Mega Man X3

(he did not put an end to Sigma for good)

• Genre: Action Platforming
• Spoiler Free Review: Yes. Except for the screenshot above.
• Time Played: 7-8 Hours?
• Too Short/Long: It's solid, a bit longer than the prior two, in a good way.
• Did I cry: No.
• Soundtrack: A bit better than X2, but still not quite as good as the first, I don't think.
• Why I played: I'm keeping the Megamanathon going.
• Jank: It's definitely overall a bit more refined than the previous two. The "jank" really lies in how unbalanced it feels...
• Difficulty: It feels really all over the place. Partly I blame myself for forgetting that you can switch to Zero pretty much whenever during normal stages. The early game felt very difficult and this would have alleviated some of it. By time I remembered this, I had enough power ups where Mega Man didn't feel so difficult and the game started to feel like a breeze. There were still moments that were extremely difficult, and it kinda jumped back and forth between extremely hard and too easy for the rest of the game.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm still very pleased with it.
• Recommend to others: If not for the jumps in difficulty/ease, I would most recommend 3 of the SNES games, but that detracts it enough that the first still remains the best one to get started with, even if 2 and 3 improve upon it in some aspects.
  

I've never quite understood why X3 isn't as loved as the previous two. X3 has so much cool stuff. The armor pieces are almost* universally better, there are additional enhancements on top of that, there are a bunch of ride armors, the levels are more substantial, each about 2-3x as long as in X2, there is a bit more going on with the story, and of course, playing as Zero. I just forgot you have to move the pause/equipment screen with the weapon select buttons because I was not reading an SNES instruction booklet before playing this.

I think it's mostly due to the difficulty being all over the place, it wildly jumps from sections/bosses being a breeze to others that are frustratingly difficult. There is also the fact the *arm upgrade causes you to pause when shooting out it's full charges shot. This isn't something that affected me in the late game, but the first couple bosses I had to fight after getting it, it really screwed up my rhythm - which is something that is very important in these games.

Otherwise though, it's not bad, I think it may at least be the "coolest" of the SNES Mega Man X games and they're all pretty damn cool.