You know what, Burner Man's stage can suck me. This shit has music so bouncy and upbeat as if it's actively trying to make fun of me for dying multiple times at the horrendously designed level :C

Yeah, this is the worst classic Mega Man game by a country mile. The major problem is, of course, the level design. You thought Mega Man 1 had a lot of bullshit? You thought Mega Man 3 had a lot of bullshit? Then, oh boy, you haven't seen anything. It's not like Mega Man X6 where every single level makes me wanna die, I like Cold Man and Pirate Man's stages fine enough. But man, everything else is either totally whatever or genuinely insufferable. The amount of cheap enemy spamming and questionable obstacle placement is cranked up to the max and it can be really frustrating. It's just like Sonic Advance 3 but to an even worse degree.

However, and I'm gonna say it again, I don't think it's terrible like Mega Man X6. Unlike that game I feel like Mega Man & Bass does have some effort put into, it has a lot of good stuff going for. I mean the idea of playing as Bass is really cool and it's actually well implemented into the game. The Robot Master weapons were really useful in this one and I commend it for that. The data base is also really cool, it's nice to see Robot Masters from the NES entries in 16-bits as well as Robot Masters from Mega Man 8 and even the Game Boy titles, that's some cool shit right there. The presentation is also nice, the soundtrack might not be my favorite but it's definitely good stuff and the Mega Man 8 visuals translate pretty well into 16-bit, it's really cool seeing a Super Famicom game with the style of a PS1 title.

This is what pisses me off about Mega Man & Bass, it has a lot of cool ideas but for every thing this game does right it does other three things wrong. It's a problematic, messy and poorly thought-out game. It's still better than X6 and X7, but man this game really sticks out like a sore thumb in the classic series.

im such a masochist holy shit
unfortunately for you all, watching people suffer is something i enjoy too
so to all who read this, i dare you to beat this game with megaman on the gba
its doable, trust me =)
if youve already done it, i guess that makes you a masochist too?

The funny thing about this game is

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.

So uhhhhhh
Game looks as pretty as MM8.
A "bit" more challenging than 8.
Good weapons as well as some neat new robot master designs barring Tengu and Astro man.
Bolt upgrades are pretty cool.
Bass is pretty fun to play as.

And ummmm.....
Some bad level design choices. Especially as Mega Man and a little as Bass.
Generous checkpoints? Hahaha.... Surely you jest!
The King Plane from King Stage 2 is the worst thing ever. Punching the platforms out of existence is one thing, but don't try to blind me while already punishing me.

So..... I guess if you were disappointed at MM8's difficulty, this game will scratch your itch I guess. I found it okay at best, horrid at momentary worst.

Just to note, both times I played this game was as Megaman. Bass doesn't seem as fun so I haven't done it.

This is honestly a great game and doesn't deserve all the crap it gets, especially considering this is the same franchise as 9 and X6. The basic stages are honestly awesome and the boss fights are pretty fun with the notable exception of Dynamo Man and maybe Burner Man. They're all really creative and honestly not that hard I don't know why people say this game is unfair on Super Famicom, and this is on top of the great powers. The bolt shop and map of levels are great mechanics too.

This could have been one of my favorite Megaman games but what holds this game back is unfortunately the castle stages. The first one is fine but the second one is a guantlet of obnoxious bosses that is just unbareable, making for one of the worst stages in 2d platformer history, and the final stage is not much better. If you play this game, just stop after you beat the first King stage, you're not missing much.

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!

Bass ft. Mega Man

Bass really does feel like he has much more to offer than Mega, and the recycled bosses Tengu and Astro are kinda lame but at least they weren't Dynamo. It felt like it could have done more all in all.

Also shoutouts to another game with a boss structure trying to do something different while screaming "PLEASE DO COLD MAN FIRST"