Review: Rockman 2 Yendor Code

Completed in 4 hours.

My order: wood,air,bubble,crash,heat,flash,quick,metal

Rockman 2 Yendor code is a strange hack, it has a vanilla look, with no new musics nor new graphics (not even new palette). However, it has a lot of other change, making this hack a nice alternative remix of Rockman 2.

 

The shrimp act like the seahorses in Super Mario Land.

As said, this hack is more of a remixed Rockman 2. The level themes are the same. However, the level design is all different, and is quite good. It remixes some old obstacles, or replace existing one with new one with similar feels (like Quick Man's stage). But more importantly, all the enemies are modified to act different, in a fair and fun way. Some change are minor and other major. There's even some common enemies that were edited to be middle boss.

 

Small bird generator?

The boss and weapons are different too, and it feels just right. The boss fight are really fun, the pattern can be learnt and doesn't feel unfair. The weapons are more useful, and the overpowered one (metal blade) nerfed. Special mention to Air Man's weapon that push enemies like the wind, and Flashman's being really useful in some situations. About bosses, it's not just the robot master. Wily's boss too were changed to be very interesting. Special mention to Mecha Dragon for being fun in a MM2 romhack which is rare, mostly because this time there's enough footing and not just one one-tile block, and for the Wily stage 4 boss which was completely changed to be very unique while still not using custom graphics for it.

Woosh!

I won't say the hack is perfect. It's main problem is the difficulty becoming suddenly hard starting Wily's castle 2. As always in MM2 and it's romhacks, Wily stage 2 is the stage to master the items, but the game didn't prepared you enough to use them so you have to learn on the go in difficult situation. The boss is also pretty hard, and strangely this is the only Wily stage without an e-tank. A good point: the game is generous enough on lives and e-tank. Still it is MM2 so e-tanks are lost on Game Over. But if the difficulty doesn't bother you, it's cool. Another point is while the bosses are fine, some can be a bit spammy if you let them. Better take them down quickly.

Platforming.

In conclusion, despite it's simple presentation, this is a hack with a lot of new content which keeps the same feel as the original game but remix it in very fun ways.

 

Pattern exploit is fun.

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Very good, must play

Review: Rockman 2 ONN

 

Finished in 6h20

My boss order: Metal, Flash, Wood, Clash, Quick, Air, Bubble, Heat

I decided to play a Mega Man romhack. Of Mega Man 2 again, despite me thinking it's clearly not the best Mega Man to base a romhack upon. This one is more recent than the one I usually play, only ~+5 years ago. Let's see.

These big fish always cause clipping.

What to say? It's a Mega Man romhack with heavy modification.

Aesthetic, the new graphics are good. Except the second part of Heatman's stage where the background was too bright, it's clean and looks good, with graphics from various other games.

Same for the music, overall goods, except one or two that are okay, but nothing bad.

Seems like the author liked the gameboy MM games (multiples musics/GFX from it).

Oh and something to notice: a lot of the things were made faster (filling energy bar, the text when getting a new weapon, etc.), that's pretty nice.

Monkey trouble.

The level design is sometimes good, sometimes okay. The levels are designed with specific ideas in mind, like in the screenshot above where it use conveyor for all the ground. It's just that sometimes the ideas are a bit wonky, or sometimes just a bit too hard. You will probably Game Over at least once every stage. But I can recognize some levels are creative and have interesting setups.

Just a small warning, I've found some glitch. In the Woodman boss room, if you go too far to the right, you may enter the next screen by error and get stuck as seen below. If this happens, don't hesitate to reset (if you didn't wrote the password, use a MM2 password generator).

Game broke. I'm stuck.

 

Some of the enemies edit are nice too. I like the new dog mini-boss, and that the robot that slide on the ground and get faster when you're the same height (idk the name) can be killed with the mega buster now.

But sometimes enemies are placed in a really annoying way, and it's harder to hit them since the good weapons were nerfed.

About the weapons, they're kinda okay. The only problem is you have less option to hit enemies in certain directions.

To note is Flash stopper is finally good because it's not a use once until you deplete it completely.

