Well, maybe not stronger, but definitely much more fun! The game in question, and the first of my Rom Hack Write Ups section, is a rom hack I truly hold dear to my heart. That hack is called Rockman No Constancy. It doesn’t look too different from your standard Rockman 2 title screen, sans the actual logo and IKA’s (the man who made the hack AND programmed the music for this) tag, right? Well… That’s only if you’re playing the easy version of the patch, where Mega Man is pretty much the same as his MM2 incarnation. Then you play hard mode… Ohhhh Hard Mode, you give me nightmares. (I still love you, though, baby. I truly do.) Instead of Mega Man’s classic blue and cyan get up, he dons a somewhat hideous at first Lime and Forest Green costume. It grows on you after a bit, though, and really fits with the graphical overhaul of the levels (Spoilers: Most of the levels have SOME sort of blue in them. And white. Lots of white. The colors Mega Man dons in hard mode do well to contrast from the levels’ backgrounds.)



Mega Man isn’t only getting a recolor in hard mode, a la a 12 year old making his first “Bob And George” inspired webcomic. The amount of changes in hard mode are ridiculous, and are really the selling point of playing Hard over Normal. Firstly, and probably MOST importantly, is your hit-stun. It is literally non-existent. Your invincibility is about the same as your reeling back animation which is about 15 or so frames. After that, you are able to take damage again. This means small enemies like baby frogs and bosses that land on top of you are guaranteed 1-hit-KOs. You’d do your best to practice each level incessantly in normal mode so you can have a clear understanding of each level’s design, but it’s not absolutely necessary, especially if you like dying a lot and getting ultimately screwed over by the stupidest things. Another major point to note is that your shots in hard mode do HALF DAMAGE! Yes, half. That means instead of heat man taking 14 shots in normal, he takes 28 standard buster shots, and trust me, you don’t want to try and get close to him with the leaf shield to hurt him (he does 28 damage in one hit on hard mode). Keep that in mind with the fact that everything does double damage to you and you’ve got yourself a MAJOR challenge ahead!

So besides damage and being ridiculously unfair at times, what else is different about it? Well no true rom hack would not be without new stages, new music, and new weapons! Everything has been masterfully done by one man. IKA, who has a major history in the Rockman 2 rom hacking community. RnC is his most famous rom hack though. Weapons ranging from a light speed arcing metal blade to flames that emanate from your gun in place then fire after a 1 second interval. An Air shooter that shoots 5 air blades that fire in different upward directions at once, and the items that all have very different properties now. Stages are completely different than before, as well as the music, which is more my expertise (give me a song from this rom hack and I will name its original game and location).

I’ve spoken nothing but good things so far, but perhaps I should go over some of the cons about this game. The fact that it IS very hard might be a turn off to many casual players. Even Normal mode is a bear and a half to play for even seasoned Mega Man players. Stages are LONG in this game. They take a lot of time to practice and perfect, and when you have a hard mode like RnC’s perfect is all that’s accepted in order to make it through a stage alive (or just to the halfway point.) and then after that you have to deal with bosses that have really hard to read patterns at times. (READ: AT TIMES) That’s the only other gripe I have with this game. There are some bosses that are impossibly tough, and then there’s some that are snoozingly easy. Some patterns seem impossible while others are just so mind numbing that you can do them without knowing them before hand even with just buster.

They’re nitpicky gripes but they’re gripes nonetheless that keep the game from being perfect. I personally cannot link you to the hack or the rom for legal reasons but Google is your friend if you are at all interested in testing the waters in this intensely tough rom hack! Keep it classy, Retro-maniacs and I’ll see you next week for another Rom Hack Write Up!

Pixxel Papa here! This writeup was completed by Daniel Park, a guest author who is very well versed in ROM hacks! I hope you enjoyed his first post, because I have a hunch that you are going to see more from him ;)