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Far too difficult and frustrating to be fun...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Mega Man & Bass, often incorrectly called Mega Man 9 by those unfamiliar to it, was originally a Super Famicom game that was released only in Japan. The game never saw the light of day in the US until now. But is it worth purchasing?

The setup is your standard Mega Man fare. A new robot, named King, has desires to take over the world and become the most powerful robot there is. Mega Man, the blue android invented by Dr. Light, fights to stop King and restore justice. Bass, Mega Man's "evil clone" invented by Dr. Wily, has much more selfish reasons. Bass detests any robot being more powerful than he is.

While both characters traverse the same stages, fighting 8 bosses and then visiting a fortress, the experience is varied because the two control differently. Mega Man controls as he always has. He can walk, shoot directly ahead, slide, and power-up his Mega Buster to fire a more powerful shot. Bass, on the other hand, controls more like Zero does in the Mega Man X series. Bass can double jump and dash. He also has a multi-directional rapid-fire weapon. However, his weapon can neither shoot through walls, nor can he move while using it.

Both will need to pull every trick in the book to succeed against the eight Robot Masters: Astro Man, Burner Man, Cold Man, Dynamo Man, Ground Man, Magic Man, Pirate Man, and Tengu Man. As usual, defeating one boss allows the player to use that boss' weapon, which happens to be a vulnerability for another boss.

This review fairly judges Mega Man & Bass against other Mega Man games. Like most Mega Man fans, I tire of magazines and publications nagging over the series lack of innovation. When you buy a Mega Man game, you know what to expect. Or, at least, you want to think you do.

GRAPHICS - While I wouldn't call them stunning, the graphics in Mega Man & Bass are crisp and clear. The game recycles a lot of sprites and animations from Mega Man 8, which was originally on the Playstation. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since the animation remains very fluid, particularly when compared to the visuals of Mega Man X6 where bosses were remarkably limited in animation frames. Of particular note, however, is the smaller field-of-vision. You simply can't see as much on the screen at once in the GBA version, and this leads to the majority of gameplay issues.

SOUND - The sound and music translated nicely from the Super Famicom version. The tunes are memorable and in that typical Mega Man style. The sound effects are mostly from Mega Man 7, but they work effectively.

CONTROL - Mega Man & Bass is weak in this regard, which is surprising considering Mega Man games are known for solid play control. The majority of quibbles belong with Bass. First, Bass' dash can only be executed using a double-tap left or right. This is against a more intuitive scheme of using L and R to dash, which Capcom used in Mega Man Zero. The fact that you must double-tap means Bass' dash is very unreliable because the game is finnicky in deciding between a dash or simply taking two small steps to the right. This is illustrated when fighting Ground Man as Bass. It is utterly pathetic to watch Bass get pounded by Ground Man's giant drill that emerges from the ceiling as he tip-toes pixel-by-pixel. Mega Man may control better, but it is clear that the stages were designed predominantly with Bass in mind. As such, the stages will gave Mega Man more grief. The lack of any configuration options whatsoever shows the lack of thought put into this title.

GAMEPLAY - This is where Mega Man & Bass falls short the most. The game is riddled with cheap hits and extremely difficult stages and bosses. The smaller field-of-vision I mentioned before leads to many deaths by enemies that lurk unseen off the top of the screen. Despite having unlimited continues, you are forced to run through the same stages ad nauseum to reach the boss, who will promptly execute you. The bosses are usually very quick and their vulnerability to other weapons is less than obvious (which of the bosses do you think the "Magic Card" works best against?). To put it bluntly, this game is frustrating and cheap. When you die, you feel it is because of a cheap trick instead of a mistake on your part.

OVERALL - The worst part of Mega Man & Bass is that, after 15 years of Mega Man as Capcom proudly touts, you'd think they'd have the formula down to an exact science. By now, one would hope for perfection. But instead, Capcom fails us again. With the quirky controls, frustrating gameplay, and ridiculous challenge level, this game is just bad. And between Mega Man & Bass and Mega Man X6, I never want to hear another fan whine about the games being "too easy" again. Thus, I give it the lowest rating I've ever given a Mega Man game - and that's saying a lot.

Pleasing, but it shows Capcom is lazy.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 21, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The story this time around is that a robot named King has taken over Wily's fort and has 8 robot masters attacking the world. You can play as either Mega man or Bass. Here are the pros and cons

Mega man- His weapon is more powerful than that of Bass and has the option of charging to triple times the power.
Jumping is ok and it gets you around. He can slide, which gives you the ability to go under small areas or evade an attack.
His power-ups are just right if not useless. The two most useful powerups are the high speed charge and the auto charge. Forget everything else.

