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Rockman 5 Wily's ???

Original game : Mega Man 5

Platform : NES

Author : miaomiao

Release date : 11 July 2024

Category : Complete

Patch version : 1.0

Modifications : G, S, L, T, P, O

Downloads : 233

ROM Information

Database match: Rockman 5 - Blues no Wana! (Japan)
Database: No-Intro: Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20210216-231042)
File SHA-1: 0FC06CE52BBB65F6019E2FA3553A9C1FC60CC201
File CRC32: 9D01E44C
ROM SHA-1: 36A89DA160D9760F78B891E332F7DCABB6E90E70
ROM CRC32: FDDF2135

Hack description

This hack started in 2022, and it has been almost two years.
It is time to give an explanation to those who are waiting for the official version of this revision.

This hack modifies the levels, enemy AI and textures, Boss AI, music, and more innovative content that was not in the previous Rockman 5/Mega Man 5 hack.
See the readme file for details.

Enjoy this hack......

2024/7/10 Updated: Fix the bug of selecting difficulty.

Screenshots

Contributions

ContributorType of contributionDescription
miaomiaoHackingLeader, programmer, Gravity Man AI
MagnetFirstBroHackingLevel design, sprite graphics, some weapons, modified the remaining Boss AI for Miaomiao
WeiXiaoHackingLevel design
QingMingHackingLevel design

Reviews

Amusingly Quirky and Literally ImpossibleJosephine Lithius2024-07-11Version 1.0

Let me preface this review by saying that I enjoyed this hack. There's a lot of fun ideas, some great music "borrowed" from other ROM hacks, interesting weaponry, and even some modified enemy and boss behavior. Let me also state up front, it's difficult to defeat Gravity Man due to a programming oversight, and it's impossible to finish the game due to a level design oversight. "???" perfectly describes the state of this hack.

The Good

  • This hack has a very amusing title.
  • All story elements have been removed from the game, putting greater emphasis on the action!
    • Despite this, the cutscenes are still intact, adding just a dash of story to an otherwise all-action game mod.
  • The addition of a difficulty selection is a really great option! It helps players of all skill levels test their mettle.
  • A lot of the soundtrack comes from Rockman 3: Burst Chaser, so it's really good stuff!
    • There are other songs remade from other games and the like, and they're all very high-quality as well!
  • The new stages are all pretty interesting and some make use of some new gimmicks!
  • The new stages are very colorful with a lot of graphics borrowed from other games in the series.
  • Enemies from other games have been somewhat imported into this game, such as Sniper Joe, Big Eye, and Telly!
    • Some enemies, such as M-445 and Big Eye, are just sprite swaps for other enemies — Bombier and Power Muscler, in this example.
  • The enemies now have more invulnerability frames, giving them more of a chance to fight back!
  • All bosses now have twice as much health as before, making for prolonged battles with powerful foes!
  • The altered boss behavior adds some variety and uniqueness to the already memorable boss characters.
  • The altered weapons are very interesting and come in a wide variety of "flavors"! Some weapons were buffed with new abilities, some weapons were just made better.
    • In particular, fans of Rockman 2 will find Prop Blade to be very familiar!
    • Players who go to the trouble to collect all the Letter Plates will find that their little bluebird of happiness has gotten quite strong! Beat's happy to share that strength with the player, too!
  • No more Mystery Cans! However, the player can now exit beaten stages through the menu, instead! Very handy for farming lives or E-Cans.
  • The fortress stage maps only display on the first stage, keeping the player amped-up for what's to come next!

