Angel_Arle Rockman reviews
Part 1: Rockman for Famicom
Part 2: Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo for Famicom
Part 3: Rockman 3: Dr. Wily no Saigo!? for Famicom
Part 4: Rockman World for GB
Part 5: Rockman 4: Aratanaru Yabou!! for Famicom
Part 7: Rockman 5: Blues no Wana!? for Famicom
Part 8: Rockman World 3 for GB
Part 9: Wily & Right no RockBoard: That's Paradise for Famicom
Part 10: Rockman World 4 for GB
Part 11: Rockman 6: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai!! for Famicom
Part 12: Rockman's Soccer for Super Famicom
Part 13: Rockman World 5 for GB
It’s only been one game and we are already back on the Game Boy for another Rockman World game. Get used to this because these games get made quickly like the Famicom games. Though unlike last time, this entry is a more devious one in quality. It’s pretty obvious once you see who made this game. This one was developed by a company named Thinking Rabbit which I've think of heard of once before. Oh wait I remember, their name was on the Famicom version of 8 Eyes! This is also the only Game Boy game that Minakuchi Engineering did not develop and it really shows. Let’s just get into it.
Well in terms of plot it’s actually quite detailed for the series standards. The game doesn’t actually have one when you start so you’ll have to read the manual. After the events of the first World game, I’m assuming Rockman 3 as well, Dr. Wily has a new ambitious idea. He’s about to steal a Time Machine from the Time-Space Research Laboratory. He steals it successfully and tries to go to the past but his plans are futile. He decides to do a new idea and go to the future instead. Meanwhile Rockman and Dr. Right try to figure out the culprit and thanks to Rush, they find out it’s Wily once again. As Wily heads in the future, we see a peaceful one where Rock is back to being a peaceful housekeeping robot. Dr. Wily has the dastardly idea to steal him and reprogram him into his new creation named Quint. Now Dr. Wily goes back to the present with Quint and it’s up to Rockman to stop not only Quint but revived Robot Masters as well. Wait a second Dr. Wily couldn’t go to the past but he can go back from the future to the present? Who designed this thing? Also don’t even bother asking how this wouldn’t cause time fabric issues or whatever, do you think they put much thought into this plot? Well at least they aren’t trying to hide it’s Wily this time.
Rockman controls a little better in this game. I remember thinking his movement in the first game was a little off and if it’s one thing I’ll give this game is they definitely improved it, especially with the platforming. He doesn’t feel hard to stop at all in this one. You can slide in this game like in Rockman 3 but for some reason you can’t jump out of it which I’m not sure was intentional design or not.
One thing for sure that isn’t as good is the stage design. A lot of the design feels like it was ripped from their respective stages on the Famicom. Now I know some of it is original but a lot of it seems to be copied. This makes the game a lot less interesting as it now just feels like you’re playing an inferior version of said Famicom games. Which is such a shame because I praised the first one for not doing this. Because of this, there just isn’t much to say except some of the changes I noticed. Metal Man’s stage has this really awful falling down section where you have to guess where the spikes are placed which was a problem I had with the second half of the previous game though at least it’s only in the beginning of the stage. Wood Man’s stage not only has a section where there’s water you can go in but it also has the needle hazard from Needle Man’s stage for some reason. Clash Man’s stage for some reason feels the most unique to me even if it still has a very similar feel with how it progresses vertically. Maybe it’s just the placement on level design. Look I’m not an expert on this stuff so apologies if there’s more that could be said. For the order I went Air -> Clash -> Metal -> Wood.
The Robot Masters once again are just previous ones meaning the way you beat them are the same. Though there are changes though mostly with damage outputs. Remember how strong Wood Man was with leaf shield? Now it does like 2 hp at you, like it caught me so off guard. Clash Man also takes so many Air Shooters that it drains all of its consumption. Air Man is easier in this one then he was in 2 since you have the slide. It also just doesn’t change the fact that not much effort needs to be done to win these.
Once again we must discuss special weapons for these four. Well I have some news for you! They completely screwed up the balance in this one. Metal Blades are once again completely broken but now for a new reason. Almost every weapon in this game uses way too much energy. Clash Bomb especially feels like it drains fast. Even Leaf Shield and Air Shooter don’t have much energy either. Maybe I’ve just never noticed in the Famicom game but these weapons just have such limited use because of it. Except for Metal Blade which still has a lot of ammo so you’ll probably be using it for most of the game. It’s not to say they’re all just useless but the limited ammo discourages me from bothering.