Bass- Three shots from his buster is equal to about one uncharged shot from Mega man. It is weak. You cannot move and fire at the same time, but while standing you can also fire above your head or into the right or left hand corners.
Bass can double jump, which makes things easier. He cannot slide, but dash. It is only used for evading. It is useless!!!! It states you have to tap the D-pad twice in one direction to get him to dash, but I see no results after 20 and after absorbing every attack around me trying to do so.
His power-ups are great. You can make your shots go through walls. Double your bullets power without charging. And even fuse with your dog. YOUR DOG!

In the game, you choose a boss and go through their stage and at the end, kill them. Upon defeat, they give you their special weapon and give you the ability to use it. The power levels on special abilties are equal between Mega man and Bass.
TIP: Each boss has a weakness. A certain special weapon. The good thing now is that you can tell when it is the right one. The boss will physically react by such moves such as stopping in mid-air or splitting in half.

As a side quest, you can collect cds which contain info on robots from Mega man's past. The problem is you may never get them all. Some are just immpossible to actually touch without dying. It is quite interesting though.

As the title suggests, Capcom is getting lazy.
1. This Mega man game is not innovative to the other 8 exactly like it.
2. They recycled two bosses from Mega man 8, Astro man and Tengu man. That is beyond lazy.

You may need help. If you are a newb, you will die hundreds of times. Mega man is HARD! Just stick with it.

I recommend it.

The Missing Link

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Megaman and Bass, originally released in 1998 (after Mega Man VII to correct the reviewer below, so this is NOT the japanese Mega Man VII, it really is the ninth one in the classic Mega Man series) never made it to the states. The speculation is because in 1998, the Super Nintendo was no longer as popular in the United States and the world belonged to the Sony Playstation instead. It was availible on emulators and one could import, but aside from that, the game didn't see an official release in the states until 2003 when it came as Megaman and Bass (Rockman and Forte in Japan).

One of Dr. Wily's robots has gone insane and Wily has somehow lost control of him. Now it's up to Megaman and Bass to stop him. The two now find themselves working together.

If you've played Mega Man VII (or even Mega Man 8 on the playstation) then the gameplay is virtually unchanged. The difference being you can choose to play as Mega Man or Bass. Mega Man, I'm sure most everyone knows about. Bass controls differently. He's got a burst fire weapon instead of the standard buster that Mega Man has. He can't run while shooting, but he can aim diagnal and fire upwards. He can also double jump and he can dash (the dash looks like it does in the Mega Man X series). The two differ so much that the game is a completely different experience depending on who you play it as.

Upon completing the game start level, the game quickly uses the Mega Man formula. You'll be able to choose which bosses you want to go defeat. The only difference really is that you can only choose between three at first, and once you defeat one of them, pathways to new bosses open up. There's also a shop. When you defeat enemies, they might drop bolts. You can use bolts to buy Mega Man and Bass special abilities.

This game, however, is not an easy game. Even Mega Man veterans will have some trouble with this game. Some of these levels are killer. Even worse, when porting this game to the Gameboy Advance, they didn't bring things down to scale. Many areas are compressed, and don't fit in the screen right. This leads to several deaths which could be avoided otherwise had things been brought to scale. This alone makes the game much harder than it actually has to be.

Also, the sound quality just isn't all that great. This I'm also guessing suffers from being ported to the GBA. I listened to the SNES original soundtrack not too long ago, and it sounds drastically different from this. They are the same, but coming from the GBA's speakers, it just doesn't sound nearly as good. In short, the soundtrack just doesn't sound great.

Overall it's a good game, but if you can find a translation of Rockman and Forte on an SNES emulator, I say go for it. It'll look better and it'll sound better. Megaman and Bass is not by any means a bad game, just one that didn't get ported over as well as it could've. An already hard game is now harder on a handheld.

Megaman and Bass Difficulty and Polish Problems..

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Megaman and Bass is an excellent example of an old-school game.
One thing you might notice about this title is that it is very difficult. This WILL pass partially, as you will get better(it took me 3 weeks to get to the final boss the first time i played it, about 2 days later on), but this is still a difficult game. It also lacks the polish of many modern-day games, even megaman games, which have always had this rough feel. But, if you want megaman action, such as megaman X, you may want to try this game out. But, I feel they had a strange balance between bass and megaman, and perhaps you're better off with Megaman Zero. Nonetheless, this game is fun even though it is limited and pretty challenging.

