Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chōsensha

Rockman & Forte: Mirai Kara no Chōsensha
This is what you get when someone who hasn't developed a game of a franchise do a game out of it, sound familliar?
Genre(s): Platform Platform(s): WonderSwan Release: August 5, 1999 Developer(s): Bandai Publisher(s): Capcom Predecessor: Mega Man & Bass (by release date) Rockman World 2 (chronologically)

Rockman & Forte: Mirai kara no Chōsensha (ロックマン&フォルテ 未来からの挑戦者 Rokkuman ando Forute: Mirai kara no Chousensha, lit. "Rockman & Forte: Challenger from the Future") is a video game in the classic Rockman series.

Plot

The year is 200X. Symphony City, a city where people and robots live in peace, is attacked by robots called the Dimensions. According to eyewitnesses, the overwhelmingly powerful Dimensions are led by a robot that looks just like Rockman. He resembled a dark evil figure obsessed with destruction. When Rockman heard the news at Right's laboratory, he ran out to the scene despite the fact that he was under maintenance. At the same time, Wily saw the dark Rockman and sent Forte to the city to confirm the mystery. Who exactly is the dark Rockman?!

Bad Qualities

1. The level design is very poor, just like it's predecessor, but here it's even worst, the poorly designed levels include, but are not limited to:
   • For the Aircon Man stage, you must turn up your WonderSwan to play it. Not only is it not necessary, but it's also a huge problem due to the fact that it's created a huge screen crunch. Due to that, it's almost, if not the worst stage of the entire game.
     • Not only that, but the mini-boss battle is very poorly designed due to the fact that you have to hit the mets helmet to shoot the boss, but it's so poorly designed that you will have a huge trouble beating the boss.
   • Even the intro stage is bad (though not as bad as the rest of the game), there's a lot of poor enemy placement that makes the stage very tedious, especially when you play as Bass, as his buster is again weak.
   • For Kosukuma stage, there's a lot of terrible platform placement and a terrible mini-boss again, with the stage being incredibly long and tedious.
   • These levels are so badly designed that even Mega Man on DOS has a less bad level design at times.
2. Poor remix of the Mega Man & Bass soundtrack that sounds very ear-bleeding due to the bad sound engine of the WonderSwan, although some of the musics still are catchy but still, the music can sound incredibly bad at times.
3. While the gameplay is said to be the same, it barely feels like the first Mega Man & Bass or even the NES games, mostly due to being developped by Bandai, who hasn't developped a Mega Man game before (although they still done a good job for a first game out of a franchise that they hasn't developped a game for).
4. The game also suffers from an incredibly slow gameplay that makes the game boring sometimes; even Mega Man on DOS is faster despite being a much worse game than this.
5. The title is misleading since the game takes place after Rock Man World II on Game Boy, not after the first Mega Man and Bass, this make this game Incredibly confusing if you know about that, due to this, most peoples think that it's a direct sequel to the first Mega Man & Bass game but it doesn't.
6. Almost, if not all, the characters have terrible design in this game, especially Aircon Man, in which he looks like a poor man. Air Man from Mega Man 2, or even Mega Man & Bass (only in the cutscenes) and Bass, who doesn't look as cool as he was in Mega Man 7 or even the first Mega Man & Bass.
7. When you pause the game, the music of the level will repeat after you press start to go back in the game, which can be very annoying, this was made even worst due to the fact that the musics is ear bleeding.
8. Almost all the boss fights are poorly designed, and they don't have any invincibility frames compared to you,and they are extremely bad compared to most Mega Man games.
   • Aircon Man is very easy since you have to jump to the rock that comes for hitting him, and due to the non-existent invincibility frames, he is too easy to beat.
   • The devil from the intro stage is also easy since you just have to be close to him and shoot like a maniac, and dodging is attacking and repeating the same thing again, in fact it's the easiest Devil of the entire franchise, thank to how horribly easy the boss is, although he still better than his even worst boss fight in the first Mega Man game on NES.
   • Konro Man is also a terrible boss because his attacks are so easy to dodge, and you can beat him like the devil from the intro stage, he is also Incredibly easy and one of the easiest of the entire game.
   • Komuso Man is also a very bad boss, with his attacks being very annoying to dodge, and he is one of the worst bosses in the entire game. He can also clone himself to kill you very easily, and that's mostly the main problem of this boss, thank to how tedious he is.
   • Dangan Man is too similar to the devil; only he jumps and throws his projectiles faster, but that still makes him a terrible boss, although he is still pretty much better than the Devil but still.
   • Clock Men is easily the easiest boss in the entire game since you can beat him in less than 10 seconds with his own weakness, this is possibly the most lauchable boss of the entire franchise due to that.
   • Conpass Man is also too easy for the same reason as Clock Men; due to his weakness, it's even the same weakness as Clock Men, you can also attack him without stopping and you would still beat him.
   • Even R-Shadow is too easy, as his attack is not hard to dodge and he does the same attack over and over, this is especially true when you understand his path of attacks.
9. The game is too short, even when you play with all the two characters, as you can beat the game in less than an hour.
10. Poor enemies placement that make this game incredibly hard at time and very frustrating, even when compared to the first Mega Man & Bass game, it's even make the level design to be even worst than it's already is.
11. Some of the music sounds out of place, such as the Burning Man music when Mega Man talks to R-Shadow in a cutscene, though it is somewhat fitting.
12. Poor sprite work, as the character sprites look atrocious and fail to translate the NES sprites of the original Hexalogy to the Wonderswan, since it's clear they weren't made by Capcom nor were the developers given already existing assets, as Bandai created them from stratch and they didn't do a splendid job at doing so, since they look humanoid and rarely resemble the original characters, and instead look more like Warner Bros cartoon characters.
    • The sprite work in some of the cutscenes is even worst since some of the characters doesn't even look like their original conterpart, especially Mega Man and Bass, Bass howe,er might be the worst offender of this.
13. Bad controls, as Mega Man moves very slow and has terrible jumping physics that make platforming segments difficult, and Bass' moveset got nerfed so badly that he suffers from the same problems as Mega Man does, with his dashes having the same speed as his regular walking cycle. Sometimes, button in-puts rarely work, making the games frustrating.
14. The framerate is atrocious, since it runs at a snail's pace, and tends to slowdown at times too, which is unacceptable for a WonderSwan title, and when combined with the already slow pacing of the gameplay, creates an unenjoyable experience.
15. Several glitches, such as colliding into solid walls and animation frames stop working for no reason, and also some sound glitches occasionally here and there once a while, causing the game to sometimes crash at times too.

Good Qualities

1. Despite the weird character design, the graphics are passable and good, especially for a WonderSwan game.
2. At least the game is easier than the original Mega Man & Bass on SNES and GBA.
3. The gameplay is still okay despite being slow and barely having the same gameplay as Mega Man and Bass.
4. It's still not as bad as the DOS games.
5. Despite the fact that some of the musics sound extremely poor compared to the first Mega Man & Bass game, most of them are still catchy.
6. The box art look really good, as usual with Mega Man games.

Reception

The game mostly receives mixed reviews from critics and players alike, with some peoples that liked this game, some that say it's mediocre or other who say that it's downright awful.

There's also peoples who prefer this game to the first Mega Man & Bass game, at least the GBA version.

Trivia

• Actually this game is not a sequel to the original Mega Man & Bass but rather a sequel to Rock Man World II on Game Boy.

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