gaslighting's everest. megafreaks convincing me this was the series peak had me telling everyone I knew how bad mega man sucked for two decades. I've already done more damage to the mega man brand than inafune ever could, and I was primed to do even more before I tried some of the other ones

sure, the robot master stages are mostly solid, but you'd need the most hexed, jinxed, and cursed grey matter on the planet to convince yourself normal people want to experience wily's castle in any capacity. the creases in your brain need to have been carved by unnaturally odious forces to sit there recommending this with a grin on your face while knowing sniper armours exist

boobeam comes up in conversation and MM2 guys go silent at the dinner table, start pushing their peas around the plate, and ask to be excused

if you love it so much then why don't you marry it

Played as part of the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the Nintendo GameCube.

Boss order: Air Man, Metal Man, Crash Man, Bubble Man, Heat Man, Wood Man, Flash Man, Quick Man.

I've played Mega Man 2 a number of times in the past and have always found it to be a bit "mid" despite all its acclaim, but as I mentioned in my previous review for the first Mega Man, I've been playing these games like some kind of animal my entire life. Lemons only? Who would intentionally make these games worse to play (me, that's who.)

But I am a changed man. I've shed my old flesh and emerged as something new, skin pale and untouched by the sun. I have accumulated power from my enemies and now I will go MEGA on Wily.

Actually, this is still mid. Shit.

No amount of playing this game properly got me to like it any more than I already did, which is a pretty stark contrast from how I felt replaying the previous game only a week ago. Yes, platforming, movement, and visual design build on and improve over Mega Man, but not enough of its weaker points are smoothed out. The check-pointing can be comically vindictive at times and there's an over-reliance on challenging the player through rote memorization of traps (Quick Man and Bubble Man's stages in particular), but I suppose you could make an argument that it's an NES game and of course it's going to suffer in some ways from design elements that were popular at the time. My bigger issue with Mega Man 2 in particular is how sharp it drops off once you reach the Wily stages. These levels are, frankly, poorly thought out. You'll need to rely on certain powers to progress and often you'll need to employ them in very precise ways so as to not overuse their energy, but that takes a lot of practice and foreknowledge of the level, and so less familiar players will probably be farming weapon energy more than they are actually playing the game.

This is especially bad with the Boobeam Trap boss. You cannot afford to miss a single shot when every tick of energy is required to destroy the barriers and boss. Fail you'll be grinding Sniper Joe kills hoping to get a drop of energy. The game knows this so it sends you pretty far back, and frankly the amount of level leading up to the checkpoint is so minimal it's faster to throw Mega Man into spikes until you game over and just... try again. There's a lot of parts of Mega Man 2 that feel this defeating, and whenever you do succeed or gain mastery over some part of the game, it just doesn't feel rewarding enough to compensate. The rock/paper/scissors design of the robot masters and their powers made exploiting weaknesses in the first game feel good, but there's an absurd number of bosses in Mega Man 2 that don't require more than the metal blade to take out, and some weapons just feel borderline useless (including Flash Man's weapon, which only benefits you in a couple specific cases.)

The more I write, the more I feel like I'm almost making a case in Mega Man's favor over its sequel, but I promise I don't think that. Mega Man 2 has more polish, but for the longest time I was told this was the best one in the whole series and I just don't agree with that at all. The core 8 levels are a mixed bag, and every time I reach Wily's castle I want to throw my hands up, go "well, that's the game!" and go stare at the sun. I appreciate this game for what it means to the franchise, but I can think of several other Mega Mans I'd rather play before coming back to this.

Mega Man 2... I don't like it. I didn't before, and playing it through Wily Wars didn't change my feelings on it.
There's not a major amount to talk about with the game-- ultimately it is still Mega Man and I think it has some good fun in it: Air Man and Bubble Man's stages are pretty good, and I can appreciate a handful of the robot master fights more than I did in 1.