But the best is definitely Quick weapon's. It give you invulnerability for like one second, that's okay, but there is a glitch were you can underflow the energy, giving you infinite uses which is extremely useful, particularly in Wily's stage 2. Here's how to do it (spoiler) Deplete the weapon completely, then grab a big weapon energy. That's it, when you use it when there's 2 bar left, it will go past 0 and underflow(/spoiler). I feel bad using glitch like that, but sometimes the hack was so mean I felt no remorse.

6 projectiles at once?

The levels are fine, but the boss are in my opinion, bad. In that they are hard, but annoying. Kinda spamy, sometimes movements are too eccentric. Without using the boss weakness, some would be a real pain in the butt. Some bosses fill the screen with projectile, for real. Some even has projectiles that stay on screen (but you can destroy). I wonder what would happens if I survive long enough in Metalman's battle when all sprites are used, will he not shoot anymore? Will he replace one? Will it crash the game?

Mecha dragon is the boss I hate the most. Battle on one-tile platform, where most of the time getting hit means dying because of the recoil pushing you into the abyss. Even worst in this hack because you only have two platforms, and the weapons you have to use against it is one of the worst.

Oh and special mention to Wily's castle 4 boss which as always is a real pain in the ass. And this time it's not clever, just weird and annoying.

Fuck you you're the worst Mega Man boss.

Also why do in most Mega Man 2 hacks, Wily's stage 2 is "a thing". In this one the thing is (spoiler) no enemies, death blocks only. It's not the worst, but it's "a thing".

 

Overall, the level design is good, except some enemies placements, and the bosses...  could be better. It's a nice hack, not the best I've played for sure. But thanks to the weapon underflow glitch some parts were way less infuriating (laugh).

Why so many lives?

Oh that's why.

Rating:

⭐⭐

Okay

Review: Rockman 2 β

 

β is Beta

 My boss order: Flash, Metal, Wood, Bubble, Quick, Clash, Heat, Air

Vanilla?

When booting the game, you have the vanilla intro. Then the title screen very slightly modified, and the classic stage select. Then you select a stage, and notice the layout is different, but until now, no new palette and no custom music. That's right, this is a "vanilla" Rockman 2 romhack. But is it really?

The further you play, you will notice that it is not. Despite the palettes and music untouched, the boss them are changed to be harder, and have different weakness. Some enemies are also slightly changed, and there are some rare new graphics. These changes are a bit off-putting, the game try to feels vanilla while it is not.

 

Oh boy

Even if vanilla, aesthetic should be rated, on how the vanilla graphics are used. And I have to say it is rather lackluster. The original RM2 has some great graphics, but here there's isn't as much. While some looks good, like bubble man and the waterfall section, some level have very simple, if not no background at all, just a blank black BG like Woodman stage. It is a bit disappointing.

 

This is sort of a maze level.

Being mostly vanilla, the main focus of this game should be the level design. Unfortunately, it is not the best. It is hard for sure, but also infuriating. I recognize the game try to do new things and use new elements, or mix new elements not commonly see together. However it also overuse some enemies.

And some times when elements are mixed or used in new ways, it isn't for the best, and feels really bad to play. I can't really explain why, but I had a sour feeling in some of the levels.

Take for example the screenshot of Metal Man stage above. Normally the screws are in a corridor section. Here the game change it to put them in more open space But it feels really bad to have precision platforming with these. It is hard, and annoying to have one tile jump on conveyor, especially on top of the screen where the screws can spawn directly into you.

 

You don't often see "bloopers" and "pokeys" together

The game changed some things but not for the best. It seems the game fixed the "pause trick" of resetting your momentum when pausing in the air. Sure, it was more like a bug, you can fix it so people don't abuse it. But it felt good to abuse it, to have a safety net for awkward jumps. Now there's not any at all. Also this game has many, many one tile jump. Too much precision platforming, and the item 1 and 2 to help you in those section are behind the two hardest levels (well Heatman's level is not hard, but the boss is, and it's weakness is not Bubble and it may be Airman so fuck it).

 

One of the few new graphics is THAT! WTF

One of the reason why I felt bad playing it is the lack of polish. I encountered multiple times platform that don't act like they should. See below some example. While maybe Metal Man ones can be understand as a way to get down it's still a dick move that made me die on my last life. And in Quick Man stage the collision doesn't match the platform, while the shadow under do. Minor anomalies, but still should've been fixed before release.

