Want the ROM? Scroll down to the bottom. Want some info on it first? Then read on... ^_^ The first thing you might say is, "Kulock, why are you posting a Neo Geo Pocket ROM like this? Weren't you gung ho about chewing us out over buying the cartridge copies of Sonic Pocket Adventure?" The answer to that, my friend, is simple, SNK. They had the Neo Geo Pocket in the American market for roughly 7 months. Seven. And while it's true there were other factors leading to SNK pulling out of America, in the end, they pulled out COMPLETELY, almost overnight, and left those who bought Neo Geo Pockets in America (especially after getting them for Christmas and such) feeling very betrayed. SNK left no outlet for us to play games on it anymore, other than importing cartridges, which is expensive, and considering the fact that makes RPGs pretty hard to play... well, you understand my viewpoint. SNK has made NO attempt to continue at least selling NGP games in America. They could've kept a skeleton crew to translate the games, and either been straight mail order, or, if they had been smart, they would've licensed an emulator, and at least sold the translated games online for a small fee. That way, there would be NO need for losses on hardware, since they'd just be selling the same piece of software, and if they kept the fee per game small (like $5, to make up for the loss of portability), people would probably pay the fee instead of looking for ways to get the games for free (the higher the price, the more likely they'll bootleg, but if the fee's small, they probably wouldn't feel the need, and SNK'd rack up more profit overall in the end.) Er, can you tell I've been gearing up to write a letter to IGN Pocket? But, until SNK makes SOME sort of move, the games are stuck in Japan, and again, the only way people in other countries can play them is A. Importing, or B. ROMs. Now, if SNK starts actually making this available, translated, to other countries, THEN I'll take it down, but until then, if they're not going to bother to sell their games here, why should I rant on about you needing to buy them? ^_^ Back to the game information. This is Rockman: Battle & Fighters. This title might sound a bit awkward, but it makes sense, it's a compilation of the arcade games The Power Battles and The Power Fighters. A bit shocking this actually is the ONLY home conversion of the games, but, in a way, it makes sense: the games are mostly a marathon of going up against Robot Masters. As a home game, that would kind of wear thin quickly. But as a PORTABLE game, designed for short bursts of playing, it stays fresh for a while. Tricky of Capcom, isn't it? ^_^ The menu and cinema graphics are alright, a little lower than MotM fare, but still not bad. (Unfortunately, the <"RAPE?" emulator doesn't seem to emulate the game correctly, and there are a few graphical errors which I will get to. I'd love to tell you to use NeoPocott, but it seems the current version crashes when starting the ROM. What a shame, hopefully that'll be fixed in the next version... (Actually, I later found out that the game is run much better by another emulator, which I have included below. This emulator has sound, and no graphical glitches. However, this emulator does NOT run the "Power Fighters" section, only "Power Battles". You can download the emulator below as "NGPocket.zip".) The menu screen, and the first of the glitches. The selection arrow is too high by about one selection. No biggie. There are a couple different options, including... Link mode. Unfortunately, unlike SPA, RAPE? doesn't trick this game into thinking Link Mode is available, and you just sit and wait. What a shame. :/ Yes, as far as I can tell (from what little I've played of The Power Battles and seen of The Power Fighters), both games seem to be entirely included (minus some graphic detail). So I picked The Power Fighters to start off with... Each game lets you pick the fighters you could beforehand, so Power Battles lets you pick Rock (Megaman), Blues (Protoman), and Forte (Bass), while Fighters includes Duo into the mix. Unfortunately, again an emulation fault, the eyes don't quite line up with the faces (I think they're seperate animated sprites). The Power Fighters didn't look promising. This is Gemini Man... I was hoping to grab a shot of Gospel (Treble) who had beamed in, just like the arcade version, but trying to get a screenshot without Forte flashing took just a little too long, and he bit the big one. ;> See, it seems the sprites, at least the character ones, are okay walking right in The Power Fighters, walking left is the odd problem. After Bass died, it let me pick any of the four characters again without stopping the battle. I picked Blues (Protoman), finished them off. After this, Proto turned his back on the screen, then made a gesture back at it. The sprites are very animated, despite their loss of color detail. So let's go back to The Power Battles, and... what the... Gemini Man again... ...Even though the games LOOK identical, RAPE has seemingly no problem emulating The Power Battles. ^_^ Whee! I haven't shown a Mega Man sprite yet, so I thought it'd be best to show this ranking screen for the two games. Mega Man is the most noticable in the lack of detail, but he's still pretty well animated. I didn't play as Duo, but I'd assume he'd be the same way. And that's my little summary of the ROM. But, here's a surprise even for the people who only downloaded the ROM from my Message Board. Literally as I was writing this page, I spotted a translation patch for Rockman Battle and Fighters at Zophar's Domain. You'll find it below, with the other two downloads. Enjoy. ^_^ Rockbaf.zip (967k) The Rockman Battle and Fighters Japanese ROM Rocke.zip (5k) Two translation patches (differing in the font used) for Rockman Battle and Fighters. About 25% complete. Translation by RockX2. Rape01a.zip (31k) "RAPE?", runs the game quickly, with some graphical glitches. Will run The Power Fighters (but again, with glitching.) NGPocket.zip (88k) NGPocket, runs the main menu and Power Battles perfectly, but will NOT run Power Fighters. Before you start the program, you must switch your color depth to "16 Million Colors", or you will get a "Fatal Error 008" and the emulator will refuse to run. -Kulock Last Updated: 7/24/00