Let’s Play Mega Man 3! 
It’s not often that I can say that the third installment in a series was my favorite, but Mega Man 3 is arguably my favorite in the entire series. For me it was just about striking the right balance without getting stale. Mega Man 1 set the foundation but it was too rough and if anything just showed you how good this series could be if given the chance. The sequel is a lot of people’s favorites and with good reason as it improved upon the gameplay of the first one, expanded on the breadth and depth of the game, and probably had the best backstory (though admittedly they’re all kind of the same). So why call the third my favorite?
Let’s Play Mega Man 3!
It really just got everything right, making slight improvements on the already near perfect (for me) second game. The game play was a lot tighter (or is it looser?), you seemed to move a bit more fluidly and quickly, the slide move was a great addition for getting around quickly and evading enemies and shots, and adding Rush as an ally/tool kit was an improvement over the “1”, “2”, and “3” powerups.
And the music track for track is probably the best out of any Mega Man game and maybe even Capcom game, though that might be too great an endorsement. The Wily stage musics alone were among some of the best Fishman or whatever his name was ever put together. And that intro… yeah it’s tough to beat that.
The story was also pretty fantastic in this one, with them reintroducing the robots from the last game, albeit in demon form, with twisted and bizarro versions of half of the levels.
Like I said, Mega Man 3 was the perfect storm and high water mark for the series, at least from this let’s player’s point of view. Every time I think of the Mega Man series, I picture a line graph in my head and it peaks with this game. It drops off just a bit in Mega Man 4 when the concept began to feel stale for the first time, maybe from lack of improvements over the last game when they ran out of ways to step it up. The game was essentially the same as 3 in feel, sure they added Dr. Cosack but it was still Wily behind it all. The powered up buster type shot was nice, but unnecessary.
Yes Mega Man 3 will always be the quintessential Mega Man game as far as I’m concerned which I think is a credit to Capcom that they were able to keep reinventing the game and hit the peak even after two solid initial games, as least from my point of view. Did I mention this is all just my opinion?
PS, did anyone notice Mega Man totally shooting the crotch of the enemy robot in the cover art of the box?