It stops there, though. Very many levels in Mega Man 2 just straight up suck. The block section in Heat Man, the beams in Quick Man, the entirety of the Wily Castle... any semblance of fun turns into frustration going through those levels. Having things in your game you absolutely have to die to because you didn't see the future and predict them coming is not good game design. Even without that, the stages still falter. I don't want to make this review too long citing specific level details, but here's an example: Wily 4, has a wonderful segment where there's multiple Sniper Joes in corridors where you can't even jump over their shots. Great level design. The bosses don't fare much better-- Quick and Wood Man suck, and again the Wily bosses make me want to rip my hair out. The aforementioned Wily 4 has the goddamn Boobeam Trap. Mega Man 1 was silly sometimes, sure, but the bullshit in 2 is ridiculous. 2's pacing also is much worse--I really don't like the boss rush at the end of the game that serves to just waste your time and resources. That fast paced arcade feel of the first game is totally absent. Are we just going to keep ignoring these things so we can keep up the Mega Man 2 circlejerk? Of course, you're crazy for insinuating the game has any flaws.

Mega Man 2 is incredibly overrated and far from the best game in the series. It doesn't deserve the legendary status it's attained.

If you are familiar with the Mega Man series, or NES games in general, you would know that this is without a doubt the most popular and beloved game in the entire franchise, and one of the greatest NES games ever made. While I wouldn't go as far to say that this game is the best in the entire series, it is a fantastic improvement from the previous, and definitely one of the best NES games ever made.

The story is extremely basic for a Mega Man game, but hey, it works, the graphics are still very nice, the control is improved from the previous, the music is some of the best from the NES library, the gameplay is just as fun and addicting as before, the level design is much better, the boss fights are very fun and challenging, the enemies are very fun and imaginative, and the weapons are very fun to use.

Now, with that being said, the game isn't perfect. Some of the balancing on the weapons could be better, such as making the Metal Blades not so OP, and while not as bad as the original game, the cover art is still... yikes. Aside from those things though, we have a fantastic sequel here.

Overall, while I wouldn't consider it the best in the series, this is without a doubt an almost perfect follow up to the original, and it absolutely deserves the reputation that it has gained over the years.

Game #19

oh wow i thought mega man 1 was pretty good but damn this game make it look like pee pee poo poo!!!

Levels are way shorter but also tighter and more thematic, a much more concentrated set of challenges based on, y'know, actual challenges and not weird bullshit and obvious glitches lol.

But more than I appreciate the actual concrete changes that make the game LEAGUES more fun to play, I really appreciate the AESTHETIC upgrades to this game which are BOUNTIFUL and add SO MUCH character.

Enemies are more specific to their stages, the music (which was already really good in the first game) slaps /so much harder like holy shit dude so much/ in this one, they've added those dramatic little touches like the empty hallways in front of every boss and more elaborate opening and ending sequences (which features an actually laugh out loud joke in it - the amount of personality in these nes sprites continues to be incredible) that offer both a little breather and act as a sick tension builder. The bosses are funnier and their gimmicks are cooler, everything is just like Mega Man To The Max here.

I get it! Mega Man 2 is a goddamned delight, a fuckin classic, everyone is right about Mega Man 2, simply a good ass game

A lot of people love the shit out of Mega Man 2 and say it's some kind of massive improvement to the first, it's true to an extent but at the same time it's full of so much nonsense that I really don't think it's that much better. I played the Famicom version because I didn't feel like getting insulted by the "normal mode" that's easy mode in disguise.

I seriously think they designed this game around Metal Blade, they give you such a massive ammo capacity for it and throw so much shit coming at you from odd angles that it feels like you need to use it especially since you don't have a slide yet to give you more mobility. I'm really not sure how to feel about it being so OP, it's bad to unbalance weapons to this degree and again it feels like the stage design actively encourages it's use sometimes. It's fun, but still.

