Rockmen R: Dr. Wily's Counterattack (ロックメン R: Dr.ワイリーの逆襲) is a Japanese doujin game for Windows PC done in 16-bit graphics and released by Capricorn on January of 2009. It is a fangame based on Mega Man (a.k.a. Rockman in Japan) that stars Rock's sister, Roll, and features a unique cast of Robot Masters as well as a new Robot Master named Piano.
The developers unfortunately met with a cease-and-desist by Capcom, thus making it virtually impossible to buy the game anywhere, but eventually the game managed to get enough coverage and spread across the internet.
Capricorn later went on to make another Mega Man-styled game on May of 2013 called Touhou Rock Maiden, a Touhou Project fangame staring Reimu Hakurei. Despite having dealt with the cease-and-desist by Capcom and the original game being taken down, Capcricorn went on to develop a sequel, Rockmen R2: Dr. Wily's Return (ROCKMEN R2 Dr.ワ○リーの再起!!), which was released in late 2018 during Winter Comiket 95 and digitally via the Japanese
DLsite on January 5, 2019 and DLsite's English version on July 19, 2020.
Rockmen R features examples of:
- Arm Cannon: One of the few pieces of Rockman media to depict Roll with a functional arm cannon, alongside the 2008 mobile port of the original Mega Man.
- Art Evolution: The sequel features vastly improved visuals over its predecessor and a softer artstyle.
- Ascended Extra: Roll as the main character.
- Big Fancy Castle: Waltz Man's stage.
- Beam Spam: Laser Man performs this often enough.
- Bottomless Pit: A number of them through out the game, including Rapid Man stage, Weasel Man's stage, and Wily's Castle Stage 3.
- Creepy Doll: Puppet Man and his Roll-dolls, not to mention his teddy bear bombs.
- Distressed Dude: Rock, he was beaten by Piano and taken captive.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: Roll's color scheme when using Death Waltz evokes this.
- Eternal Engine: Energy Man's level qualifies for this.
- Expy: Piano is this to Roll just as Bass is to Rock.
- Fan Sequel: To Mega Man 8 originally.
- Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: Puppet Man's stage is a little more difficult then he actually is to beat. Rapid Man has the same problem, his stage is challenging but his actual fight is fairly simple.
- Kaleidoscope Hair/Power Dyes Your Hair: Roll's hair color changes depending on which weapon she uses:
- Sonic Boomerang: Turquoise hair
- Death Waltz: Light blonde
- Flare Shot: Hot pink hair
- Bullet Strike: Orange hair
- Puppet Bomb: Purple hair
- Thunder Wheel: Indigo hair
- Laser Wave: Cyan hair
- Immortal Stone: Gray hair
- Kill Him Already!: Shockingly averted at the end, as Roll decides to do this to Dr. Wily. Until he reminds her of the First Law. However, it just turns out to be a robotic copy of him.
- Mirror Boss: Mega Man.
- Mirror Match: Your first time fighting Piano in the intro stage.
- Missing Secret: In the weapons menu, there's an empty space between Immortal Stone and Rush Coil.
- Musical Assassin: Waltz Man along with his sonic-based Death Waltz.
-
Nintendo Hard: Its a difficult game if your ill-prepared for it. - Playing with Fire: Flare Man takes the cake on this one.
- Password Save: This game uses a password save system like in the classic Mega Man games.
- Recurring Boss: Piano's role in Rockmen R is similar to that of Bass for Mega Man.
- Shifting Sand Land: Averted to a point with Rapid Man's level, its more like Cliff-Oasis-Gully type area. Justified as his level takes place in Australia's outback.
- Space Level: Laser Man's level looks like this.
- Spikes of Doom: Shockingly very few and far in between but still there.
- Warm-Up Boss: Piano in the intro stage.
- Youkai: Weasel Man is based on the kamaitachi, a weasel youkai with sickle-like nails that rides dust devils.
