Rockman X3 on the Genesis is one of those games that looks simple until you actually play it. You start off blasting through robots with your arm cannon, but then the levels throw these brutal platforming sections at you—timing jumps while dodging enemy fire is way harder than it sounds. The bosses? Each one has this weird pattern you gotta figure out, and half the time I just brute-forced my way through with health pickups.

The music slaps, though. That industrial-meets-techno soundtrack somehow makes dying to the same boss ten times less frustrating. And yeah, the graphics are peak 16-bit—crisp sprites, explosions that actually feel impactful, and these little background details that make the world feel alive (even if everything in it is trying to kill you).

It’s not the easiest Mega Man game, but there’s something satisfying about finally nailing a stage after a dozen tries. Just don’t expect to breeze through it in one sitting.