Did You Know? The Top Spin Doesn’t Suck

It has been a long and widely-held belief that the weapon of Mega Man 3‘s Top Man, the Top Spin, is the worst Special Weapon in the game, and perhaps one of the worst in the entire series. Beyond putting Shadow Man‘s lights out and tearing peace-keeping robot Gamma to pieces, few have found it useful.
But what a lot of people don’t know is that the weapon can actually be quite handy, and not be the energy-sucking self-damage inflicting weapon it is popularly believed to be. During a topic on Toastyfrog’s GameSpite forums, user “dtsund” is playing through the third Mega Man title for the first time, leading to a bit of conversation surrounding it. And regarding the toy-like tool, Metal Man Master had this to say:

Now that you’ve fought Top Man, you’ve seen the “Secret Best Terrible Weapon” I was talking about. I’ve heard about how horrible the weapon is, but when I last played Mega Man 3, I decided to try to learn its rules. Truth is, if you just hurl yourself right into foes (like any sane person would), you’ll suck through the energy bar very quickly, but it has a trick to it.

If you do the Top Spin when not touching any enemies, you don’t use any weapon energy*. Basically, its energy loss completely depends on when you’re touching an enemy with the attack. It also counts as hitting during invulnerability time, hence the tons of stories of quickly-drained life bars. You see, its energy loss depends on how much contact you make with your target when you hit it, so it’ll suck energy like crazy if you throw yourself right onto foes. However, if you just make enough contact to strike the foe with the edge of the attack, you can kill it or cause it damage with minimal energy loss.

The Top Spin’s a very powerful weapon, if you can pin down the timing and proper distance from the foe to conserve its energy. While it may be too much for some to hold back with their spins, with the right amount of practice it’s the Secret Best Terrible Weapon Ever.

*This doesn’t apply to the Game Boy Mega Man II, where the Top Spin has normal energy loss when used and is less of a bitch to implement regularly.

Elsewhere in the thread, SpoonyBardLOL punctuates the point with the following YouTube videos of an expert Top Spinner in action:

I’ll be honest: I’ve played the game a lot over my many years as a Mega Man fan, but never truly realized the weapon’s potential. Naturally, it’s not a catch-all, beat-all weapon, but it apparently does not deserve the reputation it has earned.

LanceHeart