After the two successes that were Mega Man X and X2, fans were calling for a sequel. They got what they wanted the next year in december. Unfortunatly, many proved to be dismayed by the changes brought the series. Let's take a closer look.

Plot: Some time after Xs second triumph over Sigma and his Mavericks, a reploid scientist by the name of Dr. Doppler creates a utopia populated by reformed Mavericks. Unfortuanatly, the mavericks start causing trouble, including atacking Maverick Hunter HQ. Doppler is believed to be the perpetrator, and the reploids look for him as well as fighting the mavericks. This is the point in the series where Capcom decided to repeat the story of a fake, temporary bad guy momentarely disguising the return of a recurring villan. It's OK if you do it once, but twice and more gets very boring, very fast. The only thing i can give them credit for is that it feels like they put even a sliver of effort into creating a temporary villan, unlike future installments.

Graphics: Here's the only thing with this game that i can thoroughly and completely enjoy. In stark contrast with its predecessor, the graphics for this game are bleak and gritty. Sunlight is quite rare and enemies and objects have a much darker tone to them. This represents a transition towords a more mature environment that would appeal to older gamers. Thankfully, this does not come with the sacrifice of aesthetical value, as the game still proves pleasurable to look at.

Sound: Now here is where the developers went overboard with the gritiness factor. Every song in the game has a bleak and depressing tone probably designed to match the graphics. Does it come at the cost of good tunes? Definatly. The only track i can bear to listen to is Gravity Beetles theme. Aside from that, all songs sound like they were made using the same instruments with the same overall tune. It feels depressing and boring to listen to similar music for an entire game.

Adictiveness: Like all Mega Man X games, there are power-ups to be collected. Usually there are just enough to balance out the experience of collecting them while maintaining a steady flow. In this game, however, there are so many power-ups that going for 100% (which is what you're going to want to do to maximize the experience) feels like an incredible drag and really grinds away at the experience.

Depth: As i said above, there are a plethora of power-ups to collect including sub tanks, heart tanks, and armour parts. Does this make the game better? Certainly not. Again, there are so many of these power-ups that it makes the game a true drag to beat. And the worst part is that you feel obligated to collect all of these parts because of the games high difficulty. The only other thing to note is that you can play as Zero in this game. However, he does not play too much differently from X.

Difficulty: I can safely say that this is one of the hardest games i've ever played. Stages are cluttered with enemies, many fast and powerful. The bosses are hardly different. They might follow a pattern, but they can very easily fool you and lure you into one of their attacks. Even with all powerups they can be very troublesome enemies.

Mega Man X3 is an admirable attempt at creating a third installment in the beloved series. However, it is inferior to its predecessors. I would only recomend it to those who are looking for a moderatly different experience.

This is a great review of Mega Man X3. I've played and beat this game...actually only twice. But it was fun both times. It was pretty easy (well for the most part. I did find a couple of parts moderately challenging), but the number of power ups and such that could be collected definitely complicated it a bit. Exploring for them, however, was a little fun, but annoying. I do prefer the first one, and have a slight bias toward the second, but its not the worst in the X series (X7 is).

And it actually isn't too impossible to acquire every single power up in this game. Although picking up one thing prevents X from acquiring other abilities, just like Hadouken and Shoryuken in the first 2, the golden armor can be obtained in this one which gives you all four of the attainable abilities.

 megamanmaniac: its plagerised like his x2 review, i already pmed Triune about it.

UFC : I was going to summon the mods, as tRIUNE really shouldn't be the one dealing with plagiarism. He already has enough on his plate.

However, I'm confused. I tried looking up both reviews and found nothing. Can you link the pages you think they are plagiarized from?

Singelli : already spoken with triune and mistress its all good, i still think its plagerised for sure and blatantly but apparently they cant find any matches

UFC :  LOL. It's not plagiarized. It's just very well written.  

Boxia :  GREAT job! You should definitely write more reviews.  It's rare that we get newbies contributing such great quality reviews, so thank you! Keep up the great work!