Mega Man 3 (NES)

Prototype Info Prerelease Info Unused Level DataTiles, Blocks, Palettes, Something like a junkyard full of cool stuff! Unused Rooms & ScreensThe city is so beautiful at night!! Too bad this wasn't used...

Debug Commands#

While well-known, the commands for Controller 2 are very likely not built-in cheat codes, but rather debugging features that the developers forgot to remove from the game. The European version has these cheats completely removed.

• Hold Right to give Mega Man a super jump. This also allows you to jump out of pits.
• Hold Up to slow down the animations.
• Hold Up + A to freeze the logic timer for some animations, including the player hit animation and some explosions. This will cause bosses and some enemies to freeze in place.

RAM address $0098 has some debug features associated with it. Setting bit 1 will force enable the super jump code above by setting the right D-pad input bit in RAM address $0017, which holds the buttons that are currently held down on controller 2. Setting bit 0 would have enabled infinite energy for Mega Man and his weapons, however the subroutine that would have done this is not called in the release versions of the game. This subroutine is located at ROM address $3CCF5.

Unused Graphics#

Mega Man#

A turning sprite for the Magnet Missile. In the finished game, the missiles change direction immediately. Interestingly, when the game was remade as part of Mega Man: The Wily Wars, this sprite did make the cut, suggesting that the programmers either didn't notice it was unused or just thought it was a good idea.

An unused sprite for the Search Snake, which appears to depict it turning downwards over a ledge.

Sprites for shooting whilst using Rush Marine. Though the Rush Marine can indeed shoot in the final version, its animation doesn't change. These sprites were later used in Mega Man 4.

An unused bubble sprite for Rush Marine.

Proto Man / Break Man#

Sprites for Proto Man and Break Man's idle animation. The only time an idle sprite for Proto Man is used is during the brief cutscene in Gemini Man's stage, but it isn't animated in that instance. Break Man never uses this animation in-game. Proto Man's idle sprites from Mega Man 4 onwards would have his scarf animated as intended.

Both Proto Man and Break Man have graphics for shooting while on the ground. In the final game, he only fires while in the air.

Raw	Animated

Sprites for Proto Man (un?)equipping his Break Man mask. On the right is a mockup of how the animation might play out in game.

A sprite that's supposed to be used for Break Man's midair shooting animation, but goes unused due to an error:

As this image shows, not only did they accidentally use Proto Man's graphics for the top half of the sprite, but they used a completely different sprite in place of the eye, a sprite which otherwise would have gone unused instead:

Snake Man#

Rising Shooting Sprite#

Unused sprites for Snake Man shooting in midair whilst jumping upwards. He only ever shoots whilst falling, so this sprite is never used.

Search Snake#

Just like with Mega Man, Snake Man also has an unused turning sprite for his Search Snake.

Spark Man#

Static#

A ball of static that appears in Spark Man's graphics. It's placed after the small diamond-shaped spark balls. It's possible that the small sparks once paralyzed Mega Man, instead of harming him. Note that this uses different graphics than Spark Shock's static ball.

Wily Machine#

Unused sprites for the Wily Machine fight including an extra frame for his projectile, a hoop-looking thing, and what appears to be debris from when its spiky feet hit the ground.

Enemies#

An unused sprite for the Bikky enemy.

An unused sprite for the Bomb Flier enemy.

Found near the graphics for the Have "Su" Bee and Chibee enemies is this little guy. Due to its appearance and its close proximity to these enemies, it's likely this was supposed to be the cocoon that the Chibee would have emerged out of. Perhaps the Have "Su" Bee was meant to drop these guys, and upon hitting the ground they would hatch into Chibee.

An unused sprite that appears to be a piece of junk debris for the Junk Golem enemy. This would make sense, since the graphic used for Junk Golem's debris in the final game is the same one that's used for its leg.

An unused sprite for the Mechakkero enemy that would've gone a long way towards making its jumping animation much smoother. A touched-up version of this sprite was later used in Mega Man: The Wily Wars.

An unused cannon sprite located within the graphics for the Pickelman Bull enemy.

An unused platform with a blinking animation. Due to its animation, as well as being located near the Bomber Pepe's graphics, it's possible that this was the original Gemini Blocker graphic.

