibility, meaning that simply rapid-firing the Buster depletes his health very quickly.
7** None of the bosses in the Wily Castle are anywhere near as difficult as the Doc Robot fights, with the possible exception of Yellow Devil Mk. II. Gamma's second phase stands out in that none of its attacks are hard to avoid (though it does have an instant-death punch) and it can be destroyed easily with just a single Top Spin, even though it's the ''final boss''.
8* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic:
9** 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'').
10** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKpPKyDx2mQ Proto Man's whistle]] (which also serves as the ending music) is pretty popular as well.
11** While all Robot Master stage themes are fantastic, special mention goes to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpVIM8de2xw Snake Man]]'s memorable theme. It fits the hectic, treacherous stage really well.
12** All three Wily Stage themes manage to be both exciting and foreboding at the same time, fitting the for end of the end of the longest ''Mega Man'' game at the time.
13* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: Proto Man adopting the Break Man persona for the final battle against him. There's no given reason for why he decided to disguise himself, and there isn't any cutscene before or after the fight that would give context to this behavior whatsoever.
14* 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 and for providing sufficiently difficult level design that the later games lacked.
15* CommonKnowledge:
16** Western fans and pundits will tell you that Break Man is Proto Man's alias for the entire game when he really 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.
17** 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 something only known to the audience. That many adaptations and mis-translations have Mega Man knowing Proto Man is his brother does nothing to curb this misconception.
18* ContestedSequel: [[DownplayedTrope While still considered a fantastic Mega Man game]], there's much debate on if this game or ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'' deserves the title as the best classic Mega Man game. This is easily one of the most content packed Mega Man classic games in the series, but there are those that argue the extra content can come across as needless {{Padding}}, as the Doc Robots reuse levels you've already traversed. While this game expands Mega Man's move set, there are also those who feel Mega Man 2 had overall better stage and boss design than 3.
19* DisappointingLastLevel: This game's Wily Castle is one big anti-climax, considering its stages are ''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.
20* EnsembleDarkhorse: Shadow Man is well-liked due to having a cool design (being the first ninja Robot Master) and a useful weapon.
21* {{Fanon}}: Some hardcore fans like to assume that Dr. Wily actually died in the collapse of Wily Castle, considering ''3'' the final "true" game of the Classic series, and [[FanonDiscontinuity ignoring everything]] from ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' and beyond.
22* GameBreaker: [[GameBreaker/MegaManClassic Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.]]
23* GoodBadBugs:
24** If one has the Shadow Blade, one can press right to switch over to the Rush Jet (even if they don't have it yet), fill it with energy, and be able to use it before beating Needle Man. You can also use this trick with the Spark Shock to get the Rush Marine early.
25** In the Japanese version, the fight against the Flash Man Doc Robot is made easier as it cancels the Time Stopper as soon as it fires just ''one'' shot, sparing you the continuous stream it's supposed to fire. Sadly, this was changed in the Western release.
26** A glitch with Rush can transform 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.
27* ItWasHisSled: The reveal that Proto Man is Mega Man's older brother, Wily didn't reform at all, and the Doc Robot using the powers of the Robot Masters from the previous game.
28* 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 because of this. The Robot Masters are difficult if not taken in weakness order, there aren't any {{Game Breaker}}s like Metal Blade (Shadow Blade is a heavily {{Nerf}}ed version of it), and the Doc Robot stages are notoriously difficult.
29* ItsTheSameNowItSucks: The Wily Stage bosses aren't really memorable for being rehashes of the Wily Stage bosses from the first Mega Man game. A rehashed Yellow Devil is fought in the second stage, a rehashed battle with Mega Man clones are fought in the following stage, and a similar underwater boss battle is fought in the first boss. All three are also easier than their original counterparts too.
30* MemeticLoser: Gamma tends to be a target of mockery for two reasons: it's [[AntiClimaxBoss an extremely easy final boss]] even by the standards of ''3's'' [[DisappointingLastLevel underwhelming finale]], and it dies in ''one hit'' from Top Spin.
31* ObviousBeta: Keiji Inafune has called ''[=MM3=]'' his least favorite of the Classic games, saying it was released unfinished thanks to a rushed development cycle. It shows in many ways:
32** Doc Robot has not been properly balanced. Three of his boss fights give him attacks that hack ''eight'' HP off Mega Man's total of 28, and his body is much larger than any of ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', so he's really hard to dodge. This is especially noticeable in his version of the Wood Man fight, where the Leaf Shield has been scaled up to match his size. This makes it virtually impossible to avoid without absolute pixel-perfect timing, since the projectile is barely smaller than your jump height.
33** The controls are sticky and respond strangely; if you try to do too much at once in the fight against Gemini Man, he'll fire a countershot even when you didn't fire anything.
34** The Top Spin drains energy for every frame it's in contact with an enemy, and doesn't protect you from damage should you ram into an enemy with it.
35** In Snake Man's stage, if you're standing on one of the platforms that flying spinning-tops emerge from when you're at their edge, you can instantly be catapulted to your death off the side of the platform.
36** The Rush Jet only drains energy when you're actually standing on it.
37** The game is plagued with SchizophrenicDifficulty. In particular, the Doc Robot stages are considered to be the hardest in the game, whereas the Wily Castle stages that immediately follow are actually among the ''easiest'' thanks to an overabundance of extra lives and E-Tanks.
