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Rockman 5 EX

Levels: Good

Graphics: Good (palette change)

Music: No Change

Enemies: Good (hp change)

Bosses: Good (few tweaks)

Weapons: No Change

Castle: Good

Difficulty: MEDIUM (Gravity Man's stage is HARD)

Comments: EX is a tough nut to crack; it's a difficult hack that often dances between a solid challenge and a sadistic chore. Levels throw enemies at you in some truly vexing formations, whittling your health down bit by bit. And when you're not dying to an onslaught of foes, you're instead falling down pits in Gyro and Gravity Man's stage (the latter of which is absurdly brutal, holy cow!) Thankfully bosses, while being a bit faster, aren't all that much harder (sans Wily Capsule), and the stage design is tough but not insurmountable, prompting a smart use of MM5's repertoire. I still think EX veers too much on the cruel side for my taste (expect a LOT of faling crystals, pukapellies, and mizziles), but difficulty quibbles aside, the hack is inarguably well made.

Usually I don't play megaman's romhacks cuz they're bored, but this one surprised me... The use of gravity on stages, was just great.

Diddy64wii had very good points in the review about this game and I played it myself. It's no surprise that this game has bad level design than Rockman 4 EX and yes I am serious because Rockman 4 EX is way too hard but I may change my review on it if I gave it a second chance.

As for Gravity Man's stage, the Yoku blocks requires trial and error which is atrocious. Whose good idea to put the Yoku blocks next to the gravity with the spikes which I died from several times even with savestates it doesn't really help.

Spoiler ALERT! Who would've guessed that one of the special weapons like the Super Arrow has a weakness chain to the regular 8 bosses? Oh and the Gravity Hold is unaffected to all 8 bosses including fortress bosses and it means nothing other using it to clear a room full of enemies? It's not as broken as Rockman 5 Air Sliding's Gravity Hold weapon but it's not really much of a use.

I do enjoy this hack and I played it from start to finish but it's such a shame that I'll have to cheat to navigate the game. As for hardware console players, good luck trying to beat the game!

Again, there are too many elements that make this hack unpleasant to play :

• E-Tanks are once again too rare.
• Most bosses move too fast AGAIN (Dark Man #1), attack too frequently (Circring Q9) or both (Gyro Man, Dark Man #3).
• Regular enemies are often badly placed (Apache Joes in Gyro Man stage, Tondealls in Dark Fortress #2) or way too abundant (Rembakuns in Charge Man stage, Rider Joes in Wave Man stage, Pukapellies in most levels).
• Some platforming sections rely too much on trial & error and frame-perfect jumping (Dark Fortress #2, Gravity Man stage, Gyro Man stage).
• Some sections are way too cramped, which makes movement too limited (Napalm Man stage, Gyro Man stage, Wily Fortress #1)

I ended up using savestates and rewinds every ten seconds because of all these flaws. The only things I've enjoyed in this hack are the entirety of Star Man's level, a few battles (Stone Man, Napalm Man, Big Pets, Wily Press)... ...and the goofy Metall cutscene in Dark Fortress #4.

Everything else feels rushed and poorly-made... once again. Is it too hard for Japanese hackers to just let a few people test their hacks, and fix most level-design issues before releasing their work on this site?