Rockman & Forte - Mirai Kara no Chousensha Review by: bigpizzahut - 7/10
The One Mega Man Everyone Forgot The Mega Man games are praised for their incredible music, level design, and, for the most part, character design (coughPlantManCough). Apparently, with this game, Bandai was getting sick of Nintendo dominating the handheld market with Pokemon and the Game Boy, so they went up to Capcom in hopes of releasing an EXCLUSIVE for their handheld, the WonderSwan. Capcom didn't have that much to lose in the handheld market, having already released five- er- V games on the Game Boy. Thus, after a while of collaboration, "Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chousensha" was born. But how does this game hold up next to the rest of the Classic Mega Man series? In this, I will use the first Mega Man and Bass game as a comparison point to this game.
SOUND- 9/10
I'll start with the ways it works well then go into where it really falls short. One of the things I especially like about this game is the way that the music is 8-bit renditions of Mega Man and Bass' already excellent soundtrack. It was a very nice touch, and I would probably give the sound a high score in any Mega Man game. For a game released in '99 on a handheld, the instruments sound incredible. There are sillier little sound effects, like the weird shrilly noise when Mega Man or Bass climb a ladder, or the fact that shooting repeatedly with Mega Man causes the cliché "power down" sound effect to play. Occasionally the music screeches, but for the platform, it's comparatively great.
DEPTH- 8/10
This game has a bit going for it in that you have two distinct characters to choose from, as in the first Mega Man and Bass. You cannot change freely between them mid-game, so if you want to fully experience both characters, you have to play through twice. Oddly, you can buy the upgrades for the other character in the shop (I'll go into that later) Unlike the previous game, Bass can dodge more attacks with his dash-slide-thing, and their robot master weapons have more variety between the two characters. They did a much better job balancing the characters out, Mega Man is no longer the "Hard Mode", while in the last game, Mega Man was fiendishly difficult. For example, Mega Man gets a weapon akin to Magma Man's from Mega Man 9 from Dangan Man, one of the bosses, while Bass gets a weapon akin to the Homing Sniper from Mega Man 8.. The upgrades have a decently wide variety, with 4 restricted to each character, as well as 9 that can be used in both Mega Man and Bass.There ARE only six robot masters as in Mega Man 1 for the NES, but there is a lack of Fortress bosses, which is a shame, because the fortress bosses are infamous for being irritating (Yellow Devil, the spider-box-thing from Mega Man 8).
GRAPHICS- 7/10
Monochrome handhelds aren't exactly known for their brilliant graphics. But this game pulls off the graphics OUTSIDE the platforming well, while the bosses look average in the platform parts. The logo and story "cutscenes" are pulled off great in comparison to other WonderSwan games. I also docked a point or two in the design of the minor enemies. We have a weird moth-thing which I'm not even sure if it's a robot. The Mets (the hard hats) are way too big for an enemy that is known for being the Goomba of Mega Man. And what's up with the funny-looking LADYBUGS? The animation also lost this game a point. Mega Man is a smooth platformer and a lot of the fun is in making cool dodges and maneuvers. The animation in this is clunky, and doesn't fit too well with the Mega Man playstyle.
STORY- 5/10
Classic Mega Man games never have much in the way of story. It's usually "shoot Robots, get weapons, shoot Wily". This has a few moments in terms of cutscene, like Rockman Shadow's bleeding face in the ending, but it still has a silly, simple story if you look at other games. It doesn't help that I can't read Japanese. I didn't remove overall points for the story, though. Mega Man games are pick-up-and-play, and a big story would just get in the way (one of the major complaints about the SNES Mega Man 7 was the long, boring, "cutscene" before the opening stage). If you want a tad more story, hope over to the other Mega Man franchises.
DIFFICULTY- 7/10
This game, like all Mega Man games, is difficult but not punishingly. The game-over mechanics are the same in most Mega Man games, so death isn't a major setback. The actual levels aren't particularly hard. There are, however, stupid points in the level design, like an area containing a health or other power-up Mega Man can easily REACH but cannot get out of. If you're going to have an item that only one of your characters can reach without dying, you might as well make it an extra life. Another thing- playing on an emulator is fine, with the exception of Aircon Man's little side-ways handheld gimmick, but the actual handheld is awkward to use, as you have two D-Pads, one directly above the other, both of which do the EXACT SAME THING. Occasionally, I hit the top controller's "down" to slide, and end up glitching it up a bit. Sliding to dodge spikes in this game is already buggy enough as it is (sometimes your head gets stuck IN the spike), why make both D-Pads do the same thing? At least use one of them for menu options or changing weapons, like the trigger buttons in other Mega Man games.
ADDICTIVENESS- 6/10
Most Mega Man games are overly addictive. But this game is -ech- at the most. The gameplay isn't as smooth, the learning curve is steeper, and frankly, it's not as good as the others in the series. I am willing to play through all the other Mega Man games again, with the exception of the other Mega Man and Bass, but that's only because Burner Man's stage is stupidly hard. If you want to pick up a nice handheld Mega Man platformer that plays great, I direct you to the Mega Man Zero series. It feels satisfying to pull of amazing maneuvers, and this game doesn't have that real smoothness that makes it addictive.
All in all, this is a pretty good game in its own right, but compared to the other Mega Man games, it is just barely acceptable as a part of the Mega Man franchise.
~ThatPizzaGuy/bigpizzahut
Graphics
7 Sound
10 Addictive
6 Depth
8 Story
5 Difficulty
7
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