An unused sprite for the Tama miniboss' paw, most likely for throwing its yarn balls which lacks an animation in the final game.

Other#

A picture of Mega Man from behind. This is found in the same graphics bank as the Mega Man from the Get Weapon screen. Its intended use is unknown.

Extra frames of animation exist for Break Man's Stage Select mugshot showing his scarf fluttering in the breeze. His scarf is static in the final game.

Some kanji characters are used in the Rockman 3 robot information screen (the one with the Robot Masters from Rockman 1), but about half of them aren't used. Interestingly, all but one of these kanji are used in the backstory found in the Japanese manual, which strongly suggests (alongside the unusually long opening music) that this game was supposed to have an intro sequence.

The only kanji not used in the manual or the game is 犬, "dog", definitely referring to Rush. Perhaps Rush was supposed to have an entry in the ending?

These eight letters are also found in the same bank as the unused kanji. They're styled differently from the standard font used everywhere else, and judging from their arrangement, once spelled out "YOU GOT" and "AND".

It's possible that the weapon acquisition sequence once used Japanese text for the weapon and Rush adapter names. This is a mockup image of how that would look.

In-game	Full

Part of the weapons menu border is cut off by the edges of the screen, so some of the border tiles are "unused".

Raw	Animated

Some silhouetted birds can be seen in the ending tileset right beside Wily's UFO a "fat bluebird".

An arrangement of five of these is hidden in the animation data for the game (seen right). Were they supposed to be flying on the horizon?

Unused Music/Sounds#

Ending#

1 minute and 12 seconds worth of this song plays during the ending. In addition, the song also loops. A whopping 55 seconds of this track is cut during normal play, but it can be heard in-game by holding Up + A on Controller 2 as Mega Man teleports. The entire song is available in the Mega Man Legacy Collection Music Player, and a remixed version of the full track would later appear as Proto Man's ending theme in Mega Man: The Power Battle.

Proto Man Whistle#

Proto Man's trademark whistle is actually about four times longer than what you normally hear in the game, matching the whistle heard in the intro of the ending theme, but with the last note held long. You can hear the full sound by pausing the game at the start of a Proto Man battle before the regular stage music resumes or performing a glitch that allows you to skip the Proto Man cutscene in Gemini Man's level.

Wily Castle Map#

Due to the brevity of map navigation, about four seconds of this Wily Castle map theme is actually used, leaving about 14 seconds completely unheard. It may be possible that the Wily Castle Map intro was meant to be longer than the actual length of the intro in the final version, but due to rushed development, the scene was cut short.

Oddly, while the intro of the Wily Castle Map in Mega Man 3 of Mega Man: The Wily Wars is longer than the NES version, it doesn't use the complete theme, it instead repeats the four-second portion used in the NES game.

Unused Sound #1#

Just some beeps.

Unused Sound #2#

Sounds like some kind of explosion or eruption.

Unused Sound #3#

Technically, this sound is used in-game. It's supposed to play when you get a new weapon, but it's interrupted by the menu pop-up sound. In the Rockman Complete Works and Mega Man Anniversary Collection versions, this sound is used and audible.

It also should be noted that in the Capcom Music Generation Famicom Music Complete Works Rockman 1~6 album, the above two songs are recorded in their full glory, and all three unused sound effects can be heard on the 25th track of the second disk that contains all of the sound effects in the game.

A similar sound effect is used in Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge and Mega Man V for Enker's Mirror Buster attack.

Regional Differences#

Some changes were made to the game when it was released overseas. The version present in Mega Man Anniversary Collection is based on the PlayStation port of Rockman 3, and it only changes the dialogue text and title logo, with everything else unchanged.

In 2001, officially-licensed collections of the first six Rockman games were released in Taiwan and China. The version of Rockman 3 in those collections is in fact based on the North American release, just with one single change.

Copyright Screen#

US	Europe	Taiwan / China

In the international versions, the trademark, copyright, and licensing info are on a separate screen, which fades in first before the title screen. While the US version specifies being licensed by Nintendo of America, the European version simply states "Licensed by Nintendo", and the Chinese version lacks this line altogether.

