TMMN Reviews: Mega Man Battle & Fighters

I don’t think anyone was expecting this release.

And why would they? Only two weeks prior, Capcom released their Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium collection, which features 32 of their arcade titles (natch), including Mega Man: The Power Battle and Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters. This might explain why SNK decided to drop this one quietly, with little fanfare.

If you want to know what Mega Man: Battle & Fighters is all about, then first you should read my review of the original arcade games. Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Just go over that if you’re unfamiliar with the games in question, and then pop back here so we can discuss this release further.

Done? Alrighty then.

Basically, Mega Man: Battle & Fighters takes all the content of those two games, and squeezes it down into an 8-bit NEOGEO Pocket Color presentation. This results in a sort of ironic coolness: whereas part of the appeal of the arcade games is seeing many of your favorite characters from the 8-bit titles get a Mega Man 7-styled glow-up, Battle & Fighters feels like a precursor to the demake trend, taking those same character models and bringing them back down into something more reminiscent of those same 8-bit titles.

Mega Man himself is a particularly interesting case, as visually, he looks like a slightly less-colorful version of his NES pixel art, but his frames of animation are drawn to resemble those in the arcade game. It’s a fascinating juxtaposition.

Unfortunately, while the graphics are novel, the music is sadly not. The diversity of the soundtrack doesn’t match the range of the arcade titles, with several stages using the same theme, a remix of the classic Mega Man 2 title theme.

What’s more, most of the previously Japan-exclusive game — most notably the menus — are in Japanese, so navigating can be just a touch tricky if you don’t know what you’re doing. Fortunately, there is a translated version of the manual to help you through, though it’s apparently a literal translation which details features of the game which are no longer active in this version.

Such as the one unique feature this brings to the table over the Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium releases, a character database. On the NEOGEO Pocket Color, you could trade entries, but that option is not available here. What’s more, the game lacked any sort of multiplayer from the word go, so that’s absent here as well. There are other amenities as well, native to the emulator, including various NEOGEO Pocket Color borders, filters for pixel perfect and NGPC-like screens, button configurations, screen resolution, and so forth.

For what it is, Mega Man Battle & Fighters on the Nintendo Switch is a perfectly fine game. It’s fun, it plays well, it looks good, and much of this owes to the source material.

But here and now, it’s little more than a novelty, a curio for collectors or fans of Mega Man, NEOGEO, or demakes. There’s nothing wrong with this release, but aside from the database, you can find everything this game has and more — and often better — for the same price in Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (and you get SONSON for free there, too).

In short: If you have to make a choice, then there’s really no choice. Go for Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium. But if you’ve got eight bucks to spare and this interests you beyond what that collection has to offer, then this would make a fine addition to your collection.

Had Mega Man Battle & Fighters been released before we knew about Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium, or had Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium not come to the Switch, it would be a stronger recommendation. But it wasn’t, and it did, so it is what it is.

Thanks for reading!

Mega Man Battle & Fighters is available now on the Nintendo Switch for a price of $7.99 USD. A review code was provided by SNK.

LBD "Nytetrayn"

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

For a full list of places to find him online, click here.