Mega Man 6: Rockman 6 - Start with Adaptors

This hack makes the player start the game with both the Jet and Power Adaptors in his inventory, something that can not be done with passwords or cheats.
It also makes sure that the player has both armors no matter which password he enters.

As a consequence, on the "Weapon Get" screens at the end of Plant Man and Flame Man stage, the messages related to acquiring the Adaptors are gone.

Patch a Rockman 6 (Japan) rom.

Mega Man 6 / Rockman 6
Start with Adaptors
v1.0, 23rd of February 2020


1) General Info
2) Patching
3) Compatibility with other hacks
4) Misc informations
5) Credits



1) General Info

This hack is for Rockman 6 on NES/Famicom.

It makes the player start with both the Jet and Power Adaptors, something that can not be done
with passwords or cheats.
It also makes sure that you will always have both armors no matter which password you enter.

As a consequence, on the "Weapon Get" screens at the end of Plant Man and Flame Man stage, the messages telling
that you acquire the adaptors are gone.


2) Patching

This patch is for the Japanese version of the game.
Intended rom:

Rockman 6 - Shijou Saidai no Tatakai!! (Japan).nes

Using an IPS patcher such as Lunar IPS.


3) Compatibility with other hacks

This hack is compatible with the other QOL hacks for this game:
- It is compatible with Puresabe's hack, the one that reduces lag, makes loading times faster, and fixes
the sliding. You can find this hack here:
http://borokobo.web.fc2.com/
It is called "Execution speed optimization and function expansion patch" for Rockman6 when you use
Google Translate.
- It is compatible with the "Charge Shot Sound Fade Out" hack that I made:
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5067/

You can apply all 3 hacks to the same Rockman 6 - Shijou Saidai no Tatakai!! (Japan).nes rom.



4) Misc information

I always thought that the way you acquire the adaptors was a little weird in this game. Out of the blue, no
reason given, no special message from Light or anything.

Recently I have found several pieces of evidence that shows that the devs had intended for the player to start
with both adaptors until late in dev:
- In a preview of the game in EGM #049, August 1993: a screenshot shows that the player has both adaptors,
but no weapons acquired yet. Furthermore, an early version of Wind Man stage shows a screen that could not
be completed if the player destroyed the blocks with the Power Suit, and didn't have the Jetpack suit. In
the final version of that screen, most of those blocks are gone and they added a ladder.
- In that same preview, the reviewer claims that in order to turn over the Pooker enemies in Flame Man stage,
you need to use the Power Armor. In the final version of the game, you can do that with a regular charge shot also.
You can see that preview on this TCRF page: https://tcrf.net/Prerelease:Mega_Man_6
- Regarding the weapons menu, the way it works for the weapons is that a routine writes to the PPU the weapons icon
and energy bars depending on the ones the player is carrying. If he has none, it writes nothing. However, for the armors,
what it does is hide the icons (write black on top of them) unless you have beaten Flame Man's and/or Plant Man's stages.
A little weird that the system differs in such a way and that they "hide" the armors. Furthermore, the completion state
of those two stages are shared and located in RAM addresses meant for the state of "BEAT" letters completion of two
other stages, which tells me that they squeezed the armor related bits wherever they could.
- Now think about the stages a little. At the end of Plant Man stage, there are a couple of small HP energy refill that
you can only pick up if you have the Jetpack, yet the Jetpack is acquired from beating that stage. Would they really
mean for the player to replay the stage just to grab those, considering that those are located just before the boss room
and that on a replay with the Jetpack the boss is gone? I find it unlikely. Similarly, there is a 1up behind a destructible
block at the start of Flame Man stage that can only be picked up if you have the Power Armor, and that armor is acquired from
beating that stage. If it was an E-Tank, it'd be worth making the player replay the stage, but a 1-up, I'm not so sure.


5) Credits

ASM editing: MetHy aka Ness

Thanks to the FCEU X and MESEN devs for their Hex Editor and Debugger.
Thanks to Rock5easily for his RM6 documentation.

Feel free to use this hack in your own hacks, no need to ask me, just a small credit is enough.

Database match: Rockman 6 - Shijou Saidai no Tatakai!! (Japan)
Database: No-Intro: Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20180803-121122)
File SHA-1: 316BEA6B2AEF7E5ECDE995EAB4AD99DB78F85C34
File CRC32: AB1D7979
ROM SHA-1: 47336976A531FAB2592AF636A630A290EB036D18
ROM CRC32: 2D664D99