Alrighty. I finally beat this game completely. Since I did one of these giga-posts for
Mega Man Unlimited, I think it's only fair I make a massive bug/complaint report post for this game, as well. But just how buggy/whine-worthy is this game? Let's find out.
(As usual, spoilers abound. And I mean literal spoilers. Keep that in mind.)
07/29 Update: Zan has corrected a point of mine and brought up another bug I hadn't seen. I also found a few more noteworthy things while beating the game as Bass.
08/19 Update: Corrected myself on a supposed "glitch" with Bass.
[spoiler=General/Global Stuff]
Bugs- *Critical* The game likes to lock up, seemingly for no good reason, a lot of the time, but especially when playing as Bass.
- *Clickteam bug?* It's impossible to use JoyToKey in this game, due to how the controller handling works. (JoyToKey ignores input when the game has focus.)
- On regular occasion, the game will read the wrong order from the Impulse Tracker module file and start a song further along than it should be.
- The Buster Boost part has the wrong description for Megaman. (1)
- *Intentional?* After the Wily stages become available, you're automatically sent to the save screen, followed by Dr. Light's Lab, regardless of what you want to do.
Complaints- Some of the music isn't as nice as it could be. But some of it is absolutely fantastic! Why the inconsistency?
- Why is Dr. Light's Lab in California when it was located in New Mexico in Mega Man 8? (2)
- The wrong icons are used for a lot of items in Dr. Light's Lab.
- The blocked-out item graphics in Dr. Light's Lab could be more clear. Simply greying them out would work better than putting a big, hardly-visible cross through them, for example.
- A lot of the Robot Masters (and even a couple of the enemies) are blatantly sprite edits of commercial game material. Hasteman in particular is pretty obvious.
Notes(1) The Buster Boost part says it makes the Mega Arm chase enemies. It does not. Instead, it allows the Mega Arm to grab on to items.
(2) To be fair, Dr. Light could have more than one lab.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Game Engine Stuff]
Bugs- *Clickteam bug?* The entire game slows down when there's a lot of sprites on the screen, but not like the NES game did.
- *Clickteam bug?* The quick weapon switch buttons do not work. Period. Keyboard or game pad. ACE had this problem, as well, so it may be a Clickteam bug rather than something fifth did or didn't do.
- The title bar (and Task Bar button) reads "0" after you beat a boss, but returns to "Mega Man Revolution" when you hit the Get Weapon screen.
- *Intentional?* The "enemy loot table" seems to be about as broken as it was in Mega Man 5 -- Spare Bodies are quite plentiful. Maybe a bit too plentiful...
- *Critical* While fighting any Robot Master or fortress boss that has any sort of free movement mode (vertical or horizontal), if you die and the screen resets to the last checkpoint while they're moving, the boss will fly out of the arena the next time you enter, rendering the game un-winnable. This is an extremely amateurish mistake which can easily be corrected by setting a boss' movement speed to 0 on screen reset. Why this wasn't done in the seven revisions of the game so far is beyond me. (1)
- *Update* This may also happen during the boss refights in the fortress without having died, first. Presumably, this happens if the player hasn't died once after fighting the bosses the first time and re-fighting them later on. (Pointed out by Zan.)
- In stages where ladders are attached to ceilings, it's possible to wedge one's self into the ceiling. While it can be done accidentally, it's extremely hard to trigger unless you're actually trying to do it.
- If you manage to get scrolled out of the level boundaries and fall into the void, you never die, causing the game to become unwinnable.
- *Intentional?* While using Wild Sprint, you can't control your jump height at all.
- *Intentional?* You completely lose your invincibility if you enter the pause menu after being damaged.
- *Oversight* Neither Megaman nor Bass take a half-step when they land. They do in the commercial games.
- *Intentional?* Mystery Tanks can't be used at full Life and Weapon Energy. (2)
- A lot of times, enemies double-spawn -- two enemies spawn on top of each other where only one should be. This happens most often with the cannon enemies in Hasteman's stage, but happens with others, as well.
ComplaintsI found nothing to complain about in the game engine.Notes(1) Strangely, Blastman seems to be immune to this glitch, despite having Flashman-style free movement.
(2) In
Mega Man 5, 6, and 7, Mystery Tanks would turn any and every on-screen enemy and projectile into a 1up when used at completely full energy.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Megaman-Specific Stuff]
Bugs- Equipping Rush or Tango seems to slow down the game... but using them slows it down even more!
