Mega Man & Bass
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Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels but with Mega Man and actually good.
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Mega Man & Bass is a 1998 action-platform video game developed and published by Capcom. It was originally released for the Super Famicom on April 24, 1998.
Plot
The story of Mega Man & Bass varies on which playable character is chosen. It begins one year after the events of Mega Man 8 when a robot villain named King breaks into Dr. Wily's laboratory and then the Robot Museum to collect the data blueprints for the creations of Dr. Light.
Why It Rocks
- For starters, the graphics are absolutely beautiful for a SNES game and even for a GBA game, with the graphics being mostly taken from Mega Man 8 but with a bit less color due to the SNES and GBA not having the same powers as the PS1, the sprite work was also taken from that game and being almost not even being downgraded.
- The backgrounds are also so good that they can be a rival for some of the best-looking games on the console, such as Mr. Nutz, Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Yoshi Island.
- In fact, the graphics of this game are so good that it can be considered to be one of the best-looking Mega Man games and even one of the best-looking games on the SNES, considering how good the sprite work is, and they're barely whatered down, despite being on the SNES. In fact, this is also one of the main reasons why this game is so impressive, at least on the SNES since the GBA is a bit closer to the PS1 in terms of hardware limitations.
- Despite not being as tight as Mega Man 8, the controls are still quite tight and responsive, meaning that you will not fall to your death if you play extremely well, much like Marble Madness and Doraemon 2 on SNES.
- Unlike Mega Man 7, you have four save files that you can save if you either beat a level or get a continue screen. This also helps very much because the game is quite longer than the other Mega Man games at the time (more details on that later).
- Amazing presentation, especially for a SNES game since the visuals are so sharp that it's making the presentation superb. The GBA version presentation will also be as good, if not better.
- Unsurprisingly, the soundtrack is absolutely awesome, phenomenal, and even one of the best soundtracks out of any Mega Man games, with some of the most catchy and epic music of the entire franchise; in fact, it might be even better than Mega Man 7. The soundtrack can also go from relaxing, catchy, to epic, being so good that you might want to listen to it over and over; it's so good that it can even rival Mega Man 2.
- The soundtrack composition in the SNES version is very perfect and the better one since it's been composed in the perfect way that it's make it very great to listen. The Game Boy Advance port also has great music but less good due to different composition due to the limitation of the console, but it's not really a bad change since it's still awesome to listen to and it's actually made the soundtrack of it being almost different than the SNES version.
- The Game Boy Advance version's composition is also very great despite being less crisp than the SNES version,as it's made the soundtrack a bit different and not really butchered in a bad way since it's still so good to listen to that some songs on the GBA version might be better to some people, although since the soundtrack of the Game Boy Advance port is divided by the fans.
- For the first time in the series, you play as Bass in this game, making this game the first classic Mega Man (not counting the X series since Mega Man X4 was released before this game) to have two playable characters.
- The game is much easier with Bass since the game was designed with him, and unfortunately not that much for Mega Man.
- Speaking of Bass, it's much easier to play with him because he can double jump; this is also because the game was designed with his ability in mind, as stated before.
- The animations of the characters are very smooth; even by SNES standards, the animations are also improved from Mega Man 7.
- Much like Mega Man 7, there's a shop that has a lot of items and some great ones, such as an extra life or an item that doesn't make you die instantly to the spikes.
- The levels are varied and challenging for expert Mega Man players, especially given the fact that the backgrounds are also varied, which is mostly why the levels are varied.
- The box art is cool for both versions, especially the Super Famicom one, which is extremely well drawn, as it's got a cool electric effect and the art is overall excellent.
- The boss fights are really fun, despite being too difficult for most parts, and are a great challenge (except King and Burner Man, which are extremely tedious to fight).
- Despite how hard this game is, it's still fun to play, as the gameplay is very similar to Mega Man 8 and this is all despite the poor level design for a lot of levels.
- There are a decent number of replay values due to the secret and also the fact that playing as either Mega Man or Bass makes the game a bit different. You also have to play as both characters to get 100%; you also have to play with both Mega Man and Bass to get all the CDs, which is a good use of replay values, and this is mostly because these are placed in the ability of both characters in mind.
- The ending is different with both characters; the Mega Man ending is somewhat sad, as he was sad to not have the chance to rescue King, but it is still rewarding, and the Bass ending is somewhat funny, even if he is a bit unlikable to Dr. Wily as he had beat Wily, and Proto-Man destroys his second plan with another robot that is similar to King.
- The Dr. Wily Castle, while hard, is quite epic and challenging for all the levels since it's got awesome music playing on these stages, and the boss fights are very epic.
- The Robot Master designs look cool, as usual with the franchise.
Bad Qualities
- Along With Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on Master System/Game Gear, Ghosts 'n Goblins and Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, the main problem of this game in both versions is the notoriously high difficulty. All the levels are designed to make them harder (especially King's Castle). While Bass has little trouble with it (except with the final battle with King), Mega Man, on the other hand, has a hard time dealing with them. Because of this, many fans considered the main protagonist of the entire franchise to be the hardest route of the game. This is mostly due to the poor level design, but despite that, the game is still fun to play, unlike another game that suffers from this issue.
