Mega Man V: Mega Man V - Improvement Tweaks

Mega Man V (Gameboy) -- Improvement Tweaks

v1.8, by hmsong

(Yes, this is compatible with the DX hack too)

Mega Man V (aka Rockman World 5) was the last Mega Man game for the original Gameboy. Mega Man I ~ IV were all ports of the NES Mega Man games with slight changes, but Mega Man V was entirely original, with a new Mega Buster (called Mega Arm), bosses, and story. And it was great.

Sadly, the game had some flaws, such as having boss weaknesses all over the place, boss rooms being too boring, the final stage bosses being too easy, etc. See the attached document for more detail. In any case, this patch does the following:
- Distributes the bosses' weapon defense more evenly (including Tango) in order to increase the usefulness and availability of the weapons against their specific bosses -- not just in damage, but in practical usage sense. Some are very effective, and some are semi-effective. Generally, any given boss is weak to one weapon from the first 4 bosses, and another from the later 4 bosses -- see the attached chart for more detail.
- Makes the GB-unique-boss fights from the past Mega Man games more difficult by changing the rooms and the weapon defenses. In addition, Enker can only be damaged by at least semi-charged Mega Arm (1 damage, CL works), and Quint takes 1 damage from all Mega Arm attacks, including the fully-charged Mega Arm.
- Changes up the Mega Arm's effectiveness for the bosses that were supposed to be immune to the normal bullets. Specifically, Uranus, Terra, Wily 3, and Sunstar can only be damaged by the fully-charged shot (1 damage for Sunstar, and 3 damage for the rest). CL will fail.
- Balances out some of the weapons. Specifically, Rush Coil and Rush Jet can have up to 3 bullets on the screen (4 if Rush is not on the field, just like Tango), Grab Buster costs more energy and can only have up to 2 bullets on the screen (instead of 3), Salt Water costs less energy, Electric Shock lasts shorter time but costs less energy, and Spark Chaser doesn't do massive damage against Wily 3 and is ineffective against Sunstar (Sunstar is immune to everything except the fully-charged Mega Arm).
- Changes some of the mid-boss and boss rooms to make the fights more exciting and difficult. Specifically, initial Venus's room has waterfalls, initial Neptune's room has uneven ground, one of Pluto's mid-boss's room has spikes, and most of the Wily Star boss rooms (including the rematch rooms) have different structures.
- Minor changes to the stages, items, and enemies (includes unused enemies). In addition, the large life/weapon energy restores 8 units instead of 10 units (consistent with the large P-chip units).
- Some of the crystals require methods other than Break Dash or Deep Digger to obtain -- namely, MH upgrade and Rush Jet. You can get them all in one-go without having to replay the stage, if you start from Saturn.
- Changes the prices of few shop items -- most notably Weapon Refill and Energy Balancer.

If anyone has any specific requests regarding the boss vulnerabilities, then let hmsong know. He is open to suggestions and may be able to work out a solution.



Applying Notes:

- This is for Mega Man V US rom, but it's also compatible with marc_max's https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7413/. While the order shouldn't matter, but to be safe, apply MMW5DX patch first, then apply this patch.


If you have any questions or find errors, please PM http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=82786 (click the name, then click the name next to "Forum Account", then click "Send PM").


================================================================================
Mega Man V (Gameboy) -- Improvement Tweaks
v1.8

by hmsong
================================================================================

Mega Man V (aka Rockman World 5) was the last Mega Man game for the original
Gameboy. Mega Man I ~ IV were all ports of the NES Mega Man games with slight
changes, but Mega Man V was entirely original, with a new Mega Buster (called
Mega Arm), bosses, and story. And it was great.

Sadly, the game had some flaws:

1. Mega Man's defining mechanic was that you would get a particular weapon from
a specific boss (Stardroid, which is this game's Robot Master), which would
be effective against another specific boss, and so on. However, for the
first 5 bosses (4 Stardroids and the mid-way boss), the same 2 weapons were
effective against them, and the other 2 weapons were entirely useless against
them. And in some cases, even the effective weapons were rather impractical
in how they were used. For example, Black Hole did a big damage against
Mercury, but it was one of the weapons that required you to get close to
Mercury (bad idea, because Mercury's attacks made you lose random items). It
would have been MUCH better to make Venus weak to Saturn's Black Hole or even
Tango, as they can destroy Venus's bubbles and attack it at the same time.

2. The Wily Star bosses were the Gameboy-unique-bosses from the past games --
Enker, Quint, Punk, and Ballade (they are known the Mega Man Killers, except
Quint). While it was certainly great to pay homage to the past games, all of
them got weaker, slower, and/or lacking some skills, thus making most of the
battles too easy (esp Enker and Quint).

3. Normal bullets (ex: uncharged Mega Arm) were supposed to be ineffective
against some bosses (namely Uranus, Terra, and Sunstar), but they were still
able to do damage against them. Uranus and Sunstar in particular, the
bullets did the same damage as the fully-charged Mega Arm. That didn't make
any sense.

4. Some of the weapons were very unbalanced. Tango (the new animal weapon you
start with) was terrible, because it was so random and easily neutralized by
the walls and pits. Grab Buster was too useful against the normal enemies
due to it being able to absorb 2 life energy per shot (up to 3 can be on the
screen, which made you recover very quickly) and having low energy cost. And
Spark Chaser (Terra's weapon) was extremely overpowered in this game, so much
so that it made most of the enemies and bosses laughably easy. That included
Wily 3, and even Sunstar.

