Looking back at old ROM hacks -- Robertman 2, part 1

Previously, I went over all of the many Mario hacks that I'd made back in the early 2000s (mostly -- that Ninja Mario Bros. one was from 2007.)  Now, I'm going to a different one -- a hack of Megaman 2, with Megaman replaced with Robert Yellek the Booger Fighter who appeared in several of my games.  The title of the hack, of course, is Robertman 2.

 For some reason I changed the names but didn't change the dates... so Capcom becomes "Crapcom" (Capcom USA becoming "Crapcom B.S.") and Nintendo of America became "DBlubber of Nummorro."

I'm pretty sure the hack was made somewhere in the range of 2001-2002, though, despite the fact that the dates here still say 1988.

 The year being 200X rather than 199X doesn't narrow things down much, either. XD

 Mr. Bugar, the Master of Boogers! Who also makes booger-powered robots, apparently.

 Dr. Wily's name is changed to... Dr. Dragonite.  This was actually a reference to a certain obnoxious forum user waaaaay back in 1998-2000ish when I was still active on a certain AOL Pokémon forum, whose username was either just "Dragonite" or Dragonite with a bunch of random numbers tacked on afterward (I can't remember which.)  I also don't remember much about this guy, except that he was a complete douche.  Douchey enough to become the villain in one of my games, apparently.

 

 ...and those robots, as you'll see in a bit, are apparently mostly based on villains from one of my awful old OHRRPGCE games.  Well, they aren't just from that game, I made those guys up years before I made either this hack or that game, but still.

 Apparently I never changed the "MEGA MAN" part of the title to say the actual title of the hack.  I did, however, add in "By Dark Blubber" and some random pillars and Japanese letters... and change the difficulty settings from Normal/Hard to Hard/Friggin' Hard. XD

Also, Megaman is still Megaman on the title screen, not Robert.  Whoops.

 And here's the stage select screen... with only two of the pictures actually changed, though the overall layout has been altered a bit.  The colors, for one thing... but also, the text shows the names of the levels rather than the names of the bosses at the end of them.  Numnum Falls, McDonald's, Dark World, Kirb's Palace, Gomamon Forest, Kickme Factory, Banana Land, and Stupid Tower.

A couple of these (Kickme Factory, Dark World) are references to various other games/comics I made around this time; the rest are pretty much random.

 First, we're off to Numnum Falls, home of... Numnum Man.  who is basically Bubble Man with a Numnum head edited on.

 I changed the small frog robots into tiny green Numnums, but the big one is unchanged.  Megaman's sprites are thoroughly edited into something vaguely similar to Robert, though.

 These blocks are really awkwardly hard to see.

 Also, for some bizarre reason the hermit crab robots are replaced with Zelda 2 spiders with fireballs hovering behind them.  I don't know why.

 This big fish that spits up shrimp is unchanged, however.  Robert's method of attack is changed, though -- rather than single shots, he can rapid-fire up to three with one button press.  Also, apparently I messed up slightly when making the shooting sprite, so part of his shirt vanishes randomly.

 This looks a little odd...

 ...yep, you end up passing through those spikeballs, completely unharmed somehow!  Not sure how that works, but it does.

 I'm not sure what those glitchy enemies falling from the screen are, but I think I see the letters "AOL" on one.  AOL CDs as enemies, maybe?

 And here's Numnum Man! His room is a bit different than the original.

 He mainly attacks by shooting a couple of bouncing Numnum outlines while jumping/swimming around.

 He also looks a bit glitchy sometimes.

 And this screenshot was accidentally taken exactly as both Robert and Numnum Man got hit by something, but it also shows the little black Num Power symbols that he shoots whenever you're in a line with him while he's jumping/swimming.

And after you beat him, you get his special move: the Rolling Num.  Which is basically like the bouncing Numnum outline attack he used in his fight, but rolling along the surface rather than bouncing.  Hence the name.

 And here's Chef Eato, the robot boss guy in charge of... um, McDonald's apparently.  Chef Eato (unlike Numnum Man) was a boss from one of my old crappy games.  I may actually end up re-using his blue color scheme from this game even if that's not what he originally had, though I don't think I'll give him a yellowish chef hat rather than a white one.

The decorations here are little demon faces with gagging faces, with "McD's" along the sides of them.

Oh, and the "READY" message now says "BOOGER POWER" instead.

 Giant cloud-haired demon heads and... birds that fly by and drop burgers.  Those burgers explode into a cloud of flying roaches whenever they hit a solid surface.

 Also, the big ol' demon heads spawn floating burger monsters that chase after you.

 These guys now throw forks at you rather than lightning bolts.

 As I mentioned earlier -- the burgers dropped by the birds explode into a cloud of roaches.  Also, fat guy robots don't actually change, even though I vaguely remember making them into some kind of fat sumo guys... I guess I lost the most recent copy of this hack, so those edits are missing?  I do remember one of the bosses is partially edited and another one that was edited at some point now isn't, also due to the loss of that most recent edited version.

 Chef Eato takes his hat off and does an "Evil French Chef" laugh at the beginning of the fight.

And he attacks by sending a storm of spinning forks at you, of course.  He also has the most heavily edited graphics of all the bosses in this game, with all the rest either being barely-changed or with glitchy bits here and there.

I missed getting a screenshot of "GET EQUIPPED WITH TRIPLE FORK," but... since I just said that, you know what it would've said.  Apparently Robert is not capable of quite as strong chef-fu techniques as Eato, so he only gets three forks rather than six.  Oh well.

 

 I may have missed the announcement for Triple Fork, but I did not miss the one that happened after that.

 Next level: Kirb's Palace, home of... Kirb Man.  Who is basically just Kurb, but with a weird Zippo lighter shaped robot suit built around him.

 And Kirb's Palace is... this seizure-inducing monstrosity, with blue/white shimmering background and pictures of Aqua in the background.  "Aqua" being someone else's character from around that time period, who was a blue Kirby-type thing with purple hair, who became the target of Kurb's pervy tendencies for some reason.  Also, the main enemies here are floating blue/white Chiba Ball things that... for some reason float out from behind the Aqua posters on the wall.

 

 Here's some weird bucktoothed robot things that sproing up at you if you get too close.

 And here's what some of the weapons are shown as on the menu screen now -- rather than letters (except for B = Booger and E = Energy Tank), they have little symbols -- a fork for Triple Fork and a Num Power symbol for Rolling Num, for example.

 Also, like literally everyone else who ever played Megaman 2, I'm using the jet item to get through here rather than messing around with those appearing/disappearing blocks.  BUGAR JET, AWAY!

 Yep.  There it is -- Bugar Jet.  Also, a 1-up which I will ignore.

 And here's Kirb Man, powering up his Kihlah energy for the upcoming fight.

 And those are Kirby-faced fireballs he's just thrown out, of course.

 A Rolling Num heading his way, while three tiny Kirby-face fireballs heading toward Robert.

 Sadly, this screenshot did not capture the Kirby-face fireballs he changes into in order to fly across the room, instead only getting the unedited in-between frame.  D'oh.

 GET EQUIPPED WITH KIRBY DANCE.  Kurb actually does still have a Kihlah technique called "K'hyurbhi Dance," which is based pretty closely on the attack from this game.

Also, another one of those sometimes-useful little utility type items, which I have edited to have eyes for some reason (as you can see in the Bugar Jet screenshot up above.)

And... typing so much on my laptop's tiny built-in keyboard doesn't work so well for my wrists, so that's all for now.  Part 2 coming soon, when I get back to my apartment and have access to the usual plugged-in keyboard again.