Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch
Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch is a Mega Man themed multiplayer Game Mod for the Skulltag engine, which itself is a Game Mod of Doom. It was first released in October 2010 from CutmanMike, who previously made Ghouls vs. Humans, and it fully focuses on typical multiplayer gameplay such as Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag and so on.
It takes place after Mega Man 6, when the real Mr. X hosts the second annual Robot Master tournament. With agreement from Dr. Light, all robots entering must be refitted with Mega Man's powers, to ensure fair competition. However, Dr. Wily sees this as a brilliant opportunity to prove his genius, and enters all of his robots in the tournament. Mega Man, not trusting Dr. Wily in the tournament, decides to enter, but since he can't watch over every match, Dr. Light enters his robots as well.
The game's stages, skins and weapons are based off of the first six Mega Man games on the NES, with an update in June 2011 that added content from Mega Man 7, borrowing the 8-bit graphics from the fan made Rockman 7 FC. An update in the near future will add aditional content from Mega Man 8, also borrowing graphics from Rockman 8 FC.
It has it's own single player campaign, which pits the player against computer bots. There are six chapters including a bonus one from Mega Man 7, and each chapter features a series of predefined deathmatches before the player faces the chapter boss.
It can be found here and does not require Doom.
Tropes used in Mega Man 8-Bit Deathmatch include:
The vanilla game alone has examples of:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: The Guts-Dozer is Type A.
- Artificial Stupidity: Unfortunatly, the computer bots are not the best things around, due to the limited bot support in Skulltag. This leads to such incapabilities such as being unable to chase players up ladders, and running on the spot over cliff edges.
- Bait and Switch Boss: Happens at the end of chapter four.
- Blackout Basement: Brightman's stage, which features an "enemy" that when shot at, plunges the stage into darkness. Another "enemy" appears and lights it back up again when destroyed.
- Bloodless Carnage: It's Mega Man, of course.
- Bonus Boss: In the single player campaign, if you beat Flashman, Drillman, and Knightman's stages quick enough, you'll fight Enker, Punk and Ballade retrospectively. If you beat them, you'll keep their retrospective weapon for the rest of the chapter. Well, if you can beat them, that is. Did we mention you only get one try against them?
- Boss Banter: Most of the bots do this. Surprisingly, none of the actual single player bosses speak while you fight them.
- Boss Rush:
- Sorta happens near the end of single player. At the end of chapter six, before the Final Boss, you fight all the Robot Masters from Mega Man 1-6 one by one with them equiped with their own weapons.
- There's also a more traditional Boss Rush where you fight all the chapter bosses in quick succession.
- Bottomless Pits: All over the place.
- Bottomless Pit Rescue Service: A few maps have Beat Call, a one use assist item who saves you from being killed in such pits.
- The Cameo: Mega Man X is seen looking at your character's statue during the single player ending.
- The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Bots get infinite ammo for their weapons. This was done because bots were not programmed to pickup weapon energy, though.
- Classic Cheat Code: The usual cheat codes from Doom can be entered. Even then, the IDDQD cheat does not protect you from telefrags, nor the laser beams in Quickman's stage, nor Metool Daddy stomping you flat.
- Easter Egg: There's a Yashichi hidden in each stage. Unlike Mega Man 1, it can not be obtained, even if you noclip to it.
- Flash of Pain: The Guts-Dozer and Metool Daddy flash white when they take damage.
- Flash Stopper also does this, but in that case the pain is inflicted on your enemies.
- Frickin' Laser Beams:
- Quickman's stage has these. Like always, they kill instantly if touched, including cheating players with God Mode on.
- Game Mod: Most of them can be found here. A better list of the more notable mods is here.
- Even CutmanMike himself made a few, such as Roboenza, Chaos Generator, and Screw Scramble.
- Roboenza has been expanded on by another user with several changes, such as the last survivor "enraging".
- And here's an expansion for Chaos Generator.
- Even CutmanMike himself made a few, such as Roboenza, Chaos Generator, and Screw Scramble.
- Humongous Mecha: The Final Boss of the single player campaign is none other than Gamma from Mega Man 3. Not only that, but it's also fully functional.
- Interface Screw:
- The Flash Stopper. If anyone is hit by it, most of their screen is obscured by a white blur for a few seconds.
