Mega Man: The Power Battle

"I'm apologize to Mega Man X4 for calling it the worst MM game.... because this piece of crap takes that title"

I've always wanted to play a Mega Man fighting game.... so I was excited when I found this game for my emulator. My excitement quickly turned into grief as I realized that if this is what a Mega Man fighting game would be like, then I hope Capcom doesn't make any more Mega Man fighters.

Story:
If you played any side scroller Mega Man game, then you'll know what the story is about. The only difference is that there are six robot masters before you get to go to Wily's castle. You also get to play as Bass (The fin headed robot from Mega Man 7-9), Mega Man, or Proto Man.
The story gets a (0 out of 10 for the complete lack of originality.)

Graphics:
Typical Mega Man style graphics.... cartoony. It is a shame that this is the only good thing about this craptastic game.
The graphics gets a (7 out of 10 because the graphics are pretty good for a 1995 arcade game.)

Music:
The same friggin' track is played when fighting each robot master and Wily (note I didn't say level, I'll get to that later). The ''stage select'' music is also obnoxious. I'll get to why I put stage select in quotation marks later.
Music gets a (0 out of 10 because all 3 tracks in this game sucks.)

Sound Effects:
The Mega, Proto, and Bass Busters all sound like they farted. The voices for the heroes also sound very effiminate.
Sound effects gets a (1 out of 10 because they included voices, albeit not very good ones. I gave them a point for effort.)

Gameplay:
Now this is where the game really blew it! At the start of each game, you get to pick a course. You either fight Mega Man 1&2 robot masters, Mega Man 3-6 robot masters, or Mega man 7 robot masters. This makes figuring out weaknesses a mere guessing game. OH WAIT, YOUR INITIAL BUSTER WORKS BETTER ON EVERY BOSS THAN YOUR SPECIAL WEAPONS, SO IT DOESN'T MATTER. The thing that hurt gameplay the most was the fact that the start of each stage was a fight with the robot master themselves. The control is ok, but sliding and dashing displace you way too far, causing cheap hits by having you ram into a robot master. I'll get more into that later.
Gameplay earns a (0 out of 10 for everything mentioned in the above paragraph.)

2 Player Mode
WHAT THE HECK WAS CAPCOM THINKING?! In this game, whoever finishes off Dr. Wily at the end has their ending shown. The other person gets screwed royally. The only ending worth seeing is Proto Man's anyway.
2 Player gets a (0 out of 10 for the ending thing.)

Nitpicks:
1) The layout of Wily's domain is 6 islands connected to Wily's castle with each robot master and his castle in the middle. The heroes decide to fight all 6 robot masters instead of going to Wily after they cleared a path to his castle.
2) Why the heck does Mega Man's pansy Mega Buster work better against Wood Man than Heat Man's weapon?
3) Bass's fin helmet must do lethal damage because one time my girlfriend played the game, she dashed into Plant Man and killed him (I'm not kidding).
4) If Proto Man, Bass, and Mega Man are working together to stop Wily, then why don't they each attack a different robot master at the same time or gang up on them?

Replay Value:
This game had no play value to boot so it has no replay value.

To rent or buy:
This isn't really an issue because the only way this game is available is through emulation. Even then, this game isn't worth the time spent downloading it.

If you're looking for a great Mega Man game, look elsewhere.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 02/15/02, Updated 02/15/02