Mega Man 2 Review

Mega Man II

Review by God Squirrel

Even though Mega Man didn’t reach the sales Capcom had hoped for, that didn’t stop them from making a sequel. They continued on with a second in the Mega Man saga Mega Man 2, and gave a bit more of a backstory than the original game did. I feel it is worth mentioning that they got Dr Light’s name correct in this game.

Mega Man There were a lot of improvements this time around, which is amazing that they did so much so fast for the second game. For starters, the difficulty was toned down just a little, though still left very hard. There was the option to play at a harder difficulty if you so chose as well. Mega Man 2 also added a password system, which was as close as many NES games got to having a save system. This also meant keeping little notebooks full of passwords and hoping that your parents didn’t throw them away on you one day, seeing nothing but passwords they thought were gibberish. This also marked the appearance of energy tanks and power up items. The first game had the magnet beam, but this game took that further giving 3 distinct items that help to make the levels a bit easier.

The Story

Mega Man Dr. Light Dr Wily was still upset at the defeat of his first six little boy robots. Dr Light was happy to have retained his prize robot, Mega Man. Dr Wily was so jealous that he built eight new boy robots of his own to battle Dr Light’s Mega Man. Mega Man Dr. WilyYou see, in 200X, battling little boy robots is all the rage, and Dr Light and Dr Wily are on the cutting edge of this form of entertainment. You know the old saying, “its all the rage if the robot’s underage.”

Stages and Bosses

Mega Man II Stage Select

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Metal Man

MetalMan This is where you start. Metal Man’s stage is fairly easy with just the blaster, but it takes a bit of getting used to at first. Many of the floors are conveyor belts, with arrows on them pointing the direction they are moving. Spikes drop from above, and enemies burrow out of floors and ceilings at you. Metal Man is pretty easy, just avoid his metal blades. Kill him and get the weapon you will use for most of the game. It really is one of the best weapons in the whole series, allowing 8 direction firing and a seemingly endless ammo supply when using it.

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Bubble Man

BubbleMan The little bitch of the Mega Man series. Seriously, this has to be the most non-threatening “boss” from any of Capcom’s games. The stage is an underwater stage, which sounds like a pain in the ass, but you have the metal blade now. The only really difficult part of this stage is the part where there are mines on the ceiling and walls. If you get to Bubble Man and somehow lose, sell your Nintendo and pretend it never happened. Seriously, its like getting your ass kicked by a two year old.

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Wood Man

WoodMan I enjoy this stage quite a bit, even if it is on the easy side for a Mega Man game. Overall I just find the level fun, and Wood Man himself is a fun enough boss battle. Without a doubt he is stronger than Bubble Man, but hey, who isn’t. He tosses his leaf shield at you while leaves fall from the ceiling. Seems leaves are incredibly damaging to Mega Man. Take him out and get the leaf shield for yourself.

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Air Man

AirMan This would be one of the more difficult stages in the game, as far as the boss stages go. This is one of the stages where if you miss a jump, you die. This is made worse by the fact that there are platforms that have spikes that raise and lower on the edges, along with spawning endless enemies until Mega Man is no longer on the platform. There is also a section where there are moving platforms to jump between which have enemies on them, and the platforms will go behind clouds that are in the foreground, making these blind jumps. Airmain himself is easy enough, he’s just a matter of learning the pattern of his shots and getting in some shots of your own. He drops quick with the right weapon.

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Crash Man

CrashMan This is the vertical stage of the game. It is remniscent of the ElecMan stage from the first game, but without the electric beams shooting out of walls. There are multiple paths through the level, so occasionally backtracking will happen. Three screens spent climbing ladders and fending off enemies only to find a dead end and have to go back. Crash Man is one of the faster bosses, he keeps moving and launches his bombs at you. As with any of Wily’s boys, he drops quickly with the right weapon.

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Heat Man

HeatMan Holy fucking hard. This stage seems like it was a deleted stage from Mega Man 1. Enemies come from the walls, disappearing blocks, so many single jumps where a miss means certain death. In other words, the stage is great, just don’t approach it without Item 2. I found this boss to be the most disappointing. Not because of difficulty level or anything, he’s hard enough to beat, but because he was just too close to being a copy of Fire Man from the first game. All the other robots seem to be new designs, even shitty ass Bubble Man, but Heat Man is just basically Fire Man’s cousin. I guess Wily had a thing for little boys that spit fire.

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Flash Man

Flash Man There was no ice stage this time around, but Flash Man’s stage makes up for that. The ground leaves you sliding all over the place, which can take a bit of gettign used to. If you already have Crash Man’s bombs, you can quickly navagate this stage and take easier paths through it. Flash Man is different from other bosses in that he freezes Mega Man in place. He really isn’t too tough to beat, since he only shoots when he freezes you.

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Quick Man

Quick Man This stage is more memorization and luck than actual reflex and reaction. It is a vertical stage, but instead of climbing, this stage is about falling. Fall down through the screens while beams of death close in on our hero. Occasionally there is a temptation of 1-up or energy tank, but don’t be fooled, it simply means death. Flash Man’s time stopping weapon is very useful in this stage, but runs out far before the stage ends.

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The End

Wily Stage

One again, Mega Man will need to penetrate Dr Wily’s castle and re-defeat seven robot boy masters and Bubble Man. Along the way there are more tricks and traps than the original. Also, a dragon. Well, a robot dragon, but at least it isnt a robot little boy dragon, that would just get awkward. Mega Man fights through all these stages, the robot boys, the dragon, disappearing blocks, and even an incarnation of Gutsman as a tank. Upon getting through these battles, Mega Man and Dr Light will learn Dr Wily’s horrible secret. The secret more horrible than his obsession with little boy robots. These events would go down in history as Mega Man 200X: The NAMBLA Wars.

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