- Instant Death Radius: The Metool Daddy and Gamma. Not even God Mode prevents you from getting crushed beneath them.
- Lethal Lava Land: Fireman, Heatman, and Junkman's stages features several lava pits. Flameman's stage can also be this if both oil pits are alight.
- One-Hit Kill: A fully charged Atomic Fire shot is strong enough to kill someone at full health.
- The Metool Daddy can also instantly squish the player flat. So can Gamma.
- Puzzle Boss: Gamma.
- Retraux: Of course.
- Shout-Out:
- The title screen, after the opening story, is a direct homage to Mega Man 2.
- The bots drop a lot of refrences in their BOTCHAT dialogues:
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Cutman: Let's see how you do against, Kung-fu Cutman! |
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- Shademan takes the cake, though:
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- An Easter Egg in Starman's stage features a duck enemy from Duck Tales which plays the "Moon" theme from said game when shot at.
- A simular Easter Egg shows up in Shademan's stage featuring a Red Arremer playing the Ghosts N Goblins "Graveyard" theme when shot, which is an actual Call Back to the Easter Egg from Mega Man 7.
- An Easter Egg in Starman's stage features a duck enemy from Duck Tales which plays the "Moon" theme from said game when shot at.
- SNK Boss: Non-fighting game example: Darkman 4 at the end of Chapter 5 may count. He has a large amount of health, powerful attacks, and a health bar, but the game still counts him as a bot, unlike the other bosses, who are regular monsters by Doom engine standards.
- Enker, Punk and Ballade may also count as SNK Bosses as well since they also count as bots. And fiendishly difficult.
- Subverted by the Doc Robots at the end of Chapter 3, since they are just regular bots equipped with Mega Man 2 weapons, with infinite ammo.
- Spikes of Doom: Rather surprisingly, they appear rarely compared to their abundant appearance in the actual games. They appear in Bubbleman, Topman and Dr. Cossack's stages.
- Springs Springs Everywhere: Burstman and Springman's stages features large bubbles/springs players can bounce on. Plantman's stage lacks these despite being present in his actual stage from Mega Man 6.
- Unflinching Walk: Your character does this after beating the bonus Mega Man 7 single player chapter, mimicing the credits sequence from that game.
- Victory Fakeout: After beating the final botmatch at the end of the sixth chapter, a triumphant theme plays and the message CONGRATULATIONS! appears instead of the message A NEW CHALLENGER! that usualy heralds the chapter boss. It turns out it was a trap and now you have to fight all the Robot Masters from Mega Man 1-6 one by one. After going through that, the same triumphant theme from before plays but then Dr. Wily himself comes at you inside Gamma.
The various Game Mods also provide the following tropes:
- Barrier Change Boss: Wily Machine #1 in the latest version of the Powered Up expansion.
- Everything Dances: Type B. One of Chaos Generator's (see below) crazy effects is called "Jelly World". Which causes every floor in the level to sway up and down.
- And then there's the expansion to the mod called Chaos Generator Upgraded, which takes Jelly World Up to Eleven and turns it into a downright Type C. Not only does the entire stage itself move, but it also moves so much it literally bounces players and items up and down.
- Frickin' Laser Beams:
- In Chaos Generator, one effect called "Random Force Beams" dots the current stage with large holes that shoot the same instakill lasers from Quickman's stage. Oh, and there's no warning markers this time round.
- Someone has made it into a weapon.
- Interface Screw:
- Most of the Chaos Generator effects do this, especially in Chaos Generator Upgraded. One effect, called "Earthquake", constantly knocks players around in random directions. There's also a more traditional "Reversed Controls" effect, too.
- Our Zombies Are Different:
- Roboenza Mode has the "infected", who can climb walls and automatically die after a certain amount of time.
- One effect in Chaos Generator Upgraded has more traditional zombies that quickly swarm the stage.
- Springs Springs Everywhere: One chaos effect in Chaos Generator Upgraded, "Bouncy Terrain" makes every floor in the stage behave like the springs from Springman's stage.
- Tremor Trampoline: The violent movements of "Jelly World" in Chaos Generator Upgraded makes players and items bounce up and down constantly, unlike the original Chaos Generator release.