Some well made levels and a few new options make this another good Mega Man X game.
Other than Super Mario World the early Mega Man X games were very memorable to me even to this day. Instead of playing through the first one and write up a review on that I thought it might worth checking out X3. Since it isn’t really mentioned that often. Like every X game Sigma has a new plot to take over the world by using Dr Dopper as a go between. Who tried to create a utopia for reploids only to use it for more devious purposes. X & Zero are sent to stop the chaos from getting out of hand again.
The main big addition this time is that Zero no longer stays on the sidelines. He can be called in to deal with tougher enemies for a while although X has to defeat bosses on his own. Plus the way they show off this change is a awesome moment. While he doesn’t play drastically different from X other than being able to slash once after a fully charged shot it lets the player get through the early game easier while X is under powered.
Overall the main difference between X and the original Mega Man has been the focus on collectibles. This was the start of just adding in more to collect that goes way overboard after a while. But in this game’s case all they do is change ride armor into something you can summon via collecting a item. Although they add in a few new types( One that can fly and swim.) they are still used in a similar way. Which just means they let you plow through enemies for a bit. With how cautious you need to be most of the time it is nice to just have a moment to just smash through some foes.
As for the moment to moment gameplay it doesn’t rely on instant death spikes to pad out sessions a bit. Each level is balanced fairly and once you collect all the armor pieces it would be tough for enemies to withstand a fully charged blast. The bosses are the main challenge unless you have their weak point but even without it they have patterns that are easily beatable after a few attempts. The coolest moments were when I was sliding and jumping all over the screen to dodge attacks. It does have a bit to much focus on dash kicking off walks which gets tough to do constantly while trying to charge up a shot.
Overall this still has all the good qualities of a X game. The game goes at a good pace that never really stops even if you have to retry a stage. It may be a tad easy but that is most of the X series after collecting all the armor pieces. Plus the bosses pose a real threat unless you prefer stages to be tougher this is a solid one of these games. Worth playing if your a X fan or even if this is the first time you’ve played a game in this series.