In spite of Bass proving to be fans’ favourite Mega Man character in a 2018 Famitsu poll, Capcom has very rarely granted him playable status, and this hack is a fun way of addressing that oversight.

The Adventures of Bass II gives Mega Man 2 both a level-design overhaul and a fresh coat of paint, and though it has some areas that rely a bit on enemy-spam, the levels have a nice flow to them and are generally well-designed.

The new story is about what you’d expect for an inversion of the usual Mega Man formula - in a Donkey Kong Jr.-esque turn, Dr. Light is now cast in an antagonistic role, with Dr. Wily’s creation having to set out to defeat him, instead of things being the other way around. All of the Robot Masters and their weaknesses are the same, but this is explained away by Dr. Light having stolen their plans from Dr. Wily and reprogrammed them to do his vengeful bidding. It’s a little bit out-of-character, but it does the job.

The altered graphics look perfectly good (with the sunset hues of Bubble Man’s stage looking particularly nice), and the custom Bass sprite seen here was clearly the best option for the time that the hack was made - he’s colourful enough that he’s easy to see against the black backgrounds in some stages, which can’t be said of the lower-colour NeoGeo Pocket Colour sprite of the character that was doing the rounds on the internet at around the same time. Not only that, but being almost 20 years old at the time of writing, this hack was created long before 2010’s Mega Man 10 gave the character an official NES-style sprite!

To me, the difficulty feels largely on-par with the original Mega Man 2, and though there are a few somewhat frustrating spots (something that the original had as well, albeit in different places), it usually all feels pretty fair and well-designed.

If you’re a fan of Mega Man (or of Bass), enjoy challenging platformers, or like the idea of role-reversal hacks like this, and don’t mind diving into an older hack whose features are less fancy than what’s possible today, The Adventures of Bass II is a solid option. Recommended.

I tested this game in the versions of RetroPie for both the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B and the Raspberry Pi Zero W, and it worked as it should with both.