Rockman and Forte (Super Famicom)

It's 1998 and Capcom has just come off their first 3D Mega Man adventure. What's the most logical course of action? Release another game for the Super Famicom... wait, what?! Again? What the hell is with Capcom and refusing to move on from older consoles? Sigh.

Rockman and Forte is one of the last SNES games ever made, and the last proper Mega Man classic title until Mega Man Powered Up in 2006, and even that's a remake. The actual next game in the series wouldn't be until last year in 2009, with Mega Man 9. This game itself didn't even come out in the US until it was ported to the Game Boy Advance in 2002, so we're looking at a number of years before the "classic" series revival.

I couldn't tell you as to why this was made for the SNES, but that probably explains why it didn't come over to the US at first. Still, you can't judge a game by it's console, and the game is actually well made, although extremely frustratingly difficult.

Story
A new robot, named King, wants to build a new utopia for all Robots. This means eliminating all of the humans first (sound familiar?). King heads to the robot museum to steal all of the data on robots created by Dr. Light and Dr. Wily and Dr. Cossack.

Dr. Light sends Mega Man to stop King. Meanwhile, Bass thinks King is extremely arrogant to call himself King of the Replo...er robots, and wants to take him down to prove he is better. I'd complain about Bass's motivations, but he is a robot... and thinking about these stories too much will hurt you.

Anyway, after going through the toughest fucking level ever made in any game ever, we find out that King was made by, guess who? Dr. Wily! Bass and Mega Man escape, and King laments his life choices while the fortress collapses.

Mega Man then heads to Dr. Wily's lab to stop him, while Bass goes after Wily... because he's pissed? I dunno. After Wily is defeated, he tells Bass he just wanted to test him by building what he thought was a more powerful robot, but now he knows Bass is the most powerful. Proto Man then shows up and says Bass will never beat Mega Man, because he doesn't fight for anything. Bass bitches that he'll defeat Mega Man one day, blah blah blah.

Mega Man on the other hand is sad he couldn't save King. Just then, Roll hands him a letter from King, who survived some how and has gone on to atone for his sins and decided to help humanity from now on. Game over.

Aesthetics
A good portion of the sprites have been ripped straight out of Mega Man 8, and they really push the SNES to its limit. Some things have been notably toned down to deal with the limitations, but otherwise it all looks good. The stages are pretty interesting to look at, and the bosses all have varied personalities and styles. Astro Man and Tengu Man have been recycled though, to some disappointment.

It looks great for a SNES game, but do I have to reiterate how little sense it makes for Capcom to be making SNES games?

Sound
There are some good sound tracks here, but a few are reused from Mega Man 8. If you pick up the GBA version, the sound isn't as good. My favorite track on here is the boss battle music really.

Design
This game is hard. It is really hard. It is the hardest Mega Man in the classic series, and contends for the hardest in the franchise. It's one of the hardest games I've ever played. Don't take a very long break from this game, because the levels train you for the bullshit you'll come to in the final stages.

King Stage 2 is the hardest level you'll ever face. It contains 4 boss fights, one of them with an instant death trap, and if you game over you have to start all over. Did I mention there are no e-tanks in this game, and if you play as Bass, you have zero methods of healing yourself. This stage is brutal and frustrates me and other players to no end.

The big draw of this game is the ability to play as either Mega Man or Bass. Mega Man controls like you are familiar with, but Bass has some changes. He can double jump and has a rapid fire, but he can't charge his buster or shoot through walls. Generally Bass has an easier time with stages and Mega Man has an easier time with bosses.

Auto's shop returns too, with each character having different items they can buy to assist them through the levels. I'm a bit disappointed you can't power up the busters to the same level of awesome as you can in Mega Man 8 though.

Another interesting feature is the CD database, which contains little tidbits of information regarding almost all the robots from the previous Mega Man games, including some of the ones from the game boy series. You fill the database up by collecting CDs in each level, and each character has some CDs that only they can get. You don't get anything special for getting all of these, but it does give some incentive to replay the game after you finish it.

The bosses are tough to figure out, but stick to the patterns pretty closely, so if you keep your composure you shouldn't have too much trouble after you get it down. Some of the bosses are just a plain pain in the ass though, see every boss on King Stage 2.

The weapons have some utility, but a lot of it seems forced, such as the Ice Wall, which gives you a boost to jump to a lot of places. There are a lot of sections where you have to make an ice block, give it a push and then ride it across spikes. The other weapons aren't bad, but you'll have little reason to switch to them over the buster.

The game is fun, but it's so hard it might drain all the fun out of it. Go in to this game knowing what you're in for. I've seen romhacks more merciful than some of the bullshit in this game.

Playability
No problems here. Unlike Mega Man 7, the sprites in this game are sized right for the action. Bass dashes like in the X series, and sometimes this can get finicky when an accidental double tap in any direction sends Bass speeding into a pit of spikes. There are also quite a few bullshit jumps the game expects you to make that will frustrate you to no end, but otherwise the game controls as well as any other Mega Man game.

Extras

• Boss Order: Cold Man, Burner Man, Pirate Man, Ground Man, Tengu Man, Magic Man, Astro Man and Dynamo Man. Burner Man is a pain in the ass, even with his weakness. Expect to replay these stages quite a few times.
• For the first Tank fight in King 2, it really fights like a puzzle game. Use the Remote Mine on the top of the Tank to take out his missile launcher first. Try to goad it into using it so you can get rid of it. Then take out the treads. The plasma cannon and enemy dispenser should be easy pickings from there.
• For the first phase of King's fight, don't even bother shooting at him, it'll just cause him to shoot you back. You need to dodge 3 volleys of his X-beam attack thing. There's a set pattern here, it goes down, down, up, down, up. Counter it with jump, jump, slide, jump, slide. With Bass, you'll have to double jump at the right time. After this, Proto Man will show up and disable the shield. From there it's an easy fight, especially with Lightning Bolt.
• Beat will give you a shield in this game that will negate most damage. It works especially well against the gigantic laser that the 2nd form of the tank and King's final form fire out.
• Eddie is your only source of health in a boss fight, and only if you're Mega Man. You better learn to dodge as Bass.
• Rush Search helps find buried CDs. There is an item at Auto's shop that will show you where they are when you come across them on screen. Aside from this, it's mostly useless.

This game is fun, but the difficulty can be incredibly discouraging. It's even worse in the Game Boy Advanced port, because of the vertical scrolling to deal with the pixel dimensions screws up the platforming majorly. Just know what you are in for before picking this one up, and if you can, get the super Famicom version. There are translations out there for it.

Playthroughs
Tool Assisted Speed Run by Justin Chan
100 CD's TAS by J.Shen