I guess their answer to that was to make the Sniper Armors immune to it. By the way, remember the Big Eyes from the last game? Thought they were terrible? Well get a load of the fucking Sniper Armors in this game who take it's place. Now you get all the absurd tankiness and collision damage of Big Eye combined with a ranged attack and the ability to drop a Sniper Joe upon defeat. These guys are complete horse shit for one reason, because of this game's still hideous respawn rate. I absolutely guarantee that there will be a time where you back away to kill one of these chicken walker assholes only to have another respawn right behind the Joe that the last one dropped. It's fucking despicable. It makes Wily Stage 4 even more of a horrendous dumpster fire in the event you're left to farm these guys before the fucking trash heap Boobeam Trap fight that demands Crash Bombs.

I seriously cannot fathom the sheer stupidity of Wily Stage 4 and Boobeam Trap, it's so horrendous and leaves such a bad taste in my mouth even after beating the game that it makes me forget this game's high points prior to it. It's such a goddamn shame, made even worse by me using a pause trick to avoid the Boobeam bullets.

And Wily Stage 4 really isn't the only bad stage in the game either. I seriously cannot even begin to care about Quick Man and Heat Man's stage's ability to lock the player out of beating them without either obtaining Time Stopper/Item-2 or pure memorization and trial-and-error. Ice Man did it too kinda in the last game, but at least there was solid ground underneath the disappearing blocks in his stage.

Back on the topic of the Wily Stages, I really wanna meet the person who came up with the Mecha Dragon fight. I really do. I wanna shake their hand and then rip off their arm and beat them with it. Not only can this oversized dipshit instantly kill you with very little warning upon entering the autoscroller section, but he flashes every time you hit him. At least Mystery of Convoy had the common courtesy to wait until I actually killed the boss before assaulting my eyes, but here they decided it was pure comedy to let the Mecha Dragon throw visual cheap shots at me during the fight to go along with the massive amounts of lag this fucker produces. It takes a serious amount of work to one up the Yellow Devil from the last game, but at least I can still kill this guy without a glitch or wasting minutes of my time. By the way shout outs to the Doki Doki Panic-esque waterfalls in Bubble Man's stage.

Don't get me wrong, MM2 improves upon the first but the low points of this game are so damn bad that I struggle to rate it higher than the original game. I feel like the easy mode that we ended up getting helped people like it more probably. It's a shame cause something like that should've been in the later games albeit with less "lol westerners suck" reasoning behind it, but when something's fucked up, something's fuck up. I will go to my fucking grave shouting "Wily Stage 4 Boobeam Trap" at every person who decrees this game the best.

Favorite Enemy Name: Fly Boy, though "Robbit" obviously being a nod to future PS1 classic Jumping Flash is pretty close.
Favorite Music: Crash Man

Mega Man 2 pega tudo que o original fez e melhora em tudo, gameplay, visual, musica e level design, tudo nesse jogo é melhor em relação ao antecessor.

De fato uma ótima sequencia porem Mega Man 2 possui alguns problemas em relação a game design como o fato de um dos bosses só tomar dano de uma arma especifica e o uso dessa arma é o numero exato que tu precisa pra derrotar o chefe, errando um você tem que reiniciar a fase inteira.

Ou a Metal Blade que é a melhor arma do jogo de quão quebrada e desbalanceada ela é, podendo atirar em 8 direções diferente, ter baixo consumo de arma, matar 90% dos inimigos do jogo e ser efetivo contra 4 dos 8 bosses sendo o próprio Metal Man um deles.

It isn't Rewind Time...?

Mega Man 2 felt a lot better to play than the original game, but it also came with its own set of glaring issues. The new stages look pretty (for NES standards) and the toned down difficulty compared to MM1 definitely helped my enjoyment too, as I no longer had to rely on the Legacy Collection's rewind feature as much to progress through the game at a normal pace. However this is still a Mega Man game at its core, which means you can't just have a good time like that.

