LaZodiac Plays: Megaman Classic Series Retrospective

[LaZodiac]

Today is a brand new day!

Dr Wily, after having been defeated for the second time, has decided to mend his evil ways! Together with Dr Light, he begins building the gigantic peace keeping robot known as Gamma. However, before they could finish, the lab is attacked by eight viciously powerful robot masters, who've come out of nowhere! Stealing the eight power crystals that fuel Gamma, Megaman gives chase, for the good of the world! However, a mysterious red robot, with a scarf, sunglasses, and a shield, is also seen, and he is quite mysterious...

Thus begins Megaman 3!

Megaman 3 [1] Magnetman

This is always the stage I do first, though apparently many people do, say, Snakeman's first. But I've always done Magnetman first.

First of all, two new things that we have now! Thanks to upgrades, Megaman can now slide! This will be invaluable and save our lives a million times. Dr Light has also built us a robotic dog to be our pet and best friend! He'll save us less times then the slide, but will also be an invaluable ally to us. Right now all he can do is pop a spring out of his back to launch us into the air, which isn't entirely usefull in Magnetman's stage.

First off, we have to deal with some magnet dudes! They pull you up a set amount of distance, so unless you jump so high this set distance intersects with, well, them, you won't get hit. They also don't drop you unless you move out of their magnetism. So overall pretty weak enemies if you're careful. As you can see, our navi has changed from Roll, to a mysterious red robot. I shall call him Breakman, for now.

After getting past the magnets, Breakman appears with a mysterious whistle. Without saying a word, he fights us! Though it really seems more like a bit of training then a real fight to the death. Curious and Curiouser.

After Breakman, we have to deal with some silly (and gigantic) face dudes that shoot missles! They're kind of like the Gabyaol/Spines of other games in that they go faster while on our level, and if you recall, last game had these guys in miniture and without missles. Yes, these guys do what those smaller ones do when they hit us, if I'm not mistaken.

After that we have to deal with some eyeball dudes, and get to the main meat of Magnetman's stage. Annoying magnetic generators, and our good, old friend, disappearing blocks! However, with practice, these aren't that bad compared to other disappearing blocks, so I can give em a pass. Though the magnetic generators over pits are stressfull as all heck.

Finally we have to deal with a really hard to dodge the shots of enemy who I believe is called a Five Way, a sort of upgrade of the Three Way from Megaman 1, and another of the face dudes, and then we're at Magnetman himself!

Magnetman! A relatively hard robot master, all things considered, but very pattern based He will never NOT act differently as he does, so theoretically it's really easy to deal with his movement. The problem is that it's never sure which attack he's going to do, so it can be rather troublesome and disorienting. He's got two attacks though, so after awhile you can get it down. He'll either try to suck us in with magnetism, or leap into the air to shoot magnet missles at us, which we have to dodge since they can home in on us! Overall, Magnetman is hard, but easier to take with the mega buster then the other bosses, and gives us an invaluable tool in the form of the magnet missles.

With that out of the way, I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you guys next time when we face the second of large, cylindrical robot masters that have innuendo laden names.

[Surrealistik]

Keeping to the far ends of the room will allow for an easy win, as he never jumps that far over as I recall, and if he magnet missiles, you can simply slide back and forth back into your corner (obviously slide away if magnet pulling).

[LaZodiac]

Right, I'll try that in the inevitible refight

[INoKnowNames]

I slightly sad that you did not boss the fight, even though you were Like a Boss at the block section, when I was suspecting you might fall once...

Still, congrats on beating MM2! And for working on MM3.

One question... was this... a recording of a recording?

[LaZodiac]

I slightly sad that you did not boss the fight, even though you were Like a Boss at the block section, when I was suspecting you might fall once...

Still, congrats on beating MM2! And for working on MM3.

One question... was this... a recording of a recording?

Yha, sorry, Magnetman kinda overpowered me.

