This post is part of a series of deep dives into Mega Man X 3. In this piece, we analyze the game’s environmental storytelling.

Here are the links to the rest of the deep dives:

• Weapons
• Story
• Bosses
• Miscellaneous

Spoiler Preface!!!

This post contains content that some may deem as spoilers. You have been warned

I think Mega Man X 3 does a much better job at environmental storytelling than X2. Not every stage takes place in some generic fortress or base, and there a lot of nice details in many of the backgrounds. That being said, the art design isn’t consistently good. One moment you get some gorgeous backdrop, and in the next you’re in some boring hallway.

Still, I’ll take when I can get. Let’s look at what the game has in store.

Intro Stage

The intro stage depicts an attack on Maverick Hunter HQ, which we kind of saw a bit of in X2, but not really. This is the opening shot:

There is no doubt in my mind that this is meant to be a callback to the intro level of X1:

I’m not saying HQ is definitely located in the same city, but I do think the visual consistency between these two locations is intentional. It makes X3 feel immediately connected to its predecessor in way that X2 wasn’t.

As we move into the base, we see a few more glimpses of the city:

Notice the searchlights being sent up in the distance, as well as the broken window. This tells us that not only is the base, but the entire metropolis is under attack. It would be nice if there were some more background effects - such as gunfire or flashes of explosion in the distance - but the existing details still help emphasize that there really is an attack going on.

Moving forward again, we come to a hangar bay filled with ships:

I appreciate the broken and damaged monitors lining the walls. It’s a very 1995-era vision of the future.

About halfway through the stage, the game forces you to switch to Zero. I noticed that the ships are the same, but mirrored and in a different color:

(I don’t think this means anything special. I just wanted to point it out)

As Zero pushes forward, he comes to an area in which he needs to wall climb up a long vertical shaft, as giant spiked wrecking balls fall from above:

The vibration from the impact causes the glass windows to shatter as you ascend. This isn’t a good example of environmental storytelling perse, but it’s a cool effect regardless.

We get a nice shot of a the HQ’s Situation Room during Zero’s boss fight:

I respect the fact that it looks pretty similar to how it appears in X2:

After the boss, we switch back to X, and the stage proceeds to another boss fight on an outdoor walkway. This means we get another gorgeous shot of the cityscape:

… before the sky gets all weird and red like in the intro to Contra 3.

While we are here, can I just take a moment to appreciate the boss sprite?

It’s pretty large for a SNES game! It also reminds me of a cooler, more threatening version of X2’s intro boss.

I love how upon defeating the boss, a bunch of his body parts fall down from the sky:

And finally, I love how when Zero teleports in, he can land in one the craters caused by the boss:

This proves that the teleport animation/subroutine is smart enough to know where the ground is, and is not just set to some predetermined elevation. This doesn’t really mean anything, I just think it is cool.

The intro stage has some of the best environmental storytelling in the game. From here on out it’s going tobe more of a mixed bag.

Tunnel Rhino

There are lots of Mega Man stages that take place in a mine or a quarry, but this one really feels like a place of work. You’ve got fences, silos, and a rail line above that probably moves ore and supplies.

This exterior section is short lived, as most of the level takes place within the mines themselves. That means we start seeinga lot of brown, but occasionally we get treated to this pretty waterfall background:

The stage is also littered with scenes like this, with even more working mining equipment.

From a storytelling perspective, this might be the best mining stage I’ve ever seen in Mega Man game.

Blizzard Buffalo

This is by far my favorite stage in the game.

First off, the scenery is beautiful. The purple sky. The sparkly ice crystals floating in the air. The crescent moon¹. It is all so, so …

Horrifying. A huge swath of the city is completely frozen over. The sheer magnitude of the destruction suggests that a whole lot of innocent people never made it out alive.

As you progress through the stage, you eventually go underground into a maintenance tunnel. This is where we encounter one of the game’s few examples of stage changes, where beating one level triggers environmental changes in another. In its original form, the tunnel is icy and dark:

However, if you return after defeating Volt Catfish, the power comes on, and the ice is melted.

