. It follows both Mega Man and Roll when a mysterious new force arises from the ocean and kidnaps Fire Man, Skull Man, Dagger Man, and Honey Womannote , as well as Mega Man himself. This forces Roll to step up, gaining the same modifications as Mega Man himself to rescue him. Now, the two of them must work together to face this new threat.Both characters play pretty similar to how characters of the classic games play, each with their own mechanics. Mega Man has his ever-trusty Charge Shot and robo-canine companion Rush. Meanwhile, Roll has a Double Jump and can later obtain Beat as a companion who functions similarly to Rush Jet but lacks Mega Man's charged shots and takes higher damage than him.
The Robot Masters are:
- Drake Man, gives Fire Breath, is weak to Shield Bubble.
- Polar Woman, gives Snow Roller, is weak to Fire Breath.
- Reactor Man, gives Charge Laser, is weak to Snow Roller.
- Ghost Woman, gives Soul Trap, is weak to Charge Laser.
- Beetle Lady, gives Beetle Drone, is weak to Spirit Trap.
- Dune Woman, gives Desert Storm, is weak to Beetle Drone.
- Missile Man, gives Blast Missile, is weak to Desert Storm.
- Tide Man, gives Shield Bubble, is weak to Blast Missile.
This work contains the following tropes:
- Anti-Frustration Features: There is a dedicated button for the support units à la Mega Man 11, so that they can be summoned without needing to go to the inventory screen or cycling through the weapons during gameplay.
- The game also starts you off with the Energy Balancer and Exit items. It also shows you which letters you've gotten from which stages on the stage select screen.
- The game allows you to save between fortress stages, but with the added caveat that returning to the robot master select screen will wipe out your entire progress through the fortress, meaning you'll have to conserve your items as best as possible (and you'll definitely want them for Proto Man's stage, if you unlocked it). Thankfully, the final stage has a hidden room with an E Tank and a W Tank, and you can repeatedly game over to max them out. However, you have to know the room is there in the first place to take advantage of it. There aren't any extra lives (aside from lucky drops from enemies), but the stage is short enough to the point where lives don't really matter.
- Dying against Wily's third phase won't force you to do the first two phases again, unless you game over.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: You play as Roll halfway through the intro stage, and the castle has you go through two separate sets of stages, alternating between Rock and Roll until the end. The castle also has you go as Proto Man for one level of it if you have freed all four robot masters, and this is the only point in the game where he is playable.
- Attack Backfire:
- Fire Breath powers up the volcano furnace enemies into rapidfiring their shots, and the bullets that split off of Fleas are just as harmful as when the Fleas drop into lava and explode into bullets.
- Charge Laser will charge the Tellies in Reactor Man's stage as if they had touched a natural charge source in the stage. It'll also heal Roll's first fortress boss and enable it to do its stronger attack, but landing inside of its bulb and unloading the full bar of energy into it will instakill it. Reactor Man can also restore his health from getting hit by his own weapon.
- Attack Drone: Beetle Drone, which summons a beetle that floats near enemies and peppers them with bullets.
- The drones can also be used to fly into the vents on Wily's machine during the battle's second phase and gradually clog up his cockpit. Actually pulling it off is rather finicky, as the hitbox is somewhat precise, and the balls he drops out will destroy the drones.
- Badass Adorable:
- Roll, especially when she strikes her usual cutesy pose upon clearing a stage.
- Polar Woman likewise, being a graceful and cute ice skater. She's also deceptively tough and tricky to beat.
- Badass in Distress: No less than six Robot Masters get seized by drones in the intro level, but Mega Man gets rescued early on when Roll disrupts his prison pod's launch. The other five must be rescued over the course of the rest of the game.
- Big Boo's Haunt: Ghost Woman's stage has this kind of atmosphere, what with it being an abandoned castle that has Battontons and a giant bell mini-boss in the belfry.
- Blackout Basement: After the anglerfish miniboss, Tide Man's stage becomes dark with only jellyfish and plant enemies and explosive projectiles providing lighting.
- Boss Rush: It wouldn't be a Mega Man game without one. There is a catch though: if you fail to rescue any of the four optional Robot Masters, you'll be forced to fight them throughout the penultimate stage before reaching the boss teleporter room.
- Breath Weapon: Fire Breath, which — as the name implies — shoots a fireball out of the player character's mouth. Uniquely, there are open-mouth sprites for both Rock and Roll, diverting from the usual trend of making projectiles shoot out of the buster only.
- Brutal Bonus Level: Proto Man's fortress stage, unlocked by rescuing all the robot masters, is almost ridiculously difficult. Long stretches of precarious platforming over Bottomless Pits and a boss with three phases without any health refills between them. Proto Man himself poses a lot of the difficulty through taking more damage than normal and not having acquired the weapons Mega Man and Roll have picked up during the main game.
- The Cameo:
- Plant Man appears at the start of Beetle Lady's stage, right before he frolics in the background.
- Knight Man appears in a hidden room of Ghost Woman's stage, left of a screen containing a 1-up on spikes. He's training against a Yamato Man dummy (presumably to prepare for a fight versus his weakness's bearer), and if you let him destroy it, it'll drop an E-tank for you to pick up.