We also now have Rush make a debut for the handheld and you don’t even start with him. Yes they really make you unlock Rush Coil. There’s also Rush Jet and Rush Marine. Rush Jet works like how it did in 3 so have fun breaking some sections with it. Rush Marine also feels weird to control like it has some weight to it but you barely use it anyway so it’s not a big deal. Also idk why but whenever I use Rush Coil, he looks like he is in pain when I use him. I swear it looks weird like a couple of his pixels go away.
Now it’s time for Wily and we get a cutscene that sends us in a trap with the portals already. Oh so I guess that means it’s probably either rematches with the 2 Robot Masters or four Robot Masters from 3. Wrong! You’re doing four stages from Rockman 3! Yep you now have to go through Hard Man, Top Man, Needle Man, and Magnet Man’s stages. Even better is that these stages feel even less new than the previous stages which is just really awesome. There’s really not much to be said here except let me say this right now. This game is easy, like it might actually be the easiest game in the series. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with easy games but when a dumb girl like me could beat this back in the 3DS games with no save states and not get a single game over on the first playthrough, there’s a problem.
In fact, let me just rant for a bit. This game is just not programmed well compared to the first game. Remember how when you pick up energy or health refills it pauses the game to give it to you? Well here, it goes up and you can still move. So you could grab health and then take a hit and it’ll refill your health as all the units haven’t finished adding to you yet. Want to refill two weapons? Just fill one up, pause, and then switch to the other and you fill up two special weapons! Always thought grabbing ladders with no hands was cool? Well in this game just get hit and hold up and down and presto you can climb a ladder in your damaged animation! Did you know that Metal Blade in this game uses the wrong animation which shows Rockman shooting it with his Rock Buster. Then you have Clash Bomb where he uses his hands! I think they somehow swapped the animations by accident, how does this happen!? There’s probably one or two things I’m forgetting but there’s no excuse for this.
I’m not even gonna discuss the Rockman 3 Robot Master fights, just know they are the same so let’s just get on with the weapon discussion again. They all once again fall into the same problem of weapon consumption except maybe Hard Knuckle because I forgot to even use it, OOPS! Btw did I forget to mention that after the first four stages, you never get weapon refills after beating a stage. Why they did this I have no idea. You gotta love how they somehow screwed up Magnet Missile against Hard Man because they home in on his Hard Knuckles and not the actual boss! Top Spin just does not work at all. I swear the hitbox is broken on it. I’m timing the move correctly, why am I still getting hit. You know what’s screwed up? I learned Top Spin is good on those Hari Harry enemies in Needle Man’s stage, did any of you even know this?? Doesn’t mean anything because I’M STILL GETTING HIT WHEN I MAKE CONTACT!! Oh yeah Needle Cannon exists. I think it’s still just turbo fire Rock Buster, idk.
Alright you’ve done all the stages and it’s now time for Quint! Get ready for one of the worst fights in the franchise. What does he do? Well he uses a jackhammer robot named Sakugarne and uses short ranged rocks from the ground to hit you. He will also try to do a slow predictable jump on you. The fight ends in like 15-20 seconds. This fight I can’t tell was actually meant to be a joke or not. It’s seriously hard to tell. Well once you beat him you get Sakugarne. It’s strong and you can use it over spikes! The problem is that it lasts about 11 seconds with a full bar and worst of all, if the enemy doesn’t die in one hit, you take damage from using it. Remember how Enker’s weapon taught you how to use it thanks to the first enemy in the final stage being perfect for it. Here you have a Hammer Joe that doesn’t die in one hit meaning you take damage, how swell. Seriously, don't even bother with it.
The final stage takes place in a castle up in space that Rockman reaches using Rush. I’m guessing Dr. Right built that in his spare time after Rockman 3. The background has a lot of warped clocks which is weird. Is this the Time Machine responsible for this? Look there’s nothing much to say. It’s not challenging or even memorable so let’s just skip to Dr. Wily himself. Well first off they got the scale really off in this fight, He’s not even two Rockman sprites tall. He uses the Wily Machine World 2 and it’s got three phases. It’s not really that hard because you probably have 4 E-Tanks by this point so just try to dodge what you can and you’ll win. He doesn’t even need to lose all of his health for the first two phases to end. What a weird way to code that. Well with him defeated we…steal his ability? Yeah you get his weapon to shoot missiles. You teleport out and then Wily somehow escapes first, Rockman shoots a missile and then Wily…crashes onto the Earth. Wait, did he die? What, why is there no ending text to explain what happened, they can’t just end there! Well there is Rockman 4 so I guess we know he lived. Also this credits sequence IS JUST THE SAME ONE FROM ROCKMAN WORLD 1! It doesn't even make sense here since he was piloting Rush and wasn’t on a rocket ship this time. Also what about the Time Machine? OMG this game just angers me. I'm gonna lose it. What even happened to Quint? We saw him teleport away, did he go back to the future? Does Dr. Right reprogram him back to be good? We will never know I guess.
