Mid-period Mega Man is an exercise in ennui. After five perhaps creatively safe but steady entries, the Super Nintendo and Mega Man X seemed poised to barrel this series headstrongly into a bold future, or at least a powerfully entertaining new holding pattern. Instead, we got maybe two solid and ambitious games out of that series at the same time as we would get waffling half-steps into the past in Mega Mans 7, and, before long, Capcom would join many other third party developers in jumping ship to take advantage of the raw, sexy power of systems like the Playstation and the Saturn for flagship entries of their real cash cows. Mega Man X4 AND Mega Man 8 would debut on the PS1, radically transforming the X series in a pivotal moment and uh, making another Mega Man Classic in another inessential one. But Keiji Inafune didn’t forget his ROOTS, uh, I guess? Because in NINETEEN NINETY-EIGHT, a full two years after the N64 was released in Japan, we get this, something of an expansion pack sequel to Mega Man 8, which reuses that game’s assets, scaled back to run on the inferior hardware, and supposedly aimed at younger kids who couldn’t afford to just go out and buy a $300 machine every few years. A weird mission statement considering what we have here is the most difficult Mega Man game by a pretty wide margin up to this point, and often unfairly so, but we’ll get there.

The big thing in this game is its Sonic 3 & Knuckles situation, where you get to play as Mega Man’s very own Knuckles, Bass, a guy who is also a super robot hero-cop with a cool flying surfboard dog, but who has a shonen anime rival’s drive to be the best which mostly manifests in an occasional desire to murder Mega Man, the Other Best Robot Around. Bass acts on this need whenever it arises in him, he’s really funny and I love him. Nobody seems that worried about it. HE doesn’t seem that worried about PROTOMAN, the OTHER OTHER best robot, a worry which is proved to be warranted when Protoman is brutally murdered, completely bisected in one stroke by this game’s decoy villain King in the tutorial level, which is, again, very funny. These games rule. You could, I GUESS, also play as Mega Man, but I don’t know why you would want to? You’ve played as mega man 8 times already. Bass is new, AND he’s cool, his color scheme is BLACK AND YELLOW and A MURDERER, and when he absorbs boss powers he glows purple like a BADASS.

More importantly though, he plays very differently from good ol’ ‘Man, which is important because regardless of who you pick you’re running through the same levels and they seem to me to be more designed with Bass’ skills in mind than da Blue Bomber’s. Mega Man plays like Mega Man: he slides, shoots directly in front of him, and he can charge his gun into a big gun. He CANNOT utilize Rush in this game which does limit his movement options in ways that feel really consequential to the demanding platforming of this game. Bass has a rapidfire weapon that can’t charge but CAN shoot in eight directions, he can’t move and shoot at the same time, and he can’t slide, but he has a double jump and a dash and he can do the dash jump from Mega Man X. At first blush it seems like the game is designed to be fair to either character, but the more of the game that I saw the more I began to think that this game is actually tailor made to Bass’ skillset, with the “mega man” tailoring for the stages amounting mostly to built in little gaps for him to slide through that regularly lead to collectibles instead of progress. MUCH more useful is Bass’ omnidirectional machine gun, especially given how much of this game’s difficulty boils down placing a LOT of enemies in every room and in positions that would be really difficult to deal with if your only tool was a horizontal shot. Additionally, Bass’ dash jumps and ESPECIALLY his double jump make what could be some borderline unfair platforming bits into, y’know, normal ones.

This is the tension that underpins the entire experience – there’s a lot of good shit in there that’s just obfuscated by a patina of grating, surface level bullshit. Despite the most limited control over which robot master stage you pick in the series yet, which might suggest a more streamlined experience, this is one of the most demanding sets of levels and bosses in the series, with satisfying gimmicks to each level and a degree of strategy required against a few of the robot masters that goes beyond “use the weapon he’s weak to.” Timing windows, unique mechanics activated by the weapon applications – stuff the series has flirted with occasionally (particularly in the X games) but rarely to this degree of implementation, and it’s a great ask on top of learning the boss patterns. This is such a strong set that I don’t even particularly mind that two of them are straight up reused from Mega Man 8.

