After being extremely let down by MegaMari, I figured trying Rosenkreuzstilette couldn’t hurt. 2007 Anime Girl Mega Man is a pretty awesome aesthetic: I’d love if one of these games were good! …It’s too bad RKS is not much better than its spiritual predecessor.
There’s not much to say about the base mechanics: it’s Mega Man. These games live and die by their level design. And as usual, this game has bad level design. Many stages in this game are short, easy and worthless. It’s like a whole game full of Guts Mans— and that level still has more substance than half the levels in this game.
When Rosenkreuzstilette does decide to have level design, it has a pretty unique problem: it takes whole screens from other Mega Man games. A MM1 screen here, a MM3 screen there, and an absolutely shameless amount of Mega Man 2 rehashing. This extends to more than just the level design. The weapon set? It’s MM2. The bosses? Nearly every single one in BOTH castles (yes, this game does that) is shit from some other Mega Man game. I don’t mind references here and there, but RKS has a serious problem with the amount of content it steals from other things. Many of the things it reuses aren’t even good! This game has Toad Man in it! Ripping off that many things does nothing but make the level design less cohesive and gives RKS a lack of identity the game desperately needs mechanically.
It sucks, because when this game does its own thing (or at the very least, adapts ideas instead of wholesale plagiarizing them) it can be pretty good! I enjoy a few boss fights in this quite a bit: Luste and especially Zorne come to mind as highlights, and Schewer’s stage is a genuinely funny troll level. Even less original things are deeply appreciated: weapon quickswitching makes Mega Man feel 200% better. Why is there not more of that? It’s incredibly frustrating to see so little personality out of a game that ironically has tons of it in other areas.
As I mentioned at the start, the aesthetic is great. If you like that 2000s anime look you’ll enjoy the art as I do, and the (stock, by the way) music genuinely goes hard. Listen to Luste’s stage theme. Even the kind of terrible story is cute: one of the characters says the protagonist’s outlook is “sophistry” and I love that shit, it’s fun. I even enjoy the reference screens (flirting and not harassment) when you game over.
Unfortunately, Rosenkreuzstilette commits the worst sin of simply being a boring game.
…and it’s still more fun to play than Mega Man 2 itself. :)
There’s not much to say about the base mechanics: it’s Mega Man. These games live and die by their level design. And as usual, this game has bad level design. Many stages in this game are short, easy and worthless. It’s like a whole game full of Guts Mans— and that level still has more substance than half the levels in this game.
When Rosenkreuzstilette does decide to have level design, it has a pretty unique problem: it takes whole screens from other Mega Man games. A MM1 screen here, a MM3 screen there, and an absolutely shameless amount of Mega Man 2 rehashing. This extends to more than just the level design. The weapon set? It’s MM2. The bosses? Nearly every single one in BOTH castles (yes, this game does that) is shit from some other Mega Man game. I don’t mind references here and there, but RKS has a serious problem with the amount of content it steals from other things. Many of the things it reuses aren’t even good! This game has Toad Man in it! Ripping off that many things does nothing but make the level design less cohesive and gives RKS a lack of identity the game desperately needs mechanically.
It sucks, because when this game does its own thing (or at the very least, adapts ideas instead of wholesale plagiarizing them) it can be pretty good! I enjoy a few boss fights in this quite a bit: Luste and especially Zorne come to mind as highlights, and Schewer’s stage is a genuinely funny troll level. Even less original things are deeply appreciated: weapon quickswitching makes Mega Man feel 200% better. Why is there not more of that? It’s incredibly frustrating to see so little personality out of a game that ironically has tons of it in other areas.
As I mentioned at the start, the aesthetic is great. If you like that 2000s anime look you’ll enjoy the art as I do, and the (stock, by the way) music genuinely goes hard. Listen to Luste’s stage theme. Even the kind of terrible story is cute: one of the characters says the protagonist’s outlook is “sophistry” and I love that shit, it’s fun. I even enjoy the reference screens (flirting and not harassment) when you game over.
Unfortunately, Rosenkreuzstilette commits the worst sin of simply being a boring game.
…and it’s still more fun to play than Mega Man 2 itself. :)