Mega Man 3/YMMV

• Anticlimax Boss: All the bosses in the Wily Castle, but Gamma's second phase stands out in that it can be destroyed easily with just a single Top Spin, even though its the final boss.
• Awesome Music: The title screen theme and the ending/Proto Man's theme are especially popular.
• Breather Boss: Among the Doc Robots, Doc Metal and Doc Heat are the easiest if only for the fact that their patterns are easy to follow and don't deviate from their Robot Master counterparts in the slightest, while the rest have been considerably beefed up.
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Proto Man, one of the most popular characters in the series, debuted in this game. Shadow Man is also well liked due to having a cool design and a useful weapon.
• Even Better Sequel: For some, this game is even better than 2, with its fans citing things like the challenge, overall useful pool of weapons, and level design as factors. It helps that series mainstays Rush and Proto Man were introduced here.
• Game Breaker: The Rush Jet is easily the best utility item in any of the games. It freely travels in any direction at top speed, you can conserve its ammo by jumping, and can bypass many tricky stage hazards with it thanks to its large ammo pool.
• Goddamned Boss: Wily Machine 3 becomes unbearably annoying during the second phase of its fight. It spends a lot of time invincible while peppering you with bullets that need precise timing to dodge and opens itself up for a counterattack for maybe a couple of seconds. And since you may very well use up those precious seconds staying away from the shots, this boss can take a good long time.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • 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.
  • 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.
• It Was His Sled: The reveal that Proto Man is Mega Man's older brother. Also, Wily's not reformed at all.
• Most Annoying Sound: Mega Man 3 started using new sound fonts compared to Mega Man 1 and 2, and they continued using the new sounds for the rest of the NES games.
  • Mega Man's shot is now harsher and screechier.
  • The sound of a health bar filling up is louder than in the first two games, making it more irritating to hear this time around, especially at the beginning of a boss fight.
  • The high-pitched clang the Bolton and Nutton make when they connect.
• Scrappy Mechanic: While not that bad of a weapon overall, there can only be one shot from the Gemini Laser on-screen at any one time. If it misses, you can't fire another shot or even pause the game until the shot either leaves the screen, runs out of energy or hits an enemy, which is doubly problematic if you're fighting a boss and low on energy, since it'll temporarily prevent you from using any energy tanks that you have.
  • Top Spin drains every frame it's in contact with an enemy. This is why it drains to nothing so quickly when used on an enemy that's invulnerable to it, and one reason why it has to be used carefully against Shadow Man (who has Mercy Invincibility). Learning how to avoid draining the weapon in this way is necessary to use this effectively.
  • Rush Marine is frequently derided for not only being such a situational device (it can only be used underwater), but in this game, especially being completely redundant as Rush Jet does the exact same thing except you can use it out of water as well.
  • 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.
• That One Boss:
  • 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 Confusion Fu bosses in the series, he's actually pretty durable, taking only one point of damage from most things that aren't the Gemini Laser.
  • Shadow Man is a Bullfight Boss. 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: You have to be CLOSE to hit him.
    • It also doesn't help that he's really, really fast. Trying to fight with the Mega Buster alone is asking for trouble (it can be done, but it's very hard).
  • Oh dear god, the Doc Robots. These guys are basically Mega Man 2's bosses on steroids: stand out examples being Doc Quick, Doc Flash, and Doc Wood.
  • The Holograph Mega Mans are hell if you don't eliminate the real one at the beginning.