Also lifted from Mega Man 8 is the entire look and soundscape of this game, but I think it works a LOT better here? Compromises were made to retain the graphical style on the SNES but it doesn’t run BUTTERY SMOOTH like its next-gen predecessor which I think is to its benefit. I complained about the visuals in Mega Man 8 and to a lesser extent 7 when I played those games, because of their intense animation and popping colors keeping things extremely busy on screen. Everything was a little too hard to parse, Mega Man’s movements a little too difficult to track precisely given the demands of the platforming. It turns out that limiting the performance of the game cuts that problem almost entirely, and while the colors don’t pop quite as much I think that’s a fair trade.

I’ve played a lot of Mega Mans in the last like four or five months and there are only so many ways you can say “wow they did a weird one and I am interested to see where this transitional period in the series takes us!” because it seems at this point like this transitional period is most of the franchise. But I do think that And Bass is one of the bigger and better swings that they’ve done, really only held back by this weird, blistering fake difficulty slathered over what I think are genuinely some of the best levels in the series. So it’s good. As I stare down the barrel of the later X games and their reputations I do hope I continue to find myself feeling pleasant surprise like this. At least, if they’re bad, they’ll be interspersed with the Zeros. It’s weird that those were coming out at the same time. Mega Man’s a strange franchise!

Megaman as a franchise has always been weird for me. I've heard plenty of great things about them, but my actual experience ended up more on the side of what I read on Nintendo Power about how 9 was a real controller toss-inducing game. It always just kind of felt tedious and clunky, as if I was just trudging through so-so levels until getting to a boss who was either absurdly difficult or uninteresting and basic depending on if I had the right power.

While I never really enjoyed the games myself, or even played them for quite a while, honestly, I checked out lots of discussions online, mostly YouTube reviews. I heard plenty of people gas up the X series as the "perfect video game" and whatnot, although just this year I played some and found for me they ranged from fine to whatever the hell X2 was. One thing I remember was Somecallmejohnny's big lineup of Classic Megaman reviews. Besides how he emulated Mega Man 7 to see the funny ending, the only thing I really remember is a pretty common Internet adage: that Mega Man & Bass was quite a bad video game.

Yet through some mix of ironic adoration and genuine curiosity, I finally checked it out, and I guess I don't agree this time. I never really felt it was as terrifyingly frustrating as people had made it out to be (aside from Burner Man, who yeah, is pretty abysmal). For the other 7 Robot Master stages, while I could see some parts that sort of look unfair, those parts never really got on my nerves. Most of the allegedly bad enemy placement was rare, and a minor nuisance at best. Sure, if I were examining it piece by piece, like my miserable stint reviewing mediocre Mario Maker levels, I would agree that maybe they shouldn't start a disappearing block section over a pit of spikes with no indication of the timing. But these moments always felt surprisingly fleeting and not too awful to overcome.

And I felt it was worth it to get past those minor hurdles because the rest of the game was pretty tight. There were just a lot of inventive setpieces, although I'll admit to not having enough Mega Man knowledge to determine how much of this was just lifted from 8. Most of the levels had this intuitive sense of flow to them. Like, I remember seeing something about how those platforms in Astro Man's level raise you up into spikes you can't see, but when every other platform of the sort tried raising you into spikes, I figured out what was going on pretty quick and didn't even die there.

That sense of understanding the levels is something I've never experienced in this series until now. This felt like the first time that using Megaman's tight controls to get through each of the levels made sense to me. When I played the X series, it just kind of felt like I was scraping by, barreling through everything without really getting what was going on. Maybe the levels were just involved enough to force me to finally think about them deeper, and really get into Megaman's slow, methodical pace, I'm not really sure. Having those tougher levels probably also helped my interest, since as I've said before, Megaman's bosses never really did anything for me. Although, once I did consider that I could probably beat Ground Man with no powers to put off Burner Man for as long as possible. For all people have said about how replayable this series is thanks to acquiring weapons in different orders, this is, in a running theme of sorts, the first time I've ever felt that urge.

Unfortunately, it's not all sunshine and rainbows for this game. Aside from the Burner Man in the room, the endgame follows pretty typical Mega Man fare of going downhill real quick. King Stage 2 is too long with four bosses, even if I thought that King Jet everyone is so riled up about wasn't even that bad. Plus the Wily boss is annoying, especially considering you would need to replay the boss rush if you game overed. There's also the matter of the game not saving your progress in the King levels if you turn off the console, but let's just say we have the technology to make that a non issue.

Overall, Mega Man & Bass was a great time, and I'm glad I finally developed that level of appreciation for the series that I've seen so many people have. There's still a lot of the rough edges I've experienced throughout the series, but for helping me finally get Mega Man, I definitely respect this game. The world is just full of surprises sometimes, I guess.

