Super Adventure Rockman

Plot and gameplay

The game is divided into three episodes. Dr. Wily has uncovered an ancient alien supercomputer "Ra Moon" hidden in the ruins of the Amazon, which he uses to revive his various Robot Masters from Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3. The ruins are somehow capable of ceasing almost all the machinery and electricity in the world, also causing deleterious effects on robots by means of a crude and invasive microwave jamming frequency that suddenly spread after Ra Moon's activation. Roll is quickly affected, so Dr. Light immunizes Mega Man and his brothers, and sends them to stop Dr. Wily before it's too late.

The game alternates between animated cut scenes, making decisions from a list of text options, and fighting in a first-person shooter mode.

Development

Mega Man artist and producer Keiji Inafune claimed that Super Adventure Rockman was developed during a time when Capcom was attempting to branch out the series by "selling [it] to the lowest bidder". Although he had little involvement in the game, he was assigned to finish it after the project leader suddenly quit towards its completion. Inafune exclaimed, "The ultimate unspoken rule about making a game that is geared towards children is that you simply cannot kill anyone, but here you have military helicopters falling out of the sky and people dying in droves. If it had been up to me, I would have at least made it so they all 'got away safely' via parachutes or something. Then as if that wasn't bad enough, Roll dies... and to top it all off, the whole world is destroyed! I was like, 'Did they really need to go that far?!'"

Reception

Super Adventure Rockman has been poorly received. Brett Elston of GamesRadar included the game in his retrospective on the series for the sake of completeness. "It's a bizarre animated/FMV/first-person game that doesn't really fit anywhere in the main series," Elston stated. "But is so damn weird it has to be pointed out." GameSpot writers Christian Nutt and Justin Speer summarized the game as "an intensely boring and unplayable excursion into timed button pressing". 1UP.com editor Jeremy Parish thought the game may be acceptable for those who understand Japanese. Inafune has apologized to fans for the alleged low quality of the game.

Other Media

The game was adapted into the Archie Comics Mega Man comic, and set between Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3. As a result, the Mega Man 2 Robot Masters are here recreated by Ra Moon, while the Mega Man 3 set is created by Ra Moon from blueprints on a computer owned by Dr. Wily. Proto Man-going by his Mega Man 3 alias of Break Man-also joins Wily's forces while he is based in the Lanfront Ruins, and is accidentally responsible for damaging Roll prior to the planet-wide blackout. One of Mega Man 3 bosses, Shadow Man, who in his game of origin was originally an unidentified alien robot, is in the comics revealed to be a creation of Ra Moon who served as its escort when it traveled to Earth. Only a few of the original Mega Man game Robot Masters appeared in the adapt as allies of Mega Man, who is also joined by Break Man and the Mega Man 2 bosses to battle Ra Moon and the mind-controlled Mega Man 3 bosses. Ra Moon is also revealed to be the creator of the Stardroids from Mega Man V, and sends a signal reporting its demise to them after it is defeated by Mega Man.