RockMan Battle & Fighters

"A quick and fun....fighting game?"

This is the only port of the Mega Man 'fighting' games from the arcade to exist so far.This pack actually has two games in it,Power Battle and Power Fighters.The whole gist is that you fight just Robot Master after Robot Master (a different mix of them from Mega Man 1-7), without the side scrolling levels that are in the typical Mega Man game.

Graphics 7/10
The background graphics are pretty nice with good detail and a few moving parts in them.Some of the backgrounds as a whole are separate scrolling screens.

There are also some story scenes,though I thought they were only okay art wise.

The detail for the characters is pretty good,but they suffer a little in their color lay out.For example,instead of a dark blue/light blue mix for Mega Man he is light blue on white.

Sound 6/10
The sound effects were very crisp and clear,they do not suffer from having too many sound effects going on at once.

The music,while nice,does not have a lot of variety.I think there is only four different level music tracks (so that many of the levels have the same background music).I found this to be more then a little cheap.

Control 7/10
With the characters themselves I had no problems with,They all control very well no matter what you need them to do.However,I did have a problem with the way the screen scrolled when I was in levels that had a little extra room (as most of them do) on either side of the screen.I would have to get one character width away from the end of the screen before it would move.Because the screen would not move with the enemy character,it can hide out of view while firing on you from off screen leaving you to either out wait it or move blindly forward hoping you do not get hit.A little on the frustrating side sometimes.

Gameplay8/10
The game play is rather simple.You fight one on one against a Robot Master (and get the Robot Master's weapon,like any other Mega Man game).You then fight a few end game bosses.

For Power Battle
You see a circle of lands with a cursor spinning around them.You hit the action button to stop the cursor,and what it lands on is the level you play.This is a change from most Mega Man games where you pick exactly who you want to fight next,and sometimes leads to fights that you are not ready for.In this game you get a little bit of your life replenished each time you win a match.

For Power Fighters
You do not get the slot machine type selection screen that you do in the other game and instead have the freedom to pick who you want to fight next.The Robot Masters will sometimes drop items when they get hit (either life capsules,energy capsules for your special weapons,or extra point capsules).You will also have to pick up the Robot Master's weapon when you blow him up.You only have a few seconds to do this.If you can't get to it in time,you do not get it at all.

The Player Characters
For Power Battle you can choose between Mega Man,Bass,and Proto Man.In Power Fighters you can also choose Duo.They all can charge their weapons by holding down on the fire button.Each character can cover ground quickly by press down+jump,though each does so in a different way.When Duo does this move he can hurt the enemy.In Power Fighters the characters (except for Duo) can use a special move by pressing up and releasing a charged shot.Mega Man does a dragon punch,Proto Man has a short range fire ball,and Bass does a flashkick.

The Robot Masters
All of the Robot Masters have new attack patterns in this game.They also have longer life bars as the game moves on.I question some of Capcom's selection on what Robot Masters made it into these games though.I mean,I can't be the only one who thinks Plant Man is a little on the lame side.....

All In All
This is a great game for when you do not have time for a really in-depth portable game.The games do not last very long so it is great to pull out the game, play it for about fifteen minutes, and then go back to what you were doing before your break.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/23/01, Updated 08/23/01