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A First-Ever Look: The Megaman X-treme 3 Prototype! I’ve got something really special this time. During one of my usual rom searches, I came across something that I wasn’t expecting at all. Megaman X-treme 3 for the Gameboy Advance! “What? No way, they actually made an X-treme 3?” Well, yes and no. Apparently, after checking out the rom, Capcom began work on it several years ago, and for some reason dropped the project (wouldn’t be the last time either; just look at Megaman Mania). Someone must’ve somehow gotten their hands on the prototype and dumped it. And now, here it is for all to see!
This comes up right after starting the game up, a rather non-descript title screen. It's kinda ugly-looking IMO; I would hope they would've changed it if they decided to complete this. There’s no intro that takes place, as Capcom never got to the stage of writing a story; at least, they never implemented it into the game.
Right after pressing start, you’re brought up right to the stage select. Again, no story scenes, no intro stage. The circle is now complete, it seems, with the inclusion of the remaining Mavericks from MMX1-3. After playing the game for awhile, I managed to figure out a decent order to take on the Mavericks in. Like in X3, I start with Blizzard Buffalo. The stage begins in a similar setting to the SNES game, outside a ruined city, climbing about on buildings on various levels, sort of maze-like.
At about the halfway point, you enter one of the buildings, where you battle this, the ice-covered miniboss of Crystal Snail’s level. Afterwards, you drop down into an ice cave, where you slide down a bunch of slippery slopes, not unlike the first part of Frost Walrus’s level, until you eventually reach the boss.
Blizzard charges back and forth, like in the SNES game, stopping to occasionally fire Frost Shards that stick to the walls and floors. If you come here after beating Toxic Seahorse, you’ll find he’s weak against Acid Burst. But X-Buster fire seems to work fine. Next up is Crush Crawfish’s stage, and it’s taken an interesting turn that they’ve done in previous X-treme titles. His level seems more like Bubble Crab’s level than his SNES stage, and the majority of the stage is underwater.
After one dropdown, you can climb the left wall to find this alcove with an upgrade capsule granting you the head part. It’s similar to the one seen in X4, only it cuts weapon energy consumption by half instead of negating it completely. By the way, Dr. Light doesn’t appear in the capsule to say anything; it’s just empty.
After fighting the squid creature from Seahorse’s level, you’ll head up to dry land to battle Craw-daddy. He’ll dash across the floor trying to swipe you, or fire his huge pincers. Frost Shards work best on him; a really effective use for them is to shoot them at the wall so they fall to the ground as that ice-spike, then wait for Crush to dash over it. After beating him, Sting Chameleon is my next target. Since in the previous game, Neon Tiger borrowed elements from Sting’s level, this time it’s the other way around. You’ll be riding dragonflies across spike pits and dodging those mace ball-shooting robots throughout the first half of the stage.
For the miniboss this time, you fight that big green robot that guarded the capsule before. He’s beaten easily enough like last time; shoot him in the head. Afterward, you’ll climb into a ride armor to fight through the next part of the level, with more mace robots and other mech-riding Reploids.
Sting is barely visible when he cloaks, so you have to look especially hard for him. Otherwise his attacks are much like before. Spinning Blades work best on him, although Boomerang Cutters are still decent if you came here after beating Kuwanger. Gravity Beetle is next. I found his stage somewhat uninteresting before, and this time doesn’t do it any favors either. Only difference is that it appears to be nighttime, and the background is similar to X3's intro stage.
Gravs doesn’t call his super-Gravity Well when his heath is half gone like before. This is simply the point where he’ll start firing a second normal Well. Like many bosses, he also likes to dash back and forth as well. He’s weak against Chameleon Sting this time.
Crystal Snail is up next. It’s a pretty straight-forward level, but has more vertical portions where you climb down. Some of them you slide down, like in Buffalo’s stage. You’ll just have to watch out for portions with spikes thrown in.
The foot upgrade, allowing you to mid-air dash, is in this level. You'll have to hop down what looks like a pit and ride one of those odd platforms that changes direction when you jump on it in order to find it One thing that becomes a problem in stages like this is the draw distance. You probably noticed from the screen shots, but the shape of the screen and the size of the sprites make it difficult at times to see what’s coming up. It’s sort of reminiscent of the original series game for the GameGear.
The Gravity Well does a great job of messing Snail up. Just shooting it anywhere in the room will toss him around and deal major damage. Not even his hard shell or his time slow ability will save him from this. Boomer Kuwanger is next on the list. He has a vertical tower stage much like his SNES one. You get the buster upgrade here. After the elevator portion, you'll have to keep climbing the wall instead of going through the obvious exit to reach it.
Boomer will dash, teleport, and throw Boomerang Cutters. As a speed-based Maverick, he’s most susceptible to the Crystal Hunter. Shooting him with it will freeze him solid for a few seconds, enabling you to switch to another weapon and deal additional damage before he thaws out. Bubble Crab is the next stage. Flip-flopped from Crawfish’s level, he’s got a wide outdoor stage that eventually narrows down into an underwater tunnel. This stage is the biggest instance of being somewhat unfinished as it has large stretches of territory without any enemies.
Crab fights in a pool of water that rises and falls, launching bubbles and miniature crabs at you. The Boomerang Cutter is the best weapon to shred through both him and his bubble shield.
Finally, there’s Toxic Seahorse’s level. Acid drips from the ceiling in some parts of the stage as an additional hazard to the somewhat tough enemies that appear. Thankfully a ride armor appears later on.
There's a pool of water that you must activate the charged Bubble Splash to jump high enough to reach the capsule with the armor upgrade.
Seahorse has similar moves as before. His cumulative attacks can be difficult to avoid, but spraying him down with the Bubble Splash evens it out rather well. Now, after you beat Seahorse, the game is essentially over. Again, there’s no story sequence, and no fortress stage appears to go into. So you’re pretty much stuck with the initial eight bosses, and you can explore their stages at your own leisure if you want.
There was one thing I found interesting. In Gravity Beetle’s level, there’s a secret path you can take by using a charged Chameleon Sting to get invincibility and cross a large pit of spikes you can’t cross otherwise. On the other side is a teleporter that takes you to a brief stage where you confront Vile, much like in X3. Unfortunately, the screenshot above is all that I could ever see, as the game always glitches at this point and it locks up.
As I said, this game never made it past the prototype phase. As a result, there were no other additional features, such as the "store" in Soul Eraser, and Zero as a playable character. But I really would've liked to see Capcom do more with this, rather than focus on sequal after sequal of "Mega-mon". And today's your lucky day; I have the rom up her for all to see for themselves!
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