Graphically it’s nothing bad but it does feel off in some ways. With how they had to make some sprites smaller and just some look off like when Rockman slides. I know the first game also changed some sprites but it never looked off to me. Here it just can look amateurish at times. Though it’s not all bad like some of the Robot Masters look alright. It’s far from the game’s problems it already has. The music on the other hand though is decent and bad at the same time. I think there are good and decent melodies here but it’s ruined by how they sound. The pitch is way too high that it becomes ear grating and the instruments chosen just don’t sound correct at times. Usually I like to listen to the OST when writing but this time I listened to this video done by RushJet1 where he remade the OST and it sounds really good. It shows that the music wasn’t just awful in every way. Some of the sound effects sound really weird like getting a special weapon, refilling energy and then the 1-up sound which I swear sounds like a Mario sound effect. I should also mention that this game also has a unused song and it sounds just as ear grating as most of the OST.
Rockman World 2 is a disappointment. This isn’t just a flawed game. It gets a lot of things wrong and it being easy often makes it forgettable. Despite all of my hatred for what was done here, the game is not bad. It’s a bad Rockman game but it really goes to show how good the foundation was for the series and even that first GB game that even this can’t compare it to some of the trash found on the handheld. There’s much worse on the system but Rockman World 2 is easily one of the worst entries I’ll be reviewing in this series. I can’t recommend this one to anyone over the other entries on GB. It makes me wonder what could have been had the previous developers did this entry as well. Thankfully these times are over and we won’t be seeing anything of this quality for a little while. It’s time I head back to the Famicom with Rockman 5. We’re almost at the end of the Famicom tunnel with this series.
Oh and to mention one more thing they screwed up on. Clash Man is not Crash Man in the western release. I don’t even know how they screwed up considering they had to go in and change stuff like the title screen.
Part 1: Rockman for Famicom
Part 2: Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo for Famicom
Part 3: Rockman 3: Dr. Wily no Saigo!? for Famicom
Part 4: Rockman World for GB
Part 5: Rockman 4: Aratanaru Yabou!! for Famicom
Part 7: Rockman 5: Blues no Wana!? for Famicom
Part 8: Rockman World 3 for GB
Part 9: Wily & Right no RockBoard: That's Paradise for Famicom
Part 10: Rockman World 4 for GB
Part 11: Rockman 6: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai!! for Famicom
Part 12: Rockman's Soccer for Super Famicom
Part 13: Rockman World 5 for GB
It’s only been one game and we are already back on the Game Boy for another Rockman World game. Get used to this because these games get made quickly like the Famicom games. Though unlike last time, this entry is a more devious one in quality. It’s pretty obvious once you see who made this game. This one was developed by a company named Thinking Rabbit which I've think of heard of once before. Oh wait I remember, their name was on the Famicom version of 8 Eyes! This is also the only Game Boy game that Minakuchi Engineering did not develop and it really shows. Let’s just get into it.
Well in terms of plot it’s actually quite detailed for the series standards. The game doesn’t actually have one when you start so you’ll have to read the manual. After the events of the first World game, I’m assuming Rockman 3 as well, Dr. Wily has a new ambitious idea. He’s about to steal a Time Machine from the Time-Space Research Laboratory. He steals it successfully and tries to go to the past but his plans are futile. He decides to do a new idea and go to the future instead. Meanwhile Rockman and Dr. Right try to figure out the culprit and thanks to Rush, they find out it’s Wily once again. As Wily heads in the future, we see a peaceful one where Rock is back to being a peaceful housekeeping robot. Dr. Wily has the dastardly idea to steal him and reprogram him into his new creation named Quint. Now Dr. Wily goes back to the present with Quint and it’s up to Rockman to stop not only Quint but revived Robot Masters as well. Wait a second Dr. Wily couldn’t go to the past but he can go back from the future to the present? Who designed this thing? Also don’t even bother asking how this wouldn’t cause time fabric issues or whatever, do you think they put much thought into this plot? Well at least they aren’t trying to hide it’s Wily this time.
