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Rockman 5: Blues no Chousen

Levels: Good

Graphics: Good

Music: No Change

Enemies: No Change

Bosses: Eh (Wily Crusher room change)

Weapons: No Change

Castle: Good

Difficulty: EASY-MEDIUM (occasionally MEDIUM)

Comments: Every Mega Man usually gets an exceptionally well-done level-focused hack, and I reckon Blues no Chousen is the prime candidate for 5. From beginning to end stages are designed to give you a satisfying challenge, tossing a healthy mix of enemies, pits, and traps your way. Levels are consistently thoughtful too, rarely featuring screens where obstacles are used in a boring or brainless manner. Of course, the Achilles heel of level hacks is that once you walk through the boss gates, you're basically home free. As long as that doesn't deter you, Blues no Chousen is a worthwhile play.

I remember absolutely loving this hack the first time I played it, but replaying it, I just think it's good. First of all, everything has been recolored, except Mega Man and Rush, and even Mega Man's weapons have new palettes. This might not sound like such a big deal, but it's not often that you see the Wily bosses recolored, which I thought was a nice touch. A lot of the new stage palettes didn't really blow me away, but they weren't bad; I've played a few hacks with palettes that could make your eyes bleed, and there wasn't any of that here. Wave Man's stage had a beautiful red sky, which was lovely for the jetski section, and yes, even the jetski was recolored. Star Man's stage had a fairly subtle change, but making the stars so many different colors really added a remarkable beauty to it all. My favorite new stage is Proto Man 3, which was still at night, but purple and blue in just the right shades.

The level design is a mixed bag. You will find all new challenges here, and most of them are pretty creative. Unfortunately, a few of them are a little on the tedious side. I think the biggest flaw might be that some of the robot master stages assume that you've beaten one or another already, so you'll need Rush Jet or Super Arrow to grab the letter for Beat. I ran into this with Super Arrow, and when I went back into the stage, grabbed the letter, and completed it, the stage select screen glitched out pretty badly. The last remaining robot master's portrait was basically still there, so it worked out okay, and after I'd entered the stage, everything went back to normal; it just seems like this happens after a replay of a stage you've already beaten. Still, the drawbacks aren't enough for me to not recommend it; it's a pretty fresh experience, and it's clear that a lot of effort went into it.

This hack fits up with everything that I like in level hacks: graphical changes, new enemy distributions, new colours to enemies and bosses and of course, a fun and creative level design.

I love some sections of some levels, like the multiple ladders in Gyro´s stage, that section of one of the fortress where the ladder is blocked and you have to keep going back and forth to shot the blocks to create a passage to reach it and dodge spikes, that section of Napalm´s stage with the giant spike thing going at you, where you´ll need to jump over it and jump again to reach the next platform. I always love fun puzzles like those.

And it also have two spoilers in dark 3 and dark 4 chambers, which I´ll not gonna say it.

PLAY THIS HACK NOW!