Taking Mega Man and turning him into a tank isn't enough to make this title worthy of a replay... or of a download.
While some reviewers complained about the ridiculousness of the story. I actually thought it was kind of cute if not absurd. Basically, there is a mutual friendship between a boy and his pet frog, which the boy keeps in a glass jar. Something went horribly wrong though, because the frog escapes from the jar and is chased outside into the boy's backyard where it comes in contact with a biohazard crate that contains radiation poisoning and immediately starts to mutate. Why there was such a hazardous chemical waste in a little boy's backyard is never explained. It was fate, I guess. Anyway, the frog mutates and escapes through a fairly large hole in the ground with the boy trailing after him. The boy falls through the hole in pursuit, and once he regains his bearings he discovers at the bottom of the hole a massive cave which contains none other than a equally massive armored tank and a biohazard suit for the boy. Too bad Alice wasn't as fortunate when she fell down the rabbit hole.
This is only the introduction which is portrayed very briefly in the game but really is the only highlight besides the ending. The actual game itself was very boring. With the exception of the boss fights, the levels really aren't very challenging and the platforming is rather dull. Your tank has the phenomenal ability to jump (can you imagine if the Army had one of those?) which really makes it nothing more than a facade of Mega Man disguised as a tank. (it is important to point out that the tank does contain a hovering ability that makes it unique). The game is comprised of two different level types: side-scrolling platforming and top down/bird's eye dungeon exploring. Unique to the game is the ability to exit your tank by pressing the select button, such as in the case of needing to explore a dungeon or to shoot those annoying gray worms that are below the line of fire for the tank's turret or disarming a mine. However, it is impossible to progress through the platforming levels without your tank because falling even the shortest distant can easily result in death. There's really nothing wrong with this concept except that the platforming is completely boring!
For one thing, the levels consisted of nothing but a series of "platforms" (imagine that?), but unlike other great platformers like Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man 2 there was no variety. No moving platforms, no crazy traps or surprises, just simply bricks suspended in the sky. That was it. On top of all this the hostiles that you did encounter were more of an annoyance then a challenge, and there really was not very much of them either, which was actually a very good thing considering how much the frame rate dropped when multiple enemies appeared on screen.
By far the most frustrating aspect of the platforming levels was I kept on getting stuck in corners that had a roof above me and a small wall in front of me with a little opening where I had entered through but couldn't get out. I researched this on internet to see if anyone else had suffered the same problem, but no one seemed to even acknowledge that this problem existed. So I thought maybe the problem was me. I tried ever possible way to escape this little walled-in pocket that I fell into, but to no avail. The only way to escape for me was to reset the entire game. I'm vexed that no one else has even bothered to mention this in a review considering that this is a serious flaw that greatly hinders the game's potential.
The second level design involves exploring dungeons from a top down perspective as you control just the boy in his biohazard suit. All of your boss fights occur in this mode and are actually rewarding. This mode had tremendous potential for greatness if it wasn't for some blatant mistakes with the programming. First, the dungeons are the real providers for upgrades for your tank. This is mostly accomplished through blowing-up colorful blocks or boulders that contain hidden items that can be taken back to the tank. Once these blocks are destroyed they instantly reappear the moment they leave your field of view. This wouldn't be such problem if the newly respawned blocks also respawned with more items as well, but sadly this isn't the case. The result is confusion as you can't remember which blocks you've destroyed and whether of not you've gathered all the possible items in a certain room. Plus it's just plain satisfying to see that you've left your mark by clearing out an entire room of anything deconstructable. However, this is not the biggest flaw with the top down dungeon mode.
In dungeon mode you have two weapons at your disposal. A little blaster gun and bombs. Both contain unlimited ammo which is nice, but the actual weapons themselves were the biggest disappointment for me. For one thing the bombs were inaccurate and the destination for where they hit was completely random. Yes, they always landed infront of you, which I was grateful, but exactly how far infront of you was another story. This made timing and dodging enemies needless difficult since I was never sure if I was going to make contact. Then there was the gun, which was upgradable. While the first two upgrades simply extended the range of your weapon, they did not increase the power of your gun. I actually prefered this, because as you continued to upgrade you weapon your projectile would transform from a straight line into a vortex. While in some respects this was helpful for destroying enemies without getting into their line of fire, in other situations this became a huge hinderance. An example would be several of the the later dungeons contained very narrow corridors with approaching hostiles. When firing the fully upgraded gun, in an attempt to eliminate the hostiles down a narrow corridor, the vortex would be too large and the lasers would dissipate against the walls on the sides giving the enemy the advantage.
The strongest point of this game is by far the presentation. For an NES game it looks great, and the soundtrack is really well done. There is some great tunes here. Its just too bad that the core of the game just really wasn't that good. There was just too many faults and not enough rewards to keep me coming back for more. Despite all the praise it received from reviewer and critics alike, it's just your typical platformer with a few twists that really don't amount to a hill of beans. It's sad that downloadable games are non-refundable, because now I'm stuck with just an average game in library.