Mega Man III – Proper Boss Order & Advice

Top Man: Technically, Top Man is weak against the Hard Knuckle, although he’s much, much easier with the Mega Buster, and thus the ideal choice for first boss. This fight is pretty simple – close in and blast him when his tops appear on screen, then slide away from him when the tops start coming at you. After this he will use the Top Spin to move to the other side of the screen, so you’ll need to jump over him when this happens. Stay calm, and don’t over-anticipate the timing of the jump. That’s his entire pattern, so rinse and repeat until dead. This fight is all about timing; if you take hits, remain calm and settle back into the rhythm right away.

Shadow Man: Top Spin is a truly goofy weapon, and a hard to use one for beginners. You have to be in mid-jump to use it, and doing so does a spin attack. Using Top Spin doesn’t change the trajectory of your jump or anything, however, be very careful about how long you hold down the B Button, as the weapon energy can drain very quickly. On the plus side, a direct hit from Top Spin will very quickly annihilate anyone weak against it, like Shadow Man. Shadow Man will do a couple a quick hops on the right side of the screen, followed by a big jump in the middle. While he’s doing these, close quickly, jump at him, and hit him with the Top Spin. A couple of direct hits should do the trick.

Snake Man: You can go to Spark Man’s stage third if you wish, although if you’re smart like me you’ll go this route and get the Rush Jet sooner. Snake Man is weak against the Needle Cannon, which we do not have at this time. Stand in the far left corner and use the Mega Buster instead to blast him as much as possible whenever he’s at a distance. When he closes to your location, try to take a hit from one of his Search Snakes, as they do far less damage than a collision. If you stand in the middle of that far left platform you’re on, he may jump clean over you. This is tough with the Mega Buster, but as long as you stay in place and avoid collisions whenever possible, you’ll win the war of attrition. (Having the Needle Cannon doesn’t change the fight strategy, it just makes it easier.)

Gemini Man: At the start of the fight, Gemini Man will split in two and start jumping over you while shooting. Get the Search Snake out and whale on the copy that jumps in behind you. It will disappear after a few hits (and with Search Snake’s crazy good fire rate, it behooves you to get those shots out ASAP). Once you got him reduced to one copy, pump him full of Search Snakes and we’re done. It’s pretty easy, which is great because his level is a motherfucker.

Needle Man: The Gemini Laser sucks on toast, but unfortunately it’s the only serious choice for taking out Needle Man. The Gemini Laser is slow and has atrocious ammo efficiency, but the good news is it does ricochet off walls for a while in case you miss. The key to this fight is ensuring that when you fire the Gemini Laser, you get a hit. Needle Man likes to jump and fir his Needle Cannon to start the fight, so I like to do a quick hop before firing the Gemini Laser. It will usually hit Needle Man coming down as it ricochets off the back wall. From there, he will either continue jumping and using Needle Cannon or close to the middle and use his mid-range attack. Stay focused on ensuring accuracy, as you only need a few laser hits to take him down. If you need to use an E-Tank, do so, as you’re unlikely to have enough Gemini Laser ammo for a second fight if you take a death.

Spark Man: This fight is pretty easy, despite the uneven boss room terrain. The Shadow Blade is both Spark Man’s weakness and sports eight-directional fire, although the range is limited. Spark Man’s attacks are slow and easy to dodge, although you may take a collision or two. That’s acceptable, just stay focused on dodging his shots and blast him with Shadow Blades whenever you get an opening.

Magnet Man: There are some out there who say that you should do Magnet Man first. I think that’s nuts, but I get it. Magnet Man has a very simple pattern: he hops from one end of the screen to the other, then jumps to the top of the room and fires three Magnet Missiles. Occasionally, he will break from this to stand in place and use his magnetic head to draw you in closer to him, during which time he is invulnerable. Hit him with the Spark Shot when he’s doing his hops; note that you’ll need to hop a bit yourself to get hits in. Slide under him when he does his big leap, then do more sliding to dodge the Magnet Missiles. If he does his magnet pull thing, be patient and stay as far away as possible. Do not slide to gain distance, it will backfire. If you play smart and play good defense, this fight is a breeze.