Thanks, and I intend to do all the Classic Series Megaman games. That's One to Eleven, and will include some glossing over of Megaman Powered Up and "Rockman and Bass", as well as the Gameboy Megamans, or at the very least the one that's unique (I friggen love the Stardroids).

Yes, thanks to someone for finaly noticing! I found a way to fix the audio problems I was having, and that is how.

[LaZodiac]

Onwards, to the next stage!

Megaman 3 [2] Hardman

This stage, unbefitting of it's Robot Master, is quite easy, all things considered. At the start we have those bee dudes, who as we show (thanks to Breakman telling us) can be scrolled off screen fairly nicely. Then we have to deal with beartraps! Nothing I can't handle, though.

After that we have a nice variant on an old ally! The Hammer Joe, throwing his hammers around like no one's buisness! This is also the first time we get to see Rush in action. He's a spring, and it's REALLY inconvienant to take out the Hammer Joe this way. I cooould of used the Magnet Missles, but I was paranoid about using them.

After that, we have the REALLY ANNOYING MONKEY ROBOTS! These guys are a major pain, and I REALLY should of used the Magnet Missle on them. But again, paranoid about running out. Silly me. After those annoyances we have the Picket Dozers, really tall bulldozers driven by Picket Men from the first game. MUCH easier. And here we find our first E Tank!

After some mets and a combination of the bee's and the beartraps, we have our next Breakman fight! This one is SIGNIFIGENTLY harder then the last one. Breakman nearly broke US. After that we have a Piledriver I believe (an upgrade to the Big Eye of the first game) and that's it before the boss!

Hardman himself is, fittingly, somewhat difficult. I didn't get much practice on him so I didn't fully remember his pattern, or how he throws his Hard Knuckles. However, since we are the master of magnet, Hardman falls down quite easily.

I hope you all enjoy, when next time we take on a pretty swell guy with our Hard Knuckle, and probably abuse the heck out of Magnet Missle! See you all next time!

[tyckspoon]

It's weird having an understandable and competent Control helper.. I kind of miss Roll. Does he get any really good Engrish/bwhawhut? moments, or are they all useful or at least well-formed tips like the ones in those first stages?

[LaZodiac]

It's weird having an understandable and competent Control helper.. I kind of miss Roll. Does he get any really good Engrish/bwhawhut? moments, or are they all useful or at least well-formed tips like the ones in those first stages?

I don't recall. I THINK from this point on the engrish stops, for the most part. There are still some mistranslations and what not later down the road, though.

[LaZodiac]

Spin spin spiiiin! Another Tuesday, another Megaman!

Megaman 3 [3] Topman

Starting of, this stage has the (sometimes) invincible Robo Bolts. They're not to much difficulty. What's REALLY difficult are the frog robots. You can't hit em unless they jump, so they're EXCEEDINLY painfull. However, Magnet Missle CAN assist with getting rid of them.

Other features of this stage include Mettaurs, who are adorable, Tama (the big ole cat miniboss that throws yarn and fleas at you) who is adorable, and the top shooting guys who are somewhat bothersome. This stage also features spinning top platforms. I'm pretty sure they only ever appear here.

Finally, as for Topman himself, he's honestly not that difficult. If I was better at timing I could probably beat him without getting hit. As it is, I take a few hits, but he takes em harder with the Hard Knuckle. With that, we get the Top Spin, one of the most finicky powers in Megaman 3. I'll elaborate more on that later.

With that, I hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you all next time when we deal with a...suprising threat, I guess you could say.

[LaZodiac]

Much like a ninja, this update sneaks up on you all!

Megaman 3 [4] Shadowman

Shadowman's stage is very interesting, starting with a downward drop. Not very many of those in Megaman. It also uses those REALLY annoying frog enemies that you can only really hit while they are in mid jump. However, with liberal use of bullet spam, I'm able to deal with em.

We also have another encounter with the mysterious Breakman! I wonder what he's up to...

