The Mega Man franchise is pretty long, in fact it has been around for over 35 years. To celebrate its 35th anniversary, we’ve taken a deep dive into the best rankings for the mainline Mega Man his game. But a franchise that’s been around for as long as Mega Man has had plenty of spin-off titles that many haven’t had enough to enjoy.One such example of him being the Nintendo Switch, Mega Man Battle. & Fighters. A fighting game in the Mega Man franchise, in 2000 he was a set of his arcade games introduced in NEOGEO Pocket Color. Mega Man Battle & Fighters Surprise has just released on Switch and as a Mega Man fan I had to check it out. The final package we got is a great set of games that get him one of the worst localizations I’ve ever seen. Mega Man fans should check this out… Google Translate is much closer.
Megaman Battle & Fighters is a collection of two Megaman NEOGEO Pocket Color fighting games, Megaman: The Power Battle & Megaman 2: Power Fighters. Both games are, you guessed it, his one-on-one fighting games with Mega Man characters. The structure of Mega Man Battle & Fighters is very similar to how traditional Mega Man games progress. You can choose from his one of available characters, rush through bosses him and gain power-ups to defeat more powerful bosses.
The gameplay and presentation of Mega Man Battle & Fighters is definitely top notch. The controls are very tight and he is 100% mandatory in Mega Man games. The animation is great, the graphics are stunning, and the overall world design is great. Quickly jump, dash, and dodge each boss’s attack patterns to quickly learn patterns and defeat them. You can freely tap to fire and charge your cannon to unleash big fireballs and special attacks. These special attacks range from kicks to full body slams.
The problem is that Mega Man Battle & Fighters has a distinct downside to its gameplay. The game uses a roulette-like wheel to decide who to face as a boss. This is not the standard “this is the boss that follows this stage” kind of setting. I’m not saying it’s a game-breaking issue, but it’s really hard to prepare for a fight when you don’t know who you’re fighting.
The collection has not been localized in any way, shape or form. A look at the eShop page shows that the game supports Japanese and English. The eShop listing is lying. This game doesn’t have an English option, so I completely don’t understand what’s going on.
Remember the roulette wheel we talked about earlier? Play the game and you’ll reach a roulette wheel that tells you which boss you’re up against… but it’s only in Japanese so you don’t know what you chose This wouldn’t be so bad if the game didn’t have a lot of writing. Mega Man Battle & Fighters is full of text on every page. To make matters worse, the game includes a digital manual that “helps” you navigate the game and menus. They didn’t translate it from the original Japanese so you have no idea what it says. It’s one of the few games I’ve played in recent memory that I had to keep. The amazing part about this issue is that there were a number of NEOGEO Pocket Color games released on Switch last year, all of which have been localized to some degree. Mega Man Battle & Fighters never attempted localization.
So, should you play Mega Man Battle & Fighters? If you’re a big Mega Man fan, I definitely recommend checking this game out. It’s very tight, the visuals are very clean, and the boss fights are equally challenging, but rewarding. Mega Man fans will feel right at home in this series of fighting games. That said, localization is completely non-existent, making it almost impossible to understand anything in the game (including menu navigation). Broken down? No. But keep Google Translate open at all times. For those who aren’t fans of Mega Man Formula, Mega Man Battle & Fighters is nothing different to get you hooked. It’s a Megaman style game. you may want to look elsewhere.