EXCELLENT GAME BUT IT'S TOUGH...IT'S STILL COOL!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: April 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

THIS GAME IS GREAT.. REGARDLESS OF WHAT EVERYONE BEFORE ME SAID.
YES THE GAME IS TOUGH...BUT IF U FIND THE RIGHT BOSS WEAPON TO
KILL THE OTHER BOSSES THEN THE BOSSES ARE EASY... YES YOU WILL DIE ALOT.. BUT THAT MEANS THAT ONCE YOU PASS A LEVEL YOU WILL FEEL LIKE YOU ACCOMPLISHED SOMETHING..

SO IF YOU WANT A CHALLENGE THEN GET THIS GAME.. IT'S FUN AND THE GRAPHICS AND MUSIC ARE GOOD TOO... THE CONTROL IS EASY TOO... NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE..IF YOU HAVE SOME PATIENCE THEN YOU WILL DO GOOD IN THIS GAME..OKAY GO GET IT.. IT'S JUST AS GOOD AS THE OTHER MEGA MAN'S TOO... OKAY HAVE FUN..!!

Original Japanese version of SNES's Mega Man 7

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: July 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

For all you gamers who are too young to remember the original Nintendo, or maybe even Super Nintendo systems - the days when the Mega Man franchise was still great - I feel compelled to set the record straight.

First of all, this wasn't the "ninth" game in the series, but actually the seventh. The Japanese games went by the name Rockman (Megaman's true name before being "Americanized"), and in Japan they gave their sequels subtitles instead of just slapping Roman numerals on the name like in the U.S.A. If you ever find an old Super Nintendo system and a copy of Mega Man 7 at a garage sale and play it, you will see that all of the same bosses from "Mega Man and Bass" appear in the game. The only differences are the boss names and the configuration of the order in which the levels are played.

Therefore, this game was never "lost", isn't really "new", and is really the seventh installment in the original Mega Man (or Rockman) story line. Mega Man 8, the last game in the original Mega Man versus Dr. Wily story-line (to date, anyway) came out much later on Sony Playstation (or PSOne as it's called now).

Rest assured that no "Lost" game or "Mega Man 9" has ever existed. Hopefully, maybe though, Capcom will come back to their senses and return to the series that made Mega Man what it used to be. All of these new incarnations and spin-offs (Battle Network? Zero? Command Mission - what the heck is this crap) are ruining the franchise, regardless of what gamers who are new to the series may think. They have most likely never played a real Mega Man game, and think that these Zeros and BattleNetworks are awesome because that's all they've ever known.

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for that elusive Mega Man 9 to come along one day - the new Nintendo DS or PSP systems would be great platforms for Mega Man 9 if you are seeing this Capcom
Until then, if you want a GBA Mega Man game that's actually good and worth playing, get this one. Mega Man 7 - errr... Mega Man & Bass.

For Die Hard Mega Man fans

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: September 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Megaman and Bass is like most Megaman titles. You fight a series of Bosses which once beaten you gain there powerups and from there can advance to the final set of levels which always end up being run by Dr. Wiley. This game is no exception to that rule.

Technically should be considered Megaman 9 Megaman and Bass will push people away with the fact that it is so terribly difficut. SOme levels are more geared towards Megaman and some are more towards Bass, as are Boss fights. THe diffuculty is insane enough that recent fans (those who jumped in from #6-8 and the X series) will be turned away at the degree of frustration that some of the bosses create. For example one boss (towards the end of the game) only weakness is the top of his head, he is a full screen tall and in order to beat him you blast the top of his head into submission. As Megaman You get a moving platform to help you in your task. As Bass you don't and instead must rely on your double jump and abitlity to shoot diagnolly upwards. Ultimatly leading to many lives lost and a long stream of profanity.

Overall this title is for DIe Hard Megaman fans.