Near the end of the stage, we come to an area where a multilevel highway once stood:

Near the end, a snowstorm moves in to the stage, significantly reducing the visibility. It’s a small touch, but it drives home in a very direct way just how hostile this environment is.

Volt Catfish

This is like a better version of Spark Mandrill’s level in X1. Both are meant to represent a power plant of some sort, but I feel like this one is decorated with stuff that looks like it might actually be capable of generating power:

Furthermore, the stage is designed as a tall, narrow tower, which feels like a callback to Boomer Kuwanger’s stage (also from X1).

Near the end, we manage to step outside at the top of the tower, where we can see a cityscape in the background:

It’s a small detail, but it does give us a sense of place. Clearly this tower exists somewhere within the city limits of Dopple Town, which reinforces the theory that this really was some sort of commercial power plant.

Gravity Beetle

Gravity Beetle’s stage is an obvious callback Storm Eagle’s from X1. They both take place in what looks to be a commercial airport:

But is the stage just a blatant ripoff? Not quite. It only takes place in the airport for a few seconds before you board a massive aircraft:

This leads into the ship’s cargo hold, which is actually the location of another environmental change. In the stage’s original layout, the hold is filled with supply crates, including one that blocks access to this heart container:

However, once you defeat Blast Hornet, the crates go away:

There an additional change: by default, the cargo hold is filled with these fairly durable missile robots:

Buuuuut if you take out Blast Hornet, they are replaced with these weaker green versions:

After getting through the cargo bay, we climb up to the exterior of the craft - only to discover that the ship has taken to the skies!

There’s a lot going on out here. In the background we have scrolling clouds and a scrolling control tower, while in the foreground we have scrolling, transparent, whispy clouds. This is the kind of scene that animated GIFs were meant for. Take a look:

Setting aside my love of stages that take place in the late afternoon sun, this is such a gorgeous part of the game. All the moving sprites give a strong sense of speed, and the tower and clouds give a good impression of your current altitude.

As a nice little touch, you can still see the scrolling effect from this window inside the ship:

One last screenshot before we move on:

It’s … an empty room! But it is also an empty room with a bunch of large shells stacked up in the background. In case it was not clear already, this most definitely is a warship.

Neon Tiger

This is an extremely gorgeous stage, but it tells a rather vague story:

The background depicts a hazy, thick jungle that is dotted with fences and even light fixtures. Was this area built specifically as some sort of nature preserve within Dopple Town? Or was it some regular part of the city that Neon Tiger is allowing nature to overtake? It’s hard to say either way.

In my opinion, this uncertainty adds some delightful mystery to the stage, but I can see that bothering some people.

As you push through, you eventually moving up, and as you do, the foliage begins to disappear, until only tall trees are visible in the background:

Later on, we see that the sky is getting darker and hazier. Wait a minute - this is the same gimmick as in Sting Chameleon’s stage from X1!!

Unlike Gravity Beetle and Volt Catfish’s levels, this is one callback to X1 that doesn’t work for me. It feels lazier.

There’s not much more to say about this stage. Some of the interior areas near the end show a whole bunch of overgrown vegetation, which is pretty cool:

Crush Crawfish

Crush Crawfish’s stage looks extremely lazy, but I think it tells a good story.

At the start of the level, we find ourselves on top of a bunch of cranes in front of a clear blue sky:

Once we drop down, we find ourselves moving across additional scaffolding. It doesn’t quite look like the ground though, which is a clue that there is more to this stage than what we are seeing so far:

Eventually we come to a complete dead end, though by sheer coincidence, a path opens up when a robot drops from the sky and crashes through a support beam:

It’s like X and Zero got a lucky break, with a dead end leading to a secret passage they weren’t supposed to find.

Once we drop down, we are finally at ground level. In the background we can see what looks to be Dopple Town’s port:

This is a great background to be sure. It has multiple layers of detail all the way toward the horizon. This gives us a good sense of the sheer size of the place.

