Reviews from

in the past


é um jogo ok.
tem umas músicas que curti e achei os gráficos bonitos, chefes são ate que tranquilos apenas um ou outro é mais puxado. agora o level design é meio capenga, se tu for jogar apenas com o rockman tu vai ta lascado

[played on original SNES hardware as Mega Man]

I think it’s fair to say that Mega Man & Bass is probably the most disliked Classic MM game by a wide margin. It’s gained quite the reputation for being an incredibly tricky and punishing experience, and in a series that’s known for being difficult, that’s saying a lot. When I was going through the series last year, I wasn’t initially planning on playing through MM&B, but eventually did give it a go as Bass and stopped right at the penultimate stage out of frustration. But something funny happened recently. I got the urge to play the first few stages as Mega Man just to see how he felt, and it ended up really clicking! A few days later, I made my way through the whole thing in just a few sessions, and had a pretty good time! And now I’m gonna talk about why this incredibly challenging game was a whole lot of fun for me.


Mega Man as a franchise was already solidified by 1998, but MM&B makes a few changes and additions to help it stand out. The first of which being that you get to play as someone besides the Blue Bomber: his rival, Bass! Instead of having a slide and charge shot, Bass gets a MMX-like dash, double jump and a rapid-fire arm cannon that can be aimed in any direction, although it can’t initially shoot through walls and does pitiful damage against bosses. The other big feature of MM&B is that, like I said at the start, it’s really difficult. But honestly, I thought it was still fairly manageable! I’ll get more into specifics when I talk about the levels, but there’s quite a few elements that can help you tip the scales, the first of which being Auto’s shop. It’s an interesting fusion of how it was in 7 and 8; bolts have returned to being enemy drops, but a lot of the items you can buy are equipable, and they include enhancements like taking less damage, saving more energy when using Robot Master weapons and dealing double damage when you’re near-death. These can really come in handy, and given that you’re able to swap between them at any time, switching things up when the situation calls for it can help a bunch.

Another useful asset comes in the form of the various Robot Master weapons, which are a really solid bunch! Ice Wall’s a great mobility tool, Wave Burner’s an excellent close-ranged option for weaker enemies, Spread Drill and Remote Mine do plenty of damage, Copy Vision can help reduce button-mashing and Magic Card’s useful for snatching goodies from hard-to-reach places. Overall, it’s an excellent selection of weapons, and due to how the stages are laid out (in a grid system where beating one unlocks the path to another), you get more of an opportunity to use them since you’ll be guaranteed to have them for certain levels.

Now we get onto the stages, which I thought were really good! They’re certainly challenging, but they never feel impossible as either character; so long as you use a bit of patience, memorization and utilize everything in your arsenal, you should be able to get through most of them without much issue. It also helps that they’re not too long, so getting a Game Over doesn’t feel like a massive setback (and for me, it helps me become even better at remembering the layouts and obstacles so I can smoothly get through next time). And in traditional Mega Man fashion, there’s a ton of variety which makes every level feel distinct and unique, which is an element of the series I really enjoy!

Unfortunately, there’s quite a dip in quality when you get to the Fortress stages. I don’t think they’re as bad as people say, but they feel a lot sloppier and way more frustrating than the regular levels. It feels a lot closer to the type of game I hear MM&B be described as, which is a shame.

Now it’s time for the presentation, and I’m probably gonna gush a lot because I adore how this game looks and sounds! You can tell Capcom really had a grasp of the hardware by 1998, and they absolutely knocked it out of the park. The graphical style definitely takes cues from Mega Man 8, but it doesn’t even look like that much of a downgrade; everything’s still colourful and immensely detailed. In fact, I’d say it’s on-par with a lot of the Sega Saturn’s 2D games in terms of fidelity, which is really impressive for a console that was first released in 1990! The soundtrack’s also great like usual, with a ton of catchy and melodic tunes. My personal favourites are probably the Robot Museum, Cold Man, Magic Man, Tengu Man and Pirate Man themes.


Despite the general reception, I really liked MM&B! I guess it’s not too surprising given my love of intense difficulty, but I’m so glad I found this much to love, and as such, I think this is a new favourite in the series for me! I’ll have to do a proper playthrough as Bass someday (and find all those data CDs), but that probably won’t be for a while. Overall, if you’re fine with really hard games and are patient enough, I think you might find something to appreciate in this one!

Initially received the Game Boy Advance port as a gift, but never made it far. After selling the cartridge, I downloaded a ROM hack translation of the Super Famicom version, and years later, beat the game with Bass, using save states before bosses. Immediately after, I started a new file with Mega Man in order to collect the remaining CDs, and used save states generously.

As someone who considers himself a stalwart fan of the classic Mega Man series, I knew I had to get around to playing this game to completion eventually, but kept putting it off, and I've come to find it was with good reason. Hastily cobbled together with assets from Mega Man 8, Mega Man & Bass is the Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels of the Mega Man series, and it nearly pushed my patience to its limit.

I went in fully expecting this to be a better game than 8, so the question is, is it? At first I thought, "yes" but quickly changed my mind. Gone are the annoying snowboard sections and other quirky gimmicks shoehorned into the previous game, and the shop system is now more in-line with that of 7, as well as IV and V on the Game Boy. It also presents a challenge that its predecessor sorely lacked. So what's the problem? It's unforgiving on every level, that's what. First off, you have absolutely no reason to play as Mega Man; Bass's mobility and multi-directional buster makes him the objectively correct choice, unless you hate yourself. Stages are filled with cheap enemy placement seemingly designed to spite the player, and littered with blind jumps that killed me many a time. And though the shop system has been restored, E Tanks are still missing for some reason; W Tanks are also absent, so if you run out of weapon energy trying to beat the stage boss, you're not getting it replenished until your next game over. And of course, the development staff didn't learn their lesson from 7, and imported much of the graphics made for their PlayStation game into this SNES title. Sure, it looks pretty, but shouldn't that have been a given by 1998?

But the biggest issue I had with Mega Man & Bass, by far, was with the fortress stages. King Stage 2 is a frustratingly long gauntlet nearly twice the length of a normal stage, with not one, not two, but FOUR BOSSES. Checkpoints are sparse, and if at any point you run out of lives, congrats, you're starting from the beginning. The final stage is no better, because instead of allowing you to re-fight the robot masters in any order like before, it forces you into a linear path, facing one boss after another, with additional bullshit platforming sections in-between every encounter. The fortress stages made me realize that Mega Man 8 wasn't too easy, it was simply more forgiving, and forgiveness is nowhere to be found in this hellscape of a game.

By the way, if you're looking to collect all 100 database CDs, don't. The only reward is the accomplishment itself, and a nauseating number of them are hidden underground, which need to be retrieved using Rush Search, the most obnoxious utility item in the series. Several of these CDs are deliberately placed in areas with large amounts of enemies that, if allowed to come in contact with Rush, cancel his digging animation while wasting weapon energy. And even if you know where to dig, he'll dig up a piece of trash if you're off by a few pixels, or if you're lucky, you'll be treated to an animation of him getting his face sprayed with water or his nose pinched by a crab. Why exactly do I need to purchase an item that shows the vague location of these underground CDs when I already bought Rush Search? Hell if I know.

TL;DR - Mega Man & Bass's omission from Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 was a blessing in disguise, as this game does not deserve to share the series' legacy with the numbered entries. It's a frustrating, poorly designed slog that's difficult for all the wrong reasons, and one that I would recommend against playing it at all costs. Please skip this and go straight to 9, you'll thank me later.