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makes me happy

It is not often that Roll ever gets the spotlight, and this romhack does just that. Over the years Proto Man has gained some relevance in later games, and the more late character Bass, but somewhere in time Roll has become nothing more than a background character. This simple character changes plus a few minor changes solves that problem for this "what if" story if Megaman didn't fight, but instead Roll?

This romhack definitely recommended.

It's a hack I've always longed for. Finally my favorite character in the lead role! It maintains all the features of the original game with a few changed colors and Roll as the playable character. Every last frame of Roll's animation is fantastic and suits the character. The later games in the series even include Tango instead of Rush! Highly recommend this hack and the rest in the series.

Though this only changes the main character to Roll, and updates the look of the power-ups, this is a great hack. The weapon palettes are different, as well. Though the changes are few, all is as advertised, and there's just enough to freshen up this old classic!

It's been real fun playing through these hacks. With the updates a lot of the little gripes have been worked out. The little improvements to all the sprites are small but noticeable to anyone who has played this game many times.

If you're into the idea if playing through a great game again as a different character then this is for you.

This is an awesome visual swap for this game. Games need more girl main characters, and I can't imagine a more fitting game to get the girl-power make over than this. Only complaint is that it does not work with Mega Man Upgrade Patch... if it did then it would be perfect! Thanks!

So, while poking around for a specific Super Metroid ROM hack, I noticed a headline on the front page of this site today. Apparently, someone had made a graphical hack of Mega Man, putting his sister Roll in the place of the Blue Bomber. Being Roll's biggest fan (a self-given title), you can guess that Super Metroid went on the back burner so I could try this hack.

Now, there is another bunch of hacks by someone named "YUIFA" which do this exact thing. However, the Roll in those hacks look... strange. The proportions in those hacks are a little wonky, likely due to the limited amount of space which could be overwritten, and overall Roll doesn't look quite like herself. Zynk apparently found a way to get around this limit, allowing him to make Roll look considerably more like her original self! But he didn't stop there, oh no sir. Not only did he make a graphical patch to play as Roll in her classic dress... he made one that lets her wear her Mega Man 8 outfit and hair as well! Even better than that, he made patches for both the United States and Japanese versions of Mega Man! How cool is that? But enough backstory and technical details. I'm sure you all want to know how it looks and how it plays.

To start, you'll notice that no matter which language version of the ROM you patch, the title screen will always change into a modified version of the Japanese screen, though the blue background is changed to black for this hack. The logo is appropriately changed from "Rockman" to "Roll-Chan" (or more specifically, "Roll♥Chan" - a carry-over or homage to YUIFA's hacks) and instead if a bulbous Rock, we see Roll in a pose that's similar to her Rockman Mobile pose, though rotated about a quarter-turn. It's quite cute! These changes also apply to the Mega Man 8 version of the hack, her dress changed where appropriate. However, one curiosity that separates the two versions of the hack is that the "classic" dress hack surrounds Roll with simple color bars while the Mega Man 8 version surrounds her with lines of hearts. That's a little odd, to me.

Getting to the game proper, the level select screen is completely unchanged. Once you get into a stage however, you'll see Roll land, her palette appropriately colored and everything. Every single one of her sprites is changed to appropriate analogues for Rock's - even the rarely-used "knocked down" sprite (triggered by Gutsman's stomp) and her ending sprites! (No spoilers, but she looks particularly adorable when you beat the game.) This does lead me to two things I don't really like about the edits though... While the editing to her palette was done quite well, the fact that her hair changes color when she switches weapons doesn't set well with me. If it were me, I would have made her hair use her skin color and made her ribbon use the secondary color. This, combined with her Mega Man 8 outfit's sprite having elongated boot tops (which use the secondary yellow color instead of white) looks very odd to me. Then again, I did pretty much the same thing with my own Rockman Mobile Roll sprite edits, and there is that aforementioned limit to graphic placement, so... The other thing is that I don't understand why the Roll Buster bullets were changed to hearts. I think that might be another carry-over from YUIFA, but I don't remember. I just know Roll never fired "heart bullets" in Marvel vs. Capcom or Rockman Mobile (though I have no idea if "Super Roll" from the Japanese animated mini-series did or not). This seems like a unnecessary change, especially when the boss weapons are completely unchanged. But mind you, this is just my personal preference. The heart bullets to look good for what they are. I just prefer the classic "pink lemon" buster shots.

Aside from Roll, there's other little graphics which went changed. There's a very nice touch on the weapon menu which changes the boring letters from the normal game into weapon icons! Unfortunately, due to the very limited 8x8 space on the menu, the icons look a little funny. Some of them also don't seem to match the official weapon icons found in The Wily Wars or the arcade Battle & Fighters series. It's pretty obvious what they're meant to represent though, so that's alright. Another little aesthetic change I noticed was done to Bombman's Hyper Bombs. In the original game, Bombman's bombs didn't have a lit fuse. Though undocumented, Zynk added a little spark at the end of the fuse in this ROM hack. I found that to be a pretty nice touch.

Now comes the big question: "How does it play?" Well, I'm happy to say that the core game is completely untouched. All changes made were completely graphical and the game still plays exactly like the original Mega Man many people love. The ending dialogue was changed very slightly, swapping out "Mega/Rockman" for "Roll" and adding a hack credit in at the very end, but otherwise, the dialogue remains unaltered.

All and all, I feel that this is a great way to re-experience the magic of the first game and it's especially a nice treat for folks like me who can't get enough of the cuteness that is Roll! I highly recommend this ROM hack if you like Roll, or if you just want to change things up ever-so-slightly. And just a side note here, I'm very much looking forward to the next five "Roll-chan" hacks, which Zynk is working on in his spare time. Keep up the good work, Zynk!

And of course... happy 26th anniversary, classic series! There'll always be a place for you in the hearts of your fans, Rock and company.