38** The game lacks any kind of introduction, even though the [[VideoGame/MegaMan2 previous game]] has one. Despite this, the title screen features a fairly long music track, suggesting it was supposed to be played over a cutscene.
39** Several stages seem oddly off-theme for their Robot Master, including Top Man (who has two top-themed enemies but otherwise seems to have more of a nature/greenhouse theme), Needle Man (has a total of one needle-themed enemy in his stage), Snake Man (starts out going all-in on the snake theme but transitions into a cloud theme), and Shadow Man (a smelting facility whose only on-topic element is the Hologram enemies). This arises from the stages having been cobbled together from cut stages, including an early attempt to give the Doc Robots [[NostalgiaLevel levels based on their Robot Master]].
40** The infamous Controller 2 cheats were debug tools that were supposed to be DummiedOut before release.
41* ScrappyMechanic:
42** 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.
43** For some reason, Mega Man's hitbox in this game is larger than in other installments. This not only leads to ridiculous HitboxDissonance at times, but it also makes it difficult to dodge attacks that otherwise don't look like much. Examples include Doc Wood Man's [[ThatOneAttack infamously huge Leaf Shield]].
44* ScrappyWeapon: [[ScrappyWeapon/MegaMan Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.]]
45* SequelDifficultySpike: This is not the case in general -- the levels are about as challenging as those of the previous game in its "difficult" mode, and still generally easier than those of the first game -- but it is the case in two other regards:
46** This time around, it's practically a requirement to take on the Robot Masters in some sort of order, otherwise you'll find yourself having to slowly chip away at each and every one of their health points with the Mega Buster, while they whale on you with their own weapons...or if they want to ''really'' beat up on you, they'll just throw themselves at you non-stop and let their HitboxDissonance and insane amounts of collision damage finish you off even quicker. Making matters worse, whereas most of the Robot Masters in the last game had two major weaknesses, here it's usually one major weakness, maybe a minor weakness (e.g. two times Mega Buster damage) if you're lucky, with everything else being either completely useless or no better than using the Mega Buster. To make things more complicated, this is also the only game (except for ''VideoGame/MegaManV'') where the Robot Master weakness cycle isn't a perfect circle [[note]]Snake Man, Gemini Man, and Needle Man are weak to each others weapons, while the other five create another weakness circle[[/note]], meaning that you'll have to fight two Robot Masters without their proper weakness. Mitigated somewhat in the refights however, thanks to all the Robot Masters being weak to their own weapons.
47** The Doc Robot stages are considerably harder than most of the stages in ''2'', mostly thanks to their fondness for spikes and BottomlessPits, and the CheckpointStarvation that results from only being able to start from either the very beginning of the stage, or after the first Doc Robot fight of the level.
48* ThatOneAttack:
49** The Doc Robot that mimics [[VideoGame/MegaMan2 Wood Man]] has the Leaf Shield as its main attack. Said projectile is much harder to avoid than in the previous game, as it's considerably larger and faster. In the NES, the attack produces so many objects it may also cause the screen to randomly lag, potentially compromising the player's timing.
50** While Doc Air Man's tornados are easier to avoid in this game due to Mega Man's new slide ability, the boss will fire them in unavoidable patterns on occasion. As a result, if the player reaches the boss room with low health, the battle becomes a LuckBasedMission.
51* ThatOneBoss:
52** Needle Man erratically jumps around, spamming the Needle Cannon whenever he feels like. Sometimes he'll ignore physics, land in front of you and try to impale you with his needle head. Twitch reflexes are your only hope. And unlike most other ConfusionFu bosses in the series, he's actually pretty durable, taking only one point of damage from most things that aren't the Gemini Laser. And even then, good luck hitting him with one, as the weapon can be a bit tricky to time correctly.
53** 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). He's also considered one of the hardest bosses in the Classic series to fight in a NoDamageRun, thanks to his lack of telegraphing and aggressive fighting style.
54** While Quick Man was a FragileSpeedster in ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', the Doc Robot using his program data is a LightningBruiser, able to not only deal a lot of CollisionDamage, but his larger size makes him much harder to avoid. It doesn't help that [[FanNickname Doc Quick]]'s AI pattern has actually changed from the original Quick Man's; instead of a three-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. The two weapons he's weak against (Search Snake and Gemini Laser) are also very hard to hit him with too, especially with his speed.
55** The Yellow Devil returns in the Wily Castle 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.
56* ThatOneLevel:
57** Hard Man's stage is fairly straightforward, but the last quarter or so is ripe with PlatformHell. It begins with an open era lined with Wanaans and a Have "Su" Bee with a Proto Man fight immediately after that. The next screen gives you a large energy powerup, but a Bikky is waiting for you right before the boss entrance. Unless you have an E-tank, you're not likely to face Hard Man at full health.
58** The second visit to Needle Man's stage has a very long {{Bottomless Pit|s}} that can only be crossed with the Rush Jet, so pray you don't run out of weapon energy [[ItemFarming lest you take up the life of a farmer]].
59* TheUntwist: Dr. Wily didn't actually turn over a new leaf, and he was the BigBad all along! Too bad the game's story was [[AllThereInTheManual relegated to the manual]], so most players probably didn't even realize that Wily was supposed to be one of the good guys in this game, likely assuming that he was the main villain again from the very start.

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