Cool game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It's hard to believe, but the Mega Man series has been around for approximately 15 years. Within that time span, the core mechanics of the series have remained largely unchanged, though Capcom has admittedly attempted to deviate from the path with recent releases in the EXE series and, to a lesser extent, the Zero series. However, the latest release in the Mega Man series, Mega Man & Bass, doesn't do anything drastically different to make itself stand out from other games in the series. In fact, anyone craving some old-style, surprisingly difficult Mega Man action shouldn't think twice before jumping right into Mega Man & Bass. Mega Man and Bass have different skills. For those who are unaware, Mega Man & Bass was one of the few Mega Man games for the Super Famicom that was never released in North America. The game lets you play as either Mega Man or his sinister-looking cohort, Bass, both of whom have different abilities that affect the way you play the game. Mega Man has all of his traditional attacks, such as his buster shot (which he can also charge up) and the slide, but Bass is a little more dynamic, with his ability to rapid-fire in any direction and to perform double jumps, a skill that becomes invaluable in later parts of the game. Both characters can absorb a boss's weapon, but unfortunately, these weapons function similarly for both Mega Man and Bass. It's also worth noting that Mega Man's default weapon is a little stronger than Bass', which is meant to compensate for Mega Man's inability to use rapid fire.
Interestingly, many of the levels and even some of the boss fights in the game seem to be primarily designed for Bass and his specific skills, or at least they're a little bit easier when playing as Bass. As previously mentioned, Bass' double jump is quite useful. It helps you bypass certain obstacles--such as the annoying disappearing-reappearing block puzzles from Mega Man 2 that appear in the game--which Mega Man would have to confront head-on. Of course, Mega Man has his own advantages. He can slide into small areas that usually contain health and, in some cases, into areas that Bass cannot reach, but these aren't as abundant as you might think. Whether you're playing as Mega Man or Bass you'll find that the game, or more specifically the boss battles, can be fiendishly difficult. In most Mega Man games, you can learn the attack pattern of an individual boss and adjust your strategy accordingly, but in Mega Man & Bass, the bosses have so many different attacks that it can be difficult to gauge what they're going to do next. It can be frustrating to encounter a boss only to lose all your lives and have to start over at the beginning of the level, but since the levels are relatively short, it's not a huge pain to go back through them repeatedly. The fact that the game automatically saves at certain points in a level makes this more bearable. There are a few other differences between Mega Man & Bass and most of the other games in the Mega Man series. Instead of selecting any level at the beginning of the game, you'll only be able to select from three--you can select other stages after beating the first three bosses. In addition, Mega Man & Bass features a shop system where you can buy power-ups for either character, including additional lives, health, or armor that reduces spike damage. Only a few of these items are truly useful, but there is quite a selection to choose from. Lastly, there's a library in the game where you can unlock information on dozens of Mega Man characters by finding CDs that are spread across each level, some of which are precariously dangled over spikes and other such hazards. As with most ports from the Super Nintendo to the Game Boy Advance, the graphics in Mega Man & Bass appear to be unchanged from those in the Super Nintendo game. Most of the sprites in the game are quite large and vivid, and they animate well. Even the traditional helmet-wearing enemies from previous Mega Man games have a surprising amount of detail in their walking animation. There are also some nice little touches. When Mega Man or Bass are dangerously low on health, their idle animation will indicate that. Unfortunately, some of the backgrounds can be a little bland at times, but you'll have little time to pay attention to them anyway. These are some of the toughest bosses in any Mega Man game to date. The music in Mega Man & Bass is successful in capturing the theme of each level, but there aren't any tracks that particularly stand out. The music quality also varies--some tracks sound as though they were produced on Game Boy sound hardware, while others are definitely Super Famicom quality. All of the sound effects have been reused from previous Mega Man games, particularly the noise that Mega Man and Bass make after landing a jump, which you'll hear quite often. There's nothing particularly special about Mega Man & Bass other than the fact that it lets you play as two characters with different abilities that can actually make the game more difficult or less difficult. As such, if you're looking for a straightforward Mega Man action game, you really can't go wrong with Mega Man & Bass, but if you're looking for a game that puts more spin on the traditional Mega Man recipe, you might want to try out the Mega Man Zero games or the Mega Man EXE games.

should be called megaman 9 but still a great game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: October 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Wow this game is great. First what I like about is you can play as Bass. I've played all the megaman games but until this one came out I allway wanted to play as Bass. I recormend useing Bass first to beat the game. Now hear is why I gave it 4 stars, Bass isnt what I thought he'd be like I mean c'mon in megaman 7, if any of you people out there have played it you'd know that he could do some kind of kicking move and if you beat megaman 7 you'd know that Bass should be stronger. Overall its a great game so I say if you dont have this game YOU SHOULD BUY IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh and one more thing Megaman cant use Rush to fly in this game but Bass can use Treble to fly.

very hard!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game will get you very fusterated! Its hard and it will drive you crazy! But it is fun.

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