- Megaman slides a little too far; he slides 70 pixels when he should be sliding 66 pixels. His jump height is spot on, however!
- Megaman refuses to charge his weapon if you hold the button down while exiting the weapons menu or after being hit. In the commercial games, he starts charging all over again.
- On rare occasion, the Mega Arm disappears completely from the screen. This is low-priority, however, as Megaman will get his arm back within five seconds regardless.
- On regular, the Grab Buster will throw the items it collects off the screen, making it impossible to collect them.
Complaints- You can't summon Rush Marine on land.
- You can't summon Rush Jet at your height level -- he always lands on the nearest solid platform regardless of where you are.
- Giving people the broken Mega Man 3 Rush Jet seems a bit broken... but it's sort of balanced by how much Weapon Energy it gulps up.
- The way Beat works in this game is pretty horrible. You can only summon and un-summon him; you can't fire the Mega Buster while Beat is hanging around. This leaves you completely defenseless if Beat is busy.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Bass-Specific Stuff]
Bugs- *Intentional?* Down + Jump does not make Bass dash. Down-Forward + Jump does.
- *Intentional?* Bass cannot jump while the player is holding Down-Forward, even if he's already in mid-dash.
- *Intentional?* Bass does not lose his dash-speed velocity when making a double-jump. (1)
- *Update*
*Intentional?* Bass regains his double-jump when jumping off a ladder. (1) Never mind, this behavior was in the commercial games as well. - Whenever Bass defeats a boss, the game slows to a crawl until the Get Weapon screen.
- The Bass Buster's locking mechanism takes precedence over dashing; you can't slide until the firing animation clears.
Complaints- I am sorely missing having a one-button Dash ala Mega Man & Bass...
Notes(1) This behavior is compared to his
Mega Man & Bass/Mega Man 10 appearances.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Enemy Stuff]
Bugs- On rare occasion, the Shield Attacker enemies break their fixed pattern and fly freely in whatever direction they were going. They can do this through terrain of any kind.
- *Intentional?* The Peterchy enemies don't act as expected in that they won't chase after the player when jumped over, as they do in Mega Man 3.
- *Intentional?* Sniper Joes and Hockey Joes are completely invincible (except to Iron Saw) while their shields are up. (1)
- *Intentional?* Skeleton Joes can be walked through harmlessly as their reassembling themselves. This should not be. (2)
Complaints- Why didn't you redesign the Skeleton Joe, Peterchy, Hammer Joe, Mole, Hothead, Icicle Tecks, and Bomb Pottons a little? You changed the Sniper Joe and Met designs, after all.
- The crab enemies in the Extra Stage Prelude are highly ineffective... until the boss. Then they become an annoyance.
- Marine Joes have way too much health, considering they do all of nothing.
Notes(1) This reflects Sniper Joe behavior in
Mega Man 1/2, but later games made their shield have a separate hitbox.
(2) If you do this in
Mega Man 4 or
Mega Man 3/4 on the Game Boy, you take damage.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Cryoman Stage]
Bugs- *Intentional?* Protoman shows up in this stage every single time you replay it.
- *Intentional?* Cryoman can't actually bring the roof down on you. He just aimlessly runs back and forth once it's down to a 2-block height.
Complaints- What's the point of having Protoman show up in this single stage?
- The Hockey Joes are extremely annoying and hard to kill...
- Cryoman is the worst kind of gimmick boss. If you take too long to defeat him, he becomes nearly impossible to defeat and completely impossible to avoid.
- This is one of the rare bosses that Bass has a harder time with than Megaman, due to the nature of his attacks.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Sandman Stage]
Bugs- If you happen to kill the giant snakey while trapped in a twister, you keep the twister physics (higher jump, inability to slide properly) until much later in the next area.
- Sandman's Sand Storm gimmick doesn't shut off if you die to him. That makes the start of the battle (after you've died once) harder than it needs to be.
Complaints- There's an area just before the ladder to the night time surface where it looks like you could tunnel through with the right weapon. It's extremely misleading.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Sawman Stage]
BugsI did not find any bugs in this stage.Complaints- At the beginning? We've stopped playing Mega Man and started playing Super Meat Boy, I see... (No, that isn't a good thing.)
- There's a part near the beginning where there's a saw blade above and below a platform with an E-Tank on it. Flipping either of those saws horizontally would make it look nicer.
