Indie Time: Megaman Sprite Game

Released on Halloween, Megaman Sprite Game is a game made using real Megaman sprites. If you’re played any Megaman games before, you’ll immediately recognize Megaman’s toothy smile, his basketball-toting brother Zero, and of course, Megaman’s predilection for smacking ghosts.

Wait, what?

Megaman Sprite Game is made by the author of Megaman Sprite Comic, although I did not find this out until after I’d played it. It’s a Japanese-style role-playing game made using OHRRPGCE, the Official Hamster Republic Role-Playing Game Construction Engine, which is a free, open source game-making tool that offers an alternative to the popular RPGMaker. OHRRPGCE has a long history of communal development and tends to lend itself towards projects with a decidedly quirky bent. Megaman Sprite Game is no exception.

Mechanically it operates much like a typical Japanese-style role-playing game from the 8-bit or 16-bit era, with a top-down overhead map and turn-based, side-view battles. But this stuff is beside the point; it’s just there to serve the game’s bizarre humor. Megaman Sprite Game is completely ridiculous, and hilarious. It entertained me for far longer than I expected, and I actually laughed out loud more than once, which is a rare thing when playing a game. Humor is, of course, subject to each player’s tastes, and I’m sure some people out there will bounce right off the game. And others will not take very kindly to the brutal “bad ending”, which is a fantastic send-up of the Japanese-style role-playing genre. Given the quick playtime, I didn’t mind starting over and going for the “true” ending, and I was pleasantly surprised not only by how much longer the game proved to be, but by how enjoyable it remained right up to the end.

The humor is based on the random and incongruous, relying on the sheer absurdity of the premise more than anything else. But the game also has some genuinely great writing. If you’ve ever doubted that perfect comedic timing can be conveyed through the formatting of a dialog text box, Megaman Sprite Game will prove otherwise. The humor really is the only reason to play, however, so whether or not you’ll enjoy it will depend on you. It is available for free, so at least you won’t be out any money if you decide it’s not to your taste. But if you were intrigued enough by the first paragraph of this post to actually bother reading the rest, you’ll probably have a good time.

And remember, it’s worth getting past that bad ending. Trust me.