Mega Man & Bass

"Can Mega man games get any better?"

Mega man has been a great friend of mine since I was about five, back playing Mega man six for the NES. Afterward I’ve made a habit to buy any Mega man game released, aside from the X series games. This game has met the expectations I’ve had for all Mega man games I’ve played, and broken them.

GRAPHICS: 10/10

Beautiful, simple beautiful, the sprites animate fluidly and the two heroes even have different standing sprites when their low on health (Mega man holds his throat and Bass holds his arm, both pant)

STORY: 3/10

If you’re playing a Mega man game for story, shame on you. The story this time is that a super powerful robot, King, takes over Dr. Wily’s fortress. You have to go stop him, but you have to give Capcom something for at least trying something other than “Dr. Wily breaks put of jail go stop him”

GAME PLAY 10/10

Usually if something’s not broke you shouldn’t try to fix it, but Capcom gave fixing the Mega man formula a shot by adding the second playable character, Bass. Both character’s have unique powers the other doesn’t have. Specifically, bass can aim his buster in seven different directions (he can’t aim down) He has a rapid fire buster, can dash, double jump, and can buy a power at the shop, run by Auto, that allows him to call down his faithful metallic mutt, treble, who fuses with Bass and gives him the ability to fly for a short while.

Mega man on the other hand can charge his buster to fire a more powerful sot, but you have to hit b every time you want to fire a bullet. He slides, and can only do a single jump, but he can buy three powers at the shop, beat, which calls down mega man’s bird support unit, which drops a shield around him, Eddie, a little guy who greatly resembles a met, who comes down and gives you random recovery items, and of course Mega man’s pup, rush, who is very tuned down from past game, going from transforming into random vehicles to coming down and digging in the ground for items.

REPLAY: 7/10

Mega man games always have great replay, and this one follows that trend, the game is just as fun the second time through but after a few time the bosses, which can be insane the first time through can become quite easy. Another thing done to increase the playtime is the CD hunt, where you collect CD’s of most of the characters to appear in the series. The only two I’m noticed that fall in this category are Dr. Cossack and Kalinka from mega man IV on the game boy.

CLOSING WORDS: if you’ve enjoy mega man, and even if you’ve never played it before you should go out and get this game as soon as possible. It is defiantly one of the better Game Boy Advance games

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/03, Updated 04/04/03