This stage also features strange illusion creating machines, clearly based off of Wily's final form from the last game. Also grenades. For the most part I do this part flawlessly...except for a bit in the middle

Finally we have some more frogs, and these one up esque looking robot heads that parachute from the sky. Also two dragonflies. All in all this is a very strange stage.

Shadowman himself is relatively tough, but with the Top Spin it's (usually) easy to deal with him. After beating Shadowman we get the Shadow Blade and, though it's not mentioned, we also get the Rush Marine!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. See you all next time.

[LaZodiac]

Bzzztztztbztzbtz, Sparkman time!

Megaman 3 [5] Sparkman

This stage is relatively easy. That bit at the start with the flying sparky guys and the electrical traps, I CAN do that without getting hit, I'm just bad at doing it 100% consistently. We also meet a Hammer Joe, but I show him what I think of him

After that, we get the delightful moving platforms combined with spikes section. This is actually really fun, and when they introduce those Bolt enemies from Topman's stage, it lets me abuse the Magnet Missle again, and that's always fun.

Finally, we have Sparkman himself. He's pretty cool, but the Shadowblade finishes him off relatively easy.

Hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you guys next time!

[Surrealistik]

All these years of the MM series, and Spark Man still has the best stage music hands down.

[LaZodiac]

Gonna have a hard time contesting that, will mention if I think a song is better then Sparkman's when we get to it. I think Breakman's theme is better, but we don't really get a good chance to see most of it, I don't think. I'll find a way to fix that.

[Eldariel]

Hm, personally prefer Quickman & Flashman, but he'd be pretty far up there for me too. It's a joy how awesome music the series has.

[PhoeKun]

Hm, personally prefer Quickman & Flashman, but he'd be pretty far up there for me too. It's a joy how awesome music the series has.

Personally I'm rather partial to Tornado Man's theme, but really, the whole series is full of awesomazing music.

By the way, LaZodiac - wanted to say I've been watching for a while. The most fun part for me is in reading through your writeups, because that's the part where it's most obvious how much you enjoy the series. Megaman is my all-time favorite franchise, but it's been virtual eons since I've sat down and watched someone else just... play. The style is totally different and I often find myself paying really close attention just to catch the differences in our approach. So good job! Keep it up!

[LaZodiac]

Personally I'm rather partial to Tornado Man's theme, but really, the whole series is full of awesomazing music.

By the way, LaZodiac - wanted to say I've been watching for a while. The most fun part for me is in reading through your writeups, because that's the part where it's most obvious how much you enjoy the series. Megaman is my all-time favorite franchise, but it's been virtual eons since I've sat down and watched someone else just... play. The style is totally different and I often find myself paying really close attention just to catch the differences in our approach. So good job! Keep it up!

Thank's a bunch, it means a lot to know people care that much. And I really do love this series. I...more or less love every game in the series, from Megaman 1 to Legends 2, and I'm going to have a blast showing it all off as we go.

[Surrealistik]

Of MM2, Airman dominates so far as boss master themes go.

That said, virtually any MM metal rendition by Cryogenik is awesome.

[LaZodiac]

I've always been partial to the music in Megaman 5, since it was my first Megaman game. But we'll get to that one later.

[Surrealistik]

I think MM3 was my intro to the series; MM5 was probably the one I'd played most though as a kid.

Of the MM5 themes, though they were all good, none really stood out for me as being truly exceptional/memorable in the same way Spark Man's did, or some of the Wily tracks.

[Eldariel]

I was introduced to the series with Megaman 2 and I guess it shows. My top 3 favorite Megaman pieces are all from MM2 (Flashman, Quickman, Wily 1-2), and I know that game like the backs of my pockets; I know all the others pretty well too but not on the same level with MM2.

Awesome to get some random exposure to these themes this way tho.

[LaZodiac]

Suffering suckatash, it's Snakeman!