In the case of Mega Man 2, my main complaints come from two stages, two bosses and the insane amount of flashing lights thrown into your face whenever you beat a boss. Heat Man's stage revolves around a gimmick forcing you to guess where an invisible block will pop up next, causing you to proceed with trial and error until you eventually manage to land on such a block, just to repeat it over and over. Not a problem with the rewind feature as you can just "know" where the next block will pop up, but this was NOT the case for the players in 1989. A pretty frustrating trial-and-error experience in theory, even if it didn't affect me badly because of my ability to rewind. Next stage complaint, Quick Man's stage has a cool concept with the level closing in on you over time, so you're supposed to rush through the level. While it does sound cool at first, Capcom's vision for this idea were insta-kill lasers, so now instead of shifting the focus on the speed of the level, it's now all about how precise you're about to control through these lasers (and the timing for some of these falls are really relentless).

Okay, so these two stages have some trial-and-error, but did you know there are also actual roadblocks in Mega Man 2 if you don't meet certain conditions? I'm talking about the Stage 4 boss of Wily's Castle and the final phase of Wily himself. The boss on Stage 4 is a glorified puzzle, you need to use the Crash Bombs at specific locations in order to take down multiple turrets in the boss room. The thing is, if your Crash meter isn't full enough, you won't be able to beat this fight - every other weapon gets deflected from the turrets and some are guarded by walls. As for Wily in his final phase, for some reason he's completely immune to all weapons except Bubble Man's bubbles. Same issue as with the Stage 4 boss, if your meter is empty you can't win the fight. I feel really bad for everyone who played this back then, got to the final boss and couldn't beat him because of this laughable restriction.

Nonetheless I did have a somewhat good time with Mega Man 2, as most levels are big improvements over the ones in MM1 in terms of gameplay and design, but the aforementioned issues make it hard for me to give this game a higher score. Atleast I have heard many good things about Mega Man 3, so I'm looking forward to playing that one in the upcoming days!

Make no mistake, there are genuine improvements in this game to be seen. Megaman handles better, the soundtrack kicks ass and there's a greater emphasis on presentation here with more detailed spritework and setpieces.

However, it's all traded for a game that still doesn't learn the right lessons from its predecessor, at least not consistently. While a handful of levels are decent stuff, this game still needs a lot of improvement within its stages. Often levels have terrible enemy placement, gimmicks or setpieces that are a pain in the ass to deal with such as the disappearing blocks in Heat Man's stage, the absurd ladder fetish in Crash Man's stage, or the fucking insta-kill lasers in Quick Man's stage (which they had the audacity to recreate in Megaman X5). Often manages to plunge into the same level of bullshit as MM1, sometimes worse with moments like the Wily Stage 4 boss, which demands absurdly god-like precision and reaction on your part unless you want to be blasted to kingdom come.

I'm a little more forgiving with MM1 game since it was the first, but this game really just has no excuse. I really have to wonder what makes this game the masterpiece I've seen people claim it is.

"Welcome to the Salty Spitoon, how tough are ya?"
"How tough am I? I beat Man Man 2 on the Difficult setting."
"Yeah, so?"
"Without using Metal Man's power up"
"Right this way..."

If someone wanted to get into Classic Mega Man, this is the one that I would point them to, rather than the original. It's easier and has fun levels with great color palettes and cool designs like the Goblins in Air Man's level too, plus one of the greatest 8-bit soundtracks of all time. There are an infinite supply of Mega Man 2 OST metal cover videos. It's insane.

Boss Roster is pretty solid too, other than the Boo Beam Trap which indeed does suck, but it gives you an awesome mecha-dragon fight to make up for it.

Definitive Mega Man 2 Robot Master Ranking:

8. Bubble Man - Speedos are out, sorry. Also, he's the underwater level in an 80s game, so it was written in stone that he's last.

7. Wood Man - Great boss weapon, plus he gets a cameo in Mega Man 8 if you played it on Sega Saturn. Which, of course you didn't because no one ever owned one. Unfortunately...he's stuck in the body of a tree stump.

6. Crash Man - Having drills on his hands is pretty cool, and he does have a great stage theme, but his AI is completely braindead.

5. Flash Man - Stopping time is a pretty cool power but other than that his fight isn't too crazy, and his design is meh.