Hard Man: This can be a tricky fight, as you are likely to take a large amount of damage, but he also has an extremely predictable pattern, so you got this. Hard Man will fire two Hard Knuckles – the first will go in an upwards diagonal, the second will go straight at you. He then jumps in the air and does a dive attack into the ground, which will freeze you in place. Do nothing to dodge the first Hard Knuckle and jump over the second. He is weak against Magnet Missile, so hit him with a couple of those while he’s getting his shots in. The dive renders Hard Man invulnerable and does lots of damage, so be patient before sliding out of the way. Repeat until dead.

Remix Stages

After you defeat all eight robot masters, four of their levels open back up. There are two bosses per level, each of which is a facsimile of one of the robot masters from Mega Man II. These levels are damn difficult in and of themselves, and the boss fights can be murder if you don’t know what you’re doing. I prefer to work my way through these stages from hardest to easiest, starting with:

Needle Man Remix

-Your first Mega Man II fight is against Air Man, who is weak against the Spark Shot. This is the same strategy as fighting Air Man in Mega Man II. Get inside his Air Cannon shots as quickly as possible, then unload as much Spark Shot as you can. Work quickly here; it’s almost impossible to avoid taking hits, and bot the Air Cannon and collisions hit like trucks.

-The second fight here is against Crash Man. This fight isn’t nearly as bad as Air Man in a vacuum, but odds are you took a severe beating in the second half of the level. Use the Hard Knuckle and stay close to him to ensure your shots hit. Remain calm! His person and his attacks aren’t too hard to dodge, unless you’re in a panic. Use an E-Tank if you need to.

Gemini Man Remix

–Full disclosure: most people think this is a harder stage than Needle Man Remix. I don’t, but I acknowledge I’m very much in the minority. The first fight is against Flash Man, who is weak against Gemini Laser. Since the floor here is uneven and the Gemini Laser has not become less terrible since you used it last, this fight is pretty tricky. Careful aim is key; try to get him with a ricochet shot when he’s in one of the corners. The good news is he goes down after four or five hits. This will go quick, but expect to take damage.

–Bubble Man is last here, and he’s pretty easy. Bust out your Shadow Blade and get as many hits on him as quickly as you can, using the Shadow Blade’s eight-directional fire to make your shots as efficient as possible. He’ll go down quick, so defense is optional.

Shadow Man Remix

-As a whole, the Shadow Man Remix stage isn’t too bad, but Wood Man is the single hardest of these boss fights. The Leaf Shield, when fired, does a ton of damage – you can only survive two direct hits from it, and you won’t take him out in two cycles, either. Therefore, you need to dodge the Leaf Shield. Pay attention to the leaves he fires up into the ceiling; he will fire the Leaf Shield shortly after they start coming down. You can clear the Leaf Shield with a straight up jump, but the timing of said jump has an extremely narrow margin for error. As such, you may need to die a few times in order to get the timing down. The falling leaves also do damage, but they do far less, so don’t even bother dodging them. Focus on clearing the Leaf Shield. Wood Man is only vulnerable when he does not have a Leaf Shield up, so when that is the case, unload as much Needle Cannon ammo as you can before he starts his next Leaf Shield. Use an E-Tank if you have to.

-The last boss here is Heat Man, who is weak against the Top Spin. Heat Man is content to hang back and shoot Atomic Fire at you all day, so get in his business right away and hit him as hard as you can with Top Spin. Once hit, he’ll go invulnerable, then zoom over to your location. Dodge him as he approaches, then nail him with Top Spin again. Repeat as needed; it should only take four solid Top Spin hits at the most.

Spark Man Remix

-The toughest part about these Mega Man II bosses is that if you go in blind, it can be extremely difficult to determine which weapon to use against each boss. Their weaknesses aren’t always easy to intuit. But it sure is easy with Metal Man, who is predictably weak against the Magnet Missile. Jump to dodge incoming Metal Blades and keep firing Magnet Missiles. You’ll win in a walk.

-Last (but never, ever least) is Quick Man, who is weak against the Search Snake. Use the Search Snake’s rapid rate of fire to get as many hits as you can as quickly as possible. You’re gonna take collision hits and probably Quick Boomerang hits, so your time here is limited. In addition, you need to get close to ensure your Search Snakes hit, as he’ll easily dodge them if they’re fired more than a quarter screen away. It’s not easy, but since when was fighting Quick Man ever easy?

Dr. Wily’s Castle

Dr. Wily’s Castle is a great deal easier than the brutal Remix stages, so get your chin up! We got this.

