Mega Man: The Wily Wars

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PAL NTSC-J
Mega Man: The Wily Wars
System(s): Sega Mega Drive
Publisher: Capcom, Retro-Bit (US)
Developer: Capcom (Minakuchi Engineering?)
Original system(s): Famicom
Sound driver: SMPS Z80 (banked)
Genre: Action
Number of players: 1
Release Date RRP Code JP 1994-10-21 ¥8,500 (8,755)8,500e T-12053 US ▼ (Sega Channel) 1994-10-15 US (Collector's edition) 2021-12 $69.9969.99 EU 1994-10-20 T-12046-50 DE 1994-10-20 DM 119119 T-12046-50 AU 1995-04 $89.9589.95 FMEG45SMC

Mega Man: The Wily Wars, known as Rockman Mega World (ロックマンメガワールド) in Japan, is a compilation released in 1994 by Capcom for the Sega Mega Drive.

It contains updated versions of the first three Mega Man (Rockman) games, Mega Man, Mega Man II and Mega Man III, originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987, 1988 and 1990, respectively. Also included is a set of Mega Drive-exclusive bonus stages, collectively called "Wily Tower," unlocked after finishing all three games.

In the United States, it was released as a Sega Channel exclusive, although the box art of a proposed cartridge release has since been found. Said box curiously features an unusual (for the Mega Man series) MA-13 rating, although its likely this was an error as the Sega Channel release was rated GA instead. Reportedly the game was put on indefinite hold in the US due to "graphical issues", but it was officially released in the country with the release of the Mega Drive Mini in September 2019. In December 2021, the physical version of this game finally released officially in the United States as a collector's edition courtesy of publisher Retro-Bit.

Gameplay

In these games the objective is to pick a stage and navigate it, defeating enemies along the way with the Mega Buster, and beat the Robot Master at the end of the stage. Once the player defeats the Robot Master, they will gain his weapon to use on a different Robot Master that has a weakness against it. In layman's terms, it's like a game of rock-paper-scissors. Once the player has defeated all the Robot Masters, they will go to the Dr. Wily stages where the final set of levels awaits. Occasionally the player will get extra power ups to assist them in their game play such as the Magnet Beam, Dr. Light Items, and Rush. opens the menu to choose a weapon, fires the weapon, and jumps. In Mega Man 3 and the Wily Tower (see below), + slides. Some weapons, such as Mega Man 2's Metal Blade, can be shot in a particular direction by holding the D-pad while pressing .

After beating the three main games the player unlocks the short bonus game Wily Tower. Wily Tower only has three Robot Masters, which the player does not gain a weapon from, and then four Wily stages. At the beginning of each Robot Master and each stage in the Wily Tower itself, the player chooses any combination of weapons and items to take with them from the three original games, giving the player an interesting twist on having weapons from different games.

The Robot Masters in Wily Tower actually share a similar origin to things in the Chinese epic Journey to the West. Buster Rod.G is based off Sun Wukong (called Son Goku in Japanese), Hyper Storm.H is based off Zhu Bajie (called Cho Hakkai in Japanese), and Mega Water.S is based off Sha Wujing (called Sa Gojou in Japanese).

Some experienced players of the original NES games may notice that the game speed is slightly slower thus making the game in some cases easier, but other parts may become more difficult due to different timings.

Levels

In each game, the player is able to choose from any of the listed Robot Masters to start from. This is just a general list of the levels.

No weapons are gained from the Wily Stages.

Mega Man 1

	Cut Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Cut Man, is weak against the Super Arm. The Rolling Cutter (C) is obtained after beating him.
	Guts Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Guts Man, is weak against the Hyper Bomb. The Super Arm (G) is obtained after beating him.
	Ice Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Ice Man, is weak against the Thunder Beam. The Ice Slasher (I) is obtained after beating him.
	Bomb Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Bomb Man, is weak against the Fire Storm. The Hyper Bomb (B) is obtained after beating him.
	Fire Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Fire Man, is weak against the Ice Slasher. The Fire Storm (F) is obtained after beating him.
	Elec Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Elec Man, is weak against the Rolling Cutter. The Thunder Beam (E) is obtained after beating him. The Magnet Beam (M) is found in this stage as well which is necessary for later levels, and requires the Super Arm in order to get it.
	Wily Stage 1
	At the end of the level the player fights the Yellow Devil which involves memorizing a pattern to defeat. Its weakness is the Thunder Beam.
	Wily Stage 2
	The player will once again fight Cut Man and Elec Man in this stage. Copy Robot clones Mega Man and uses the weapon the player is using to make things difficult. The Fire Storm, Hyper Bomb and Thunder Beam are effective against it.
	Wily Stage 3
	A straightforward stage that leads the player to CWU-01P, which is weak against the Super Arm. This boss' pattern just increases in speed after each part is destroyed.
	Wily Stage 4
	The player will fight the other four Robot Masters in this stage one after another and then will fight Dr. Wily in a 2-form final battle. The Wily Machine 1 is weak against the Fire Storm in its first phase, and weak against the Thunder Beam and Rolling Cutter in its second phase.