4. Heat Man - His design as a zippo lighter is both goofy and kinda cool, and I love his stage theme. Good boss.

3. Metal Man - Throwing saws, looking badass, and dropping the best weapon in the entire game is awesome. Dying to that same weapon in one hit is also awesome but for a different reason.

2. Quick Man - Best design of the robot masters, he looks like a flash super villain. Great unique level as well. Did I mention he looks cool?

1. Air Man - Favorite level of the Robot Masters. Great design, as he actually looks like a robot, and his theme is banging. He's where I start every single playthrough because I love his level so much.

Angel_Arle Rockman reviews
Part 1: Rockman for Famicom
Part 3: Rockman 3: Dr. Wily no Saigo!? for Famicom
Part 4: Rockman World for GB
Part 5: Rockman 4: Aratanaru Yabou!! for Famicom
Part 6: Rockman World 2 for GB
Part 7: Rockman 5: Blues no Wana!? for Famicom
Part 8: Rockman World 3 for GB
Part 9: Wily & Right no RockBoard: That's Paradise for Famicom
Part 10: Rockman World 4 for GB
Part 11: Rockman 6: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai!! for Famicom
Part 12: Rockman's Soccer for Super Famicom
Part 13: Rockman World 5 for GB

Well I decided I will be continuing doing these Rockman reviews at least until I get tired of them. So hope you’re all ready for me to go on deep analysis on many of these games because it’s going to be a big journey. Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo (translated as Rockman 2: The Mystery of Dr. Wily) is a direct sequel to that first game. What started as a side project due to Capcom not really approving a sequel at first went to become a big hit when it arrived on the Famicom. In fact Rockman 2 for the longest time was the best selling game in the entire Rockman franchise. It’s cited as not only one of the best games in the series but just on the Famicom alone, it’s that popular. Even in western territories it’s popular. Though nowadays you might find people who will bash it calling it overrated. Where do I stand? Well I gave it a replay so let’s dig into it.

One thing you’ll notice as you begin playing is now there are 8 robot masters to choose from. This was something they wanted to do in the first game but now it’s finally been fulfilled here. The game itself though is the same as before, you can jump and shoot and still climb those ladders like there’s no tomorrow. This time your opponents will be Bubble Man, Air Man, Quick Man, Heat Man, Wood Man, Metal Man, Flash Man, and Clash Man. There’s even a plot this time where Dr. Wily is back and is out for revenge on you and unlike last time, he created these bad bots to destroy you for good so it’s off to defeat all eight and defeat Dr. Wily once more and Roll will once again do nothing, she isn’t even in the credits this time.

The controls have been a little improved from last time, you don’t have as much delay when beginning to move which will feel really nice for anyone who didn’t like that aspect of the original game. Rockman still has the plasma cannon to defeat enemies and it works as well as it did last time. Sadly if you were hoping to have anything from the 1st game well you don’t, it’s all gone. Rockman also has new physics for being in water where he jumps very high so be careful as this can end being the death of you if unaware of surroundings. One big improvement is they fixed his air momentum where in the previous games you could sometimes plummet really fast though there’s now a new issue. If you pause in the air while you’re falling fast, you can delete all that speed you have, meaning sections that time your movement while falling really fast have absolutely no challenge to them.

Stage design has really improved since last game with not only better theming to them overall but adding some really cool ideas. You have stuff like being in the sky and riding on clouds and jumping on strange giant red platforms in Air Man’s stage, Fighting various robotic wildlife in a forest for Wood Man’s stage with a strong mini boss in the middle of the stage, and icey physics and a top route that will reward you with an E-tank for your platforming skills in Flash Man’s stage. Oh yeah this game brought in a new item called E-tanks where you can have up to four and using one will refill all of your health so make sure to collect one if you can! Just be careful as a game over will get rid of any you have. While stages are much better here they also aren’t perfect. One of the main problems I have is just the difficulty of it all. Though this really depends what stages you do in what order. If you’re wondering what order I did it was: Heat -> Wood -> Air -> Clash -> Quick -> Metal -> Flash -> Bubble. Because of this I had to do the really hard appearing blocks section in Heat Man’s stage and Quick Man’s trial and error instant death laser section. While I’ll compliment the game for having ways to make levels easier, I do think it makes the difficulty feel very inconsistent which I felt like the first game wasn’t too bad about doing.

