Welcome to my review of Mega Man and Bass, or Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chousensha (Challenger from the future) for the Wonderswan! What is Megaman on the wonder swan like? Is it a decent follow up to Megaman and Bass? And is it as good as the Gameboy games? Let’s find out!
Link to the Rockman site with the concept art: rockman-forte-challenger-from-future.html
My new channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB8bWzF5HD3GfoPn94Nafeg
much like the gameboy games that came before it (show gameboy games) this entry wasn’t made by Capcom themselves, in the first year of the consoles release, Bandai were in need of more well known games to fill out the small library of their gameboy competitor and contacted Capcom to ask for permission to use Megaman in a brand new game. Capcom agreed and Bandai set out to make a new game in the much loved series. The game was actually made by a company called Layup who previously worked on some Gundam games. They were commissioned by Bandai to make a game especially for the Wonderswan system.
Thanks to a fan translation patch, the game is now playable in english! So let’s stat with a brief overview of the story. A very convoluted story..
The game begins with Megaman is walking through Symphony City and he meets with a doppelgänger by the name of Rockman Shadow. Dr Wily also sent Bass to investigate what was going on in the city, Megaman and Bass decide to team up and rid the world of these new robots!
Megaman super fans might recognise Rockman Shadow as Quint from Megaman 2 on the gameboy,
*show image from MMII*
However, he isn’t quint, but actually a failed prototype version of Quint, which was left aside by Wily in the future, and gained consciousness to rebuild it’s self and create a set of evil robots in the future called the Dimensions, which he sent back in time to try and destroy the world! Yes, the is one of the only games in the main series in which Dr Wily didn’t make the bosses! And also one of the most convoluted plots too!
Just like the SNES game before it, you begin with the choice of playing the game as either Megaman or Bass. Megaman controls the same as he has done ever since Megaman 4, complete with all his abilities including the charge shot and dash.
Bass is the easier of the two characters to play as thanks to his ability to fire in seven directions, dash and double jump. I decided to play through the game as Megaman though to enjoy the classic gameplay experience. I do like playing as Bass though, it makes it feel more like an X game than classic mega man.
The game begins much like the later Megaman games with an intro stage, before opening up into a level map with 5 different robot master to choose from. Only last year, the concept are for the bosses was found by the games designer and uploaded onto the site Rockman Corner. I’ll put a link to the site in the description because it’s really cool that they have been found after so long! He also found the original source code, but had no way of accessing it.. maybe one day someone will be able to get the code off that CD and make it available online. It would be amazing to see how a wonder swan game was developed!
In terms of gameplay, The game it’s self feels very similar to the gameboy release, but with a few strange design choices. Most noticeable the fact that the enemies and bosses don’t have any frames which basically means the faster you can press the fire button, there damage you will do, making their weapon weaknesses practically useless. Which is a shame because the game has some interesting weapons to use!
I wasn’t expecting to enjoy the game, I’ve read and watched several reviews of it over the years and they made it sound like a bad imitation, However, I was very surprised at the quality of this game! For me it’s almost up there with some of the gameboy games, and it was great to play a traditional Megaman that I’d never experienced before! It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan! Just don’t expect anything super amazing and you’ll be sure to have a good time with it!
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