5. The boss rooms were quite boring, as they all had the exact same flat ground
stages, even in the Wily Star.

6. There were too many powerful freebie items throughout the game. Not only
were there too many freebie large E Tanks, but even the large life/weapon
energy restored too much -- in the NES version, they restored 10 units out of
32 max units (<33%), but in MMV, they they restored 10 units out of 19 max
units (>50%).

7. The secret crystals were all obtainable with Break Dash and Deep Digger,
which made hunting for them kind of boring, not to mention that you were
forced to replay at least one stage, regardless of what boss order you chose.

8. Some of the shop item prices didn't make sense. Why was the Weapon Refill so
expensive? Nobody used it due to its price (it was something you had as
default in other Mega Man games). Why was the Energy Balancer so expensive?
It was just a quality-of-life item that had no effect in battles nor clearing
obstacles.


So, this patch does the following:

1. Distributes the bosses' weapon defense more evenly (including Tango) in order
to increase the usefulness and availability of the weapons against their
specific bosses -- not just in damage, but in practical usage sense. Some
are very effective, and some are semi-effective. Generally, any given boss
is weak to one weapon from the first 4 bosses, and another from the later 4
bosses -- see the attached chart for more detail.

2. Makes the GB-unique-boss fights from the past Mega Man games more difficult
by changing the rooms (see #5 below) and the weapon defenses. In addition,
Enker can only be damaged by at least semi-charged Mega Arm (1 damage, CL
works), and Quint takes 1 damage from all Mega Arm attacks, including the
fully-charged Mega Arm.

3. Changes up the Mega Arm's effectiveness for the bosses that were supposed to
be immune to the normal bullets. Specifically, Uranus, Terra, Wily 3, and
Sunstar can only be damaged by the fully-charged shot (1 damage for Sunstar,
and 3 damage for the rest). CL will fail.

4. Balances out some of the weapons. Specifically, Rush Coil and Rush Jet can
have up to 3 bullets on the screen (4 if Rush is not on the field, just like
Tango), Grab Buster costs more energy and can only have up to 2 bullets on
the screen (instead of 3), Salt Water costs less energy, Electric Shock lasts
shorter time but costs less energy, and Spark Chaser doesn't do massive
damage against Wily 3 and is ineffective against Sunstar (Sunstar is immune
to everything except the fully-charged Mega Arm).

5. Changes some of the mid-boss and boss rooms to make the fights more exciting
and difficult. Specifically, initial Venus's room has waterfalls, initial
Neptune's room has uneven ground, one of Pluto's mid-boss's room has spikes,
and most of the Wily Star boss rooms (including the rematch rooms) have
different structures.

6. Minor changes to the stages, items, and enemies (includes unused enemies).
In addition, the large life/weapon energy restores 8 units instead of 10
units (consistent with the large P-chip units).

7. Some of the crystals require methods other than Break Dash or Deep Digger to
obtain -- namely, MH upgrade and Rush Jet. You can get them all in one-go
without having to replay the stage, if you start from Saturn.

8. Changes the prices of few shop items -- most notably Weapon Refill and Energy
Balancer.


Known issues:
- Neptune won't be able to jump over obstacles if he is too close to them.
However, he'll still be able to attack.
- Enker sometimes ignores the hit (and that's good).
- If you fall on the spikes after beating the boss (except Uranus), then you
won't die.
- Often, Sunstar gets defeated from the fully-charged Mega Arm when he has as
much as 3 HP left (instead of 1). However, he's more difficult to damage, so
ultimately, he can still take more hits.


If you have any ideas, then let me know. I'm open to them, and I may be able to
incoorporate them.


Applying Notes:

- This is for Mega Man V US rom, but it's also compatible with marc_max's Mega
Man World 5 DX. While the order shouldn't matter, but to be safe, apply
MMW5DX patch first, then apply this patch.
- Always apply the patch on a new ROM. Do NOT patch the most recent version on
top of an old version. It may screw up things and cause unintended effects.


If you have any questions, requests, or error reports, then please DM me on
Romhacking.net (click my name, then click my name next to "Forum Account", then
click "Send PM").



Change Logs:

1.8
- The large life/weapon energy restores 8 units instead of 10 units (consistent
with the large P-chip units).
- Changed things to the Pluto's mid-boss's rooms.
- Other minor changes.

1.7
- Changed back the initial Jupiter and Uranus's rooms.
- Changed the initial Neptune and most of the Wily Star boss rooms (including
the rematch rooms).
- Changed several bosses' weapon defenses.
- Other minor changes.

1.6
- Changed things to the Pluto's mid-boss, Punk, and Ballade's rooms.
- Changed the prices of few shop items.
- Other minor changes.

1.5
- Changed things to the Neptune's boss rooms.
- Other minor changes.

1.4
- Rush Coil and Rush Jet can have up to 3 bullets on the screen (4 if Rush is
not on the field, just like Tango), Grab Buster costs more energy and can
have up to 2 bullets (instead of 3) on the screen, Salt Water costs less
energy, and Electric Shock lasts shorter time but costs less energy.
- Changed things to the Venus and Uranus's boss rooms.
- Changed the prices of few shop items.
- Other minor changes/fixes.

1.3
- Minor changes to the items, stages, and enemies (includes unused enemies).
- Other minor changes.

1.2
- Minor fix.

1.1
- Changed around the weapon defense.
- Neptune and Quint's boss rooms have obstacles (you can use Deep Digger to
remove them).
- Jupiter and Punk's boss rooms have insta-death traps.

1.0
- Initial release.


Database match: Mega Man V (USA) (SGB Enhanced)
Database: No-Intro: Game Boy/Color (v. 20210227-015730)
File/ROM SHA-1: 9A7DA0E4D3F49E4A0B94E85CD64E28A687D81260
File/ROM CRC32: 72E6D21D