(played as megaman)

na minha lista de ansiedades que rotacionam mensalmente, a que me foi escolhida pra quando joguei esse jogo foi o medo de pessoas mais inteligentes que eu. sabe, pode parecer bobo, mas é paralisante pensar que alguém sabe mais coisas que você e você não tem a menor ideia de entender a cabeça dela, de compreender ela, de participar num mesmo nível de discussão. eu me considero bem burrinha indiferente se as pessoas maravilhosas da minha vida dizem o contrário, talvez porque eu sei demais como minha mente funciona, como eu vou pegando cada caco de informação pra formar um todo, como eu falo as coisas vindo apenas de intuição, o que de certa forma é um tipo de inteligência, mas não a tradicional, não a que eu percebo nos outros. basicamente, eu não fui instruída em debate e discussão, eu vivo no limiar do conhecimento e é um milagre que qualquer coisa que eu fale faça qualquer sentido.

só que as vezes essas pessoas mais inteligentes nem sempre são isso, as vezes elas são más, seja consciente ou não. e essa maldade faz parecer que elas sabem de algum segredo profundo, inalcançável, a renegação do senso comum e enxergam o mundo pelo que ele é. essas pessoas também muitas vezes são traumatizadas.

mega man & bass é um jogo do mal, ele não só é do mal como otário e filho da puta. não sei se a ideia era ser uma versão estendida do 8 só para os verdadeiros, mas ele é do mal. e como toda coisa que é do mal você vence e fica melhor em combater de pouco em pouco. o inicio é desgastante, mas de repente você está bem armada e confiante.

até que essa pessoa procura puxar o mal inteiro por uma ultima vez, tanto que você perde o eixo e a esperança. mas quem vence uma, vence todas morra dr wily desgraça de castelo 2 gigante tnc

(não sei se vou terminar com o mega man se eu terminar eu aviso não vai mudar nada além de que o mega man é mais baby eu sou meio bass pq eu tbm sou um tanto do mal sem escrúpulos a diferença só é que eu gosto de tudo e choro fácil)

Update: Terminei com o Mega Man ele é péssimo, o mundo é cruel demais pra ele

Occasionally while playing this, I wished that a giant hand appeared in the middle of the screen. It would shake the current level, spin it, slap it, perform a first aid CPR, just to see if the game could exhale the slightest of the breaths or to try and hear the quietest heartbeat.

This never happens and rigidness reigns supreme. The holy unwritten book with the golden rules on how to make a Megaman is religiously followed. And you know those rules don’t work when something as the appearing blocks become a trademark of the series. When you ask these games to shake things up they respond: this is how Megaman games were done in the 80s, in the 90s and in the next thousand years. The robot that produces endless sequels for the infinite Megaman flavors struggles with entry data from the outside, only capable of generating new infinite subseries when this phenomenon occurs. Megaman games are only fed with other Megaman games.

And here we have the blue guy, he even brought a friend this time. They don't do too much, but they would like to do less. Running, jumping, sliding, shooting, everything seems boring to them, despite the honesty that could be considered in their simplicity. The enemies appear to be just as uninterested. When they throw an occasional weird behaviour into their being they don't last before remembering their work. Be a by the book obstacle and drop a reward when beaten. Everytime that we kill one of these it seems like they want us to beat the level more than ourselves, asking to please never respawn them again. They even give us better rewards each time that we kill them!

The cruel response to this plea from the developers is pushing you back with some checkpoints and making you do the whole level again if you run out of lives. I don't have a problem with repeating stuff. But if the first time going through a level is already uninteresting it's an easy guess how the 10th time will be. If anything, while cursing whoever made these dead levels, at least I dedicate my prayers to whoever invented savestates.

Either this game gave me stockholm syndrome or actually knowing some of the things the levels throw at you in advance makes that much of a difference. Either way this might be the first time I've fallen in love with a game that I can wholeheartedly say is full of bullshit and bad game design but will still come up with things to defend it with, like how impressive it is that they were able to backport sprites from a game a generation ahead and it being one of the best looking Super Famicom games as a result. The soundtrack is probably the best in the series, hands down, there's a whole 100+ optional collectables that act as a database on just about everything established in the classic series just because, and god it just plays so good. I praised the Mega Man World games for backporting the NES gameplay to the Gameboy smoothly, but this is something else, man. Hell I'd even argue it feels better than Megaman 8, on top of a new playable character with a unique default moveset. This game had absolutely no reason to exist but Capcom said "yeah some poor motherfuckers haven't gotten ps1's yet let's drop this on them" and tbh for a 1998 sfc release they dropped something pretty damn good. I was able to run through this as megaman, no savestates, no rewind, and only really struggle on the last two stages because the flying tank boss really just sucks. Boss weaknesses are arguably the most intuitive in the series and I found myself using every boss weapon at some point or another.