- If you return to Tide Man's stage after beating it and use his weapon to surf the first screen going right, you'll see Splash Woman singing while she sits on the coast.
- Chest Monster: The anglerfish miniboss has an antenna resembling a large health refill.
- Continuity Nod: Knight Man will aid you when you come across him, just like in Mega Man Rock Force. In addition, Fire Man will actively help you in the final stages if you rescue him beforehand, referencing his secondary role in the same game.
- Crossover: Dagger Man will be familiar to those who have played another fangame, Mega Man Super Fighting Robot.
- Dartboard of Hate: Knight Man can be found in Ghost Woman's stage beating up a training dummy of Yamato Man.
- Disc-One Final Boss: EYE-C.U.2, the first fortress level boss and the apparent CPU for the dome fortress. Defeating it reveals Dr. Wily's involvement with the plot, and the rest of the entire game.
- Distressed Dude:
- Fire Man, Skull Man, Dagger Man, and Proto Man become this when they hand Honey Woman try to stop the flying saucers from carrying off robots.
- Mega Man becomes this after saving his sister Roll. She returns the favour by saving him.
- Double Jump: Roll has this power in her Super Fighting Robot form. Copy Robot gains this power after its first life bar is depleted, causing it to start copying Roll instead of Mega Man granting it Roll's double jump but losing Mega Man's Charge Shot. Draining its Life Meter again causes it to start copying Proto Man instead of Roll, making it lose Roll's double jump, but it regains the Charge Shot and gains Proto Man's shield in addition.
- Elemental Powers:
- Drake Man: Breath Weapon, Playing with Fire
- Polar Woman: An Ice Person
- Reactor Man: Atomic Superpower, Frickin' Laser Beams
- Ghost Woman: Soul Power
- Beetle Lady: Drone Deployer
- Dune Woman: Sand Blaster
- Missile Man: Macross Missile Massacre
- Tide Man: Making a Splash, Bubble Gun
- Dungeon Bypass: You can easily skip through the first room of Mega Man's first castle stage by using Shield Bubble to float along the water.
- Face–Heel Turn: As per usual, the robot masters are perfectly normal robots with civilian functions before Dr. Wily enslaves them.
- Failure Is the Only Option: You can't save any of the Robot Masters in the intro stage except for Mega Man, who is saved by destroying the computer terminal that was going to launch his rocket pod prison like the others.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: The boss lineup is divided equally by male and female Robot Masters.
- Godzilla Threshold: Midway through the intro stage, a cutscene plays out with Roll encouraging Dr. Light into modifying her into a super fighting robot, since both Mega Man and Proto Man have been abducted. Light is clearly hesitant to do so, but with no other options, he goes through with it.
- Golden Ending: You have to locate and battle Fire Man, Skull Man, Honey Woman, and Dagger Man in the first eight stages, then let them help you locate and destroy the four locking computers in Wily Fortress, which will free Proto Man, as whom you must then battle Copy Robot Mk2. But if you accomplish all that, Proto Man prevents Wily's escape and the Big Bad is JAILD.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Soul Trap, acquired from Ghost Woman, seals weak enemies like Metalls and Suzys in balls of blue energy. Those energy balls can then be touched to send them flying into other enemies, potentially dealing damage.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Tide Man's weapon allows its user to float on water while it's active. In a main series game, that feature would sound about as useful as Rush Marine, but a surprising number of stages have water surfaces in them, allowing the player to skip fair chunks of the level by using that weapon.
- Heel–Face Turn: The Robot Masters return back to their usual jobs and enjoying themselves in the epilogue.
- Hijacked by Ganon: Of course, it turns out that the mastermind behind the new threat was Wily.
- Logical Weakness:
- Shield Bubble is an aquatic weapon that douses the fire-based Drake Man.
- Fire Breath melts ice and turns it into slush, which the ice-skating Polar Woman may not like.
- Polar Woman's Snow Roller cools down Reactor Man and thus inhibits his reactor energy supply by slowing down reactions.
- Ghost Woman likes to hide in the shadows, which Reactor Man's light-based Charge Laser pierces through.
- Soul Trap captures Beetle Lady's attack drones and send them back at her to deal damage.
- Beetle Drone is not thwarted by Dune Woman's fake sand copy, seeking out the real target and attacking her.
- A windy sandstorm (Desert Storm) throws off the accuracy of the precision-based Missile Man as well as affect the flight of his missiles.
- Blast Missile pierces Tide Man's Shield Bubble.
- Mooks, but no Bosses: The intro stages for both Mega Man and Roll, with the closest thing to a boss either of them have being some inconveniently placed Big Eyes and the motionless computer terminal that launches the Robot Masters' rocket pods.
- Multiple Endings: The final scenes of the game change depending on whether or not Proto Man is rescued. If he is, he blocks off Wily's escape during the post-final boss cutscene and is last seen turning him in to the cops during the Where Are They Now ending. If not, Wily escapes and Proto Man is absent from the credits scenes.