Mega Man 2

	Bubble Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Bubble Man, is weak against the Metal Blade. The Bubble Lead (B) is obtained after beating him.
	Air Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Air Man, is weak against the Leaf Shield. The Air Shooter (A) is obtained after beating him. The player also obtains Item-2 (2) which also allows them to ride a horizontal flying platform.
	Quick Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Quick Man, is weak against the Crash Bomber and Time Stopper. The Quick Boomerang (Q) is obtained after beating him.
	Heat Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Heat Man, is weak against the Bubble Lead. The Atomic Fire (F) is obtained after beating him. The player also obtains Item-1 (1) which allows them to make rising platforms.
	Wood Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Wood Man, is weak against the Atomic Fire and Metal Blade. The Leaf Shield (W) is obtained after beating him.
	Metal Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Metal Man, is weak against the Quick Boomerang and, ironically, his own weapon. The Metal Blade (M) is obtained after beating him.
	Flash Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Flash Man, is weak against the Metal Blade. The Time Stopper (F) is obtained after beating him. The player also obtains Item-3 (3) which creates a bouncing platform that climbs walls.
	Crash Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Crash Man, is weak against the Air Shooter. The Crash Bomber (C) is obtained after beating him.
	Wily Stage 1
	This stage ends with an auto-scrolling section where Mecha Dragon appears and chases the player to three platforms from which they fight from. Its weakness is the Quick Boomerang.
	Wily Stage 2
	The boss, Picopico-kun, is made up of little enemies that appear out of the wall, attacking the player. Defeat all the enemies to win. Their weakness is the Bubble Lead.
	Wily Stage 3
	At the end, the player must fight the massive Guts Tank to win this stage. Its weakness is the Quick Boomerang.
	Wily Stage 4
	There are several Buebeam Traps in the boss room and they all need to be destroyed with the Crash Bomber. The player has to be conservative about their weapon energy to win this.
	Wily Stage 5
	The player fights all eight Robot Masters and then goes through a ninth portal to fight the Wily Machine 2. The first form is weak against the Atomic Fire, and the second form is weak against the Crash Bomber.
	Wily Stage 6
	Wily reveals himself to be an Alien and fights the player. Only the Bubble Lead can damage him; all other weapons will heal him.

