Monday, August 31, 2015

More Mega Man Fan Games

While Mega Man remains in limbo, and while Mighty No. 9 is delayed yet again, let's dig in deeper into the fandom creations and see how these next 3 games affected me:

 Mega Man Rock Force


Released only a few months after Unlimited, Rock Force is another very solid fan game of a classic Mega Man formula with 8 original Robot Masters(and actually 8 more under certain circumstances), a new established “Everlasting Peace” league of playable allies including Elec Man, Tornado Man and more, plus compelling gameplay in general.

Although not as amazing as Unlimited, Rock Force has plenty of creativity, and I think that the Robot Master designs and the stage hazards are the highlights. It’s also very faithful to the classic art style, has an above average story(without Dr.Wily this time, I promise!), and the ending with all of those humorous scenes is very effective!

Mega Man Rock Force is another strong reason why I am happy and jealous at the same time to get my Mega Man fix while the Blue Bomber is still missing in action from Capcom headquarters.

Rating: 8.2 

 Mega Man Eternal



Despite development time being around six years, Eternal just isn’t as well designed like Rock Force or Unlimited in regards to mechanics and feeling authentic towards actual classic Mega Man games.

For instance, when you are hit, the knockback is longer while the invincibility frames are shorter. Enemy bullets travel to the next screen(and you will still get hit), and screen transitions are sometimes clunky, and there are certain things missing such as an animation for when you use an E tank, or when you acquire a new weapon, no introduction or example scene is shown.

The RM weapons are very similar towards each other which is bad, but the Robot Masters themselves are alright. Eternal’s highlights are the overall level design, the challenge(it sometimes went crazy though, see Wily Stage 3) and the throwbacks and tributes towards the classic Mega Man games. And the Wily Machine Eternal final boss was well designed! 

Rating: 7.6 

Mega Man: Revenge of the Fallen


This is an excuse to re-use assets from previous classic Mega Man games, but it’s controls are almost all the way faithful to them. Revenge of the Fallen’s namesake is about reviving old Robot Masters and letting them have their revenge by letting Mega Man go through very long stages, and they all also have a few new attacks up their sleeves.

Once you enter Dr. Wily’s fortress, you become aware that there are a total of 8 stages to conquer next in here, making it the largest final destination in any Mega Man game, quite ridiculous!

Utility items and using Rush have all been hidden away through many kinds of alternate paths in the RM stages, and I wasn’t able to find them all quickly on my first run, making the game in overall quite harder what with the endless amounts of pitfalls and spikes being everywhere.

What also disappointed me is that MIDI is used for the soundtrack, I still don’t understand why some would prefer this over the NES originals. Good controls and level design, not much else really.

Rating: 7.0

And while I am having a little Top 10 month, how about I let you know what my favorite Robot Masters from the actual Classic games are? Here they are, except there are actually 11 entries(8.5 is Mega Man & Bass):

1.Elec Man
2.Bubble Man
3.Gemini Man
4.Ring Man
5.Gravity Man
6.Wind Man
7.Turbo Man
8.Astro Man
8.5.Magic Man
9.Jewel Man
10.Solar Man

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