Stage 1 Boss: I have no idea what this thing’s name is, so don’t ask. In this fight, you drop into a pool of water. Up top is a robot that will dispense turtles into the pool, one at a time. These turtles bounce around diagonally, and do significant collision damage. Like all Mega Man games, you jump significantly higher under water (as if that makes a lick of sense, but whatever), meaning you may jump into the dispenser robot (and take it’s ludicrous collision damage) if you’re not careful. Also, mini water currents will fire out of the floor and walls. If you get stuck behind a current, it will push you into the wall or ceiling. If this complicated scenario makes it sound like this fight is at all hard, I assure you, it is not. Grab your Shadow Blade and shoot them at the turtles, which can only take one hit from Shadow Blade. Each successive turtle is faster than the previous one, but as long as you dodge the currents you’ll be fine. The better you are at aiming Shadow Blade diagonally, the easier this fight is. Do your best to win this without E-Tanks.

Stage 2 Boss: Oh holy jesus fuck, it’s the Yellow Devil from the first game! Holy shit, we’re all gonna die! Calm the fuck down. Yes, this fight is hard, but it’s way, way easier than it is in the first Mega Man. To start, stay to the right of the screen to give yourself as much time as possible to dodge his pieces. Stay calm; if you panic, you may jump up into a piece you didn’t even have to dodge in the first place, which is bad. Move over to the left as the Devil starts to fill in; after a while, you will be able to anticipate where the next pieces will be coming from. When the Devil is almost assembled, get the Hard Knuckle out and fire it at it’s eye. Do so from close range to ensure accuracy – if you take hits from eye bullets, so be it. If you time it so that the first Hard Knuckle hits as soon as the eye materializes, you’ll be able to get two hits per cycle. He will dissemble and shift to the left, so move yourself over to the left side and repeat the process. The next time he disassembles, his pieces instead bounce over in stacks; slide under these. Stay calm and stay focused on dodging during disassembly. Use as many E-Tanks as you need – I usually use at least two.

Stage 3 Boss: This room has a stack of three levels, each with a teleport pod in the center. Three Mega Man clones will emerge from each, and only one can take damage. Once the fight starts, get to the top level and unload as many Search Snakes on the clone as you can. You can easily kill this boss in one cycle, but should you fail to do so, the next ‘real’ clone will be on the middle level, and then the bottom level. I forget what the pattern is after the third cycle, but if this fight takes you more than three cycles, you fucked up.

Wily Machine: As is standard practice, this Wily Machine comes in two phases. In the first phase, the machine will close from the right side of the screen, firing orbs that move in a spiral pattern. The weak point of the first phase is the cannon firing the orbs; note that this cannon does not appear on screen immediately, so you’ll need to chill out an dodge the orbs for a while. Once you see the cannon, hit it with Spark Shot. The cannon is higher than Spark Shot travels if you stay on the ground, so you’ll need to do some tiny hops to get hits. In the second phase, the top of the machine opens up, firing bullets and attempting to crush you. The weak spot here is the cockpit. Bring out your Rush Jet and hop on. Once you’ve deployed the Rush Jet, you’ll fire regular Mega Buster shots, so line that shit up with the cockpit and unload. You’ll avoid the crusher entirely, and the bullets aren’t too bad. Re-align yourself when it does the crush attack so you’re still getting hits. This fight is pretty easy and hugely satisfying, so enjoy yourself!

Gamma: Only one fight left, so let’s do this. Gamma has only one energy bar, but two phases. In the first phase, he fires bullets from his head. That’s it. Hit him in the head with Shadow Blade and dodge the bullets. Once his health is halved, the second phase begins. This is scarier, but the pattern is totally set. Gamma will fire an energy ball, then his arm attack will come at you from the right side, then repeat. Slide away from the energy ball, and when the arm attack comes out, jump on top of his fist, then jump up to the platforms on the top right of the screen. The timing can take some getting used to, so if you need to take a few cycles to practice it, go ahead and do so. Once you’re all the way up to the top platform, bust out your Top Spin and jump straight at Dr. Wily in the circular cockpit. You ‘ll take a hit from it, and as soon as you do, unload the Top Spin. One hit will suffice. (If you run out of Top Spin, you can also hit the cockpit with Search Snake. That’s it! You beat Mega Man 3! Now go outside, it’s good for ya.