Mega Man 3

	Spark Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Spark Man, is weak against the Shadow Blade. The Spark Shock (SP) is obtained after defeating him.
	Snake Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Snake Man, is weak against the Needle Cannon. The Search Snake (SN) is obtained after defeating him.
	Needle Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Needle Man, is weak against the Gemini Laser. The Needle Cannon (NE) is obtained after defeating him. The player also obtains Rush Jet (RJ) which allows them to call Rush to turn into a platform that can fly in all directions.
	Hard Man
	Part way through the stage the player will encounter a fight with Proto Man. The Robot Master of this stage, Hard Man, is weak against the Magnet Missile. The Hard Knuckle (HA) is obtained after defeating him.
	Top Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Top Man, is weak against the Hard Knuckle. The Top Spin (TO) is obtained after defeating him.
	Gemini Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Gemini Man, is weak against the Search Snake. The Gemini Laser (GE) is obtained after defeating him.
	Magnet Man
	Part way through the stage the player will encounter a fight with Proto Man. The Robot Master of this stage, Magnet Man, is weak against the Spark Shock. The Magnet Missile (MA) is obtained after defeating him.
	Shadow Man
	The Robot Master of this stage, Shadow Man, is weak against the Top Spin. The Shadow Blade (SH) is obtained after defeating him. The player also obtains Rush Marine (RM) which behaves the same as Rush Jet, but only works in water. It can jump out of water, but it won't move on land.
	Doc Robot K-176 (Spark Man)
	This boss then appears in Needle Man's, Gemini Man's, Shadow Man's, and Spark Man's stages taking on the powers of the Robot Masters from Mega Man 2. Defeat Doc Robot in these four stages to continue on. The Doc Robots encountered in this stage are: Metal Man: Weak against Magnet Missile and Hard Knuckle. Quick Man: Weak against Gemini Laser and Search Snake.
	Doc Robot K-176 (Needle Man)
	This boss then appears in Needle Man's, Gemini Man's, Shadow Man's, and Spark Man's stages taking on the powers of the Robot Masters from Mega Man 2. Defeat Doc Robot in these four stages to continue on. The Doc Robots encountered in this stage are: Air Man: Weak against Magnet Missile and Spark Shock. Crash Man: Weak against Hard Knuckle and Top Spin.
	Doc Robot K-176 (Gemini Man)
	This boss then appears in Needle Man's, Gemini Man's, Shadow Man's, and Spark Man's stages taking on the powers of the Robot Masters from Mega Man 2. Defeat Doc Robot in these four stages to continue on. The Doc Robots encountered in this stage are: Flash Man: Weak against Needle Cannon and Gemini Laser. Bubble Man: Weak against Spark Shock and Shadow Blade.
	Doc Robot K-176 (Shadow Man)
	This boss then appears in Needle Man's, Gemini Man's, Shadow Man's, and Spark Man's stages taking on the powers of the Robot Masters from Mega Man 2. Defeat Doc Robot in these four stages to continue on. The Doc Robots encountered in this stage are: Wood Man: Weak against Needle Cannon and Search Snake. Heat Man: Weak against Shadow Blade and Top Spin.
	Break Man
	This stage is just a battle against Break Man.
	Wily Stage 1
	At the end of the level the player fights the Kamegoro Maker. The Kamegoro Maker itself is actually invincible, but if the player destroys the turtles it produces, they will win. The turtles are weak to the Shadow Blade.
	Wily Stage 2
	At the end of this stage the player fights the Yellow Devil MK-II. Its weakness is the Hard Knuckle.
	Wily Stage 3
	At the end of this stage the player fights the Holograph Mega Mans. Only one is real, and it's up to the player to find that one. It is weak to the Search Snake.
	Wily Stage 4
	This stage is basically just like the teleporter system from Mega Man 2. After a short stage, the player arrives at a teleporter room where they must rematch every Robot Master.
	Wily Stage 5
	The player fights two forms of the Wily Machine 3 here. The turret must be destroyed first, which is weak to the Hard Knuckle and Spark Shock, then the player must attack the exposed cockpit, which is weak to the Hard Knuckle.
	Wily Stage 6
	The true final battle against Gamma and Dr. Wily. Gamma's first phase is weak against the Hard Knuckle, while the second phase can only be damaged by the Top Spin and Search Snake.

Wily Tower

NOTE: No weapons are gained from any of the Wily Tower levels. The player chooses eight weapons and three items from the original three games prior to starting.

	Buster Rod G
	The Robot Master of this stage, Buster Rod G, is weak against the Hyper Bomb, Rolling Cutter, Air Shooter, Atomic Fire, Bubble Lead and Hard Knuckle.
	Mega Water S
	The Robot Master of this stage, Mega Water S, is weak against the Ice Slasher, Hyper Bomb, Atomic Fire and Search Snake.
	Hyper Storm H
	The Robot Master of this stage, Hyper Storm H, is weak against the Hyper Bomb, Fire Storm, Atomic Fire, Crash Bomber, Metal Blade, Gemini Laser, Shadow Blade and Spark Shock. This Robot Master is unique in that he has two energy bars.
	Wily Tower Stage 1 (Fire Snakey)
	This stage primarily features enemies and gimmicks from Mega Man 1. At the end of the stage, the player fights the Fire Snakey, and its weakness is the Bubble Lead.
	Wily Tower Stage 2 (Iron Ball)
	This stage primarily features enemies and gimmicks from Mega Man 2. At the end of the stage, the player fights the Iron Ball, and its weaknesses are the Thunder Beam and Spark Shock.
	Wily Tower Stage 3 (2nd battle w/ Buster Rod G)
	This stage primarily features enemies and gimmicks from Mega Man 3. At the end of the stage, the player has a rematch with Buster Rod G, and this weaknesses this time are the Rolling Cutter, Leaf Shield, Hard Knuckle and Magnet Missile.
	Wily Tower Stage 4 (Wily Machine)
	The true final battle against Dr. Wily in a three-phase fight. The first and final phases are weak to the Thunder Beam, and the second phase is weak to the Hard Knuckle.

History

Development

Artist Keiji Inafune claimed that the development of the game was outsourced and rather slow going. He described the debugging procedure as "an absolute nightmare", even helping out in process himself as he felt bad for the person in charge. "It was so bad," he recalled, "I found myself saying, 'I can't believe we've made it out of there alive.'" The team later questioning whether the nightmare was "truly necessary", led to changes in procedure to try and avoid similar situations in the future.