Sadly, this background does not last very long. A short distance later, the port scene gives way to an empty blue ocean:

Which goes on for a while:

And a longer while still:

My guess is that the artists wanted to convey just how far away you are moving from dry land. But it goes on too long, like the setup to a bad joke.

Eventually the endless ocean ends and we enter a building, wherein which we find a massive battleship:

I like to think that this is what X and Zero were looking for in the first place, but that they only found it by chance.

From here on out, the rest of the stage takes place within the ship, the interior of which ranks among some of the most boring scenery in the game. However, there is one more trick left at the very end. Right before the boss chamber, we come across the engine room:

The only way to proceed is to blow the thing up, at which point this happens:

Now the room is on its side. I … guess that means the ship is sinking? I’m not really liking the view out that window:

Blast Hornet

This stage is set in a straight up military base. As I made clear in my analysis of MMX2, that’s not exactly my favorite kind of setting, and so this is hardly my favorite stage in the game. Nevertheless, there are some things worth mentioning.

First off, take a good hard look at this screenshot:

This is what a huge chunk of the stage looks like. It’s not exactly riveting.

Occasionally, though, it does tell a bit of a story. At the very start of the level, the player boards a cargo elevator that brings them to the surface:

This becomes significant once we get outside, where we see rows and rows of supply depots:

Not for nothing, but this stretch of the stage has a ton of secrets and powerups. Depending on the path you take through the game, you may find yourself revisiting this one specific area a number of times. That’s kind of annoying considering how how long it takes to get here.

Anyway, after we clear the supply depots, we find ourselves on a long stretch of flat ground, where we encounter a midlevel “boss”.

Okay, so it isn’t actually a boss. What it is is a ship which touches down and begins to resupply. The worker bots cannot kill you, nor can you get much in the way of rewards from killing them or their cargo. You basically just have to sit there and shoot at them until the ship takes off again. It is a pointless, painful scene, and the best thing about it is that you can make it go away.

As it turns out, this is actually Gravity Beetle’s stage, and if you defeat him, then the ship stops coming, and you can just walk on by!

On a final note, I would be remiss if I forgot to mention point out these giant bee-shaped craft that lurks in the background of this screenshot:

Many of the interior locations in this stage are loaded with them. Perhaps they are the same as the bee-ships from X1?

Toxic Seahorse

This stage takes place in some sort of sewer/water treatment plant. For most of the level, this is pretty much all you are going to see:

However, near the end of the stage are treated to one of the best backgrounds in the game:

I’m pretty sure this is the damn that is depicted on the game’s box art. I love how the water looks like it is flowing from the background into the foreground. It gives the scene an added sense of depth.

Final Fortress

The very first fortress stage looks largely like this:

I think it is supposed to be some sort of mass grave for robots, but I’m not entirely sure. You would think we would see a larger variety o body parts and such, but instead we see the same sprites repeat ad infinitum. And yet somehow it still manages to feel extremely creepy. Perhaps it is the use of multiple layers of foreground and background art, which gives it a real strong sense of scale and size. The robot parts are just oppressively present everywhere you go.

The second stage is a fairly standard looking fortress level, but it has some interesting environmental effects. I mean that literally in one case - check out the ominous, background, complete with flashing lightning:

As I mentioned in the Boss Battle Deep Dive, the bosses you fight in the final fortress are determined based on certain actions from earlier in the game. It turns out that the visual design of the second stage is also altered in kind. It either looks clean and pristine:

Or wrecked and ruined:

It is a nice touch, thought it feels superfluous. I am not entirely sure what the logic is that drives the change. The stage gets wrecked if you don’t kill the Nightmare Police, and stays nice if you do. Is this implying that Dr. Doppler’s Lieutenants are fond of trashing the joint?

Conclusion

On a whole, I think Mega Man X3 does a pretty good job of visual storytelling. Some stages work better than others, and some are a bit too vague for my liking, but there is a definite effort on the part of the artists, moreso than a lot of critics like to give the game credit for.