 

Test your game

 

One other reason is the teasing. By that I means every level have a secret hidden (E-tank or live) in plain sight but you can't collect unless you have the required item (mostly item 1) or have a weapon to destroy the barrier (I learned too late that metal blade CAN destroy barriers here).. It's annoying to see so many paths and E-tank you can't get especially since the boss are hard and they can greatly help if you don't have their weakness.

Blind jump. Went the wrong side? YOU DIE LOL

As of now, I've played 6 levels in 3h30. I'll quit for tonight, but I don't know if I will continue. Yes I'm the sort of guy who can give up on games after playing for a while if I notice I don't have fun. Because there's so many great games to play, I don't feel bad giving up a bad game. But games I don't have fun aren't necessarily a bad game, sometimes it just doesn't fit my tastes. It's my own feeling. Having said that...

Temporary rating:

⭐

Poor 

Edit: Picked up the game again for one hour. Heatman stage isn't too bad, and I've found how to exploit it's pattern and it's weakness to quick boomerang. Finally with item 1 I can get past Airman's first part (btw item 1 move downward now, while item 2 move immediately without waiting for you). The second part isn't too bad despite using wind. And Airman is weak to Heatman. So finally done with the 8 robot masters, Wily's fortress stage 1 is slippery but other than that it's okay, Mecha dragon is as annoying as ever. But Wily stage 2 is annoying, it's one of this stage where it expect to correctly use your items to progress, but in a annoying way. I'm stuck on one part where I keep dying. Will try again later maybe...

 

Review: Rockman 2 Gray Zone

Finished in 4h30. Streamed on youtube:

 

Rockman2 Gray Zone is a Rockman 2 romhack. It is one with many changes, such as new graphics, musics, weapons, boss and of course level design.

Talking about these news things (except level design that I'll talk about later), it is high quality. The musics are good and the graphics mostly so. Bar one part I died because the block had the same palette as the background (and I didn't know it was slippery), overall the graphics are nicely implemented.

The weapons have new effects, maybe more balanced than the original game but still some are way more useful than other. Airman's and Metalman's are probably the best while I never used Woodman's  one. The boss are modified too, to complement their new weapons, like how Airman throw fire. The weapons weakness changed too. The bosses are obviously harder than the original, but not impossibly hard like some romhacks.

About the difficulty, like most romhacks it is harder than the original but stay acceptable, except one stage I'll mention later.

Level design is good, the main stage are not too long or hard, E-tanks aren't scarce. There's some interesting setups, and enemies are varied (some hacks tends to spam Sniper Joe, this is not the case). While the normal stage are normal challenge, the Wily fortress stages are very platforming oriented, making full use of the 3 items you've got. It was interesting and the maker made sure that items refill respawn on death.

One unfortunate case is it use Rockman 2 as a base game. I personally think Mega Man 2 is overrated, and has some pretty bad things like some Wily boss or Quickman's lasers. And usually in romhacks it's way worse. Here there's the unfortunate problem of using Quickman's lasers near impossible to dodge, unless you have Flash Man's weapon.

And the big problem of this hack is Wily's castle 4. The Wily levels have some gimmicks, and this one use one of the worst gimmick in platformers: reduced visibility. There's some tiles with priority on where you can't see Mega Man except for a few pixels on his feet when he jump. Platforming section where you can't see yourself, how fun. But the boss... well the original Wily 4 boss was ass, here it's Mega Ass. You see a room with some pits, and one single wall cannon. After struggling finding it's weakness (it's full charged Heat) then... nothing? Actually, you have find the four next cannons, and there are all hidden under tiles, making them invisible. So you shoot all around the room waiting to hear the sound effect that you hit something. Of course they are placed in hard places. It's a puzzle boss like the original but 100% worse. Oh, and there's cannons off-screen that shoot at regular interval at you so fast it's inhuman to dodge all shoots, the only way I could beat the boss is abusing the pause trick; pausing the game repeatedly to use invulnerability frames and have the bullets pass through me. Without this I couldn't stand a chance.

So overall, the game is super nice, with lot of interesting new things and engaging level design, except for a few little mistakes, and a big one named Wily castle 4.

Rating:
⭐⭐⭐
Good