365//365: Day 187 – Rockman: Battle & Fighters (NGPC) [PP]

Rockman: Battle & Fighters on the NeoGeo Pocket Color is somewhat of an oddity. Having never played more than 2 minutes of the arcade versions they were based off of, it’s hard to make heads or tails of the experience. You have two different games to fight through, which is nothing more than a glorified “fighting” game against various bosses from various Mega Man titles. While there are wall jumps available, the experience feels like nothing but a remixed boss battle from whatever Mega Man each boss was in, within a much larger corridor. Each battle does feel much different from what you’ve been through before, but it all becomes elementary within the first 5 seconds. While the arcade game was built with a 16 bit visual engine, due to the limitations of the NeoGeo Pocket Color, detail and character models have been downgraded to a more streamlined 8 bit, overly simplified look, which does work quite well for the system. The same cannot be said about the lackluster audio presentation, with recycled, poorly remixed music throughout, with even the sound effects sounding off. Although you’ll have a selection of different characters to choose from, none of them feel more important than the other, so you’ll end up having almost the same feeling with each character. Having never played the arcade versions extensively enough though, it’s hard to say whether or not its faithful to, or as enjoyable of an experience as the coin-op, but the NeoGeo Pocket Color incarnation is nothing more than an afternoon’s worth of action and excitement and not worth the price of getting off of ebay.

Rockman: Battle & Fighters looks bright and colorful, but the gameplay is so elementary, the experience dulls out considerably as time passes.

Rating: 6.1