Title Screen#

Japan	International	Taiwan / China

Aside from the usual logo change, the Japanese title screen features Mega Man's sprite from the weapon get screen, the copyright date by Capcom, and a trademark symbol next to the logo. Interestingly, other versions still have the graphics for Mega Man's sprite loaded into the NES' pattern tables during this screen.

The sole change to the Taiwanese / Chinese version of the game, beyond the minor edit to the copyright screen, is the "MEGA MAN" logo being edited to read "ROCK MAN". All other instances of the name "MEGA MAN" in the game are unedited, from the dialogue in the ending cutscene, right down to the background of the Password and Stage Select screens immediately after this title screen!

Stage Select#

Japan	International / Taiwan / China

Curiously, Rockman 3 uses the Mega Man-style logo as its stage select background. In Mega Man: The Wily Wars, this wasn't the case, as it was replaced with the Rockman-style logo for Rockman Mega World in Japan.

Room Change#

Japan	International / Taiwan / China

Near the end of Wily Stage 1, the Japanese version has a broad platform situated in the top-center of the screen, on which the two large weapon capsules sit. The international versions move them to a smaller, lower one above the door, which forces the player to switch weapons mid-air if they don't want to refill Rush Coil or Rush Jet.

Enemy Behavior#

Japan	International / Taiwan / China

In the Japanese version, the Bolton and Nutton enemy in this room in Top Man's stage appears as you're falling from the room above. In the international versions, it doesn't appear until you move to the left half of the platform you land on.

Also, before being assembled, the stationary part of these enemies flickers in the international versions.

Doc Robot Glitch#

In the original Japanese version, the Doc Robot that copies the characteristics of Flash Man only shoots one bullet instead of a bullet spread, and the duration of his Time Stopper is also extremely brief. You can clearly see him being capable of shooting more than one bullet at a time in case you happen to die against him (in the short time frame before a restart or game over).

Water Glitch#

For reasons unknown, in the Gemini Man Doc Robot stage, the water in the corridor leading to the second boss room was removed in the international versions, though the water graphics are still there. This causes a water splash and accompanying sound effect to occur when Mega Man enters the water-filled boss room. This was restored to its original Japanese state in the European revision 1 ROM.

Pausing#

Unlike in the Japanese version, bringing up the pause menu resets Mega Man's invincibility frames in the US version. The length of Mega Man's animation after coming out of the menu is also increased in the Japanese version if he was standing still in the firing pose before going into the pause menu.

Revisional Differences#

European Version#

Wily Machine Floor Glitch#

In revision 0 of the European version, when fighting the Wily Machine, the floor heavily jitters up and down across frames. This is caused by a quirk with the MMC3 mapper's scanline counter IRQ, which the game uses to move the Wily Machine separately from the rest of the background. Two different scanline counter values are used for the upper and lower bounds of the Wily Machine (58, then 116); however, the timing of these writes to the MMC3's hardware register was not adjusted for clock differences between the NTSC and PAL NES, and as a result, there are some frames where the second write conflicts with the automatic decrement of the counter as the next scanline is rendered, causing it to instead retain the first value and rendering the floor at a much higher position. Revision 1 fixed this glitch by adjusting the timing of the second write.

The following content may induce seizures and has been hidden by default. Click to reveal:

Mega Man Anniversary Collection#

Title Screen (MMAC)#

Japan (Famicom)	International (NES)	Anniversary Collection

Like the other games in this collection, the title screen is based on the Japanese Complete Works version. As such:

• The US Mega Man logo was used and stretched out.
• The "III" of the US logo was redesigned to mirror the numerals of Mega Man 4 onward.
• The copyright information was updated and shifted.

Dialogue#

Dr. Light's dialogue shortly before the Wily U.F.O. cutscene was reworded. Although the spelling of Wily's name was corrected, neither an exclamation point or period was included at the end of the sentence.

Miscellaneous#

During the ending sequence of the original game in all regions, Dr. Light was referred to as "Dr. Right", his Japanese name. This was changed in Anniversary Collection, where he is instead listed as "Dr. Light". Subsequent releases have not retained this change.

Mega Man Legacy Collection & Capcom Town#

Copyright Screen#

USA (NES)	USA (MMLC & CT)

Similar to the Taiwan/China version, the Nintendo of America license is not present on the copyright screen.

References#