Mega Man: Battle and Chase

Mega Man Battle and Chase

I wasn’t going to continue with the Mega Man games, but I just had to write about this one.  

Who knew there existed a Mega Man kart racer?  I sure as hell didn’t.  After the last two weeks, I decided to fire up Mega Man X legacy collection, as I wanted to play through X3.  Upon finishing it, I accidentally unlocked Battle and Chase without realizing I had done so. Apparently it was released in Japan and Europe for the PS1, but never made it to the U.S. That usually means one  or more of the following:

1. It completely sucked OR was absolutely incredible
2. It’s overflowing with Japanese cultural references that wouldn’t translate
3. It’s rrrreaaaaaaallllllly hard

Yet none of those things are true here.  It’s an okay game filled with familiar Mega Man characters that’s a little too easy for its own good.  Battle and Chase is fun, but its very flawed and kind of simplistic.  There are some really great ideas, but the execution isn’t always there.

The graphics are okay, a little blurry and jagged but acceptable for the time period.  The characters and their unique racers all look great, but the backgrounds are kind of bland.  The tracks aren’t super detailed and don’t have very much going on in the background.  Even more disappointingly, they aren’t based on actual Mega Man stages.  Sure, Ice Man’s track is icy, but it doesn’t make any reference to his iconic stage.  And his track at least fits his character, some of them are just completely random. I should also note that the tracks don’t have a lot of shortcuts, and those that are there are usually not placed in any sort of creative manner.  

You have a pretty good selection of characters here, with any of the franchise entries that existed at the time represented besides Mega Man 6.  Mega Man is obviously there, along with Guts Man, Ice Man, Quick Man, Shadow Man, Napalm Man and Spring Man.  Throw in Roll, Bass and Proto Man and you have a pretty complete selection.  Each character has their own unique vehicle and special weapon, with constantly recharges and can be fired at any time.  There are also universal weapons that you get from running over cones on the track.  You will also race against the Yellow Devil and Sniper Joe, although they only exist to serve as A.I. Opponents to fill out the field.  

And that leads me to one of the biggest problems I had with the game.  When you play the story mode, you only race one “main” opponent at a time.  The rest of the field will be filled out with Joes, Devils and generic robots.  That is massively disappointing, as it would have been much more chaotic, fun and interesting to have all the robot masters on the track at the same time.  I kind of get what they were going for, its like the regular Mega Man games where you pick a robot master’s stage and take him on after fighting through regular enemies.  The generic bots don’t have abilities, so your character and the other robot masters are much stronger than they are, which kind of turns each race into a one on one affair.  That kind of takes a lot of the bite out of the game.

Without a doubt though, the flaw that prevents it from being great is the lack of speed.  I am far from a racing game aficionado, but to me sense of speed is the most important part of a game like this.  Battle and Chase doesn’t offer that.  It’s difficult to explain, but the best thing I can say is go play an F-Zero or even Mario Kart game and then play this.  It’s night and day.  I get that they were trying to make the game more combat focused, with its infinite and perpetually regenerating special weapons, but this is just too slow and plodding for a racing game.  You never really feel like you are speeding around in a car like you do in those other games.

It’s a shame too because there are some cool concepts here.  It wouldn’t be a Mega Man game if you didn’t get to acquire powers form the foes you defeat and Capcom managed to find a way to carry that through to a racing game.  Each opponent you vanquish will provide you with one of four parts you can add on to your vehicle, allowing you to mix and match while building a racer that best suits your play style.  This gives the game some variety and makes it worth taking down opponents multiple times.  Other racers also get tougher with each subsequent playthrough, so getting these parts feels like a new challenge rather than just artificial length.  I think its cool how you can see parts being moved in and out in between races and switching them out actually does make a difference in gameplay.

I also kind of like the cartoony, more kid friendly look of the game.  I think it helps make the game and the franchise more accessible to new, younger gamers.  The choice of robot masters I think is pretty good, it has a good combination of iconic and unique.  Napalm Man is the only one I feel is a little out of place here.  While he’s one of my personal favorites, he kind of feels out of place with the lighter esthetic, seeing as he is essentially a walking tank.  The fact that the game is relatively easy also works to its benefit, as it adds to the accessibility factor.  It’s easy to pick up and play and the controls are simplistic.  If anything, they are too simplistic.  The shoulder buttons don’t do anything and there isn’t even a power slide move or anything like that.  You have to rely on knowing the course and using your weapons to win.

Battle and Chase is a solid racer and an interesting curiosity for Mega Man fans, but it isn’t anything special.  It’s definitely inferior to its kart racing contemporaries Mario Kart 64, Crash Team Racing and Diddy Kong racing.  Mega Man fans and racing fans will get some enjoyment out of this and its a great multiplayer game, but overall its just okay.

Play this if:

You love Mega Man

You love kart racers

You have played Mario Kart or CTR to death

Avoid if:

You prefer realistic racing games

You dislike “combat racing”

You are looking for something more complex