Rockman controls a little better in this game. I remember thinking his movement in the first game was a little off and if it’s one thing I’ll give this game is they definitely improved it, especially with the platforming. He doesn’t feel hard to stop at all in this one. You can slide in this game like in Rockman 3 but for some reason you can’t jump out of it which I’m not sure was intentional design or not.
One thing for sure that isn’t as good is the stage design. A lot of the design feels like it was ripped from their respective stages on the Famicom. Now I know some of it is original but a lot of it seems to be copied. This makes the game a lot less interesting as it now just feels like you’re playing an inferior version of said Famicom games. Which is such a shame because I praised the first one for not doing this. Because of this, there just isn’t much to say except some of the changes I noticed. Metal Man’s stage has this really awful falling down section where you have to guess where the spikes are placed which was a problem I had with the second half of the previous game though at least it’s only in the beginning of the stage. Wood Man’s stage not only has a section where there’s water you can go in but it also has the needle hazard from Needle Man’s stage for some reason. Clash Man’s stage for some reason feels the most unique to me even if it still has a very similar feel with how it progresses vertically. Maybe it’s just the placement on level design. Look I’m not an expert on this stuff so apologies if there’s more that could be said. For the order I went Air -> Clash -> Metal -> Wood.
The Robot Masters once again are just previous ones meaning the way you beat them are the same. Though there are changes though mostly with damage outputs. Remember how strong Wood Man was with leaf shield? Now it does like 2 hp at you, like it caught me so off guard. Clash Man also takes so many Air Shooters that it drains all of its consumption. Air Man is easier in this one then he was in 2 since you have the slide. It also just doesn’t change the fact that not much effort needs to be done to win these.
Once again we must discuss special weapons for these four. Well I have some news for you! They completely screwed up the balance in this one. Metal Blades are once again completely broken but now for a new reason. Almost every weapon in this game uses way too much energy. Clash Bomb especially feels like it drains fast. Even Leaf Shield and Air Shooter don’t have much energy either. Maybe I’ve just never noticed in the Famicom game but these weapons just have such limited use because of it. Except for Metal Blade which still has a lot of ammo so you’ll probably be using it for most of the game. It’s not to say they’re all just useless but the limited ammo discourages me from bothering.
We also now have Rush make a debut for the handheld and you don’t even start with him. Yes they really make you unlock Rush Coil. There’s also Rush Jet and Rush Marine. Rush Jet works like how it did in 3 so have fun breaking some sections with it. Rush Marine also feels weird to control like it has some weight to it but you barely use it anyway so it’s not a big deal. Also idk why but whenever I use Rush Coil, he looks like he is in pain when I use him. I swear it looks weird like a couple of his pixels go away.
Now it’s time for Wily and we get a cutscene that sends us in a trap with the portals already. Oh so I guess that means it’s probably either rematches with the 2 Robot Masters or four Robot Masters from 3. Wrong! You’re doing four stages from Rockman 3! Yep you now have to go through Hard Man, Top Man, Needle Man, and Magnet Man’s stages. Even better is that these stages feel even less new than the previous stages which is just really awesome. There’s really not much to be said here except let me say this right now. This game is easy, like it might actually be the easiest game in the series. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with easy games but when a dumb girl like me could beat this back in the 3DS games with no save states and not get a single game over on the first playthrough, there’s a problem.
In fact, let me just rant for a bit. This game is just not programmed well compared to the first game. Remember how when you pick up energy or health refills it pauses the game to give it to you? Well here, it goes up and you can still move. So you could grab health and then take a hit and it’ll refill your health as all the units haven’t finished adding to you yet. Want to refill two weapons? Just fill one up, pause, and then switch to the other and you fill up two special weapons! Always thought grabbing ladders with no hands was cool? Well in this game just get hit and hold up and down and presto you can climb a ladder in your damaged animation! Did you know that Metal Blade in this game uses the wrong animation which shows Rockman shooting it with his Rock Buster. Then you have Clash Bomb where he uses his hands! I think they somehow swapped the animations by accident, how does this happen!? There’s probably one or two things I’m forgetting but there’s no excuse for this.