With the theme of the game being the novel Journey to the West, Inafune stated that while drawing the three new boss characters he "tried to take the flavor of the theme and give it that Mega Man twist." Other than these characters, Inafune's only other illustrative contribution to the game was the depiction of Mega Man and Rush on the cover art. The soundtrack of The Wily Wars, composed by Kinuyo Yamashita, consists of 16-bit versions of the original Mega Man musical scores, as well as new songs for the Wily Tower portion of the game.

Versions

General

• In all games, shots are limited to one shot every few frames of animation. In the originals, players could fire weaponry on every other frame.
• The controls in these versions of the games seem a little tighter than the originals, though Mega Man himself seems to have a slight delay before moving because he is able to do sidesteps.
• A number of weapons now have a noticeable "can't move" delay after firing, such as the Items from Mega Man 2 or the Shadow Blade from Mega Man 3.
• All three games now have a "save game" feature. However, the "password" feature was removed from Mega Man 2 and 3.
• At several points, the game suffers from very bad slowdown. However, for less-skilled gamers, this can be a positive effect; because the Yellow Devil's stages in Mega Man and 3 suffer from it the most, as does the battle with the Wily Machine in Mega Man. This makes those boss battles much easier.

• However, running the game on a system (or emulator) with an overclocked M68000 chip will run the game at full speed regardless of how much is going on at any given time. This would normally make a Mega Drive game very unstable, but has no negative effects on The Wily Wars due to how it was programmed.

Mega Man

• While the original Mega Man's boss select screen simply showed the Robot Masters' in-game sprites as icons, the Wily Wars remake uses new mugshots to match Mega Man 2 and 3, and for Dr. Wily, his in-game sprite for an icon is replaced by the Dr. W logo.
• Cut Man is much tougher in the remake than he was in the original game. Mostly due to the fact that his flinch is much less intense and the Mega Buster deals a third of the damage that it would normally do.
• Bomb Man is similarly more difficult. If you got near him in the original, he would normally jump away, but in Wily Wars, he instead opts to get close to you.
• Power-ups do not reappear when leaving the screen and coming back.
• The Pause/Unpause glitch has been fixed.
• Some Robot Master AIs have been slightly modified.
• Normally during invincibility frames you can still die from spikes. This is fixed in this version to be like all other Mega Man games.
• The gravity bug when falling off the Magnet Beam and the platforms in Guts Man's stage and Wily Fortress 4 has been fixed.

Mega Man 2

• Mega Man 2, similar to its original Japanese release, Rockman 2: The Mystery of Dr. Wily, does not have a difficulty selection. Instead, it only plays on "Difficult".
• Quick Man is much slower in this version, though he no longer takes two damage from Mega Buster shots as he did in the "Difficult" mode or the Japanese version of Mega Man 2.
• Flash Man also takes one damage from the Mega Buster instead of two, like he did in "Difficult Mode."
• Some Robot Master AIs are slightly modified.
• Robots and Robot Masters have invincibility frames where they can not be damaged. This is not true for robots that die in one hit.
• When the player loses all of their lives, they no longer lose all their E-tanks. In the original, continuing meant forfeiting any and all E-tanks remaining in the inventory, preventing players from farming the start of Metal Man's stage. Now it is possible to do so.

Mega Man 3

• The grey tones on Proto Man's sprites have been changed to white.
• Proto Man's "shadow" sprites from the ending are found in the game data, however, Capcom decided to just use a "shadowy" palette on the original sprites instead of those.
• While not a difference, neither Proto Man nor Break Man have been resized like Mega Man and the Robot Masters have. They don't have any additional frames of animation, either.
• On the Weapon Select Menu, Rush is now blue instead of red. (This also happens in Wily Tower.)
• The Wily Castle map screen music has been shortened from its original tune. (Incidentally, the extended theme wasn't accessible in-game anyway.)
• Like the first two games, some Robot Master AIs are modified.
• Robots and Robot Masters have invincibility frames where they can not be damaged. This is not true for robots that die in one hit.
• Magnet Missile's have odd behavior; sometimes they do not "home" (right turn up or down) correctly. Hard Man and the Doc Robot Metal Man are much more difficult due to this fact.
• The crocodile-like traps in Hard Man's stage activate quicker than the original game, so do other traps.
• Controller 2 cheats from the NES game have been removed.
• Early Rush adapter glitch removed.

