The history of video games has been plagued with numerous mediocre titles featuring popular characters, doing things outside their comfort zone. Well okay, they haven’t ALL been mediocre; generally the ones with Mario in the title are worth taking a look at. I can’t say the same for Dr. Robotonik’s Mean Bean Machine or Link’s Crossbow training, though.

Mega Man, a character held near & dear to the hearts of most of the Wing Damage crew, has starred in several lackluster spin-off titles. In this month’s “I Am Error,” we take a look at three of ‘em – Mega Man Soccer, Mega Man Battle & Chase and Super Adventure Rockman.

If you have played any of these titles in the past or have access to play them now, please do and email us or comment with your thoughts. We’ll read your missives on the next edition of the “I Am Error” podcast, which will be available for consumption in just a few weeks.

Mega Man Soccer

Mega Man Soccer (SNES, 1994) has one advantage over other sports-based spinoff – it has A STORY. Should you elect to play the “Capcom Championship Mode,” you’ll find our hero watching a soccer match with Roll and Dr. Light. Before the game’s conclusion, robots take over the field heralding Dr. Wily’s latest evil plan; he plans on taking over the world by controlling the game of soccer. Wowza!

If you’re not one for meaty narratives, you may play in Exhibition, Tournament or League mode.

Mega Man Battle & Chase

There’s no denying Capcom was heavily influenced by Nintendo’s Mario Kart when creating Mega Man Battle & Chase (PS1, 1997), a kart racer featuring Mega Man & Co. No new ground is broken here; it’s just a colorful racing game where each participant has an attack move they may use against their opponents.

There are three basic game modes – Grand Prix (1 player), Time Trial (1 player; 12 tracks) and a multiplayer Versus Mode. So, it’s basically Mega Man Kart, which some might consider a good thing.

NOTE: Looking for an easy way to play this one? If so, we suggest picking up a copy of the Mega Man X Collection for Gamecube & Playstation 2. It features several Mega Man titles, including Battle & Chase. This anthology may be purchased from Amazon.com for around $10.

Super Adventure Rockman

Super Adventure Rockman, a Full Motion Video game released in Japan for the Sega Saturn & Playstation in 1998, never made its way to American shores, thus the use of “Rock” and not “Mega” in the title. Luckily for us, Youtube users with too much time on their hands have completed the game and uploaded video clips of the entire game.

It should be no surprise that Super Adventure Rockman is more focused on narrative than our previous two titles. The plot of the game revolves around Dr. Wily using an alien computer to reboot several of his robot creations destroyed by Mega Man in previous games. The events of the story play out through a series of fully animated cut scenes brought about by decisions made by the player. Oh, and you occasionally are allowed to fight in a First-person Shooter styled battle. Exciting, right?

So dear readers, you now know what Jonah, Dan and I have to endure this month. Again, I ask that if you’ve suffered through any of these yourself, please let us know with an email. Your experiences, along with ours, will be detailed in the next episode of the I Am Error podcast.

Tags: Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Full Motion Video, gamecube, I Am Error, Link's Crossbow Training, Mario Kart, Mega Man, Mega Man Battle & Chase, Mega Man Soccer, Mega Man X, Mega Man X Collection, PS1, ps2, Rock Man Battle & Chase, rockman, Sega Saturn, SNES, Super Adventure Rockman

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 16th, 2011 at 8:15 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.