Posted

Nov 14th 2008

Mood

Blah

If you've been looking at the more recent submissions in my gallery, you may have seen me posting Sketch Tucker in sprite form. It's all fueled by recent renewed interest in the Mega Man games. Since back when, I imagined Sketch Tucker as a supplementary character with his own style of play. This is essentially what I had in mind:

Sketch Tucker would wield four of his own unique weapons to use on his foes:

Tokaru Buster: His signature move, it acts similar to the Mega Buster and can be charged. It is slightly stronger than the Mega Buster.

Tokaru Beam: This move is similar to Bass's weapon in "Mega Man & Bass." It fires rapid beams and can be aimed in eight directions. Each beam is as strong as a normal shot.

Tokaru Barrier: This move places a circular barrier around Sketch. It can nullify and sometimes reflect projectiles, and can also be used offensively to defeat weak enemies. The button is held to enable the barrier, and released to disable.

Tokaru Saber: This short-range move causes Sketch to slice at an enemy. It is a very powerful weapon; three hits of the Saber is equivalent to five fully-charged Busters. Energy is depleted only when it makes contact with an enemy.

Incidentally, all four weapons share the same energy meter, known for Sketch as the "Focus Energy." It automatically replenishes itself over time. In fact, his life energy replenishes itself over time as well, but it takes a while longer to do so.

In addition to his own weaponry, Sketch has one or two unique abilities as well. He is able to temporarily "hover-jump" during an initial jump or fall, and he can move left or right at that set alititude until the jump button is released or hovering time is up. Also, he does not slide but crouch, and he can crawl to make his way through small spaces. However, while crouching/crawling he can only use the Barrier weapon.

Plus, he doesn't immediately die if he hits spikes, though he does get hurt (1/4 of total life). And if he falls in a hole, he is immediately teleported back to where he last stood, also only suffering damage (1/3 of total life).

Sounds like a walking fortress, doesn't he? Of course, there are plenty of downfalls to Sketch. For example:

He is only able to use his own weaponry. That means he can't obtain the weapons of Robot Masters or assist items.

And speaking of items, he doesn't get those either! No energy or health filling items for Sketch; their technology isn't compatible with him anyway! And yes, not even 1-Ups will work for him, which is a shame...because he only gets the one life! If he runs out of life energy, it's immediately Game Over!

This situation makes battling bosses that much trickier, but you already have enough to work with already, so there should be no problem, right?

So what would Sketch be doing in Mega Man's world anyway? The story I'd imagine would coincide with Part 3 of The Utopian Legend, where Sketch and his wife Heather travel to different dimensions to rid them of whatever Dark Energy was present. Their travels likely took them to the world of Mega Man, and it was obvious that it had its own share of troubles! Sketch decides to deal with the trouble-making robots (which they continue to call "metal people") while Heather deicdes to try confronting the source directly, which Sketch warns may be dangerous. The fate of Heather, of course, plays a major role in this story as soon as Sketch decides to find the source as well.

On the other end of the spectrum, Sketch could make for a decent supplemental boss for Mega Man. When Mega Man is ab out to confront a boss, Sketch suddenly appears from the sky and (likely accidentally) defeats the boss upon landing. Sketch sends greetings to Mega Man, and decides to do a little sparring match with him, seeing if the universe's hero is indeed fit to keep the peace. If Sketch is defeated, he falls over in exhaustion and admits that he is impressed by Mega Man's skills. He then disappears, leaving behind some type of standard item to aid Mega Man (or, at least he believes so)...something like an E-can or a 1-up.

But that's all what exists in my head. I'm kinda surprised the Sketch sprites have developed as far and well as they did! Sketch looks pretty good in 8-Bit. :3

I'll attempt to continue developing his sprite sheet slowly but surely.

--Malamite Ltd.
"Fight! For everlasting peace!"