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Bass

Levels: Okay

Graphics: Eh

Music: No Change

Enemies: No Change

Bosses: Okay (mostly room changes)

Weapons: No Change

Castle: Eh

Difficulty: EASY-MEDIUM (occasionally MEDIUM)

Comments: At the heart of Bass is an interesting idea—toss the antihero into Mega Man's debut game and apply a Rockman & Forte coating to it—but it's a very underwhelming hack in the end. The only big change here is that Bass jumps a square higher than Mega Man, so stage layouts, enemies, and weapons are all unchanged. Some of the boss arenas get some tweaks, turning them into fairly tricky fights (and Bomb Man is legit an amazing duel), but that's about the best the hack has to offer. Enemies are spammed without remorse (good luck doing Bomb Man first) and are used in grueling, repetitive ways (like the Cut Man and Bomb Man pre-boss rooms). Visually, the hack is indeed reminiscent of Rockman & Forte—it's just that the tiles look like an ugly placeholder and not, y'know, a finished project. With a lackluster, barely changed Wily Castle to top things off (which also softlocks you if you die at the boss rush), I can't even recommend this hack for the novelty of playing the big bad Bass himself.

I've seen a lot of criticism about the hack, the only downsides are some graphical bugs, level bugs, enemies appearing out of nowhere, some poorly made sprites (like the final boss, which I was looking forward to seeing Dr.White and ended up hanging out with Dr.Willy Pink XD) and also has a bug that will hurt you a lot in the last boss rush, when you die you can't go any further because of the teleport bug, thank goodness I used a save state at the beginning of the level.

BUT! this was done in 2002, and already has several beautiful sprites, with totally original levels with a good difficulty, bugs seemed inevitable for that time, it's still worth playing, because a new challenge is always accepted, I found the story interesting too. THE DUELISTS STUDIO, they seem to have only this hack, I would like to see more hack from them.

People are critical of this game. Maybe a little too hard on the author. Keep in mind this is the only Bass swap of MM1 available, and he did even more by changing the game as well. No you can't double jump but MM1 isn't regarded as the best MM anyways.

+The concept of using Bass and the MM&B bosses.

• No MM10 Bass sprite.
• Glitchy levels.
• Impossible death pits.

Considering the year this romhack was made, I can see how this thing turned out to be a bit of a mess, but this adventure is not exactly impossible to beat. The frustrations are mostly from jumbled up enemy code inside the game that causes certain enemies to only appear under certain circumstances, and the odd graphical glitches. Sometimes the platforming can be a bit cheap, and you have to act quick to destroy certain enemies.

The bosses are not exactly well put together, but back then there was no 8-bit versions of those bosses yet, but thanks to some talented sprite artists they exist now in better shape. Also the stages for those bosses should exist in 8-bit now as well. Personally if he were to comeback to this project, he be better off just making something without MM1's limitations instead. I'm sure the author nonetheless as long since moved on though.

The gameplay overall is a bit challenging, but it is not impossible to conquer, and there is only a few times where you might to make use of a save-state, but due to the glitches, and cheap antics of this romhack, I cannot recommend it.

This hack is a mess. Some enemies appear from surprise, some sprites are terrible and worthless, especially big guy and the bosses. Even that black shadow in the stage select is better than their sprites. The level design is bad and the random appearing of the enemies doesn´t help.

If you really want to play as bass, you must try this hack: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/9/. This one deserves some attention.

This guy definitely should put more work on this hack.

This hack is, visually, pretty well done. I am fond of Bass' sprite in particular. It also has a great concept; who doesn't like to play as Bass? He's essentially Megaman's Zero after all.

Trouble is, the level design is terrible. The obstacles are not so much challenging as nearly impossible. But not out of clever usage, rather, out of poor choices. For example, placing a tiny platform over a death pit, placing an enemy on it that fires in multiple directions, not giving you any way to shoot it down, and expecting you to get past.

I am pretty darn good at Megaman games; particularly the first one (played it a lot) but this hack has me licked. I feel for all the wrong reasons though.

If you like frustratingly impossible and poorly designed platforming, play it. If you are looking for a balanced, truly challenging hack, look elsewhere.