I’m not even gonna discuss the Rockman 3 Robot Master fights, just know they are the same so let’s just get on with the weapon discussion again. They all once again fall into the same problem of weapon consumption except maybe Hard Knuckle because I forgot to even use it, OOPS! Btw did I forget to mention that after the first four stages, you never get weapon refills after beating a stage. Why they did this I have no idea. You gotta love how they somehow screwed up Magnet Missile against Hard Man because they home in on his Hard Knuckles and not the actual boss! Top Spin just does not work at all. I swear the hitbox is broken on it. I’m timing the move correctly, why am I still getting hit. You know what’s screwed up? I learned Top Spin is good on those Hari Harry enemies in Needle Man’s stage, did any of you even know this?? Doesn’t mean anything because I’M STILL GETTING HIT WHEN I MAKE CONTACT!! Oh yeah Needle Cannon exists. I think it’s still just turbo fire Rock Buster, idk.
Alright you’ve done all the stages and it’s now time for Quint! Get ready for one of the worst fights in the franchise. What does he do? Well he uses a jackhammer robot named Sakugarne and uses short ranged rocks from the ground to hit you. He will also try to do a slow predictable jump on you. The fight ends in like 15-20 seconds. This fight I can’t tell was actually meant to be a joke or not. It’s seriously hard to tell. Well once you beat him you get Sakugarne. It’s strong and you can use it over spikes! The problem is that it lasts about 11 seconds with a full bar and worst of all, if the enemy doesn’t die in one hit, you take damage from using it. Remember how Enker’s weapon taught you how to use it thanks to the first enemy in the final stage being perfect for it. Here you have a Hammer Joe that doesn’t die in one hit meaning you take damage, how swell. Seriously, don't even bother with it.
The final stage takes place in a castle up in space that Rockman reaches using Rush. I’m guessing Dr. Right built that in his spare time after Rockman 3. The background has a lot of warped clocks which is weird. Is this the Time Machine responsible for this? Look there’s nothing much to say. It’s not challenging or even memorable so let’s just skip to Dr. Wily himself. Well first off they got the scale really off in this fight, He’s not even two Rockman sprites tall. He uses the Wily Machine World 2 and it’s got three phases. It’s not really that hard because you probably have 4 E-Tanks by this point so just try to dodge what you can and you’ll win. He doesn’t even need to lose all of his health for the first two phases to end. What a weird way to code that. Well with him defeated we…steal his ability? Yeah you get his weapon to shoot missiles. You teleport out and then Wily somehow escapes first, Rockman shoots a missile and then Wily…crashes onto the Earth. Wait, did he die? What, why is there no ending text to explain what happened, they can’t just end there! Well there is Rockman 4 so I guess we know he lived. Also this credits sequence IS JUST THE SAME ONE FROM ROCKMAN WORLD 1! It doesn't even make sense here since he was piloting Rush and wasn’t on a rocket ship this time. Also what about the Time Machine? OMG this game just angers me. I'm gonna lose it. What even happened to Quint? We saw him teleport away, did he go back to the future? Does Dr. Right reprogram him back to be good? We will never know I guess.
Graphically it’s nothing bad but it does feel off in some ways. With how they had to make some sprites smaller and just some look off like when Rockman slides. I know the first game also changed some sprites but it never looked off to me. Here it just can look amateurish at times. Though it’s not all bad like some of the Robot Masters look alright. It’s far from the game’s problems it already has. The music on the other hand though is decent and bad at the same time. I think there are good and decent melodies here but it’s ruined by how they sound. The pitch is way too high that it becomes ear grating and the instruments chosen just don’t sound correct at times. Usually I like to listen to the OST when writing but this time I listened to this video done by RushJet1 where he remade the OST and it sounds really good. It shows that the music wasn’t just awful in every way. Some of the sound effects sound really weird like getting a special weapon, refilling energy and then the 1-up sound which I swear sounds like a Mario sound effect. I should also mention that this game also has a unused song and it sounds just as ear grating as most of the OST.
Rockman World 2 is a disappointment. This isn’t just a flawed game. It gets a lot of things wrong and it being easy often makes it forgettable. Despite all of my hatred for what was done here, the game is not bad. It’s a bad Rockman game but it really goes to show how good the foundation was for the series and even that first GB game that even this can’t compare it to some of the trash found on the handheld. There’s much worse on the system but Rockman World 2 is easily one of the worst entries I’ll be reviewing in this series. I can’t recommend this one to anyone over the other entries on GB. It makes me wonder what could have been had the previous developers did this entry as well. Thankfully these times are over and we won’t be seeing anything of this quality for a little while. It’s time I head back to the Famicom with Rockman 5. We’re almost at the end of the Famicom tunnel with this series.
Oh and to mention one more thing they screwed up on. Clash Man is not Crash Man in the western release. I don’t even know how they screwed up considering they had to go in and change stuff like the title screen.
Angel_Arle
7 months ago