Rockman & Forte

Rockman & Forte released in 1998 for the Super Nintendo exclusively in Japan and became the final entry of the classic Mega Man series on the console. Capcom combined the platforming foundation honed over the years with markedly more demanding level design, meant to remind players that the blue robot still had plenty left to say.

At the start, the player chooses between two characters – Rockman and his eternal rival Forte, known in the West as Bass. While Rockman shoots and, after defeating a boss, takes over its weapon as in previous entries, Forte relies on speed, a double jump, and side-firing shots, which changes how each level plays out and forces the player to adopt a different tactic. Eight classic Robot Masters offer a varied range of environments and puzzles, and the right order in which the player defeats them significantly eases progress thanks to each boss's weaknesses against specific weapons. The game retains its pixel-art graphics, which even in 1998 felt old-fashioned, yet nostalgic at the same time.

Rockman & Forte never found major commercial success in Japan and never reached the West in its SNES form at all – players outside Japan had to wait until the end of the nineties, when Capcom released a reworked remake for the PlayStation and later a Game Boy Advance port under the title Mega Man & Bass. It was those later releases that helped the game find an international audience, while its original SNES version remains a rare item for collectors.

Why play it: It offers two differently playable characters and a fitting farewell to the classic Mega Man series' pixel era on the SNES.