Kaiser Sigma is a snoozefest of a final boss, even if he's not exactly easy to beat (unless you use the cheapass Z-Saber, of course). They feel like they belong with the more simplistic NES bosses, not with X3's more complex sixteen-bit brethren. The thing is, the bosses are just poorly designed. Bossesīit only has seventeen frames to speak of, Crush Crawfish's claws and feet are the only parts that animate, and Volt Catfish barely alters his stance in all of his attacks. Let's start with the most obvious place to start talking about any Mega Man game.
#Megaman x3 sprite sheet manual#
And three, it's a Mega Man game, and the traditional Mega Man's narrative is not found in the instruction manual in or the cutscenes. Two, if you really need a summary, you can just go play Mega Man 4. I'm not going to provide a plot summary for three reasons.
It establishes that Sigma is really a virus rather than a robot, an interesting detail that would be developed further in the superior X5, and it provided further characterization for Zero, who would really come into his own in the (consistently!) spectacular Mega Man Zero series. Mega Man X3's plot is decent, but you'll notice that "Plot" wasn't included in that list of things I loved about X1 (though it certainly set a new bar for the Mega Man franchise in that regard). X3 drops the ball on all five of these factors harder than Legato Bluesummers during his short career with the suicide hotline. What are the things I love about Mega Man X1? Awesome bosses, insanely creative level design, cool upgrades, flawless control, and (of course) kickass music. Let's break it down to the bare elements. If this sounds familiar, it's because the same thing happened to Mega Man 6, only X3 doesn't have a (freaking AWESOME) flying Rush Suit to distract from its overall mediocrity. X3 was rushed out the door, attempting to land before the SNES died, and as such a lot of jaw-droppingly idiotic design choices and numerous cases of sheer laziness on the part of the developers served to severely drag down what could have been a great game. Mega Man X3 hit American shores in January 1996, four months after the original PlayStation hit shelves and changed the face of gaming. What I once thought of as one of the best entries in a very expansive franchise is instead crushingly mediocre, definitely not worth the absurd prices it fetches on eBay and barely worth the time it takes to play.Īfter playing through the game again, I read up on a little of its history. X8 is waaaay better than I thought, and X2 is a good deal worse.
#Megaman x3 sprite sheet series#
I played through the X series again recently, and a few of my preconceptions were shattered. It's hard to really hate him, but he's still kind of painful to be around, and by the end of the day his minor annoyances have piled up and everyone in his vicinity is ready to throttle him. Mega Man X3 comes in around the middle of his depressed days, where he's not being violent or particularly hateful but he's still being really passive aggressive and fairly annoying.