We all know Mega Man for the NES was a great series of games. The super tight controls and the awesome music created a bench mark for many other platformer games. But there is some dispute about which Mega man Classic game is better, and the main argument is weather Mega Man 2 or Mega Man 3 is better. This question might never be truly answered, but I'm going ti give my opinion and contribute which game I think is better. Yes, this is another versus round, night include spoilers, if you can have anything plot-twisting in a Mega Man Classic game (maybe the third one...). Let us start with the story.

Mega Man 2:
The story is very basic. Dr. Wily escaped from prison and has built 8 robot masters to take over the world. You are the only person that can stop him. That's the motivation of the game, and that's the story, enough said.

Mega Man 3:
This game however is a little different. Dr. Wily and Dr. Light are working together to create a "peace-making robot" by the name of Gamma. They have finished the construction, but they need eight power crystals to power him. The did have the power crystals, but eight robots went haywire and stole them. You have to retrieve the lost energy crystals to power Gamma. Of course, if you are an avid Mega Man fan, then it will come to no surmise that Dr.Wily has taken Gamma and the eight energy crystals as you were fighting Break Man, in which you must stop Dr. Wily before he takes over the world.

The story in Mega Man 3 is deeper than that of Mega Man 2, involves more stuff, and over all is more engaging. One point goes to Mega Man 3. But these games have awesome title screen music. Which one sets the mood better for an adventure of fighting robotic evil and skull castles?

Mega Man 2:
The first half of the intro theme is the same half as the ending theme of Mega Man 1, but sets the mood right as the story is being told by a wall of text. Then there is a key change as the story has redemption in it for a hero to arise and fight this menace that threatens the peace of this world. Then at the title screen accurately appears, there is some rockin' music, which sadly ends and doesn't repeat, leaving you with this silence until you press start. It would have been nice to have it repeat.

Mega Man 3:
No story with this title theme, and this makes it a little hard to imagine the terror of what's happening by just listening to it. It follows the same format as the second game does, starting slow with an increase of speed and seriousness as the music continues. But all that is there on the title screen is Mega Man and the title (with, of course the options to start the game and such). It's hard to compare this with Mega Man 2 without being biased of the story being told on Mega Man 2 as the music plays. The music repeats in a loop, which is nice, and it is something that is awesome to listen to.

Mega Man 2's title theme has some emotion tied with the music as the story is being told, but this doesn't (unless you add lyrics to them yourself, or some back story to go with it as it plays). One point goes to Mega Man 2. But how about the Robot Masters? Are their names silly or serious? And do the weaknesses make sense?

Mega Man 2:
Robot Master line-up: Air Man, Metal Man, Wood Man, Crash Man, Bubble Man, Heat Man, Quick Man and Flash Man. These names makes perfect sense and are quite charming, to my surprise. But why did Dr. Wily create a robot with the power of bubbles? Did he really think "I have the power of heat, the power of metal and the power of speed! What else can I make to destroy Mega Man? *does some washing up* Oh course! Bubbles! Yes, that it, nothing can stop the power of bubbles!" Yeah, Dr. Wily should be in an asylum with this bad a case of SEVS. Anyway, the weaknesses make perfect sense for the most part. Bubble beats heat and heat beats wood, while crash beats quick and metal beats flash (providing that the metal is shiny enough to reflect light effectively). But why does air beat crash and metal beats metal? I don't know...

Mega Man 3:
Robot Master line-up: Gemini Man, Snake Man, Needle Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, Top Man, Magnet Man and.......Hard Man? What does he do that's so hard? Anyway, these robot masters seem like they were created with no real though put into mind, and they were running out of ideas (this doesn't mean to say that future robot masters suffered this to a worse degree). "Oh....the Robot Masters? Um...yes, of course we planned them out. We have....*finds a picture of a snake* Snake Man and.....*pucks up a needle* Needle man and.....*looks at his shadow* Shadow Man and....Um....Hard Man. Yeah, he's.....hard....See? We think of everything." With that being said, they do look pretty awesome, but some of the weaknesses don't make sense. I can understand how Needle beats Snake, but how does Snake beat Gemini? Is Gemini just afraid of snakes? Or does he have allergies to scales? Yeah, I would like to see that, a robot with allergies.

The Robot Masters might seem more sensible and more thought out in Mega Man 2, but the ones in Mega Man 3 catch my eye more. Maybe it's something about how different they all are to each other in this game than the second game had them conveniently lines up like a domino trail to pick them in a certain order.One point goes to Mega Man 3. Speaking of Robot Masters, what are their weapons like? Are they all helpful? Do they provide some balence to the game?