The better Mega Man 8! No but seriously pretty much all my issues with 8 were fixed here! Bolts and the store are normal. You can buy all the power ups, half of them are permanently on and the other half are limited to equipping one at a time, which is kinda how I wanted MM8s system to work. The CDs are neat but I do miss the collectables being able to find the power ups in stages like MM7, made it feel like you're actually growing stronger as you explore the stages. Speaking of MM7 tho, this also fixed one of my issues with that game. In that game 2 collectables were hidden in spots underground that you need Rush to dig up with nothing indicating you need to do that, this is not a big deal tho since you can just buy the items later in the shop if you miss them. But this game now added an item that shows sparkles in the areas Rush needs to dig. There are things that substitute E-tanks but tbh it still kinda annoying they're not here.

Bass Playthrough: It was really neat to have another character to play as with a slightly different move set. I see a lot of people say Bass is easy mode and I can definitely see it, the double jump and 8 direction rapid fire makes platforming and enemies easier to get through, but at the same time I think he has his own draw backs. He has less support skills (no Beat, Eddie or the Auto Heal) and the King fight is made harder.

Bad MM games hurt cause they always come down to fine ideas lathered in Inafune's awful difficulty sensibilities. I love seeing the MM8 artstyle on SNES! I love Bass being playable and having a tripped out moveset! I love the majority of these new robot master designs! I love the lounge jazz music! I love that you can just zoom call Roll on the menu and she chats your ear off!

I don't love any of this game's level or boss designs! When it's not being a pale imitation of 8, its new ideas have comparable cheapness to MM7 Wily. And every time its bad ideas are 'fun, they find a way to tarnish it.

You'll see people defend the SNES version as a good game for lacking the GBA port's screen crunch, but I'd disagree - they're equally shit to put up with. The few challenges that become worse due to screen crunch are already crunched on SNES, and the rest of the problems come down to innate design flaws. Hell, I think the GBA version actually has the better soundtrack!

Bass later got a playable redemption in 10 and the arcade games but it sucks this first outing of his is so trite. His sprite is so cool! Why was it wasted on this???

The funny thing about this game is

E o primeiro jogo do ano é Rockman E Forte, começando com algo que quase me matou de pura raiva.

A primeira metade desse jogo é muito legal, boa parte das fases são muito carismaticas e tem um bom level design, os bosses também tem alguns daora mas boa parte dos principais são chatos pra cacete.

Mas o jogo se mostrou ser algo bem legal, principalmente aquele sistema de colecionaveis que é top coisas mais daoras dos jogos clássicos da franquia. Mas principalmente no final o jogo ficou insuportável.

As fases do King são chatas mas principalmente os chefes me quebram cara, a maioria é uma merda e muito injusto. Cara cês tem noção que tem uma fase que você precisa lutar com 5 bosses seguidos e se tu levar game over SE FODA FAÇA TUDO DE NOVO. Sério eu tive que fazer um L VS KIRA para farmar umas vidas em um pedaço da fase pra não dar game over.

Esses bosses metade são legais e a outra metade é o puro inferno, acho que se fosse balanceado as fases seria bem mais daora.

Rockman e Forte é um jogo que eu com certeza vou jogar de novo, mas com medo sempre que se aproxima daquela fase que começa com K.

Um Mega Man mediano — que, considerando a qualidade da série, não é coisa ruim! Mega Man consegue me divertir com bastante consistência mesmo quando não é revolucionário, e esse não é exceção.

Esse jogo tem a fama de ser particularmente difícil, especialmente se usando o Mega Man, mas achei essa fama um pouco exagerada. Mega Man 3 e X6 são mais difíceis, e em grande parte por causa de pura bullshit. Esse aqui tem seus momentos desafiadores, mas não fiquei com a sensação de que ele estava deliberadamente tentando me estressar ou sendo injusto. De fato jogar com o Bass é mais fácil, mas mesmo com o Mega Man é um platformer absolutamente possível de se zerar. Em tempo, zerei o game duas vezes, uma com cada personagem.

i think id rather stick my dick through a cheerio than play as megaman in this game

replaying this game as megaman i still enjoyed my time with this game, its just a lot of the cracks in the level design rear their ugly head more. i dont think i would really recommend this game to anyone besides me, i just think playing as bass is super fun. i really think this should've just been a bass game, i think if they made a game purely tailored around his toolset wouldve made a way more fun game. also, I still like the fact that this is one of the few classic megaman games where all of the special weapons are useful to some degree.

