Download Mega Man 5: Protoman Edition ROM Hack

               Mega Man 5 
            Protoman Edition
                  v1.1


1) General Info
2) Gameplay changes
3) Patching, playing & compatibility
4) Versions History
5) Credits



     1) General Info

Protoman Edition is a Romhack of Mega Man 5 for NES.
It intends to transpose Protoman's gameplay from MM9/10 to MM5,
and to improve the MM5 experience with a series of fixes and changes.

Two hacks in one:
- Protoman Edition: play the original MM5 as Protoman
- Second Strike Protoman Edition: play Second Strike, my first MM5 hack, as Protoman. 
It offers new stages and altered gameplay.
Second Strike Protoman Edition is based of the v1.3 of Second Strike, but includes some 
differences.




     2) Gameplay and other changes:

a) Changes related to Protoman :

- Protoman can use his shield to deflect/destroy projectiles.

- Beat was replaced by the Proto Dash. Collect all 8 "Protoman" letters to unlock it.
The Proto Dash is a very powerful move which drains a lot of weapon energy. You can damage
enemies with it, but also destroy projectiles. 
It can not be cancelled by pressing the opposite direction on the d-pad, but it can cancelled
by performing a Dash Jump.
Dash Jumps offer a speed boost which allows for longer jumps, similar to Bass's Dash Jumps
in MM&B and MM10, or to the X series. However, unlike in those games, the speed boost given
by a P.Dash jump will only last as long as you're pressing the direction you were initially going to.

- In MM9/10, enemies deal 100% more damage to Protoman than to Mega Man. In this hack you can turn on/off 
this setting in the main menu: "Damage x1" will keep the original damage values of the game,
and with "Damage x2" Protoman will recieve double the damage.
If you want to resume a "Damage x2" playthrough using a password, SET DAMAGE TO "x2" BEFORE
ENTERING THE PASSWORD.

- Protoman's knockback when taking a hit is twice longer as MM's, like in MM9.

- The charge shot has a smaller hit detection size than the original MM5 charge shot.
It also takes a bit longer to charge up, and its movement speed is slightly faster.

- Protoman can fire a 2nd regular P.Buster shot when a "half-charge" shot is on screen,
which MM originally couldn't in MM5.

- Protoman can only shoot 2 P.Busters shots at the same time.

- R.Coil and R.Jet are replaced by P.Coil and P.Jet

- Protoman starts the game with his P.Jet, like in MM9/10.

- The story, intro and cutscenes were altered


b) Other changes

Fixes/changes based on the original game:

- The charge shot charging sound now fades out 
- Charging up a charge shot now works during a slide and during the "360? rotation" animation (on moving platforms)
- Underwater slide-jumps are now possible
- During a slide, you can't jump if holding "down" on the d-pad. In reverse gravity this remained the same, while it should be when holding "up". Fixed.
- Charge shots go through destructible blocks and can destroy several blocks in a row (like in MM4)
- While charging, if the player would release the B button during a slide or during the "360? rotation" animation, the palette could freeze with one of the charging palettes. Fixed.
- When dying in a pit while charging the charge shot, palette gets reset to default to avoid items on the screen (1up, tanks, etc) being 'frozen' with the wrong palette.
- M tanks now always appear, even if the player already has one. You can still only carry 1 at a time though.
- Picking an E/M Tank or a 1up when they're already full no longer makes a sound, like in later games in the series
- Falling crystals gimmick in Crystal Man stage: when 'destroying' a crystal with Star Shield, the following crystals falling from the same tube would go through the player. Fixed.
- Crystal Man's orbs: they no longer disappear if hitting the player during invicibility frame time. I also added a small visual explosion when they disappear when their timer runs out. This change of code also makes them less laggy when there are 3-4 of them at the same time. 
- Fixed the possibility to skip most of the boss rush by sliding through the wall (at least I think I fixed it)
- Jetski segment: fixed the possibility to "miss" the jetski during the cutscene and play the segment without the jetski, glitching the entire part. (At least I fixed the easiest way there was to pull that glitch, it might still be possible to do it with the S.Arrow but since I can't pull it off, I can't check)
- Title screen: Slightly shortened the time it takes to loop back to the intro, so that you can no longer hear the title screen song start again for a split second.
- Boss intro screen: fixed the Y-axis location of the bottom flickering light of the teleporter (the lights flickering before bosses appear)
- Wily cutscene at the end of Protoman fortress stage 4: made the text flow faster.
- Slightly reduced Darkman 1 and Darkman 3's hit detection size, so that it matches their art better and jumping above them is a bit easier.
- Getting frozen by Darkman 3's onion rings during a Charge Kick will nullify the charge kick (turn the animation into regular sliding), to avoid C.Kick working while being frozen.
- The B button now works to select things everywhere it didn't (weapons menu, stage select screen, password/continue screen)
- The drop rate of 1ups was reduced
- [not in Second Strike version] Protoman Fortress stage 1: When dying and loading either checkpoint, a colour of the foreground would change. Fixed.
- [not in Second Strike version] Napalm Man stage: Fixed a wall that was set as "foreground", that the player could slide into.
- ... and more !