Mega Man 2:
You have a variety of weapons in this game, ranging from the Atomic Fire to the Metal Blades. Lets have a run down of each weapon.
The Metal Blade is the most helpful, you throw a metal blade, and you can throw it in all 8 directions. Plus it doesn't run out quickly. You can abuse this weapon a lot for all I care. Helpful in most situations.
The weapon from Air Man I find is almost useless save for Crash Man, it's throwing three little hurricanes into the air. Helpful is you want quick multiple hits, but not good for every situation (or many, I find).
The Crash Bombs are very helpful for one of the Wily Castle Bosses and going through short cuts, and there are walls you can break with Crash Bombs, but not helpful for battle unless you can time it right.
The Wood Shield.....is just completely useless. Four leaves float around you, and despite the name, if you get hit, the shield doesn't take the hit for you, you just get hit normally. Some shield....But I did find out recently that it can be of some use and can kill those floor robots that chase you if you are on the same level as them. This blew my mind.
The Atomic Fire can be charged up to increase damage done, yet it will use up more energy if you use the charged version. As much this can be useful, it just seems like a chargeable plasma cannon, in which I use the Metal Blades in its place.
The Time-Stopper is helpful to me only in Quick Mans stage to dodge the one-kill lazers, and even now, I don't need the Time-Stopper to get passed it. The one problem with this is that due to the games design, you need to wait until the weapon on screen has disappeared until you can change weapon. So if you use the Time-Stopper, you need to use all of it, as you can't change between it when it's in use, and I can't find a way to stop it. It's quite funny, as I can freeze the robot masters in their tracks, but I can't fire my plasma gun at them due to the games design, so it's almost like a waste of time.
The Bubble Lead has some use at the end of the game and in Heat Mans stage. You make a bubble, and it hugs the walls until it meets a wall that goes up. It will go down a wall, but not up. 'nuff said.
And the Quick Boomerangs, I love this weapon. You can fire five at a time, it's fairly strong, very quick, and your pink. You know when your pink in a Mega Man game, you have an awesome weapon in your hands. So out of the eight weapons from each robot master, only half of them I ever use.

Mega Man 3:
A few of these weapons almost seem like a parody off the weapons off Mega Man 2. Here's a run down of them:
The Search Snake is almost like the Bubble Line with Snakes instead of bubbles, and it can climb up walls.
The Gemini Lazer is a lot of fun, as it rebounds twice before stopping. I love weapons that ricochet off walls.
The weapon from Magnet Man is a lot of fun as well, you can use it to get round corners as it turns at 90 degree angels.
The Needle Cannon seems like a copy of Quick Boomerang, yet this is better as it covers the entire distance of the screen, while the boomerang.....acts like a boomerang, in the sense it comes back. I use this nearly all the time.
The Top Spin.....is just plain weird. It's a close range attack, you need to be right next to the enemy to stand a chance of hitting them, and you need to jump to use it. Almost every time I try and use this as a normal attack, pretty much all my energy for this weapon is depleted. I see it as almost completely useless, save for Shadow Man (and how does spinning defeat a shadow?!?)
The Hard Knuckle seems like a controllable version of the Crash Bombs, as one of their main uses are to destroy walls for either goodies or short cuts (sound familiar?), but is also useful later on the game. It's quite a multi-purpose weapon, restricted only by it's huge energy usage.
The Shadow Blade is like a restricted boomerang version of Metal Blade. This weapon can be thrown in five different directs, so long as the direction isn't anywhere down, and it comes back. I use this as much as the Needle Cannon.
The Spark Shock is just like a stun gun, you can only stun enemies, not kill them. 'nuff said.

The weapons in Mega Man 2 are predictable but fun to use, yet the variety of weapons in Mega Man 3 is superior and is much more enjoyable to use. One point goes to Mega Man 3. So how are the graphics in the game?

Mega Man 2:
The graphics are pretty nice, but follows the same format of the first game, if not a little sharper than the first game as well. In fact, the graphics are more detailed than the first game. The backgrounds are nice to look at, the enemies are odd yet creative, and the robot masters has that 8-bit charm to it. The Wily Castle bosses are also nice and detailed. I love the art work fir the robot masters on the level select, making it more detailed than the first game.

Mega Man 3:
These graphics seem sharper than the second game, but only just. The style of each level and range of bosses are a joy to look at, if not lacking in background a bit. The robot masters seemed to have more detail in them in this game than the second one, like as if they were trying to make it SNES quality.

The overall colour scheme seems a little dark, especially near the end. The second game had some dark and gloomy graphics in it, but this seemed to have one too many dark rooms. Some levels were bright, but compared to the second game, this seemed like every electrical device was being dimmed. I prefer the graphics to Mega Man 2. One point goes to Mega Man 2. But how do the controls fair in these games?