The Bad

  • The documentation isn't entirely accurate and doesn't explain some things well.
  • There is no way to change the difficulty from Normal when using a password.
  • Beat can no longer be obtained through passwords. The player just gets the letter plates.
  • Mystery Cans are sorely missed at times.
  • The increased invulnerability frames for enemies makes defeating some of them far more tedious than it needs to be.
    • However, most enemies have had their Life Energy reduced to compensate, so it mostly balances out.
  • The "Resurrection Armor" — available on Hard Mode after picking up 5 or more Energy Cans — doesn't always work, and occasionally fails to give the player invulnerability frames when it does activate.
    • The "Resurrection Armor" gives the player about 8 health at the cost of 2 Energy Cans. That is extremely inefficient!
  • The ice physics ("Cai Xu Kun" Stage) are very... challenging to work with as moving in the opposite direction the player is sliding doesn't affect the "slip speed" counter, as it should. (It works like Rockman 1 and 2 ice, in that regard.)
  • Most of the boss doors are non-physical once the player is in the boss room, leading to some potentially unfair damage if they try to jump and bonk their head.
  • The double health bars feel like overkill. If boss behavior changed after the first meter was drained, then it would be much more interesting.
  • Charge Man's new "afterimage" technique seems a bit buggy and doesn't always aim where it should.
  • Gravity Man has some very "quirky" behavior.
    • He teleports around instead of doing a forward leap. This can be both annoying and lead to some unfair damage.
    • His bullet pattern is very unusual and can miss the player entirely. It also moves very slowly during the re-fight.
    • He randomly seems to heal throughout the fight with no rhyme or reason.
    • He can erase the player's projectiles, at times.
    • He frequently leaves his boss arena, soft-locking the game. This also applies to his re-fight later on.
  • Dark Man 4 often loses one of his shields due to how wide an area it now covers when idle.
  • There is no cutscene dialogue at all after being Blues Stage 4. Rockman and Dr. Wily just kind of stare at each other in darkness.
    • In the next stage (Wily Stage 1), Super Arrow, the Charge Shot, and the Slide (and Ultra Kick) are all removed without any explanation, warning, or fanfare. However, all of that is re-enabled in the next stage.
  • This hack cannot be played to completion without the use of cheats or stage editing.
    • In Wily Stage 2, there is a section where the player needs some jumps that are four blocks high, but the player can only jump up about three blocks in height. Normally, this isn't a problem at all. Arrow, Rush Jet, or New Rush Coil can all assist with this... unless the player is upside-down. In that situation, the player can't summon Rush, much less utilize him, and Arrow doesn't have collision data for upside-down players, so they bonk their head on it, instead. There are two jumps before the checkpoint where the player is, in fact, upside-down and has no way to jump higher. Cheat codes or level editing will allow progress and the rest of the game is there, but this one section prevents completing the game legitimately.

The Ugly

  • Crystal Man's portrait has been replaced by a Minecraft player skin and he's been renamed "Cai Xu Kun". Um... why?
  • Charge Man's stage feels too long — kind of like Stone Man's stage in the original.
  • Charge Man summons injured copies of Rockman on the Marine Bike... why?
  • Under certain circumstances, a "phantom Rockman" will be spawned and run across the screen. One particular instance is in Cai Xu Kun's stage when a Kamadoma and Big Eye are both on the screen.
  • Gravity Man's stage feels disproportionately difficult compared to most of the other stages.
  • Since the story has been removed, there's no real context for Blues "turning evil".
  • The weaponry has a lot of weird quirks.
    • Prop Blade doesn't lock the player in place when firing despite being coded to work like Metal Blade from Rockman 2.
    • If there are multiple Bouncing Bombs on the screen when one bounces off a wall, then they all start ricocheting around.
    • Triple Shot only goes to the right and cannot be fired left.
    • This version of Rush Jet isn't a perfect replica of the one from Rockman 3 as he stays still when the player jumps off.
  • Beat is absolutely broken and it feels so good.
    • Beat can destroy almost anything with just one attack — even some invincible enemies!
    • Even when Beat isn't summoned (or can't be summoned), having him equipped doubles the player's attack strength against all enemies and bosses.
    • Beat works as a "damage shield" even when not summoned. Having him equipped effectively gives the player 28 extra hits to work with as any damage that would have been done just removes one Weapon Energy, instead.
    • Just unlocking him will all but remove the player's damage knock-back and give almost twice as many invulnerability frames.

This hack has a lot of good ideas and was a lot of fun to play through. There wasn't a single "what the heck?!" moment where enemies spawned out of nowhere or caught me off guard. If I fell into a pit or died from damage, it was entirely on me. This is a very nice, fair, and balanced hack, and I enjoyed it — especially after unlocking Beat and realizing how invincible it made me! That said, I'd also like to speculate that hack wasn't tested through and through. It shows in some of its weapons and especially those two soft-locks I mentioned.

As much as it pains me to say... I cannot recommend this hack in its current state. If the bugs and oversights were fixed, though? Yes. Absolutely. But until then...