Mega Man 2

The Good
No, I am not mistaken. This is not only one of the best Mega Man games made, it is one of the best video games ever made.

"This reviewer lies," you say. "Never did such grace touch the Earth."

This is because you weren't there when the game originally came out. At the time, when you (or any of my friends when they came over) played Mega Man 2, the reaction was, "OH MY GOODNESS!! THIS GAME IS TOO GOOD!!" It is so charming that I would recommend this game to anyone who wants to experience the Mega Man universe.

So why was this game so darn good? Well, it took the strengths of Mega Man, made them better, cut out the bad stuff, added a password, and was extremely consistent with it.

-Password-

Although it wasn't a save feature, it did allow the player to stop anywhere in the game and resume. The password would remember what bosses you defeated, how many energy tanks you had, and if you got the special items.

-8 Robot Masters-

The original Mega Man only had 6 levels and bosses. Now there were 8!

-Immersive and unique levels-

Each level was oh so very different, had its own theme, and its own twist in the gameplay. Let's go through them:

Bubble Man (The stage starts you off battling robotic frogs over waterfalls. For the rest of the stage, you are underwater where your jump capability shoots you to the top of the screen! Unfortunately, there are spikes on top of the ceiling so you must be careful. Mega Man battles a fun variety of aquatic themed robots from shrimp to giant fish.)

Air Man (As you would expect, this stage takes place in the skies. Flying enemies are constant and they are mostly robotic birds. At the end, you move through taking over Zeus-imitating robots' flying platforms.)

Quick Man (There are only a couple of enemies in this stage. This is the strangest stage in the game and, indeed, it emphasizes 'quickness'. Beams of light would fast shoot from the sides of the screen and you had to move through the area as fast before they would connect as one touch will kill you. You jump, fall quickly as you rush to keep ahead of the beams.)

Heat Man (For most of the stage, you battle fire monsters and hop over lava. The latter part of the stage returns Mega Man 1's dreaded appearing platforms. However, these are much less frustrating this time. You must hop from appearing platform to appearing platform across a LONG area of lava.)

Wood Man (Ahh, the most innocent of levels. Robotic chickens, bunnies, bats, gorillas, among others appear here. The level goes through a forest, goes underground, and returns to the forest again. This is as close to a normal level you can get.)

Metal Man (The infamous Metal Man stage!! The entire level is composed of moving belts that either push you faster in the direction you want to go, or pushes you in the wrong direction which you must struggle to outrun. The vertical flying drills and the dropping weighted spikes also add nicely to the level, as do the clownish robots on giant gears. This level is genius.)

Flash Man (This level is all ice letting Mega Man slide around. What is unique about it is that there are multiple paths through this level, some featuring nice item rewards avoiding some enemies while others do not.)

Crash Man (Crash Man's stage is completely vertical. You start at the bottom and go up, and up, and up. You must ride lots of platforms and ladders to get to the top. Thankfully, this stage is no where near as insane as Gutsman stage was.)

-Very Useful Boss Weapons-

In Mega Man 1, some of the boss weapons weren't too useful or practical. Gutsman's strength? Even Cutman's weapon wasn't too useful.

Each weapon in Mega Man 2 (except for bubble man and flash man) is extremly practical. Quickman's shortrange boomerangs give small range, fast attacks. Heat Man's fire ball could be held down and released, unleashing a larger fireball! Metal Man's blade was the best weapon of the game as you could throw it in 8 directions around you. Woodman's circular leaf attack could be used as a type of 'shield'. Airman's tornadoes could get those annoying enemies on the ceiling. The weapons were very practical and are used throughout the game more than the other Mega Man titles.

-New Items-

In addition to getting weapons from each boss, three bosses gave you an extra item. These were not weapons but were used by Mega Man to overcome obstacles. One is a platform that climbs walls. Another is a jet sled. And a third is a flying platform. These were required in several puzzle like areas of Wily's Castle.

