- "Several years after the Wily Wars finally subside, Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack join forces and embark on a quest to build the most advanced robot database and battle simulator the world has even known. Together, they create a vast and complex virtual reality where AI versions of robot masters and human beings can interact with each other in new and exciting ways, all while their physical operators remain safely outside in the real world. Their experimental project, tentatively titled "The Prototype", is set to be unveiled to the public tomorrow. Both doctors are nervously excited to show off their years of hard work to their colleagues, but something mysterious lurks in the shadows…"
- ―RPG Prototype Synopsis
Mega Man RPG Prototype is a browser-based fangame created by Ageman20XX (Adrian Marceau) where you square off against hordes of increasingly challenging robot masters in turn-based battles, visibly paying tribute to retro role-playing games. Prototype merges the collection and battle mechanics of the Pokémon series with the characters and special weapons of the classic Mega Man series along with a host of other inspirations and systems to delve into including several shops, a leaderboard, and an custom-built forum with unique sprite-focused formatting options. The story of the game unfolds in the original series timeline and features elements from across those entries, but Battle Network fans will also recognize a handful of references as well. Prototype has three distinct campaigns, a little over a hundred playable characters (if you count both the robot masters and the support mechas separate entities), and a comparable number of unique abilities to equip and items to collect, resulting in an abundance of unlockable content in both the main game and the very long post-game.
The project has been a labour-of-love by the lead developer over the years with his first playable version (the literal prototype) being rolled out in early 2011. Since then, the project has welcomed several thousand players from around the globe (visible on the aforementioned leaderboard) into the ever-growing community, sharing their experiences within the game and participating in further development by participating in forum and chatroom discussions. Some members have even become full-time contributors to the project, their efforts primarily focused on expanding the roster, building out the flavour text of the world, and providing the MMRPG with further polish and additional content for players. The two most prominent additions to the list of contributors over the years would have to be MegaBossMan and Rhythm_BCA, both of which have risen to become critical members of the team, talented sprite artists, and developers in their own rights.
Despite its name, the game is fully playable in its current iteration. It's cross-platform and played in your browser so it does not require installing anything on your machine - you just create a new account on the website (which is used to save progress long-term) and then you're allowed to play. This has allowed some users to keep their accounts and save data active and growing for over a decade, progressing through new content as it's added and resulting in many long-term veterans to help new players out. The game does not appear to have a "version number" in the typical sense, but a ticker on the home page shows the "Last Modified" date being as recent as April 2023.
Story[]
The year 20XX. It has been several years since the Roboenza outbreak, and no one has heard from Dr. Wily since. Dr. Light and Dr. Cossack join forces and embark on a quest to build the most advanced robot database and battle simulator the world has even known. Together, they create a vast and complex virtual reality where AI versions of robot masters and human beings can interact with each other in new and exciting ways, all while their physical operators remain safely outside in the real world. Their experimental project, tentatively titled "The Prototype", is set to be unveiled to the public the next day. Both doctors are nervously excited to show off their years of hard work to their colleagues, but something mysterious lurks in the shadows…
From there, the game lacks an opening cutscene and immediately jumps into the action. Website text leads us to believe that, upon turning on The Prototype for the first time, a "brilliant flash of light" engulfs the stage and the doctors appear to find themselves inside the very machine they built. They are immediately confronted by a rogue Metool (referred to as a "Met" in this game) and a battle ensues. Upon defeating the Met, the player unlocks the rest of the campaign and the progressively-more-difficult tiers of robot master opponents. The culminates in a battle against revived copies of past robot masters in a boss-rush style encounter, but otherwise there is relatively little story after the intro save for contextual clues. Dr. light eventually encounters Dr. Wily in the world instead of Dr. Cossack (which unlocks him as a playable character) and then eventually finds Dr. Cossack as intended. It's clear the plot revolves around something space-themed, but no central antagonists or distinct villain characters ever make an appearance. The developer has stated the story part of the game is not yet complete and will come at a later date.
Gameplay[]
Dr. Cossack and Proto Man face off against Toad Man
The game is reminiscent of the Pokémon franchise and makes heavy use of the collection and battle mechanics found in the main games of that series, albeit with Mega Man content. There are three doctors offering three separate campaigns, being Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, and Dr. Cossack, who each have their own set of unlockable robots and separate-but-connected save files. Dr. Light starts with Mega Man, Dr. Wily with Bass, and Dr. Cossack with Proto Man. Each doctor have a primary set of Robot Masters which they can battle and unlock. Dr. Light first faces off against the 8 Robot Masters from Mega Man Powered Up, Dr. Wily faces the 8 Robot Masters from Mega Man 2, and Dr. Cossack faces the 8 Robot Masters from Mega Man 4. Each doctor also has the ability to unlock a support robot master with special healing capabilities. These support robots are Roll for Dr. Light, and two new Robot Masters Disco (Dr. Wily) and Rhythm (Dr. Cossack). Further Robot Masters are able to be developed and unlocked from the shop, given the player scan their data for analysis beforehand. All Robot Masters are transferable between the three doctors for use in their storylines, allowing for a mixture of robots to be put on a team.
Each and every robot has their own specialized weaknesses and resistances, and must fight other Robot Masters and Support Mechas to earn their weapons and potentially unlock them for use in battle. While each robot has its own unique set of level-up abilities based on classic series weapons, abilities can also be manually equipped to compatible robots by the player so long as the ability matches that robot's Core Type - a mechanic similar to the element types in Pokémon. For example, an Explode type robot like Crash Man can learn Hyper Bomb by defeating Bomb Man and equipping his weapon. However, there are also dual type moves which are compatible with two different core types, like Ice Slasher being compatible with both Cutter and Freeze type robots.
Battles are carried out in a turn-based system very similar to the Pokémon games where robots fight one-on-one, but each side of the field can have up to seven additional robots on the bench for switching out to that can be targeted by ranged attacks and potentially disabled before they get a chance to attack. Each robot can have up to eight different abilities equipped and each ability has different elemental properties, effects, and weapon energy requirements. Once a target robot's Life Energy has been reduced to zero, it will be disabled and may drop an item like an Energy Pellet, Weapon Capsule, etc. in the process. These items can be used once per turn, and switching does not give the enemy a free attack which encourages experimentation.
A new post-game mechanic named Star Force (not entirely related to Mega Man Star Force) adds 'stars' to the Robot Master and Fusion stages. Stages can also be combined to make new fusion stars. For example, Cut Man's stage and Toad Man's stage can be combined to form either an Abandoned Sewer Star or a Rainy Warehouse Star, which accounts for a different star. Though it is entirely a post-game item, collecting these stars massively magnifies the strength of any Robot Master sharing that typing. Various other post-game material, such as 'Challenge' missions and a traditional Endless Attack mode, also offer multiple extra advantages to be earned.
The game is integrated with a companion website that hosts a full leaderboard ranking players by their Battle Point total as well as a Pokédex-like database of all the robots and abilities that appear in the game. The database features the sprites, stats, descriptions, dialogue, and mechanics of each and every single character. Players can also use their game accounts to participate in the community forums and to directly participate in the formation of new content, mechanics, and features. This "devroom" style of development was inspired by Mega Man Legends 3 and has been actively shaping the direction of the game since its inception in early 2011.
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