Boss doors also now just act as a checkpoint and you fight the Robot Master immediately so don’t worry about any obstacles here. They got all new strategies to take you down so let me go over them. Bubble Man has you with him in the water with spikes at the top which is pretty evil though Wily programmed him to only be able to move while in the air making him pretty easy to hit. Air Man has a weak defense but his tornados are hard to dodge and block your attacks so it’s best to hit him as his tornadoes are gone or as he’s jumping to the other side. Quick Man is hard like you’ll need some practice as he loves to jump around and dash at you and his stage layout benefits him way more than you, he even shoots quick boomerangs at you giving you even more to dodge. Heat Man is pretty easy as he’ll shoot three projectiles and he’ll try to dash at you everytime you hit him, it’s very easy to put him in a loop till he’s down making him an easy first stage if you can master his stage. Wood Man can hit you hard with his leaves and even throws his shield at you as you’re dodging other leaves so you better beat him fast if possible. Metal Man likes to change the conveyor belt movement during the fight and throws fast metal blades at you when you shoot at him so just don’t let the belt get to you. Flash Man really only moves around and does tiny jumps until he stops time and gets a free easy shot on you if he has you in his sight. Clash Man likes to attack as you attack so try to recognize that and learn a safe pattern to knock him down. The robot masters here are still great compared to the ones from last game and I’d argue are down better here and provide a nice fight to end off some already good stages.

Once again you’ll get weapons from each one that use up limited ammo that can be refilled by the same pickups from before though now they have a new design along with the life ups. Now it’s once again time for me to rate all the weapons that will no doubt make this paragraph massive. First we have Bubble Lead from Bubble Man which is one of the worst weapons in the series like I’m not joking. It’s meant to move forward on the ground but it’s never useful anywhere outside of a few invisible pits in a Wily stage but once you know that, it’s pretty much worthless besides maybe killing those roomba things. Air Shooter from Air Man is okay but it’s only good in niche situations due to just not really being helpful for enemies you think it be good for. Quick Boomerang from Quick Man is really good and I’d argue underrated! You not only have a ton of ammo for the move but it’s got rapid fire and its angle makes it good for hitting some enemies like the monkeys in Wood Man’s stage. Atomic Fire from Heat Man is bad and has very limited use due to the large amount of charge time on it and limited ammo, you can only fully charge twice with a full bar. Leaf shield from Wood Man is good. It’s got nice utility protecting you from many things especially with stuff that constantly spawns and can even make for good refill stations, sadly you throw the shield if you move with it limiting some of its possible use. Metal Blade from Metal Man is busted and you all know this so I’m not even gonna bother explaining it. Time Stopper from Flash Man lets you stop time but you can’t shoot during the move and you can’t cancel it meaning you have to use a full bar of it. That said it can be useful like stopping the lasers in Quick Man’s stage or to skip the mini bosses of Wood Man’s stage, it’s just a shame its negatives bring it down so much. Clash Bomb from Clash Man can be used as a normal projectile but can even break down specific walls with the explosion. Sadly its ammo is very small leading it to not be as useful as one could hope. Now while the magnet beam is gone, never fear! Dr. Right is here to help as after defeating three specific robot masters, you’ll get one of the 3 items to use for stages. They all specialize in having a use to find items you normally can’t reach and it’s best you try to get them early if you know where they’re at. Sadly the weapon balancing isn’t as good as one can hope but I’d still argue that metal blade isn’t the only good weapon here, that said however I’d argue the first game had better balancing even if two of the weapons were atrocious in that game.