-Charm-

This game is very... HAPPY. The music is very strong and draws you in. The graphics are very cartoonish, colorful, and shiny. The game never gets frustratingly hard (unlike Mega Man 1. Those who complain about Quickman's stage are wimps.) The sound effects are very crisp. But more important the game stays consistant. The game stays fun throughout the very beginning to the very end, never losing momentum. While Mega Man 1 became a cult classic, Mega Man 2 turned into a red hot blockbuster. It is the game that launched the Mega Man franchise.

The Bad
Surprisingly little. There could have been more instances in the game when Flash Man's weapon was more useful. I really liked how they made Bubble Man's weapon useful by having it detect trapdoors (you would watch the bubbles fall into the spikes).

The game has quite a bit of content, yet you wish there was more because it was so good. There is nothing wrong with this title.

The Bottom Line
Just as some games reach a practical 'perfect' status such as Super Mario Brothers 3, Mega Man 2 reaches it with its consistant colorful fun that never wanes throughout the game.People argue that Mega Man 3 is superior. It may be, but it cannot be debated that Mega Man 2 is the most charming of Mega Man titles.

The Good
In the first MEGA MAN game there was much promise - the non-linear level selection, the unique mechanic of stealing boss enemies' weapons and using them against the others, the bonus items that changed up your method of beating the platform challenges. There was depth, color, good music, and an appealing little Everybot hero. But it just wasn't fully-formed yet.

MEGA MAN 2 so perfectly encapsulates all the essential elements of the 8-Bit Mega Man franchise that these days it might have been named MEGA MAN 1.0 - it makes the original look like a beta test. This is the complete article.

Upgraded from 6, now you've got 8 enemy robots, each with a colorful, well-designed stage and unique musical theme. Truly, there's no 80's game soundtrack signature like the Mega Man Beat Box - those percussive, driving melodies that sent you sprinting through each stage. From those songs to the constant change-up of platform jumps to miniboss fights, enemies coming at you from sides, above, and below, MEGA MAN was about creating an energy as constant as its hero's mechanical high-speed jog.

And there was still a degree of rock-paper-scissors logic to the way the boss weapons interrelated to each other. Unlike the later games, where all intuitive order went out the window, with trial and error you could quickly develop a ritual cycle to take you to the all-important Dr. Wily stage.

The addition of energy tanks helped tweak the difficulty level down to a more accessible level, but the bold could still forgo them if they chose. The password system gave you that extra flexibility to take a breather and fight another day. The three numbered platform devices were a vast improvement over the glitchy Magna-Beam, and paved the way for MEGA MAN 3's introduction of Transformer Dog-sidekick Rush.

And besides the 8 stage bosses you had those oversized, colorful mini-bosses - who didn't feel a rush the first time a FLYING ROBOT DRAGON swooped up from below and started knocking aside the narrow ledges behind you? And remember the first time you walked through that final stage, no soundtrack but the evocative "drip-drip" echoing through the air, and watched Dr. Wily seemingly transform into a mutant bat-lizard right before your eyes? That's 80's Game Nonsense Heaven.

Last, and certainly not least, MEGA MAN 2 brought into the world the no-foolin' greatest auxiliary weapon in video game history - the Metal Blade. 8-direction flexibility, high-speed delivery, nearly infinite supply. Awwwwww yeah.

The Bad
The challenge level is arguably too far reduced - it's a dim gamer who can't eventually conquer it, and having a game that anyone can beat used to be a BAD thing. And as goofy and fun as the game's enemies are to look at, there wasn't a whole lot of animation to them, or variety to their attacks. It just became a question of finding the proper gun then blazing away.

This is pre-Power Slide and pre-Charge Shot, also, so there's not a lot of depth to the old Blue Bomber's movements and tactics.

The Bottom Line
If you've ever wanted to know what all the fuss is about, start here.

