Rockman Strategy



Rockman Strategy (洛克人大戰) is a strategy game that was officially licensed by Capcom, Inc. and created by Dreams Come True. It was released in 2001 in Taiwan for the PC. The game introduces a new character named Fan.

Release Date
PC:
 * Taiwan: October 29, 2001 (Re-released in 2002)

Story


It is the year 2016, shortly after the events of Rockman and Forte: Challenger From the Future. Just when everyone thought peace had finally settled on the world, a strange series of biological events started to occur. The world was shocked by a series of earthquakes and, concurrently, plants throughout the world began to die. As news reports began to flood televisions across the globe about these catastrophes, the infamous Dr. Wily made an appearance on TV, shocking the world. He announced that he was somehow behind these events and that unless the populace cooperate and give in to his demands the world would soon be doomed!



However, little did everyone know that Dr. Wily was being forced to cooperate with a group of invaders from outer-space who called themselves the Constellation Droids. These powerful Robot Masters, all named after the twelve signs of the Zodiac, except for their leaders, Luna and Apollo, had taken over Wily's lab and forced the evil scientist to cooperate with them under threat of death.



Dr. Light, renowned robotics engineer and pacifist, once again called on Mega Man to go after the powerful Constellation Droids and the evil Dr. Wily. However, Duo, a member of the Intergalactic Police Force who had helped Mega Man during the "evil energy crisis," returned to Earth to assist with the take-down of the Constellation Droids...





Mega Man, Auto, Eddie, the newly-rescued Proto Man, Fan, and several others are forced to bring the Constellation Droids off of their high-horses. Once Luna and Apollo are defeated, however, the droids inform Dr. Light that they had come to Earth seeking technology that had the capability to restore floral life to their planets. However, the first person they met was Dr. Wily, and Wily used some sort of device that managed to take control of them and used them to destroy the plant life on Earth. Wily had hoped that with plant life dying all over the world the governments would give in and pay him to stop the virus from completely engulfing the globe. However, Apollo and Luna help Mega Man and his team put an end to Wily's scheme and, once finished, return to Light Labs where Dr. Light constructs a device that returns the Earth's atmosphere to its normal state, allowing plants to regrow once again. Then, Light constructs a replica of the device so that the Droids can take it with them to their home planets.



Stage Select
Rockman Strategy has more than the traditional six-to-eight Robot Masters. There are twelve Constellation Droids who are led by their leaders, Apollo and Luna. There are twelve because each is based on one of the twelve Zodiac signs. Once the player completes the opening stage, shown as Fire Man on the stage select, they are presented with the ability to replay Fire Man or attempt to defeat Aries, Taurus, Gemini, or Cancer. Additionally, they can visit Dr. Light's lab to buy items, purchase upgrades, or turn Robot Master parts into usable weapons. Once the first four Droids are defeated, an event occurs which creates the need for Mega Man and his team to head to Taiwan to rescue Duo from the clutches of Ice Man, Guts Man, and Cloud Man. Once this is finished, four more Droids are accessible on the stage select. The game progresses in this fashion until all bosses have been defeated.

Dr. Light's Lab appears as a selectable pink dot on the map, each undefeated boss appears as a selectable green dot (when the cursor hovers over a dot, the mugshot of the boss is highlighted), and each defeated boss appears as a selectable red dot (the player can replay stages to earn more bolts if they wish).

Dr. Light's Lab
Dr. Light's Lab, located in Tokyo, Japan, is an important part of the game. At the lab, Mega Man can purchase items (defensive, healing, and destructive), equip battle chips and parts received from enemies and Robot Masters defeated on the field, upgrade statistics, save his progress, and even purchase partners to help on the battle field (such as Fan). All of this requires the use of bolts received from the destruction of enemy robots.

