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

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

• Story
• Bosses
• Environmental Storytelling
• Miscellaneous

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Spoiler Preface!!!

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

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Sometimes, you can tell if a Mega Man weapon is going to be good simply by looking at it. You don’t even have to hit something; if the weapon fires big projectiles, if it covers a wide area of the screen, or it involves some sort of explosion, chances are good that it is going to be useful.

The inverse is also true. If a weapon fires measly looking projectiles, if it slow or it has poor range, it is often not very useful.

These rules do not apply in Mega Man X3. A lot of the weapons look terrible, but are in fact quite handy once you fully know how and when to use them. As with much of this game’s design, you are really encouraged to play around and experiment with these weapons. A lot of their utility only shines through if you really pay attention to their behavior.

Frost Shield

This is the weapon you get from Blizzard Buffalo.

The Frost Shield is a bit odd. It’s not really a shield so much as a very slow projectile. Once it makes contact with a wall or with an enemy, the projectile shatters, and the resulting fragments turn into trident-shaped ice formations along the floor and walls:

If you are clever, you can use these ice formations as protective barriers, but in my experience the overall slowness of the weapon makes this more trouble than it is worth.

On the surface, this looks like a pretty bad weapon, but there is a way to make it more useful. If you get in close and fire it right in an enemy’s face, the projectile deals damage without having to take shape.

It deals pretty decent damage this way, so much so that it can one-shot smaller enemies. Furthermore, while the rate of fire is not exactly rapid, it is fast enough to take out certain larger enemies before they get off an attack.

There is one other, non obvious property of the weapon that makes even more extremely useful. There are certain enemy types who, when destroyed with the Frost Shield, will always cough up a health capsule. Every. Single. Time. For example:

Suffice to say that this trick works on many of the most common “small” enemies, who can be easily killed with a single shot to the face. Think about that - one shot equals a guaranteed free health drop. Even if you get hit in the process, at worst it cancels out your gain.

As I mentioned in the review, enemies in X3 are extremely stingy about dropping health. This is one of the reasons why so many people find the game so difficult, especially when coupled with the fact that enemies often deal a ton of damage. I don’t think you can overstate the importance of having a weapon that can reliably counteract both of these problems. It is a tremendous equalizer that can take away a lot of the pain from those early stages when you have no Heart Containers or armor or Subtanks.

Of course, this assumes that you fight and defeat Blizzard Buffalo early on. And lo, guess who is widely considered the first boss you should tackle? What a wonderful coincidence! (or is it a coincidence?…)

Ray Splasher

This is the weapon you get from Neon Tiger.

This gun fires a bunch of tiny, rapid-fire rounds in a scattershot pattern. The individual shots don’t look very strong, and the inability to aim doesn’t look all that appealing.

However, the gun fires so fast, and in so many directions, that you don’t really need to aim. It will hit just about anything in front of you sooner or later.

Furthermore, it is also surprisingly potent. See how it makes short work of small enemies:

And flying enemies:

I get the impression that a lot of Mega Man fans these days prize the ability to maintain momentum through a stage. They just don’t like stopping for, well, anything. Ray Splasher does its part to keep you moving forward.

Tornado Fang

This is the weapon you get from Tunnel Rhino.

The Tornado Fang is as bad as it looks. It is slow to fire:

It is slow to deal damage:

Sometimes it simply doesn’t work, because the drill crumples up and flies off the screen when striking certain enemies or surfaces:

As far as I can tell, the main purpose of this weapon is to open up secret passages. There are a bunch of cracked walls across the stages that lead to secrets, and this is the weapon you need to open them up:

Considering the fact that Tunnel Rhino is often suggested as the first or second boss you should face, this means you should have this tool very early on, making it easy to pick up many of the powerups you will find along the rest of the way.

Spinning Blade

This is the weapon you get from defeating Crush Crawfish.

At first glance, this weapon does not impress:

There is no way those tiny little buzzsaws are going to be powerful. And what’s up with that weird trajectory?

As it turns out, I believe this is the best weapon in the game¹. It is actually extremely powerful. A single buzzsaw can destroy most small enemies, but the real magic comes from hitting something with both of them. Here’s how long it takes to drop this big mace-wielding enemy with the X-Buster:

Now here it is with the Spinning Blade:

Not bad!

Lastly, the weapon’s curved trajectory can be used to hit enemies above or below you, like so:

Versatile and powerful, you can tear your way through large stretches of the game with the Spinning Blade alone.

Triad Thunder

This is the weapon you get from defeating Volt Catfish.

I’m pretty sure this is the first traditional shield-type weapon in a Mega Man X game². Like the Leaf Shield and others before it, Triad Thunder creates an array of objects that surround and protect X. If enemies come in contact with it, not only does it keep X safe, but it also deals damage (usually at the cost of the shield itself).