The hardest one in the series

First, why is this game on the Super Famicom and not on the Playstation? Simple, more Japanese people had more Super Famicoms compared to Playstations at home during 1998. Capcom just decided to make a game for the console that was more avaible at the time, re-using most of Mega Man 8 content while at it. Inafune said it himself.

This game is also secretly considered "Mega Man 8.5" kind of how Super Mario Galaxy 2 is secretly known as "Super Mario Galaxy MORE".

It's also considered a different continuation of the Classic Mega Man mainline series. Take the Mega Man games for the Game Boy for example. Which means the events of this game don't affect the overall timeline of the mainline series. It's canon then? Who knows! Nor the Mega Man Legacy Collections or Mega Man Anniverssary Collection include this game, excluded for all of them. Which probably means Capcom wanted just to do a one-side game for the Super Famicom in 1998, and just call it a day.

After getting that out of the way let's talk about the game itself. As the title suggest we can take control of either Mega Man or Bass. Mega Man can slide and charge his shots just like in the previous games while Bass can dash, double jump and rapid-fire. Bass is the safer option for beginners since his platforming skills greatly surprass Mega Man, combine that with the infamous level design.

The boss selection still stands at eight, 2 bosses from Mega Man 8 are present here: Astro Man and Tengu Man. 6 being original bosses exclusive to this game just like any other Classic Mega Man game. It uses a different system to progress the stage selection, where as Mega Man 1-6 used the classic 8 bosses selection, Mega Man 7 and 8 used the four and four system this one uses a more linear progressive system. Let me explain. After finishing the opening the game let's you pick 3 Robot Masters at first. Top, Center and Bottom. If you decide to go for the top, the next levels will be unlocked inmediatily, 2 in this case. A weird selection system that was never brought again. Needlessly convoluted if you ask me.

Let's talk about the infamous Level Design. The definition of bullshit should be erased from dictionaries and replaced with this game cover. It's very close to the old Mega Man 1 level design, yes the oldest one of the bunch. And that game is still easier than Mega Man & Bass with enough patience. This game takes patience, skill and memorization. Compared to past games, no rush adaptors or special weapons. Mega Man is totally screwed. Bass at least has a Dash and a Double Jump to compensate most of his glaring issues which is that he barely does damage to bosses. It's one way or another, you either suffer at the start or suffer by the end. Oh-ho boy don't get me started at the castle levels. But why it is bullshit then? Insta-kill spikes, botomless pits and bullshit enemy spawns are plastered everywhere. As a word of advice pick Bass in your first playthrough. I didn't.

In short, it's hard Mega Man game. A mean one at that. Forgotten by most but an interesting title nonetheless. Give it a shot if you want a challenge. I still like it more than Mega Man 8.

This game was over-hated all thanks to the GBA version.

If you're familiar with the Mega Man series PLEASE play the Aeon Genesis Fan Translation for Super Famicom. Don't bother with the GBA|Wii U release.

My biggest issue with the game though lies in the length of one of King's Stages. It had no right to be as long as it was.

Logically speaking, this game is not good for the most part. It is way too unfair, essentially requires you beat the robot masters in a certain order, and also has insane screen crunch on the GBA(which is the only version I’ve played). But I love it, 33% for nostalgia reasons, 33% for “I get to play as Bass” reasons, and 33% for “Holy fuck this OST rocks” reasons(seriously the intro stage theme might be my favorite song from any MegaMan game). It being so unfairly hard makes me feel a weird pride that I ever beat this game at all, let alone when I was a kid.

It's almost a bad thing Bass is playable in this. The game is such a quintessential and rewarding experience when played as Mega Man himself. Taking 32-bit assets and cramming them onto a Super Famicom cart may actually have worked in the game's favor, as it forced them to use screen space very efficiently resulting in a particular style of level design that a high mobility character like Bass maybe feels redundant in. As far as I'm concerned Bass is here because having him here is cool. Like really heckin' cool! And that dash animation, lol!