- Mythology Gag:
- Cossack and Kalinka reappear during the Beat upgrade cutscene, as well as a scene during the epilogue. Kalinka also sports her older look from Mega Man Xover.
- Before she gets turned into a combat robot, Roll has her shirt and red jacket from Mega Man 11.
- Copy Robot returns as a boss with three phases, with his patterns being taken from Rock, Roll, and Proto Man.
- Some of the fortress stages reuse layouts from Mega Man.
- There are a few references to Mega Man X spread out throughout:
- The stage select is done in X1's style, with eight bosses along the edges of the screen and corner buttons to see boss specs or attack the fortress stages.
- The sequence where the dome fortress sinks into the ocean as the heroes watch on a cliffside is similar to the destruction of Sigma's fortress in that game. It gets subverted almost immediately when it starts rising out of the water again, this time with a familiar skull plastered on the underwater side that wasn't shown before.
- One of the Battontons in Ghost Woman's stage is a reference to the Unique Enemy Batton M-501 in Armored Armadillo's stage, both of them being the only one of their kind in the entire game and having a very high chance to drop extra lives.
- The electricity-based boss is weak to the ice weapon, getting temporarily frozen by it. You can almost stunlock Reactor Man too, but it takes a lot more effort to do so. This is also a reference to the Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX series, where ice beats electricity, and fire beats ice.
- The mid-boss of Tide Man's stage is a huge one to Lurerre from Mega Man ZX, requiring a similar method to beat (aim for the lure) and having a similar concept. They even share a few attacks.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Drake Man lacks many of the hallmark features of a typical Robot Master, resembling a lightly-anthropomorphized dragon akin to something from the Digimon series.
- Nostalgia Level: When you go through alternate paths leading to the four optional Robot Masters, their layouts and elements are taken from their games of origin, and their respective boss themes play during battle.
- Odd Name Out: Beetle Lady, who drops the "-woman" suffix used by other female robot masters both in official titles and this very game, instead going for a light pun.
- Silence Is Golden: The sequence where Roll becomes a super fighting robot is done entirely without dialogue, as well as the other cutscenes afterwards.
- Spanner in the Works:
- Both Mega Man and Roll. Mega Man, by pushing Roll away before she could get captured by one of the flying drones, and Roll, by persuading Dr. Light to turn her into a combat robot. Dr. Wily most likely didn't count on the latter scenario happening at all.
- If you successfully take all the necessary detours to free Proto Man during the endgame, he arrives just in time to prevent Wily from slipping away at the last second, ensuring that the good doctor will finally pay for his crimes.
- Turns Red: Drain its stamina gauge once and Copy Robot will turn into a copy of Roll, losing its charge shot but making it harder to hit with its Double Jump. Doing it again causes it to take on Blues' form, now with a shield to protect its body and with its Charged Attack restored despite the loss of its double jump.
- Utility Weapon:
- Charge Laser can power up generators found in the levels, enabling access to certain powerups.
- Enemies frozen with Snow Roller can be used as temporary platforms.
- Ice blocks can be melted with Fire Breath. This frees up any items or enemies inside, but can also raise the water level if the ice melts into an area that can hold water.
- Blast Missile busts open cracked blocks.
- Shield Bubble allows the user to float in water to access alternate routes.
- Unnaturally Looping Location: The Yoku Devil instigates this during his fight, turning the Bottomless Pit at the bottom of his arena into a portal that leads to the top.
- Victory Pose: Mega Man and Roll both perform one after completing a stage.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Averted if you rescue Proto Man.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: After completing the game, the 8 Robot Masters are shown what they're doing afterwards.
- While Mega Man is surfing on the Rush Jet, Roll uses Missile Man's body to surf through the air.
- Later, Rock and Roll land, where Dune Woman plants some trees. She accidentally scares Beat with one when she gets distracted.
- Tide Man goes fishing, and Splash Woman gets caught in his fishing rod, much to her dismay. She flails to escape and Tide Man realises his mistake seeing her.
- Plant Man runs for his dear life while Honey Woman and Beetle Lady chase him, lovestruck.
- Polar Woman and Fire Man go skating, but Fire Man does not like it.
- Dagger Man accidentally locks himself in the depths of a computer that is low on power. When Reactor Man restores the power with his Charge Laser, Dagger Man escapes.
- Drake Man uses his Fire Breath to kill the Waru Edī that the real Eddie corners.
- Knight Man sings one of his favourite songs and Ghost Woman waves a piece of cloth only to drop it. Knight Man stretches his hand out to catch her cloth piece, but slips and falls into the moat when he reaches too far. Ghost Woman laughs at him.
- Proto Man closes the door so Doctor Wily cannot get away.
- The Worf Effect: Proto Man is among the Robot Masters captured by the drones in the intro stage. Mega Man would also have suffered this, if it weren't for the timely intervention of Roll.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: After you clear the first 8 stages and go through an appropriately climactic final stage that involves destroying the fortress' core and causing it to sink, the game's over and our dynamic duo wins, right? Nope! The rest of it comes out of the ocean, and it's a Wily Castle, as one should expect.