What makes Triad Thunder a bit different is its shape. Whereas Leaf Shield and the like take the shape of a circle, Triad Thunder takes on the shape of, well, a triangle:

This actually creates a larger protective barrier than the shields from the older 8-bit games, and the shape makes it more suitable for offensive purposes. You will find that you can catch a lot of enemies on those three corners.

Also, like so many of the other weapons, Triad Thunder is quite potent. It can kill many enemies in one or two hits. Here is one of my favorite use cases - ever get sick and tired of dealing with these guys?

Let’s bring the Thunder:

One last little quirk - if you mash the fire button rapidly, you can extend the duration of the shield. Doing this also causes the shield to flip its orientation:

The extra duration and the reorientation help increase your odds of taking something out before the shield dissipates. All in all, this is one of the most effective shields in any Mega Man game ever.

Acid Burst

This is the weapon you get from defeating Toxic Seahorse.

As the name implies, Acid Burst fires a blob of acid. If it contacts an enemy, it deals damage and goes away. If instead it hits the ground, it splashes and turns into several smaller blobs:

No matter how you use it, Acid Burst is a fairly weak weapon. It gets better if you charge it up, but in certain situations that takes too much time.

Having said all this, Acid Burst does have one thing going for it. Just like how using Frost Shield against certain enemies guarantees a health capsule, using the Acid Burst against certain enemies guarantees that a weapon energy capsule drops.

This makes it somewhat indispensible, especially if you are using special weapons frequently (which you should be). Acid Burst is the weapon I would love to ignore, but can’t.

Parasitic Bomb

This is the weapon you get from defeating Blast Hornet.

This is an odd one. If fired at a small enough, weak enough enemy, it will latch on and drag your target into the closest enemy, kamikaze style:

However, sometimes it will just blow them up:

In other cases, if nothing else is nearby, or the game simply cannot make up its mind, your target will simply remain trapped in place, unable to move or attack:

Here’s a fun fact: the Parasitic Bomb works on some enemy projectiles:

Unfortunately, against larger enemies you don’t get the lock on feature or anything. In fact, it barely deals any damage at all:

The Parasitic Bomb is a fun weapon to mess around with, but I find it too wonky to take seriously.

Gravity Well

This is the weapon you get from defeating Gravity Beetle.

This fires a mini black hole. Depending on what enemies are around, it may or may not do anything. Against large foes, it seems to do absolutely nothing. Against tinier ones, it will eventually cause damage/rip them to pieces, but there’s a bit of a delay:

I never use this weapon. It feels like the dud of the bunch. Useful to take out Blast Hornet (who is weak to it), and for obtaining the Armor Upgrade, but not much else.

Fully Charged X-Buster

X2 introduced the idea of the fully charged X-Buster being a two staged shot, with the ability to store the second shot for later use:

X3 goes and over complicates this idea. If you fire the second shot later (even if it is just a second later), the result is similar, if a bit punier:

On the other hand, if you fire the two shots back to back, you get another, much more impressive looking shot pattern:

Sadly, this is not quite the wall of death that it looks like, as the shots very quickly spread out. It is extremely easy to let it rip, only to watch as you shot misses everything, as if they were fired by a blind Stormtrooper:

Z-Saber

The Z-Saber is the strongest weapon in the game. It is a one-shot kill on anything short of a boss, and takes most bosses out in 2-3 hits:

Of course, the Z-Saber is Zero’s weapon, and he has it for the duration of the game. It is possible to unlock it for X to use, but it’s complicated, and you only get for the last few parts of the Final Fortress. In other words, how useful it is depends largely on how much you plan on using Zero.

Even then, it can be a bit finicky to use. You know how charging the Buster up to max gives you that second shot you can keep stocked away? The Z Saber requires you to charge the Buster to a level beyond the max, at which point the Saber attack is also stocked for later use. The trouble is that you can only use it after you fire off the Buster shot(s):

What’s more, if you hit the attack button while Zero is stunned (after being hit), you will lose your stocked up saber swing. It just … goes away:

Many a time have I whiffed on a boss because of this quirk. Be careful.

Conclusion

A few observations about the weapon set as a whole:

• In X2, the X-Buster is powerful, while all the other weapons are less so. In X3, the opposite is true. While neither situation is ideal compared to a scenario where all the weapons are balanced and useful, I’d take X3’s arsenal over X2’s. The fact that all the non-Buster weapons are so useful means you can take advantage of all their capabilities and firing patterns. Rather than forcing yourself to make the Buster fit into every situation, you can instead find the right tool for the job.
• The weapons in this game follow a very specific pattern. All of them are extremely useful against smaller enemies, but only a few of them are capable of quickly felling the larger ones. Even then, there is nothing that is quite like the Storm Tornado in X1, which chews through big targets with ease.
• As with so many things in this game, the weapon set in X3 is better than the one in X2, but not quite at the level of X1.