Megaman 3 [6] Snakeman

Snakeman's stage is....well, let's just be honest here. It's the only stage I can confidently say that I could, actually, beat without taking damage. Ignoring Snakeman himself, this stage is VERY easy. Much thanks to the Magnet Missle for most of this, however. The Petite Snakeys and the wierd bouncing jackhammer guys are pretty tough (the Petite Snakeys almost always cheap shot you, it takes a lot of memorization to avoid their shots) but the Magnet Missle doesn't give any craps.

After the Petite Snakeys we have the Big Snakey! This guy is actually relatively hard to fight...unless you have Hard Knuckle, which destroys him in two shots. You fight two of them in the stage, and I'm ashamed to say I got hit by one, and I feel kinda silly getting hit by em once. But, such is life, I can't ALWAYS be perfect.

We also have some hammer joes. I kill the first one we meet with the mega buster, to show the difference between how long it takes to kill them with that, compared to the hard knuckle. I think it shows just how strong the Hard Knuckle IS quite well. After the Hammer Joes we find the ? Tanks, which are shot and give a random item drop. The energy tank I have is from one of these during practice!

The bit before the final stretch of the level includes these wierd flying dudes that drop their head bombs on you and the pole vaulters. This is one of the hardest rooms in Snakeman's stage (which should tell you something about how difficult this stage is, ie "not very"). After that we have a jump that is actually surprisingly hard, some more pole vaulting guys, a spider robot, and then some cloud missle dudes. After that is Snakeman himsssself.

Snakeman is actually surprisingly though, and I think I would of been better off using the mega buster. It does one blip of damage, as opposed to the Shadowblade's 2 blips, but it also has longer range and may of given me more ability to focus on dodging. Ah well. I rode the snake, and got put away wet (as it were). The wierd thing about Snakeman is that his weakness is actually Needleman's weapon, the Needle Cannon. Megaman 3 has a wierd weakness chain, where Sparkman is strong to Magnetman, but none of the weapons in THAT chain are all that good againest Needle, Snake, or Geminiman. It's all very strange, and I'm glad that next game makes the weakness's more clear cut.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, I'll see you all next time, where we face off againest one of the zodiacs! Would this be considered fratricide? I have no ideaaaaa~

[Surrealistik]

Haha, nice work; up until Snake Man that is.

Things fell apart pretty damn quickly.

[LaZodiac]

I'm have double vision! It's Geminiman time!

Megaman 3 [7] Geminiman

This stage starts off quite wierd, with those one eyed flying guys that drop fire that turns into flame pillers. They're not that hard to deal with, especialy with the magnet missle (though I get tripped up a few time because of penguins). After dealing with them, we meet Breakman (glitch the game so we can hear a slightly extended version of his whistle) and watch him...stand on a barrier for awhile, before teleporting away and it exploding. Now, the interesting thing about this is that this scene is supposed to have Breakman transforming into....something (you'll see) but they didn't put the animation in. Very mysterious.

After the wierd, crystal like area of the first part, you'd think the rest would be rather simple, no? Wrong! We now enter a very strange cellular wall type area with a bunch of robotic tadpole eggs that when shot plop out strange tadpole robot things that wriggle at you! Very strange! After dealing with a few rooms of this, we encounter our friend the dragonfly again, and a large Penguin shaped like an ice maker that spews out smaller penguins. I punch it in the face with my Hard Knuckle. Megaman is weird.

After those guys, we get to an area with water! We have two routes. We can either use the Rush Coil to jump up onto the platform for some mad platforming action, or use the Rush Marine to swim through the level. I pick the Rush Marine part, to show it off. It gets us a few Energy Tanks, shows off a rather limited use item, and at one point I even get to show how it works on land (big air quotes on "works" in that regard). Finally, before Geminiman, we have a big stompy dude who is completely harmless, so we shoot him in the eyes.

Finally, we have Geminiman himself. He's quite strong, and I'm bad at timing his first phase where he has his double out. However, with the search snakes, I sniff him out and make quick work of him, and obtain the Gemini Laser! Because, you know, Laser beams. That's what Gemini is associated with.

Yha.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed! See you all next time when we take on the last Robot Master, Needleman!