- What sets Sawman apart from Metalman, exactly? He's a little more bouncy? And his saw blades float? That's about it... Even his spread attack isn't all that interesting.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Hasteman Stage]
BugsI did not find any bugs in this stage.Complaints- *Semi-Critical* As it stands right now, it's impossible to prevent the player from going on Bass' path with Megaman. While Bass' path is possible with Megaman using Rush Jet, it's obvious the path was not intended to be done as such.
- That Force Beam gimmick is definitely annoying... Doable, but annoying.
- In the final Force Beam area, there's a hole which has a metal wall blocking off a Spare Body. If you fall in that hole as Megaman but don't have anything to destroy the wall, you have to suicide, as there's no way out.
- Why are there spikes at the very end of the stage? They don't seem to serve any real purpose, and they're the only spikes in the stage.
- Holy [tornado fang], Hasteman is fast! He's nearly unavoidable as Megaman!!
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Ghostman Stage]
BugsI did not find any bugs in this stage.Complaints- All the dead-ends in the stage are kind of annoying. They literally don't lead anywhere and most of them don't house extra items, so why have them?
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Stormman Stage]
Bugs- *Intentional?* The cloud enemies Stormman spits out drop items, like the stage enemies.
Complaints- Fighting Stormman with Megaman is absolute a nightmare. The storm cloud enemies are annoying as hell and, unlike Coldman's Mokumokumos in Mega Man & Bass, they actually do some serious harm. Fighting the boss with Bass, on the other hand, is too easy. (1)
Notes(1) To be fair,
Mega Man & Bass was like this on a couple of bosses, as well. Magicman comes to mind...
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Blastman Stage]
BugsI did not find any bugs in this stage.ComplaintsI did not find anything to complain about in this stage.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Pyreman Stage]
Bugs- The last grabber Blader usually doesn't come after the player like it should, sometimes resulting in instant death rather than further progress.
ComplaintsI did not find anything to complain about in this stage.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Wily Stage 1]
Bugs- Quite frequently, the "mini-boss" of this stage sounds like its dropping spikes, but nothing falls from the ceiling.
Complaints- I hate Sniper Joes, I hate Sniper Joes, I hate Sniper Joes! Though to be fair, Wild Sprint is a great way to avoid all of them.
- What's with the weird end boss for this level? It doesn't look like it even fits in with Mega Man stuff.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Wily Stage 2]
Bugs- The start of this level suffers severe slowdown due to all the active sprites on-screen (the skulls).
- There's two sets of red spots on the floor that appear at the start of the Yellow Devil battle. They serve no purpose other than to mark a safe spot for the player to stand, so...
Complaints- Oh, goodie. A drop into a spike maze right at the start of the level...
- I don't know why, but jumping in the dark with a swirling light really throws off my perception. Badly.
- This stage has one too many gimmicks to it.
- I hope you're happy. Between the spike maze and the dark section immediately following it, I lost all 9 of my lives. Plus one more that I earned in the stage. And then just for good measure, about four more on the next try!
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Wily Stage 3]
BugsI did not find any bugs in this stage.Complaints- The water physics in this stage were a little hit-and-miss. Some sections had movement physics, others didn't. Where was the consistency?
- I was expecting so much more from the Grim Reaper boss. Why wasn't he generating sickles? Why did he have only one easily avoidable attack?
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Wily Stage 4]
Bugs- Weird things happen if you're on top of the Large Life Energy Capsule when it spawns after beating a Robot Master. (1)
- The Wily Machine Sin is utterly broken. You can literally sit in the right corner of the room and just pelt it with attacks, and it will never fight back or bounce-warp out of the room.
- During the normal ending, a counter starts playing on the title bar. I'm sure that's not supposed to be there.
ComplaintsI did not find anything to complain about in this stage.Notes(1) When fighting Pyreman, I got a
complete life regeneration because I was on top of the capsule while in a damaged pose (I assume?). While fighting Blastman, the game freaked out and tried to teleport me out of the room once every millisecond. The game continued as normal otherwise with no negative side-effects.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Extra Stage Prelude]
BugsI did not find any bugs in this stage.Complaints- Why isn't Mega Man using the Rush Marine? He's clearly not that far under the sea... Bass, on the other hand, doesn't have a marine vehicle, so that works.
- Until the boss, only one enemy did damage to me. And that was the Marine Joe. Which clung tenaciously to me and drained well over half my health by the time I was able to free myself.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Extra Stage 1]
Bugs- All throughout the stage, the title bar fluctuated numbers -- up and down from 128/128.
