Hey gamers and gamerettes! With the success of my Mega Man X Review, tonight, my next review will be Mega Man & Bass, also known in Japan as Rockman & Forte (Japanese: ロックマン&フォルテ). Mega Man & Bass was originally released in Japan on April 24, 1998 on the Super Famicom, then five years later it came to America on the Game Boy Advance on March 11, 2003. This game in Japan debuted at the time when the 16-bit Super Famicom was dying and the 3D consoles such as PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo 64 were increasingly popular at that time. This game is very good and epic, however critics and fans believed that the difficulty of Mega Man & Bass was too steep. Now it's time to review this game with power!
Plot. A robot villain named King has broken into Dr. Wily's laboratory and then to the Robot Museum, where he collects the data blueprints for the creations of Dr. Light. Dr. Light alerts Mega Man and orders him to go to the Robot Museum and confront this new enemy. Meanwhile, Bass (Mega Man's rival and Wily's creation) discovers the criminal activities of King, and sees this as an opportunity to prove himself superior to Mega Man by defeating King. King's ultimate goal is to create a utopia where robots rule over humans. To accomplish this, using the blueprints he collected, King begins to create a massive army and invites Proto Man to join him. But Proto Man refuses by attacking King, and gets sliced in half in the process. Proto Man then transports back to the lab for repairs while King escapes with the blueprints. Thus both Mega Man and Bass go to stop King. One goes to bring back peace, while the other one to prove his superiority over the blue bomber.
Gameplay. Mega Man and Bass is a 2D sidescrolling action adventure game in which you can play as either the blue bomber or Bass. Mega Man has his usual abilities from the beginning such as shooting, charging up shots, and even sliding. While Bass, has rapid fire and the abilities to dash and double jump. Performing both simultaneously causes him to jump higher and faster. Destroying a "Robot Master" boss let's the player acquire it's special weapon. The stage structure is different from the other games.
Players can collect bolts that are dropped by enemies, in which when they have enough they can purchase Energy Tanks, Weapon Tanks, new skills, stronger firepower, enhanced defense, and so on. For Bass, there is an adapter he can obtain that calls his wolf dog Treble, fusing with him and enabling him to fly. While Mega Man can call Rush to search for certain items. Also distributed throughout the introduction and Robot Master levels are a collection of 100 data CDs that contain information on many prominent characters in the series. Most of the CDs are hidden either behind obstacles that need to be destroyed with a special weapon or accessed with a character-specific ability, making it impossible to collect them all on a single playthrough. Saved games are now used instead of passwords.
Concept. After the introduction stage, players can choose between three Robot Masters. Defeating Cold Man unlocks Burner Man and Pirate Man; defeating Astro Man unlocks Dynamo Man; and defeating Ground Man unlocks Magic Man and Tengu Man. Clearing all eight opens the way to the game's final stages.
Design and Development. Mega Man & Bass was developed for the Super Famicom after the release of Mega Man 8, which preceded Mega Man & Bass on the 32-bit consoles, the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Keiji Inafune stated that Mega Man & Bass was intended for younger players who stilled owned the Super Famicom and did not have any experience with the PS1 and Sega Saturn. He also said, "Even though trying to bridge out a new title on the [Super Famicom] was a little backwards at the time, we didn't want to make a half-hearted attempt at it." In terms of the graphics, despite being a 16-bit game, it has the same two-dimensional sprites of Mega Man 8. Two of the eight Robot Masters (Astro Man and Tengu Man) are borrowed from Mega Man 8. Stages are so well designed that I loved them. My favorite stages are those of Astro Man, Burner Man, Tengu Man, Pirate Man, Ground Man, and Magic Man.
Sound and Music. The sound effects of the game are like a crossing between Mega Man 7 and Mega Man 8, which were a pretty good mixture in a way. The music is once again composed by Toshihiko Horiyama, along with Naoshi Mizuta and Akari Kaida. Magic Man's theme sounds like if you were in a circus, which was really cool.
Memories. In 2001, one of my cousins introduced me to this game and I enjoyed it. Me and him are old time Mega Man and Mega Man X fans. We actually played it in an emulator, unfortunately the rom was in Japanese while the English ones were poorly translated. Though very late for an SNES game, this one is unique.
Legacy. Mega Man and Bass was just as popular as Mega Man 8 despite being a Super Famicom game. However, those who played the game in emulators had their prayers answered when this game came to the Game Boy Advance on March 11, 2003. I was 17 at that time, but personally I prefer the SNES version more than the GBA version, because the music is so watered down on the Game Boy Advance.
Rantings. What bothered me of this game is the steep difficulty against King, especially when you fight against him as Bass. Bass should have had his own charged shot as well, but his enhanced firepower despite being rapid was decent. A boss I hated the most was Dynamo Man, took many tries to beat him. But a boss I hated more than Dynamo Man, was the King Fighter Carrier. This fight would last long from 10 to 15 minutes when playing as Bass, and I would constantly get game overs. Talk about a long, boring, tedious fight.
Good Aspects. Mega Man and Bass is a great game with high replay value, and a million great qualities. Also what I loved about this game was that King's destiny would be revealed differently depending if your using either Mega Man or Bass. Getting the CDs which had the data of old bosses was a fun sidequest to do because, it brought back so many memories of previous Mega Man games starting from the NES to the PS1.
Overall. Mega Man & Bass is a must have, if you still have a Game Boy Advance you can either get it on Ebay or at your local game store if they still sell GBA and other retro games. This game gets an 8 out of 10.
God Bless and Play Hard Gamers!