[INoKnowNames]

I can finally spare enough free time to watch these again!

Infact, I can spare enough time to compete with you!

I'ma walk with ya, step by step, and see how much better than me you are, since my reflexes have atrophied and you've been busy being Megawesome. Gotta catch up to ya, but I'll get it done.

[LaZodiac]

I can finally spare enough free time to watch these again!

Infact, I can spare enough time to compete with you!

I'ma walk with ya, step by step, and see how much better than me you are, since my reflexes have atrophied and you've been busy being Megawesome. Gotta catch up to ya, but I'll get it done.

Haha, good luck! And don't worry, I'm not that good

[LaZodiac]

GAragah, this stage. Doesn't help that I'm finally recovering from being sick.

Megaman 3 [8] Needleman

In my personal opinion, the hardest of the starting Robot Master stages! Why starting? Well, you'll see at the end of the video~

We start off with annoying porcupine robot guys who can be invincible if left alone too long. A quick abuse of rapid fire deals with this, and I don't feel bad for using it because I've found no real good way of dealing with em! After them we've got some mets and Combo Cannons (I let one stay alive long enough to show what they do!) and then we've got a cool sliding bit with pokey needle things. I kinda screw up here and get hit, but that is the least embarassing I do this run.

What happens next is the most embarassing thing I do this run. The shinaningans with the Hammer Joes and my Hard Knuckles...I was just so nervous about getting hit since I know Needleman is hard and I don't wanna die and balgahblah. Long story short I DO get to show off that if you hold up or down when you fire a Hard Knuckle, it moves up or down!

After that we have one smashy guy (that I avoid flawlessly, for once!) and that's it. Needleman's stage is short and, ahem, to the point.

Needleman himself is kind of a beast. Really strong, really durable, really fast. He's kind of really hard to beat. The Gemini laser burns his face right off though, so I'm able to beat him without too much effort. Our reward is the Needle Cannon and the final Rush item, Rush Jet! And with that we're off to face the villian, who is....well, first of all we don't know who the villian is, not really. Secondly, le giga gasp!

Surprise! Megaman 3 has a little surprise for us! Four more stages before we face Dr Wily the villian who we don't know what is! Fun fact, YOU, the viewer, gets to decide which of the Doc Robot stages (as they are called) I go to! The vote is up untill Sunday, which is when I record.

So yha, I hope you enjoy, don't forget to tell me which horrible death zone you want me to die constantly in first, and as always, see you again next time!

[T.G. Oskar]

Surprise! Megaman 3 has a little surprise for us! Four more stages before we face Dr Wily the villian who we don't know what is! Fun fact, YOU, the viewer, gets to decide which of the Doc Robot stages (as they are called) I go to! The vote is up untill Sunday, which is when I record.

So yha, I hope you enjoy, don't forget to tell me which horrible death zone you want me to die constantly in first, and as always, see you again next time!

Fun Fact: the "Doc Robots" aren't called like that because they're the Doctor's robots, but you can find a justification for it. Thing is, their skull motif hints at their real name, the Doku Robot, or "Skull Robot" (as Doku is Japanese for "skeleton", if my memory doesn't fail me). Thus, you're fighting skeleton-inspired robots, but they end up getting honorary doctorates in...well, being bad.

As to which one to choose? No clue. Go Needleman part 2? Take the bad pill first, I say. It can't be as bad as the Doc(Doku) Robot version of Snake Man in Day in the Limelight 2. DAT STAGE...

[LaZodiac]

I was actually going to mention that after the first Doc Robot stage

And ok, a vote for Needleman! Woo!

[Blue Ghost]

I know absolutely nothing about them, so I will pick completely at random... Shadow Man.

[PhoeKun]

I know absolutely nothing about them, so I will pick completely at random... Shadow Man.

This is the optimal first route, as it allows you to handle one of the more jerkfaced doc robots first, rather than have him cast his fat, stupid shadow over the entire rest of the run.