SNES Megaman & Bass “Repro”

Description

Plot

The story of Mega Man & Bass varies extremely depending on which player character is chosen. It begins one year after the events of Mega Man 8 when a robot villain named King breaks into Dr. Wily’s laboratory and then the Robot Museum to collect the data blueprints for the creations of Dr. Light. Dr. Light alerts the hero Mega Man that he must go at once to the Robot Museum to confront this new enemy. Meanwhile, Bass (Mega Man’s rival and Wily’s greatest creation), being kicked out of Wily’s laboratory due to the events, hears of the new criminal’s appearance and decides to prove himself the stronger robot by defeating King. Proto Man is the first to arrive at the scene. King divulges his plan to him, he desires to create a utopia in which robots rule the world over humans. To accomplish this, King seeks to create an unstoppable army using the data and invites Proto Man to join him. Proto Man refuses and attempts to attack, but King counters and slices his body in half. Proto Man then teleports back to the lab for repairs while King escapes with the data, instructing his minions to handle the heroes. With their own motivations, Mega Man and Bass set out to put a stop to King’s plans.

After vanquishing eight powerful robots under allegiance to King, the duo infiltrates his castle and engages him in combat. Proto Man interrupts the fight and again attempts to defeat their new nemesis. Putting all of his remaining energy into a blast, Proto Man manages to destroy King’s shield and loses consciousness, allowing Mega Man and Bass to best King in battle afterwards. King questions why they fight so hard for humans when robots are the superior species. The pair explains that humans are the ones who created robots in the first place, which confuses King, who teleported Proto Man out of his castle after the battle. The villain reveals that his creator is Dr. Wily, who then appears on a video monitor. When King asks the evil inventor why robots fight each other for the sake of humans, Wily strengthens his “brainwashing level” and restores his power. Mega Man and Bass engage King in another battle and defeat him. The castle begins a self-destruct sequence and the protagonists escape without King.

Mega Man and Bass confront Dr. Wily in his newly regained laboratory. When Wily is beaten, Bass demands to know why he deceived him. Wily explains that he created King simply to test Bass’ abilities. Wily shows him written plans for making a newer version of King to join with Bass in this venture, promising that the two would be invincible together. Proto Man appears and immediately destroys these plans. Wily then demands Bass to destroy Proto Man, but Bass is unsure. Proto Man tells Bass that although he is a strong robot of free will, he can never defeat his rival because he has nothing for which to fight. Bass doesn’t care and forces Proto Man to leave, saying that he will still destroy Mega Man to prove his cause. Mega Man returns home where his sister Roll presents him a letter from King, who has somehow escaped the destruction of his castle. King wishes to atone for his own crimes against humans and hopes for them to be friends if they were to meet in the future.

Gameplay

                                                                                                                             

The gameplay in Mega Man & Bass is similar to earlier games in the series. The player is tasked with completing a series of action-platform stages while overcoming obstacles, solving minor puzzles, and battling enemies. Destroying the “Robot Master” boss at the end of a stage lets the player acquire its special weapon. In previous games, the player generally took on the role of the hero Mega Man. In this game, the player can choose to start the game as either Mega Man or Bass. However, whichever character is picked must be used for the rest of the game and cannot be changed. Mega Man is able to charge his shots to make them more powerful and has the ability to slide along the ground. Bass is able to rapidly fire his arm cannon in eight directions, though shots cannot be fired while moving or pass through walls unless a certain upgrade is obtained.Bass is also able to double-jump (jump a second time in mid-air) and dash along the ground (similar to X in Mega Man X).Performing both simultaneously lets him cross great distances by doing a dash-jump.

The stage structure is much different from other games in the series. After the introduction level, the player can only choose between three Robot Masters. Defeating Cold Man unlocks Burner Man and Pirate Man; defeating Astro Man unlocks Dynamo Man, Tengu Man, and Pirate Man, and defeating Ground Man unlocks Magic Man and Tengu Man. Clearing one of these unlocked stages opens the way to a security room where the player must destroy a series of crystals with obtained Robot Master weapons. Bypassing all eight crystals opens the way to the fortress stages. In a similar fashion to previous installments in the series, enemies often drop bolts after they are destroyed, and these can be exchanged for various restorative items and upgrades. However, unlike in Mega Man 7 the security cavern offers a way to obtain large amounts of bolts without having to repeatedly visit stages. Some upgrades are unique to either character, such as Mega Man’s ability to call on his dog Rush to search for items, or an adaptor for Bass to combine with his wolf Treble to temporarily fly. Also distributed throughout the introduction and Robot Master levels are a collection of 100 data CDs that contain information on many prominent characters in the series. Most of the CDs are hidden either behind obstacles that need to be destroyed with a special weapon or accessed with a character-specific ability, making it impossible to collect them all on a single playthrough.CDs collected in each playthrough are permanently placed in a database and remain unlocked after beating the game. Saved games are used in place of the series’ traditional password system.