The Good
Okay, first of all, almost everybody noticed that series that started on the NES often begin with a game considered as great, classic, etc... and then the company behind it decides to do a sequel, but changes too much things in it and eventually the game goes overlooked. Remember Zelda 2 where the game have a weird world map and all happen in side-view ? Remember Final Fantasy 2 where there is no levels ? Remember Castlevania 2 with it's unlinear gameplay and weird night-day system ? Remember Fire Emblem 2 where you can chose where you go on a weird world map before doing your missions ? Oh, and I did not mention Super Mario Brothers 2 (because it's actually a fake Mario game). (n.b. I didn't say the games mentioned above were bad, I just say they are considered weird by most people). Well, does Mega Man 2 try too much weird stuff from the original and end up being overlooked and considered not as fun as the original ? The answer is NO ! The only change from Mega Man 1 (except levels and bosses, of course) is that the game is much larger, have much better music, better graphics, added passwords, added a cool intro, gameplay glitches are fixed and the useless score is removed. The only "weird stuff" that was added is the selectable difficulty level, which I'll cover later when it'll be time.

Mega Man 2 is just the perfect sequel to Mega Man 1. Capcom just couldn't make the series go in a better way. The game is downright fun to play ! You have to defeat 8 cool elemental bosses in their respective elemental stages, take all their weapons and go defeat doctor Wily in it's fortress using your large choice of weapons at good use.

The graphics have changed a bit singe Mega Man 1. They look less sci-fi, and more... artistic. One thing I loved is the giant faces that pops up in Airman Stage, the animated lava in Heat Man and the infamous Dragon miniboss of doctor Wily's stage 1, to mention the most memorable scenes of the game.

The music is amazing ! Most song are based on techno beats and have cool solos in them. The boss music is sort of terrific, and add a lot to the overall fun when those bosses shows their nasty face ! And the music of the first two doctor Wily's stage is the BEST music I've ever heard on the system !!

They added a password feature, but I really don't need it to beat the game (at least in Normal Mode). I guess less experienced gamers will be happy to have it when discovering the game for the first time. Yes, the game is really not very hard, at least not until the last few stages. If you found the original Mega Man was hard, you'll found your bliss here (I personally think both are beatable if you have some skills in your fingers).

The Bad
There is nothing terribly wrong with the game, just one major complaint : One particular boss in a Wily's fortress is impossible to beat without dying once. So, no matter how good you are at Mega Man 2, you just cannot beat the game without loosing a single live because of this. And if you reach that particular boss with no live left, no matter what will be your performance, you'll run out of mana without beating the boss and have to start the whole stage again. That kind of add strategy to the game, but I don't think this was a very good idea overall.

One other complain : There is two difficulty levels, and I think the "Normal Mode" makes the first 8 bosses way too easy (some bosses can be defeated in TWO HITS if you pick up the good weapons), but finishing the game in "Hard Mode" is almost impossible (or at least it is much more a challenge than finish Mega Man 1). Couldn't just they put one single difficulty level and made it well-balanced ?

Oh, both the American and European covers SUCKS ! However, I'm pretty sure the Japanese cover is much better, and actually feature Mega Man on it (instead of that ridiculous robot that miserably fail to represent the cool blue bomber we all know).

The sound effects in the PAL version of the game are a bit glitchy, but that is only in the PAL (i.e. European) version, not is the NTSC (i.e. American) version.

Last complaint : All weapons are cool and useful (like in the previous game), except one particular weapon, the Flash, which is totally useless. It just freezes enemies, but make you unable to do anything but move around until your mana is expired, and then you cannot use that weapon again (until you restore it's mana). It is useful only in Quickman stage if you want to stop the lasers, but come on, that is cheating. Avoiding those lasers isn't really that hard.

The Bottom Line
Mega Man 2 is an awesome game. If you like the Mega Man series, or if you just like platformers, I strongly recommend to play it. Download it for your NES emulator, and if you found it on a garage sale, buy it ! For collectors, I recommend importing the Japanese famicom version instead (called Rockman 2) because art for the western versions sucks.