It is important that, unlike in previous outings, Mega Man cannot use weapons acquired from defeated Robot Masters unless he goes to the lab and equips them. Moreover, certain weapons will require that Mega Man be upgraded to a certain level and have enough Energy Points to use them. The same goes for special attacks that other members of the team use, such as Beat, Eddie, Auto, Rush, Duo, and Fan.

The Field of Battle




Each Constellation Droid has taken up residence in a certain part of Africa, Asia, or Europe. Mega Man and the rest of the team must make their way to these locations in order to deal with the Droids, and the Robot Masters that Dr. Wily has sent to accompany and support them.

When a character's turn comes up, they can do one of several things:


 * Move: They can move a certain number of squares, but only over certain terrain. Flying characters are more mobile than terrain-bound characters, of course.
 * Attack: They can attack or use a special-move. This only works if an enemy or ally is nearby.  If they choose to attack an enemy, they enter combat for a period of 30 seconds, and either they die, the enemy dies, or time runs out.  During combat, they can attack regularly, use special attacks, use an item, defend, or run away (if allowed).  The "special-move" feature depends on the character.  For Mega Man, this allows him to change his color (this will be discussed later on).
 * Data Management: From here they can save the game, load a save file, or quit.
 * Options: From here they can access the Options Menu, and change features such as text-speed and sound mode.
 * Heal/Change Direction: This option is very important. It allows the character to heal (while also changing the direction they are facing).  It is a good way to end a turn.



The game is played in "active time" and, as such, each character has an "active time" bar (a green bar) that fills up slowly after each turn. Once this bar is fully filled it is their turn again. The same is true for each enemy character and Robot Master: they get a turn and also have a green bar which is filling up along with the player's characters.

A Note About Elements: As mentioned earlier, Mega Man has the ability to change his color. If he has special chips equipped from the Robot Masters that were previously defeated, they will fall under a certain elemental category - Blue for Water, Green for Earth, Red for Fire, and Yellow for Electricity. Neutral powers can be used by the normal-colored Mega Man. However, the elements work in a circular nature. While electrical-based weapons may be effective against water-based enemies, water-based weapons will also do more damage to Mega Man while he is in his Yellow form.



Robot Masters (The Constellation Droids)


Below is a list of the Constellation Droids as they appear on the right-hand stage select screenshot from left-to-right, top-to-bottom. On a related note, some of the Constellation Droids will be accompanied by past Robot Masters:


 * Aries - Accompanied by Bomb Man and Flame Man.
 * Taurus - Accompanied by Frost Man and Ice Man.
 * Gemini - Accompanied by Guts Man and Metal Man.
 * Cancer - Accompanied by Elec Man and Spark Man.
 * Leo - Accompanied by Heat Man and Napalm Man.
 * Virgo - Accompanied by Bubble Man and Freeze Man.
 * Libra - Accompanied by Cut Man and Hard Man.
 * Scorpio - Accompanied by Cloud Man and Yamato Man.
 * Sagittarius
 * Capricorn
 * Aquarius
 * Pisces
 * Apollo
 * Luna

NOTE: Fire Man, Dr. Wily's War Machine, and Dr. Wily are also on the stage select. Also, there are additional stages that are not listed as Constellation Droid or Robot Master stages, where the player can go to earn bolts or complete side-missions, such as rescuing Duo (in Thailand) and answering Proto Man's distress signal (from Indonesia).

Trivia

 * This game's main bosses are named after constellations, which will later be used in the first Mega Man Star Force game.


 * Featuring 12 major Robot Masters on the stage select (14 if you include Apollo and Luna), the Dr. Wily machine and Dr. Wily, as well as stages that take place between the Robot Master stages (the player is presented with four Robot Masters at a time and usually an event takes place before four more open up).


 * While the game's status in the Mega Man Timeline is often canonically questionable, and considered side-story at best, the game's story is loosely a sequel to Mega Man 8. The Constellation Droids come from space, which sparks Duo, a member of the Intergalactic Police Force, to come to Earth to investigate and help Mega Man bring them to justice.