Mega Man and Bass: Challenger From the Future (Wonderswan)

God damn it Capcom, what the hell is wrong with
you? You go and licenses another Mega Man game?! Don't you know that... wait? This game is alright? You mean Bandai actually put effort into this game? Huh? Guess I'll have to start this review over.

Rockman and Forte: Challenger From the Future is a Japanese only release for the hand held Wonderswan system. Since the Wonderswan saw limited release in the US, it's not surprising the states never saw a release of this game. Bandai has a pretty close relationship with the Mega Man series, releasing toys, cartoons, and mangas, so it's not surprising that Capcom would let them make a game for their little hand-held.

I should come out and say that this game isn't as good as your standard Mega Man games, but it's no where near as offensively bad as Mega Man PC. In fact, it's kinda fun. It could be better, but hey, it's better than Battle and Chase and that was developed by Capcom.

Story
A year or so after the events of Mega Man and Bass, a strange robot from the future arrives with an army and attacks the city, and he looks just like Mega Man! Mega Man heads to the scene where the robot introduces himself as Mega Man Shadow, well actually he says Rockman Shadow, but hey I'm throwing in the localizations that don't exist. Meanwhile, Dr. Wily sends Bass to find out what all the commotion is about, since his lab is nearby.

Mega Man Shadow claims to be Quint from Mega Man II, who was sent back to the past by Dr. Wily years ago. He has come back for revenge on Mega Man after brooding for so long, and has brought an army with him.

By the way, this is the first instance in the games entire series where Quint is said to be Mega Man from the future. I have no idea about mangas or other sources, but I believe this is the first utterance of it ever. Since this game is made by Bandai, it isn't necessarily canon, but there have been some references to it in ZX Advent. Quint was later adopted to this idea in Mega Man and Bass for Game Boy Advance, but only in North America. So is Quint really Mega Man from the future according to the official game canon? He certainly can't be proven to not be yet...

Anyway, Mega Man and Bass decide to unite temporarily to deal with a common enemy. After they finally defeat Mega Man Shadow, he reveals the truth. Mega Man Shadow was created when Dr. Wily went into the future. He first experimented with the future technology and created Mega Man Shadow, but discarded him once he found the real Mega Man, which he reprogrammed into Quint.

Mega Man Shadow wanted to prove to his creator that he wasn't useless, and that he could take down Mega Man. But he failed, regrets his purpose, dies, everyone goes home, game over. He's seen without his helmet in the final picture, so we can assume Dr. Light repaired him and reprogrammed him, but then again Bass is there looking buddy-buddy too, and that just doesn't make a lick of sense.

All of this is gathered from fan translations, so for all I know, R-Shadow is really construction worker caught in a bad day. But I think we can trust the fan consensus here. Not a fantastic story, but par for Mega Man.

Aesthetics
Well, just look at these screenshots. The art style is decidedly different, but not too bad. The in-game stuff on the other hand? Well frankly it's a bit ugly. I couldn't tell you what the power of the Wonderswan is, since it had a very limited released in the US, but Wikipedia says the Wonderswan Color didn't come out until a year after this game.

The Game Boy Advanced wouldn't be out for a couple of years, and the Game Boy Color was only slightly better in visuals, so this game does meet standards for the time. Yeah, Game Gear could do better, but only if you liked carrying a really expensive brick. (I can't hate on the Game Gear enough).

The stages don't look much different from each other, and some stages have land mines that are really hard to distinguish from the rest of the level. There's only a handful of enemies, and most of them look terrible, like the 3D cube that shoots at you, what the hell? It's not a great looking game.

Sound
Ok, but not very memorable. There's a few remixed soundtracks from Mega Man and Bass thrown on here, but degraded quality to meet the limitations of the system. The other sound effects are little blips and boops you associate with lower end systems. You won't be blown away.

Design
The game comes off of Mega Man and Bass, and once again, players are given the choice of who they want to play. Mega Man has a slide and charge shot, while Bass rapid fires and double jumps. There's more to it than the previous game though, as Mega Man and Bass each get different weapons from the bosses this time.

And the weapons, boy are they over powered! Imagine if in Mega Man 2, every weapon slot was the Metal Blade, and that it one-shotted each enemy. Now imagine that your Buster was so underpowered, everything would take upwards of 5 to 6 shots to kill. Now you have an idea of what the weapons are like in this game.

To their credit, even if the weapons weren't so devastatingly better than the buster, all of them would have more situational and utility usage than many previous Mega Man titles. Konro Man's weapon creates a shield that you can fire in the air, Dangan Man's weapon homes in on targets, and Bass's Doppeler Attack is a speed runners dream, as it allows you to move through walls and attack targets by touching them.

Bass get's a lot of unfair advantages over Mega Man this time though. The levels seem much more suited to double jumping, and the bosses invincibility time is so short after getting damaged, that rapid fire does a significant amount of damage. Mega Man's game is a lot tougher.

Dr. Light's lab returns with a variety of items exclusive to Mega Man and Bass, but unfortunately most of the items are useless. Rush Coil, for example, is a one time use item for 100 bolts. This wouldn't be as bad if there were just more bolts in the game, but unless you end up dying a whole lot, you likely won't get more than abut 500 bolts per play through, and most items costs around 300. Really, the only item worth buying is the armor, which lessens the damage you take and lasts the whole game. Interesting note, is that Reggae and Tango make an appearance in this game as well in the item shop.

Speaking of dying a lot, the first stage is really the only troublesome one. After that, it's pretty smooth sailing. The bosses aren't tough, and all of them are weak to just about every weapon. Doppler Attack is so devastatingly broken, it'll take out the final boss in seconds. Once you get your first weapon, no matter what it is, throw your buster away and it's a cake walk.

The stages themselves are pretty bland, and you'll have a hard time distinguishing one from another. There's a few interesting sections, but the game rarely changes it up. One stage also makes use of the really annoying Wonderswan gimmick of turning the console on it's side and playing from a different direction. If you think the Dual Screen is a gimmick, you ain't seen nothing yet. It's not a very difficult game, and it's not a very memorable experience, but it's far from bad.

Playability
One thing that sticks out is that sliding and dashing is a bit weird to get used to. Mega Man and Bass both only go such a small distance, and there are many sections that require you to slide under spikes. It takes some getting used to, but other than that though the game runs fine.

Extras

• Boss Order: I find the easiest boss to start with is Konro Man. He has a mini boss in his stage that is annoying, but you can beat him by standing all the way to the right of the arena during the fight. After Konro Man, it's really whatever you want because once you have a weapon, everything will die.
• Weapon energy never refills in this game unless you game over. If you don't care about going through the game without dying, take a few dives to refill your energy.
• Doppler Attack is devastating, and will kill just about anything in seconds. It also can be used to go through walls to get to other areas faster. Be careful not to turn it off in a wall though or it'll be instant death.

This game isn't bad, but it's not great. It does have some creativity in it that can't be ignored, and for a licensed game, it's definitely at a higher mark than previous attempts. I can actually recommend giving this one a shot, unlike every other licensed game so far.

Playthroughs
N/A