So, one day, I decided to play Megaman 3 on Virtual Console for the Wii U hoping that I would actually beat it this time. Well, no, that didn't happen, it more or less beat me.
When I was playing the game, I just took a moment to listen to the title screen music, but it sounded a little off-pitch. I thought it was probably nothing, so I continued like normal. There was 8 robot masters and I was thinking about which one I should target first with my two choices being Snake Man or Top Man. I absolutely hated Snake Man's stage, so I went for Top Man.
While being absolutely terrible at Megaman 3 and having to use restore points, I actually made it to the boss, but something was noticeably off. Top Man was invincible and all of my shots reflected off of him, even at the points when he's usually vulnerable. I died a few times and only had one life left. I went into the boss room again, but Top Man was on the ground laying there as if he was dead. There was a message on the wall written in a brownish red color which I assumed was robot blood that said "YOU'RE NEXT".
The sprite of Top Man.
The screen faded back to the robot master stage select screen with Top Man's icon crossed off with a red X. Things got a little worse when I selected Top Man again. A black sprite in the shape of Top Man with white soulless eyes appeared on the screen. It suddenly vanished and I was taken back to the stage select screen again. I wasn't sure if this was a foreshadowing, but it was strange and creepy.
Then I thought "Just one more stage.". I selected Magnet Man's stage with tension building up. It just skipped right to the stage without Magnet Man doing a pose or anything.
The first thing about the stage I noticed was that it was night time and there was gray clouds that stood in place. I moved forward and found no enemies at all. When I got to the part with Break Man appearing, he just started slowing walking up to Megaman. I stood still, but when Break Man got close enough, I started shooting, only to have the pellets to reflect off him. He started attacking too, but by the time I got hit by the first pellet, I died and he quickly warped out.
I was taken to the game over screen were the background was a brownish red color just like the color of the message on the wall earlier. The MEGAMAN 3 text that was all over the background wasn't there and so was the password system. My only options shown at the bottom were "Give up your self-esteem" or "Die again". I chose the die again option thinking it was the stage select option, but it just took me to Snake Man's stage.
This was all one big maze of horrors, but then I realized that I had restore points. I tried loading one up, but a message on my WIi U said "Where do you think you're going?" and disappeared after about 4 or 5 seconds. I continued to play Snake Man's stage which was actually fine. When approaching the boss, Snake Man was laying on the ground in a similar way to Top Man. Megaman warped out and faded back to the stage select.
Just like Top Man, Snake Man's icon on the stage select screen was crossed out with a X. Because 2 of the robot masters were crossed out, I decided I should move on to Shadow Man. Upon pressing the start button, Shadow Man's icon was crossed out. The other robot masters' icons were crossed out too.
The middle icon revealed Protoman, but I thought "Why? Why him?". I hit the start button. I was put into an empty room which looked like the one before the final battle against Wily in Megaman 2. I pressed forward, only to find hanging bodies of the robot masters covered in blood. Some were hanging from their legs, some hanged from a chain connected to their skull. It was all very creepy, but when approaching the boss room, the game faded out and I heard 8-bit sounds that sounded as if they were bones cracking.
Protoman's whistle played at a low and somber pitch as a message slowly spelt out "HELP U" in red bloody text. The message was probably abruptly cut off. I finally was able to turn off the god forsaken system that held horrors of some kind. I didn't play Megaman 3 after that because the horrors seen could happen again and that is the thing I don't want.