- The entire stage moved at a crawl, for some reason. (Possibly because of the above?)
- *Intentional?* It's possible to lock yourself out of the falling block puzzle room by walking into the room, then doubling back toward the ladder. Doing so means you have to kill yourself in order to reset the blocks. (1)
- Mechanohand's hit box is extremely strange. You attack the arm, but the hand shows signs of damage...
- Mechanohand's movement speed doesn't reset back to its slow pace if you die after doing 14 hits of damage. (2)
ComplaintsI did not find anything to complain about in this stage.Notes(1) If this is intentional, someone is a huge jerk.
(2) The boss speeds up after losing half its health. It should go back to its previous speed after you die.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Extra Stage 2]
Bugs- I'm not sure if this happens in Sandman's stage as well, but it's possible to bypass the twister snakey boss by letting her hit you with a twister on the right side of the screen. I was also using Wild Sprint at the time, so that may have had something to do with it.
Complaints- This stage. Oh my god, this stage. Why is it so long?? (To be fair, it has plenty of checkpoints. It's just really long.)
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Extra Stage 3]
Bugs- The Amalgum can't actually hurt you via touch damage if you hide in the side of the room.
Complaints- That checkered floor is tripping me out... @_@
- Those "hidden" caches throughout the level are way too generous.
- The end boss for this level was a complete waste of time. I was able to destroy him just after he changed phases once and only once. He needs a bit of reworking to be an effective boss.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Extra Stage 4]
Bugs- If you happen to outrun the bad guy in the first section of the stage, he'll still appear later on, but only after he's scrolled himself off-screen. This causes him to appear out of thin air, in some places.
- *Intentional?* The boss' first form is surprisingly vulnerable to Wild Sprint and Sound Blaster (thanks, Zan!)... Not directly, of course, but still.
ComplaintsI did not find anything to complain about in this stage.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Extra Stage 5]
Bugs- *Intentional?* The Ion Blade turns Bass Megaman's colors.
Complaints- What's the insentive to defeating the Dark Energy enemies when you can just Wild Sprint through them?
- I found a lot of other stuff to complain about in this stage, but nothing from a design standpoint. (See "Cutscene, Episode, Post-Game Stuff")
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Cutscene, Epilogue, Post-Game Stuff]
Bugs- *Intentional?* After the Wily stages become available, Roll takes the place of Dr. Remir for no "apparent" reason.
- *Intentional?* After defeating Wily and having all the MEGAMANR plates, you aren't warped back to Dr. Light's Lab after the cutscene. However, if you go there yourself, there's an actual dialogue exchange.
- *Critical* The game stops functioning after Megaman's true ending plays, leaving you with a blank, black screen and the true ending tune playing in the background.
- *Critical* *Intentional?* The game closes itself after Bass' true ending plays. No crash, no notification, just complete and total closure.
Complaints- When Roll takes Dr. Remir's place, she completely lacks animations of any sort, so Dr. Light looks like he's playing pong by himself.
- Why does Dr. Light play pong regardless of the intensity of a situation?
- It's really lazy how the dialogue is the same when playing as either character. It's even more lazy that the endings are so similar. (Why would Bass even think to take Wily to jail?)
- Does PureSabe know you stole his endgame gimmick?
- Why does the Evil Energy turn a Capcom game into a Konami game?
- Why are all the enemies invincible to everything except the Ion Blade?
- The whole plot where Dr. Remir is actually an alien seeking to undo the damage done to his planet by the Evil Energy seems kind of contrived and... well... stupid.
As a matter of fact, that being an integral part of the plot is a huge mistake in and of itself. If Duo detected even a trace amount of Evil Energy, he would jet back to Earth lickity-split and snuff it out. (See Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters and Mega Man Battle & Chase.) I withdraw this statement on the grounds that, as Zan pointed out, the Evil Energy in Mega Man 2 wasn't evil at all, but could be used for good or evil. (Pointed out by Zan.)
- If Protoman is able to kill Remir with a fully-charged Proto Strike, why can't Megaman or Bass even touch him?
[/spoiler]
At the end of the day, I genuinely feel this is a really good game. It was a lot of fun to play through, it was pretty balanced but kept you on your toes, and the music was pretty good, if not a little odd in places. The graphics could probably use a little tweaking here and there, and of course, bugs need to be squashed, but this was definitely worth the wait.
I look forward to whatever comes next, fifthindependent and company!