- While most of the bosses are great, Burner Man and King are the worst. The King boss has 4 phases, and it's extremely difficult for 1 and 2 phases.
- First, In the first phase, boss King rides the tank, but both of them are really long to attack the tank; it's really tiresome, and it can annoy you really fast.
- Second, in the 2 phases, boss, there is a platforming section. The problem was screen rolling, constant platforming, and attack patterns because he used a fist attack that could destroy the platform and a flashbang that couldn't see what you were jumping, leaving you accidentally falling with no reason.
- Bass' buster is weak on the bosses, making him have a hard time beating them. Despite the fact that he can shoot in eight directions, this is a huge problem considering how most of them are really hard, even when playing as Mega Man.
- It heavily reuses content from Mega Man 8, such as having almost all enemies in it. There are new enemies in Mega Man & Bass, but they're just variants of the previous game's enemies.
- It goes to the point where it has Tengu Man and Astro Man from that game (although their weapons are completely different).
- The localization of the Game Boy Advance port was rushed, with a lot of dialogue being poorly translated, although not as bad as Mega Man X6.
- There is a lack of E-Tanks like in Mega Man 8, which makes the game even harder, but here it is even worse than in Mega Man 8 since that game was hard but not as hard as this game, and here it's made the game even harder.
- The second-to-final stage is literally three stages in a row, each with really hard bosses, especially the last one.
- After you defeat the boss in King 1, not only does the boss emerge, but the platform falls. Meaning that you can fall off after the boss dies!
- The Game Boy Advance port, while not terrible, has a lot of flaws.
- First of all, the main problem with this port is that the screen crunch is extremely awful and prevents a lot of view, and you can get a hard time seeing some platforms to jump in; in fact, this makes the game even more difficult than on the SNES.
- Another problem is that, while it is still awesome, the soundtrack has been a bit butchered, although not as much as Earthworm Jim 2 on the GBA, which was even worse than this port.
- The translation was rushed, as said in BQ#5, since a lot of dialogues are inaccurately translated.
- This version was also the reason why this game is hated by some people, as it's very downgraded along with the awful screen crunch, and it's not helped by the fact that the game only saw the GBA version outside Japan at the time.
Reception
Mega Man & Bass was well received by critics and players when it was released, especially the Super Famicom version. The game got a score of 79/100 for the GBA port in Metacritic; however, they are criticized for the screen crunch in the GBA version. The game also gained a cult following over the years and is talked about a lot nowadays on YouTube. However, the GBA port isn't really well received by fans and is mostly the reason for some hates on the game.
Trivia
- A fan demake in the style of the NES game like Mega Man 7 and Mega Man 8 was originally going to be released, but get cancelled.
- Some fans call this Mega Man 8.5 due to a direct sequel of Mega Man 8.
- This is the first console game (aside from Mega Man 7's hidden two-player mode) where Bass is a playable character.
- This is the only Mega Man game on the Super Nintendo that wasn't released in the U.S.
- Interestingly, this title adds one unique feature to the Classic series that the Mega Man X series originally started since its inception. If Mega Man or Bass are low on life energy and are not moving, they will breathe hard, something X started doing since his first game whenever he was running low on life energy.
- The game uses the art style of Mega Man 8, but with the lower resolution, zoomed-in playfield of Mega Man 7. The game also uses sound effects from Mega Man 7.
- Originally, Mega Man & Bass was meant to be an "alternate continuation" of the Mega Man classic series that followed the events of Mega Man 8, but Mega Man 9's ending directly referenced the ending of Mega Man & Bass (as well as the endings of the other eight numerical games in the series).
- This is the only non-numbered console game to be directly referenced in Mega Man 9.
- Like Mega Man 8, Mega Man & Bass does not have artwork for the Special Weapons.
- Humorously, in the Mega Man & Bass GBA English instruction manual, in addition to Wily's name being spelt "Wiley," Proto Man, Treble, and Auto were all addressed by their Japanese names (Blues, Gospel, and Rightot, spelled as "Lightott").
- Interestingly (and possibly intentionally), the six new Robot Masters appear to be a throwback to the ones from the first Mega Man game. Each of them has a similar weapon - either by element or by the nature of the weapon - to those of the Robot Masters from the first game: Cold Man/Ice Man, Burner Man/Fire Man, Pirate Man/Bomb Man, Ground Man/Guts Man, Magic Man/Cut Man, and Dynamo Man/Elec Man.
- Furthermore, they share the same weakness order as the Robot Masters in Mega Man: Electricity → Ice → Fire → Bomb → Ground → Blade.
- Binetsu by Bereeve is the song used in the Super Famicom commercial for Mega Man & Bass.
- The description for Rush Search in the shop could be a reference to Diggers from the Mega Man Legends series.
- Capcom originally planned this game to be a Super Famicom version of Mega Man 8 for people that did not purchase a 32-bit console.
- Mega Man & Bass was originally thought by fans to have been the Mega Man 9 in the series as well as the last title by some (excluding spin-offs), until the ninth numbered title was officially released in 2008.
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