After Mario Kart became a huge success it seemed that every other video game developer was eager to slap their own mascots into go-carts and have them race around franchise themed tracks. These spin-offs could be churned out with relative ease, and let’s face it, it really doesn’t seem that hard to make a good arcade style racing game. I often wondered why Capcom of all companies never jumped on the bandwagon. They have a number of different franchises that would be well suited to the kart racing genre. Little did I know that they did try to cash in on the craze back in the days of the original PlayStation. Enter Mega Man Battle & Chase. Today we’re going to take a look at it.
There’s not much story here. Something about a race with a big prize and Dr. Wily being behind it all. I wasn’t expecting more, and it’s perfectly serviceable as far as a Mega Man title goes. For better or worse Battle & Chase is Mega Man’s spin on the kart racing genre. Obviously your goal is to place in first in a series of races. There aren’t a lot of protagonists in the franchise so Capcom threw in several different robot masters. You have Mega Man (obviously), Proto Man, and Roll for your heroes line-up. The antagonists include Bass (because he’s the coolest), Spring Man, Napalm Man, Ice Man, Guts Man, and Shadow Man. The line-up is… okay. We really must ask why Spring Man made the cut when there were so many other better robot masters?
So clearly each character has their own handling and speed attributes and they all play pretty differently. The best differentiation between them is their weapon. What’s unique about Mega Man Battle & Chase is the fact that you can use your primary attack without any kind of item pick-up. These are mostly projectile attacks. Mega Man, Proto Man, and Bass have their buster attacks and the boss characters use variations of their attacks from their respective games. Roll is a bit different in that her special move is a jump, but it’s no less useful than what the other guys have. I like her differentiation from the pack quite a lot because Roll has always been a secondary character.
Mega Man Battle & Chase has a few systems in place to separate itself from the pack. For starters, each character has a charge meter for their primary weapons. You can only use these as long as you have a sliver of this gauge remaining. If you allow it to reach it’s maximum level you’ll unleash a more powerful attack. It’s a unique element to the genre and it helps establish this in the Mega Man (or Rock Man as it’s known in Japan) franchise.
What’s a kart game without weapon pickups? Capcom knew this was a major part of the genre, and they didn’t skimp. They did however add their own twist to the format. You can gain weapon pickups by destroying neutral enemies during the race. You’ll encounter a lot of small ones, but the big ones will get you there faster. There’s a counter on the top right hand section of the screen that counts down as you blow up enemies. When it reaches zero a slot will start spinning and what it lands on is the item you can use. The effects are pretty typical; invincibility, offensive attacks, speed boosts, etc. These are performed by pressing the circle button, and in typical fashion can make all the difference during a race.
Anyone familiar with Mega Man knows the franchise is focused around gaining the abilities of opponents you’ve defeated. That trait of the series rears it’s head here as well. Each race in the grand prix pits you against a different opponent (with a few lesser enemies thrown in) and when you best them you get a part of their vehicle. You can then customize your kart with this new acquisition. This changes things like your speed and handling. You gain multiple parts from the same foes after subsequent races. The system is actually really cool and it makes this one feel decidedly Mega Man.
If you already scrolled down to the final score then you know that not all is good and well here. Mega Man Battle & Chase suffers some major issues. The first of these is its course design. Capcom phoned in this aspect of the game. Instead of being based on real stages in the franchise we instead have generic areas such as ‘City’ and ‘North Pole.’ Yeah, they fit thematically with some of the characters but they’re about as throwaway as you can get. The hazards are all just thrown together in very uninspired ways. I was surprised at just how uninspired the level design is here.
What might be the biggest insult is the engine on which this game runs. Gameplay is pretty choppy here in Mega Man Battle & Chase. The racing genre depends on accurate controls but it’s pretty impossible when the game runs at less than thirty frames per second. The engine regularly chugs along, and it sure isn’t very pretty. To make matters worse the soundtrack falls well short of the typical franchise offerings. All they had to do was remix tracks from the older games but instead they made original arrangements mean to carry on the spirit. It fails pretty miserably if you ask me.
Mega Man Battle & Chase had some real potential. I love kart racers, and I love Mega Man. So where did Capcom go wrong? Well the level design is just awfully generic. You can’t get less interesting as far as courses go here. On lesser hardware developers were able to do much better. I feel that the developers just weren’t that interested in what they were doing. They understood the Mega Man franchise plenty, but I’m not even sure if they were fans of it. The engine just isn’t nearly as smooth as it should have been. Other developers less talented than Capcom (such as Naughty Dog) were able to pull off smooth engines so it’s disappointing. It may be interesting for fans, but Mega Man Battle and Chase just isn’t that much fun to play.
