Who here has come up with some interesting ideas for a new series? Would you make a fighting game, an RPG, or a simple platformer? This is mainly for those that want to make it, but have no real way to make it without spending a significant amount of time and effort into just creating one level using a basic engine.
Caution: HUGE read ahead if you give a damn about my idea.
[spoiler]I don't know how this came about in my head, but this idea has slowly been evolving for some time now. It's crazy and possibly stupid sounding, but hell, we love a series about a robot that fights other robots based on refrigerators and Transformers.
In an alternate time-line, the world is still controlled by various monarchies. However, technology has evolved over time and the pinnacle of the era of robotics is at hand. A kingdom is at war with their rival, and the two lead scientists have just created a special armada to fend off their enemies. Dr. Light has created the Orchestral Knights, with Rock the Blue Knight, Forte the Black Knight, Blues the Red Knight, Roll the Pink Knight, Ballade the Purple Knight, Punk the Yellow Knight, and Enker the Orange Knight making the team, while Dr. Wily has created the Ultimate Nine, Satellite Man, Temp Man, Bolt Man, Aero Man, Laser Man, Hydra Man, Helix Man, Galaxy Man, and Judgment Man. With these 16 powerful robots, the Kingdom wins the war, but only Dr. Light is praised and honored. Feeling contempt and hatred, Wily begins to betray his country, and sells blueprints to other robots to other warring countries. After reprogramming the 9, Wily is discovered and is declared a traitor, and promptly leaves with the 9 to side with one of his customers.
More or less a carbon copy of the Original's backstory, minus the Rockman Killers and Forte being built by Wily. Doesn't mean they stay on the same side though
The gameplay is that Rock and Forte use Busters, and the weapons they obtain from the 9 are more or less the same, at least as far as weakness' go. There are some differences, like the weapon gotten from Hydra Man is the Triple Flame, which shoots out a spinning wheel of fire. Rock's version covers more ground by spreading out slowly, while Forte's version stays fairly close together but goes forward (however it can't hit three times, the flames pass through enemies and if any activate the flinch then the rest do nothing). Ballade is similar to Rock/Forte and uses literal hand cannons to attack. His versions are slightly more powerful than Rock/Forte's but require either more energy or a bigger stall time. For example, Hydra Man gives him Triple Blast, which is pretty much a ring of explosions flying forward, but sending Ballade back a bit.
Blues and Roll both use swords and follow a similar formula to Rock and Forte. Hydra Man gives them Triple Tech which for Blues allows him to do three attacks at .7x the strength at the same time (meaning it's essentially little over twice as strong as his basic attack), while Roll does three slashes in a combo, doing more damage, but being less useful in boss fights due to flinching. Enker uses a Lance(/Javelin/Spear) and while being somewhat similar to Blues and Roll in basic attacks, he gets Triple Lunge, which makes him dart past a set distance and has a bigger attack range the entire time by having two other lance's appear diagonally upwards and downwards blow and above his original lance (respectively), and then cross over with the attack, with the middle (where all three lances are at the same spot), dealing over 6 times the amount of damage to whatever is caught in it, while all other enemies at any other point in the path only take twice.
Punk uses his fists to attack instead of other weapons. Beating Hydra Man gives him Triple Beat which sends out three punches forward, but the last punch is a small uppercut. All characters also start out with a unique super weapon that can be used either 3 or 5 times. Rock gets Soul Blast, which is essentially a charge shot that's twice the size and damaging as a full charge, Forte gets Earth Crusher which causes him to lunge forward a bit and send out a shockwave of energy, Blues gets Great Slash which cuts everything on screen in an instant, and Roll gets Tornado Drill which makes her drill forward (or backward, she can only move in two directions, but if used in the air she'll stay there for the attack). Ballade gets Crazy Barrage which bombs everything forward and a bit behind, Punk gets Energy Charge which restores 1/10th of his health and throws out a super charge shot similar to Rock's, and Enker gets Death Lunge which makes him leap into the air, and then crash down, causing rocks to fall down from above.
The levels are similar to the way S&K3 is played and that certain characters with certain 'types' of a special can go on a different path to reach a different end. I haven't come up with a reason why you'd want to go down them as far as a reward is concerned, but I'm thinking Rush/Gospel upgrades for Rock/Forte, Beat for Roll, Tango for Blues, and Items for Ballade, Punk, and Enker.[/spoiler]