Mega Man: The Power Battle

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Mega Man: The Power Battle

Developer(s) Capcom
Publisher(s) Capcom
Designer(s) Keiji Inafune
Engine N/A
Platform(s) Arcade
Release date 1995
Genre(s) Action
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s) ESRB: E
Media CD (2)
Input methods Arcade input

Mega Man: The Power Battle, known in Japan as Rockman: The Power Battle is an arcade video game and a spin-off title for the Mega Man series. It was released in Japan in 1995 and was followed by a sequel, Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters, the following year. Both games were rereleased in North America in 2004 as part of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for PlayStation 2 and GameCube and Rockman Power Battle Fighters for PlayStation 2.

Contents

[edit] Story

The story of the game is simplistic; the evil Doctor Wily has rebuilt some of his Robot Masters, with which he is trying to take over the world, forcing the heroes to stop him.

[edit] Gameplay

Bass fighting Cut Man.
Bass fighting Cut Man.

The game lets the player choose between three playable characters: Mega Man, Proto Man and Bass. Two players can play the game together as different characters, teaming up to defeat the bosses.

The game plays much like the main Mega Man games - the player uses one button to jump, and one to fire the character's arm-mounted energy gun. Holding the fire button charges the gun in order to release a stronger blast. Holding down while pressing the jump button makes the character do a dash which appearance varies between characters.

After choosing a character, the player chooses between three "stories", with each one having different Robot Masters from various games. The "stories" are Mega Man 1-2, 3-6 and Mega Man 7. Upon choosing a "story", the game quickly pans through the various levels, letting the player choose one roulette-style.

A level is largely different from the mainstream Mega Man games; instead of going through an entire stage and fighting the Robot Master as a boss at the end, the player faces the Robot Master at once. Killing a Robot Master earns the player their weapon, which can be switched to by pressing a button. Like in most Mega Man games, each Robot Master is weak to another one's weapon, so the player can fight through them in a "rock, paper, scissors" kind of way.

[edit] Stages

[edit] Robot Masters

1-2

Enemies Weapon
Cut Man Rolling Cutter
Guts Man Super Arm
Ice Man Ice Slasher
Wood Man Leaf Shield
Crash Man Crash Bomb
Heat Man Atomic Fire

3-6

Enemies Weapon
Magnet Man Magnet Missile
Gemini Man Gemini Laser
Dust Man Dust Crusher
Gyro Man Gyro Attack
Napalm Man Napalm Bomb
Plant Man Plant Barrier

7

Enemies Weapon
Cloud Man Thunder Bolt
Junk Man Junk Shield
Freeze Man Freeze Cracker
Slash Man Slash Claw
Shade Man Noise Crush
Turbo Man Scorch Wheel

[edit] Dr. Wily's Castle

Upon defeating all of the Robot Masters in one "story", the player character attacks Dr. Wily's giant, skull-shaped fortress. In the 1-2 and 3-6 "stories", the player first faces the Yellow Devil (though it fights differently in the two different fights), and in 7 they are up against a Van Puukin, the pumpkin robot that appeared as a miniboss in Mega Man 7's "Shade Man" stage. After defeating the boss, the player fights against Dr. Wily himself in a large machine which is fought in three different forms. Defeating him completes the game, which then shows a different ending cutscene depending on what character is played as, and lets the player add him or herself onto the high score list.

[edit] Trivia

  • While fighting the Yellow Devil or Van Puukin, several Robot Masters can be seen in tubes in the background. With the exception of Blizzard Man, these Robot Masters would appear as bosses in the sequel game.
  • Every once in a while when you fight Shade Man, instead of hearing Shade Man's theme, a hidden track plays. It is an arrangement of the first stage theme from Ghouls 'n Ghosts tune which was used as a hidden melody in Mega Man 7. However, there seems to be no way to determine when it's going to play.
  • The game was originally going to be far more complex than a simple "boss rush" playthrough. Originally, the game was going to have multi-levelled areas with ladders, mechanoids the bosses could summon, more moves for each character, "status ailments" (for lack of better terms) such as "burning" or "frozen", inventory such as E-Tanks and W-Tanks, Roll, and even helper units such as Rush and Treble. Though some of the concepts made it into the sequel, Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters, most of the plans never saw the light of day aside from game sprites ripped from the raw game data.[1][2]
  • Both of the arcade games were rereleased on the Neo Geo Pocket Color in a compilation called Rockman: Battle And Fighters. The game played largely like the arcade titles, however the graphics were scaled down (given an almost NES look) and a good deal of the music was removed. Otherwise, it played identical to the arcade games. However, due to SNK abandoning their foreign market support, the compilation never made it stateside.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links