Mega Man 2:
The controls are mega tight. Jumping, controlling where to go as you're in mid-air, slight jumps to make all the difference.....the whole game is based around jumping, and seeing how it's mainly a platformer, it's fair to say that. They made jumping a joy, and shooting stuff is great.....only those are the two big aspects. Jumping and shooting. That's it. Apart from the controls, the menu screen works well, as you can access your many different weapons and your energy tanks. The only problem is that you can't access your menu screen until the projectile on the screen that you fired must be off the screen until you can use it. This can be really inconvenient at times, but you work around it.

Mega Man 3:
The controls are as about as tight as the second game. Jumping and shooting are a joy, and are the main aspects. However, they added sliding to the game, so you can squeeze through tight spots or just generally move faster by sliding. What I don't quite get however is that when you start sliding, you continue to slide if you are in a gap, and you can change directions while sliding. With this in mind, I could slide forever in a gap, and I don't see how that's physically possible. It's sill fun to do, though. Apart from the controls, the menu screen has changed. You can hold more than four energy tanks in this one, and if you are used to the first and second Mega Man game's menu screen, you'll find this a little fiddly. Also, what really annoys me with this menu screen is that every time you pause, your weapon on the screen is reset. So if you were about to hit an enemy, and then pause, the attack would not land.

With that being said, I really enjoy sliding in Mega Man 3, so one point goes to Mega Man 3. Now the music, which game has the best tunes?

Mega Man 2:
Anyone who has played Mega Man 2 will regard the music as incredible. It's just so catchy and awesome. It fits well with the robot master it is associated with. The Wily Castle Stage music 1 and 2 is some of the best I've heard in a Mega Man game yet. The ending them is a work of art to reflect on what what you have done, and to realize on what's to come in the future

Mega Man 3:
You might remember my review of Mega Man 3 and me stating that the music in this game wasn't as memorial as the second game. Well, listening it to a second time and I still stand by what I said, but it's still impressive. The music is well done, and some stages themes are better than that of Mega Man 2. ProtoMan's Whistle is one of my favorite themes in Mega Man. It sounds like you've lost something dear to you, yet you haven't the idea what it could be. Like some bond being made by destiny.

Despite some of the music in Mega Man 3 being better than Mega Man 2, it doesn't out-weigh the music of Mega Man 2. One point goes to Mega Man 2. Last but not least is the difficulty. Which one suits the player to a feasible task and then being able to do so without too many deaths?

Mega Man 2:
The difficulty in this one is very fair. Some platforming aspects are a little tricky to maneuver at first, but with a little practice you'll do just fine. What really annoys me here is the energy usage and how it can really dampen the gaming style. In Dr. Wily's Castle  Stage 1 near the end of the level, you need to use Item 1 to get across. You need to use all three that you can use and you have to be perfect with this, or you could fall. That's ok, just a little trail and error and you'll make it across, right? Well, you're using six bars of energy every time you attempt this, and if you run out, then you need to get some more. The only way of doing this is to kill that enemy below you and climb up and down the ladder every time to re spawn the enemy. This gets extremely tedious very quickly. Even the awesome music gets on your nerves and all you want to do is just complete the level. What's more, the Green Dragon at the end of this level has a lot of places where you can drop and die, and if you do, back to collecting energy. This is completely unfair to have the player make them do that when it would be a lot more fun to have a spot where you can replenish the energy. And the wall boss at the end of Dr. Wily's Castle Stage 4? It's ok, but it would have been nice to have been warned that I needed all the Crash Bomb energy I needed for this boss.

Mega Man 3:
This games difficulty is a little harder than the second game. There are some tricky and risky spots with spikes in this game that I hate, but that's just because there spikes. I know they're out to get me. They always out to get me....Anyway, the energy usage in this game is just as bad as the second game is. You need to use the Rush Jet to get past all the huge gaps in one of the Dr. Wily Castle Stages, and they even provide you with energy tanks to get passed, but you need these to get all the way across, and if you die, they won't come back. I always have to commit suicide to get a game over to get passed here. But if your careful, it's not that hard.

I like the difficulty in Mega Man 3 better, it's just a personal thing. One point goes to Mega Man 3.

Conclusion:
Mega Man 3 wins 5:3. Your probably wondering then why then Mega Man 2 was in my top 10 list when I seem to prefer Mega Man 3. The reason for this is that even though the pros out-weigh Mega Man 2, Mega Man 2 seemed like a better game altogether at a glance. The main thing I was thinking about was the game play and the music, so it appears I wasn't thinking straight when writing that list. I see Mega Man 3 as the superior Mega Man game for the NES, but that's my opinion, and none of this is fact. And anyway, Mega Man 2 is a worthy close second place.

Nice comparison. I myself would put Mega Man 3 over 2. But I would also put some of the later games over both of them.
Yeah, unlike every other Mega Man fan ever, I prefer most of the later games in the series.

Megaman 3, because you can fight the 8 robot masters from 2 and protoman!

Megaman 3 brings more of a challenge that made Megaman pretty famous. Megaman 2 didn't quite give a good challenge.