Mega Man & BassFrom The Mega Man Universe
Story SummaryFollowing Mega Man 8, a new robot known as King arrives on the scene, claiming that he is rounding up an army of followers to take over the world. Not one to take this claim lying down, Mega Man is quick to step in and try to stop this new threat, while Bass feels his position as the world's strongest robot being challenged. Both Robots would set aside their feud for the time being and work together to face King and the dangers that follow. Game OverviewMega Man & Bass plays more akin to to Mega Man X4 than 8, in that you are given the choice of two characters with vastly different play styles. Mega Man is easy to use and excellent against bosses at first with his powerful charge shots, but lacks Bass' terrific Double Jump and multi directional aiming capabilities. This makes the game both easy and hard in some areas for the characters, as Mega Man will have difficulties making his away through areas that Bass can simply leap across, while Bass suffers from having a rather weak Buster to use on bosses without the aid of power up Parts. Like Mega Man 7 and Mega Man 8 you are able to acquire equippable parts for Mega Man or Bass, but are no longer limited to the number of bolts you can gain. Robot MastersCold Man - Generally the easiest of the bosses to take on first with either character. Simply shoot him as he stands around and leap over his ice wall for the first half of the fight, then blast away the small cloud he summons at lower health. In later fights you can use the Lightning Bolt to bring about a quick end to him. Burner Man - Arguably one of the hardest bosses of the game, Burner Man may require a few tries to beat, thanks to his hard to avoid attacks. Burner Man will dash at you often and try to litter the area with traps that hold you in place for his Wave Burner, or make you unable to dodge his grenades. When he is using the Wave Burner, set up and push an Ice Wall towards him and pursue him for a bit, making sure Burner Man is pushed into the spiked pit at the end of the screen. Pirate Man - Pirate Man will often try to keep the water level high and fire a wave of damaging Remote Mines at you or attempt to slam you around with a bouncing tackle. Simply attack him with the Wave Burner while he's bouncing to make him stop and lower the water levels. Ground Man - It's Drill Man all over again folks. Ground Man will bury himself above or under the screen and try to attack you for hefty damage, or try to tackle you and nail you with his Spread Drill. The best method for defeating him is to simply fire a Remote Mine on him while he's moving across the area and watch him try to hide in the terrain and fail miserably. Repeat until you've won. Tengu Man - He's just as simple here as the last game, although now Tengu Man has added a melee attack into his pattern. Watch out for the Tornado Hold and fly by dashes and simply fire the Spread Drill at him as he races across the ground. Magic Man - This fight can be challenging if you're not careful, as Magic Man will throw a variety of attacks that can screw up your evasion, or even leech health off of you. Although risky, you can defeat him quickly by using a dashing Tengu Claw (Slide for Mega Man, Dash with Bass) several times at any point in the battle, or try to play it safe using the long range variant. Astro Man - Astro Man now fights with doubles of himself filling the room and firing shots at you, while summoning enemies from the ground. While with the Buster this may be a bit of a problem, the Magic Card will interrupt most of his attacks and make him restart his pattern. Simply fire the card straight up and whittle his health away for the easy win. Dynamo Man - Right up there with Burner Man for hardest boss in the game, Dynamo Man will come at you fast and hit you hard with slides across the screen and large jumps. Dynamo Man will often fire a series of conducts at you, which are best shot down with your buster, before following up by firing off the Lightning Bolt. This is the point in which you want to start using the Copy Vision and take off a large chunk of his health. Be sure to have an ample supply of Wave Burners for when he takes to the air and tries to recharge his health, as you'll want to destroy the two chargers hanging on the ceiling. If you can manage to keep your health up and his from going up, you'll come out fine. Boss StrategiesThese boss strategies detail how to beat the major bosses in the game. Green Devil (Intro Stage) - Relatively simple to defeat. His main attacks are easy to dodge and all you need to do is just spam your buster shots for some quick damage. The Remote Mine will kill him in nearly a single shot, as well. Atetemino Proto (King's Fortress 1) - This battle is more annoying than hard. Your goal is to stand on the left platform long enough to raise the pod on the right into your line of fire, while trying not to fall into the lava pit. Adding to the frustration are the missiles the pod will fire and the monkey that attacks you from above. For this fight, its best to go with your busters and sport a lot of patience. Shoot the monkey away if you feel he's too much of a bother, but be warned that it will come back. King Tank (King's Fortress 2) - Take advantage of the ladders in the room and run along under the boss while it tries to carpet bomb the area and lure it to the right. Quickly race to the left and start trying to shoot down its cannon, then the dome up top when it opens to fire missiles. Afterwards move onto the Tank's backside and attack the hatch that opens up to spew enemies. Destroy that and the boss will fall. Remote Mines and the Wave Burner work best. King Plane (King's Fortress 2) - Even more annoying than the monkey fight. You'll be constantly jumping across a large pit trying to damage a small area on the ship while dodging its attacks. Life and Energy packs will float through the air to give you some aid, but so will bombs that cause the screen to white out. Be sure to mercilessly shoot at the red gem at the front of the ship should it ever flash, or have the Armour up part equipped, as you do not want to be hit by the ship's superlaser when it goes off. Keep attacking the head of the ship with your Buster/Remote Mines to bring it down King (King's Fortress 2) - The first time around you can't harm him, simply focus on evading his attacks and trying to not get hit for three rounds. Afterwards Proto Man will step in and disable his shield, allowing you to quickly bring him down with Lightning Bolts. Having the Energy Saver equipped will make the fight even easier. Jet King Robo (King's Fortress 2) - VARIABLE FORMATION! ...pardon me. Anyway, this is the last boss of the stage, and as you can expect, can use all of the attacks that the two King vehicles had. Your only means of defeating him are to shoot at King's head with your Buster/Charge shot. With Mega Man you must jump onto the platform, then fire your charge while making another jump, whereas Bass must dash and then double jump to hit the target. Sidestep the carpet bombs he fires at you and try to jump over or shoot down the white spheres King fires, while making sure he doesn't get a shot off with his super laser. Through some perseverance (and perhaps constant swapping of the armor upgrade and buster upgrades), he will go down. Wily Machine - Stick with jumping and sliding to avoid his attacks, while landing shots of your own on the mouth, or firing off Remote Mines. Mega Man has the easier of the two in this fight, as he can simply slide under Wily's Charging attack, whereas Bass will need to pull off a well timed Double Jump. Try to avoid taking as much damage as you can, and be prepared for a more difficult fight. Wily UFO - Ye old warping pod routine. Thankfully this is nowhere as bad as the Mega Man 7 and 8 incarnations, thanks to his much easier to dodge attacks. Slide or dash under his energy shots and jump over his bombs while trying to hit his head with Charged Shots or the Magic Card. Mega Man can make short work of him while Bass will require you to play a little defensively and chip away at his health. Mini ReviewThe game is quite a few years old, having been made at the end of the SNES era, but holds up quite well on the Gameboy Advance. Some problems are present from the conversion in regards to sound and controls for Bass, but overall Mega Man and Bass remains faithful to the original version and is a solid platformer on the GBA. TriviaSpecial Features
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