Localised names

Also known as

Language	Localised Name	English Translation
English	Mega Man: The Wily Wars	Mega Man: The Wily Wars
Japanese	ロックマンメガワールド	Rockman Mega World

Production credits

The original three games have their credits screens still in place, but after beating Wily Tower there is actually no credits listed; just a cutscene and a list of all the Robot Masters. There is also no list of credits in the manual either.

The only source of credits available comes from the worklist of freelancer Kouji Murata, who handled all the sound aspects (sound driving, sound porting, composition and arrangement and sound effects) for Mega Man III and IV (Rockman World 3 and 4 in Japan). He credits himself for Sound Effects in The Wily Wars and refers to a "Yamashita-san" when crediting the music.

Because he worked through Minakuchi Engineering from 1990 to 1992 (during which Mega Man III was created) and continued to work on the Rockman World series up until late 1994 as a freelancer, he is most likely referring to Kinuyo Yamashita of Castlevania fame, as she was associated with Minakuchi Engineering around that time. This is because Yamashita was contracted through the company circa 1995 to compose the music for [the SNES version of] Mega Man X3 (Rockman X3 in Japan). Additionally, the two had previously worked together on Famicon Disk System title Arumana's Miracle.

Sound Effects: Kouji Murata
BGM Arrangement & Original Music Composition & Arrangement: Kinuyo Yamashita

Digital manuals

• MegaManWilyWars MD EU digital manual.pdf

  Mega Drive Mini EU manual

• Rockman MD JP digital manual.pdf

  Mega Drive Mini JP manual

Magazine articles

Main article: Mega Man: The Wily Wars/Magazine articles.

Promotional material

Print advert in CD Consoles (FR) #9: "Juillet/Août 1995" (1995-xx-xx)
also published in:

• Top Consoles (FR) #4: "Julliet/Août 1995" (1995-0x-xx)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1994-10: "October 1994" (1994-09-08)

Print advert in Beep! MegaDrive (JP) #1994-11: "November 1994" (1994-10-08)

Artwork

• 

  North American prototype cover

• 

Physical scans

Sega Retro Average
Publication Score Source

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Based on 0 review

Sega Retro Average

Publication Version Score 1700 igr dlya Sega (RU) 50 Beep! MegaDrive (JP) NTSC-J 58 Consoles + (FR) 76 Computer + Video Giochi (IT) 89 Digitiser (UK) 57 Famitsu (JP) NTSC-J 60 MAN!AC (DE) NTSC-J 76 Mega Fun (DE) 75 Mean Machines Sega (UK) NTSC-J 78 Player One (FR) 89 Play Time (DE) 75 Saturn Fan (JP) NTSC-J 71 Sega Magazin (DE) PAL 69 Sega Pro (UK) NTSC-J 67 Sega Saturn Magazine (JP) NTSC-J 63 Top Consoles (FR) 70 Tricks 16 bit (RU) 58 Video Games (DE) PAL 76

	70
Based on 18 reviews

Mega Man: The Wily Wars

Mega Drive, JP
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, EU
Cover
Cart Manual

Mega Drive, AU
Cover

Technical information

ROM dump status

System	Hash	Size	Build Date	Source	Comments
✔	CRC32 dcf6e8b2 MD5 bb891aec8a7dfe6164033f57af2025bd SHA-1 ea9ae2043c97db716a8d31ee90e581c3d75f4e3e	2MB	1995-03	Cartridge (EU)
✔	CRC32 85c956ef MD5 520d081a450b5e9f127369e6ec1be43e SHA-1 a435ac53589a29dbb655662c942daab425d3f6bd	2MB	1994-09	Cartridge (JP)
✔	CRC32 4d87235e MD5 7a25e5249c0a406f20f76bef45dc3202 SHA-1 4dfcf5c07106f6db4d8b7e73a053bb46a21686c3	2MB	1994-09	Cartridge (JP)	Minor differences in code.
?	CRC32 0cd405db MD5 8e860e4f7c7ee5febad9134a56766112 SHA-1 26ad72719991e94dbe477c78e65d68f4a4fe51e6	2MB	1994-09	Mega Drive Mini (US)

References

Mega Man games for Sega systems
	Mega Man: The Wily Wars (1994)
	Mega Man (1995)
	Mega Man X3 (1996) | Mega Man 8 (1997) | Mega Man X4 (1997) | Super Adventure Rockman (1998)
Unlicensed Mega Man games for Sega systems
	Rockman X3 (1996)
Mega Man related media
	Rockman 8: Metal Heroes Hisshou Kouryaku Hou (1997)