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Level design ruins the enjoyment of the Famitracker tracks, especially Heat Man's stage. Crash Man's stage reminds me the nightmare of Astro Man's maze stage. I'd just rip the tracks and listen to them on the side rather than playing this hack to listen to them.

I get the reason why other reviews have a no recommendation and I have to agree on that one after playing the Mega Man II hack. After playing this it's just the level design without changing scroll layouts and changing sprite ordering along with music and graphic changes. Problem is Quick Man doesn't have a midway checkpoint and the author told me why and also in the boss room the quick laser beams are still active but doesn't aim to kill the player.

Honestly the music presentation is good and it's hard to decide the "Recommended" in my review. If you obtain the music data, you can copy/paste it into the original rom and play the game without all of those changes or convert it to .NSF which is pretty easy to do.

I would recommend this but only for music lovers and for those that don't like the level designs simply don't play the Mega Man II hack.

Catnip, I remember playing your first hack, 'AV', and I did not enjoy it very much. Cramped spike placement and unfair level geometry were the main problems. One of the Wily Stages in particular was like going through a funhouse in a huge sumo costume. I've seen worse, my friend, but it was not the best hack I've played. I do appreciate the effort put into the weapons, sprites, the game's playful nature, and Robot Masters, however.

With that said, 'Man II', the latest hack from your catalog, was incredibly fun to play and a huge improvement over the predecessor. Even with the occasional tough level design, the possible Metal Man softlock, and Heat Man's stage, I still had fun.

In regard to enemy placement, I played through Air Man's stage for his weapon and Item 2, then began the weakness order with Heat Man. This proved to be incredibly useful considering the mass amount of Fly Boys and Tellies in Heat Man's stage, as well as a Batton blocking a passageway near a pit in Wood Man's stage. I must also note that Heat Man's stage mostly consists of Yoku Blocks over pits, so this stage will keep you on your toes, and to avoid the Metal Man softlock, make sure that the bottom-most conveyor belt pushes you towards the left wall when Metal Man is defeated. If you do end up getting softlocked, but you don't want a game over or reset, head on down to Quick Man's stage; the first screen has a downward vertical transition.

In regard to music, all of the music choices were nothing short of lovely. Hearing the main theme of 'Super Mario Odyssey' on the title screen and the main theme of 'Thomas & Friends' in Metal Man's stage melted my heart and made my day. Along with Barney the Dinosaur, I loved Thomas the Tank Engine as a toddler, and even had Thomas shoes and a few Thomas playsets at some point. The 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence' tune in Bubble Man's stage felt like dream pop in 8-bit form, and I savored every second of it!

In regard to level design, it feels deliberate in a fun way that pertains to the story, rather than as a way to keep the player from enjoying the experience. All the levels were very bizarre, wacky, and beautiful recreations of the original stages, designed in the style of Mega Man's dreams, and I thought that was a mesmerizing, creative concept. I've always wondered what dreams Mega Man had. In addition, if there were spikes placed in tricky spots, like in Bubble Man's stage, I would just use an Item or damage boost using enemies.

Not to mention, Mega Man's sunglasses, the vibrant color palettes, and the silly boss rooms were the cherries on top. All of the new sprites were also splendid nods to other beloved video game characters and objects, and really added to how random dreams tend to be.

Keep up the good work, Catnip, and thank you very much for providing a hack that's much more playable than some of the recent ones!

Weaknesses: Entirely unchanged.

The music and Mega Man wearing sunglasses are the only things this hack has going for it. The new graphics at points just make it hard to figure out where you're going and honestly just do not look that great.

The big thing of note here though is the level design and the different boss rooms. I like the concept behind this hack, but the description starts off saying this was made in a week and it shows. Some levels on some standpoint are kind of fine, but other times its just kind of there.

The key thing I noted was at points some level design and enemy placement was changed around to make a memorable part of the level kind of stay throughout the entire stage. Easiest example being Heatman's stage. The entire level you are dealing with disappearing blocks. At points its fine, but the enemy spam in this essentially makes it unplayable. I was actually looking forward to Crashman's stage to see what was done with the moving platforms. It was just one platform section in the stage and the rest was bad level design. An odd note is I expected Quickman's stage to be insane, but I easily got through the stage without issue.

The boss rooms being different are a nice idea, but I think at points its just executed poorly. When it comes to the bosses in this its either it makes trivilizes the fight or makes them annoying to deal with, there is no inbetween.

I did end up beating this and outside of one boss being less annoying than the NES counterpart the stage design is just bad.

I'm happy I played through this, but I would not recommend this to anyone else.

One has to agree with UlticraftMTT after playing this. The music is pretty nice (it should be for a project made to showcase the FamiTracker compatibility) but the levels are either barely playable to the point where one would wonder if they were even playtested before release, or straight-up sadistic with their gimmicks. A few robot masters are impossible if not extremely difficult to defeat without their required weapons. Some of the new graphics seem to rely on initial RAM contents as a few items and enemies look corrupted.

An extra few weeks of development with feedback from testers would have ironed out these issues. It is a real shame that this new FamiTracker compatibility (which greatly improves accessibility for composers) has been showcased in such a hack.

It's not very often you see a new Megaman hack these days, so seeing this pop up in Newest Hacks had me a bit curious, especially seeing that it used a FamiTracker patch. Unfortunately, the hack is ultimately a frustration test. Level design is extremely cramped, more often than not making damage inevitable. Not to mention that some of the layout ideas and gimmicks are pretty annoying more than anything (Crash Man and Heat Man being some of the worst offenders). Graphically, the hack is all over the place, with palettes that clash very badly and sprites that just perplex me, though I will admit Megaman with the shades is pretty dope. Bosses don't have their AI changed, but their rooms are rearranged in such a way that can either cause softlocks if you don't have the appropriate weapon, allows you to get them stuck in a way and cheese the fights, or both. Finally, at least in the version I played, playing any stage after Metal Man would create a softlock, since the conveyor belt throws you in a bottomless pit, resulting in Megaman spawning to be borked. Really, the only thing I can give it credit for is the music, and even then, most of it has been stuff floating around the internet for years. I appreciate incorporating some cool new tech to your ROM hack, but designing the ROM hack itself is also important, and at the end of the day, this just feels half-baked.

Let me start out by saying that I'm not too much of a classic Megaman fan, like, at all. Didn't grow up with them, I don't even really like them.

However I did find some enjoyment out of this. Even if it was janky at times, the fact it was made in a week still impressed me.

If you focus on the level design however, I feel you are entirely missing the point of this hack. Its purpose is to showcase the MUSIC not the level design. And with that, I'd say it succeeds. The music is expertly crafted, a wonderful showcase of the programs capabilities. It's worth playing to hear these remixes in my opinion.

On one hand, the music ports are fantastic, the Super Mario Odyssey Fossil Falls theme on the title screen and the Mega Man X3 Toxic Seahorse theme in Crash Man's stage are particular stand-outs.

However, the hack itself makes Peercast and CHIKO hacks look like Mega Man 4 Voyage or Rockman 4 Minus Infinity in comparison. Bubble Man's stage is literally impossible to play since you're spawned offscreen. Every other stage makes obnoxious use of invisible floor or darkness gimmicks and the stages themselves look like graphical vomit. I was trying to drag through the robot master stages to listen to the ported music in the Wily stages but once i played Bubble Man's stage it became apparent to me that it really won't matter in the end.

It is a "hack" alright, if you can call hacking up a Mega Man 2 NES cartridge with a hatchet and then pulling the rom from the destroyed cartridge a "hack". Stay very, very, very far away from this hack.