     3) Patching, playing & compatibility

a) Patching
Patch the original game rom: Mega Man 5 (USA).Nes
Use a patching software such as Lunar IPS.

DO NOT PATCH BOTH PATCHES ON THE SAME ROM.

Patch the "MM5ProtomanEdition.ips" file on a first "Mega Man 5 (USA).NES" rom
Then patch the "MM5SSPE.ips" file on a second "Mega Man 5 (USA).NES" rom.


By default the Second Strike version uses Rock5easily's "bossroomjump" hack which allows 
for altered boss room layouts during the initial robot master stages.
Thanks to Rock5easily for this cool patch.


b) Playing & compatibility
These hacks were thoroughly tested using a Famicom 2 and an Everdrive N8 flashcart, 
as well as with Nestopia and FCEU X emulators.

Compatibility between the Protoman hack and other hacks should be VERY unlikely. Patching the base Protoman hack
to another MM5 hack, even to "just" a level hack, will probably result in glitches 99% of the time.
I do plan on optimizing my ASM code in a future version, but even then compatibility should still be unlikely. 
Sorry !



     4) versions History

v1.0: August 24 2017
- Release

v1.1: August 28 2017
- Fixed game freezing when Darkman 4 deflects a deflected shot.
- Fixed falling crystal gimmick in Crystal Man stage not respawning if destroyed by Protoman's shield.
- Fixed hit detection of the first frame of Wave Man's wave attack (only in original game version, not an issue in Second Strike).
- Changed the S.Arrow palette to use Protoman's default palette, since in the original game it would use MM's default palette as well.




     5) Credits

Capcom and everyone involved in the making of Mega Man 5 and the Mega Man series.
Inti Creates and anyone involved in the making of Protoman's gameplay in MM9/10.

MetHy (aka Ness aka NESfag): Level design and hex editing
Steambull: Additional art (P.Dash, font for the title screen, scarf during the intro, 360? rotation animation), Beta testing, ideas.

Most of Protoman's art was directly imported from MM9-10, but the following frames are new edits designed by Steambull and myself:
- The Proto Dash frames
- All the frames from the "360? rotation" animation (used on moving platforms and during the Weapon Get)
- Also Protoman's C.Kick and his Jetski art but those can barely be considering "new".
The Proto Dash sound was also made by me.


Anons of /vr/, Disch: Hacking help

Built using:
- The "rock5_bossroomjump" patch by Rock5easily
- MM5 hex editing documentation by Rock5easily
- Rock5SpriteViewer tool by Rock5easily
- "Capcom "6C80" Sound Engine/Music Format Documentation" by Matrixz
- CSA tool by Matrixz
- MegaFLE X by Matrixz and Kuja Killer
- FCEU X emulator
- YYCHR graphic editor by Yy

Special thanks to Matrix, Rock5Easily and Kuja Killer.
Without their excellent work this hack wouldn't have been possible.


Enjoy!