Mega Man 3 Improvement Patch Appreciation Post

I've been a big Mega Man fan since about the time I was 11 or 12, a few years over a decade ago, and I've played everything sans the Battle Network and Star Force titles from Powered Up and MM1 all the way to ZX Advent and Legends 2. It's stayed with me through about thick and thin.

And as the only new content we've gotten since I became a fan were MM11, a few Legacy Collections here and there, and a few bits and bobs in Smash Bros, I've been exploring the rest of the gaming sphere with all the free time that leaves me in waiting for more official content - and I have to say, the fanmade improvements to the basics that Capcom provided us with back in their heyday is really something else. Specifically - the X5 Improvement Patch, Mega Man: The Sequel Wars, and the Mega Man 3 Improvement Patch scratch an old but always hard-to-identify itch I've carried with me for more than a decade.

I'd always wished, with the games we'd gotten, that Capcom really tried to polish up whatever they'd made with a little more finesse and panache before shoveling six more sequels out the door - while I like the sheer quantity of games that we have in the aftermath of how Capcom operated, I would easily sacrifice Mega Man X6 and beyond if it meant that the dev time spent went towards a more finely-tuned X5. Instead of a well-done X5 with one extra year of development at the end of the PlayStation 1's life cycle, we got two half-baked sequels to drop the baton X4 carried across the span of two years. And instead of a well-baked Mega Man 3, to send the NES off with a bang and go out with style and respect, Capcom used the ensuing years to not only effectively scrape some needed polish off Mega Man 3, but waste the time between generations with three more sequels with dwindling public respect and sales.

Again, I appreciate the amount of games we're left with in hindsight, but, Mega Man would have been a much more colossal cultural milestone beyond just Mega Man 2 and Mega Man X1 if they'd slowed the output down just a tad and made the releases they did put out just a little more important. With Mega Man 3 in particular, with the amount of creative, unburdened ideas that they had - a new cool rival character in Proto Man, a new cool sidekick in Rush, new moves, new worlds (literally, going by the game's planet-hopping story), twice the length, more cinematics, cooler splash screens before and after each level - with just a few more months' worth of work, and, the fact that most trilogies come in threes, and the SNES was nearing its completion - it would have made so much sense to put everything they had into properly finishing 3 and moving to the Sega Genesis and take their time on Mega Man 4 and 5. I like Mega Man 6 but I would easily sacrifice it if it meant slowing down the dev time between 1990 and 1994 into keeping Mega Man healthy, relevant, and Triple AAA.

3 and 4 have always been my favorite entries on the NES but it always would have made more sense to change a thing or two about them for the better. Common consensus is that 3 was rushed and very good, but flawed, and the devs at Capcom always talk about 3 like there was so much they wanted to do but couldn't thanks to higher management insisting they push it out yesterday. Crack open the source code for Mega Man 3 and it shows - there's so much unused content just sitting there, languishing, small details and large that would have blown fans' minds back in 1990.

I've been largely aware of everything sitting in the MM3 source code, and how much of it is still there compared to the other NES MM games but - thanks to the improvement patch by ROMHacking.net user kuja killer (as far as I am aware), I got to see it in working firsthand action for the first time today now that I'm a little more emulation-savvy and wow - how freaking cool.

It feels infinitely better, like getting a gift you know you've wanted for a long time but it's so niche you frankly don't know how to communicate or ask for.

It utilises a planet background, and some parallax scrolling with it and the stars, that's still in the game's code in Gemini Man's stage. Later on, when you encounter Proto Man, there's another unused element in a small animation of Protoman transforming into Break Man in a split second before taking off and clearing your way. Watching it in action was so cool - it's botheringly already in the game, and it only would have taken an extra minute of development time that the devs didn't have, to implement it - it would have made a world of difference to kids in 1990 who are now lifelong fans today.

Several glitches have been fixed - the cloud platforms in Snake Man's stage you stand on no longer are at risk of shunting you off to the side of the smokestack and killing you, making it a much easier experience, you feel more at ease and less paranoid. That's more fitting for an easy first-pick level! In Spark Man's stage, these unused spikes on the ceiling which I didn't even know about - but now that they're here, this game I've played start to finish over dozens of times now feels brand new. The changes are small, but numerous and unexpected, and it fills a certain void that you could argue is pointless but feels reinvigorating. I got to play my favorite classic Mega Man game in a brand new way.

The cutscenes are longer, better, and more numerous - there's a brand new opening cutscene, that cleverly repurposes Gamma's sprite into a neat screen-filling background element, every instance of \"Dr. Right\" or \"Wiley\" has been fixed, the cutscene before Wily's Castle is more interesting and uses the full song jingle (which, fun fact, in the final game, you only get the first six seconds of), and, in the ending frame, they threw in some birds flying behind the tree for good measure AND kept Protoman's whistle playing through the Robot Master roll call until the staff credits kick in. These subtle changes go a long way towards flavor and make you realize that MM3 was and is too enormous to be just the unimportant midpoint between MM1 and 6.

https://preview.redd.it/07rnraw0v7be1.png?width=1317&format=png&auto=webp&s=74107620dd8ccfc5e776b67cd62613ea5b7806e3

Small areas like these - as well as the opening of Doc Robot Spark Man's stage, have been slightly modified so there's no possibility of you getting stuck if you're out of Rush Coil or Jet and you don't need to reset the game.

And there were a billion other small changes I noticed too - Magnet Missile feels smoother, certain new sound effects were added for Proto Man, the swinging hammer Joes, the giant hornets in Hard Man's stage, the bullets and the pogo bouncers in Snake Man's stage, Air Man and Crash Man's fights; glitched out graphics were fixed, the Yellow Devil fight you can now slide under properly and without crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, the junk golems in Wily Stage 4 and the compactor crush blocks they throw (and the ones in Spark Man's stage) don't hit you weirdly, Wily Machine 3 now tunnels a bit into the ground with each step for a slightly more and slightly more appropriately difficult fight... the small touches really go an extra mile.

If I could get someone who's skilled with an NES mod out there to add a last touch or two, I've always thought it would be cool and refreshing if the Doc Robot stages used a different color palette, for all the stages, and not just Needle Man's. Like Sonic Mania's Encore Mode. It would cut the tedium a little bit. And - purely for aesthetic touch - I would love the first five notes of Protoman's Whistle to play when you boot the game up at the copyright information. It'd be cool and let you know you're in for a real ride.

I can't recommend it enough and I sure as hell won't be going back to base MM3 again now that I have this on my laptop. Between this and Sequel Wars, once that's finished, I'll finally be able to realize what I've always imagined, a world where Mega Man, instead of sputtering out on the last generation, going nowhere, kept up with the times and stayed the ever-relevant gaming icon that he was always supposed to be. Huge round of applause for everyone who worked on this.