Like before, once you finish every stage it’s now time to face Wily. He even has a map to show you the progress you’re making which is pretty cool. The stages here can be pretty tricky and make good use of your weapons including the items but be careful as like before, weapons don’t restore on ammo as you use them in stages so make sure you preserve it as much as possible. Thankfully there’s no more of that bs of being forced to get an item to beat a stage that you weren’t told to do. That said the balancing of it kind of reminds me of the first where the first two stages are harder than the last few in the game. It even feels like by the end they were running out of time. Stage 4 has some pretty poor enemy placement, Stage 5 is just a boss rush room, and Stage 6 is just a hallway with barely any obstacles in your way. While I do feel this is the weakest part of the game, at least the first two stages offer a nice challenge.

The bosses here also suffer from this same problem. It starts out so good too. You have to run away from a mecha dragon as you do tight platforming and then you fight him on three tiny platforms as he can instantly kill you via touch damage and even has fire that does a lot of knockback on you. Tip from me, just be on the top block as knockback won’t get you killed. Next is a guard room with these things called Picopico-kun that come from the walls to attack you and do a lot of damage, just be aware of the spots it's already been in and use Bubble Lead and it’ll be down quickly. Next is a…Guts tank? What the heck, why base it off Gutsman? Come to think of it, there were also those statues from Rockman 1, what does Wily think he’s like peak robot form or something? Regardless, just stand on the left edge of his tank and fire away with boomerangs and he’s out, what a riveting fight. The boobeam trap though for stage 4, screw this stupid fight! You need to kill it with clash bomb but you have to navigate through it a certain way or you won’t have enough to defeat it meaning you’ll have to die and grind for more energy to refill the ammo, easily the worst part of the game and I have no clue who thought this was ok, I’d take Yellow Devil over this stupid thing anyday. After the boss rush you’ll fight Wily Machine 2 where he forgot to make his machine fire resistant this time and then you can chuck metal blades at him till he’s done for, he does do a lot of damage so try to keep an E-tank if you can just in case, you wouldn’t want to do that boss rush again now would you? Though you can kill Metal Man in 2 hits with his own weapon so maybe that be funny to see twice. Wily does have one more trick however because he was an alien this entire time! That’s right he’s fighting back without machines and he even heals from all of your weapons except for Bubble Lead. Once you defeat him for good you find out it was just a projection to fake his look…what? Well I guess he’s done now because he begs for forgiveness as Rockman just…leaves I guess. I never understood what the ending meant but maybe I’m too stupid. For now, Rockman can rest easy knowing Wily knows not to tempt evil anymore.

Graphically, Rockman 2 is a big improvement over last game. I mean just the intro alone will amaze you as it’s a vast improvement over the simple title screen of the 1st game. Stages having more varied locations help the look of each one really stand out and while the game isn't hesitant to still use single color backgrounds at times like in Clash Man’s stage, the positives do outweigh it. The enemy designs are also improved having a lot more fun designs to even match the levels more just giving those levels more of an identity. If there is one complaint I do have is the sprite flickering. It’s horrible and happens a lot and I can’t stand it during the Mecha Dragon fight. Later rereleases and emulation can at least make it more bearable so you can at least rely on those. The music is also legendary stuff with almost every theme being great. Really the only stage theme I don’t like is the 2nd theme for the Wily levels, it’s very droning and annoying. Some would argue this is one of the best OSTs in the franchise but to me it’s up there but not my favorite. I also love how the beginning of the ending theme from the last game is used as the same beginning piece as the intro song before going into a brand new melody, it’s so good. If you somehow haven’t listened to it, do it when you can!

Rockman 2 really did launch what was a beginning for Capcom into a greater galaxy. Rockman 2 wasn’t just a sequel, it was a burst of light that showed Rockman wasn’t just a one and done idea and this game proves that. While I don’t love the game as much as other people do, replaying this game made me realize how my older score doesn't really match with how I feel about the game. It does have issues don’t get me wrong but it also improves so much of the 1st game that it makes up for that. I still think you should play the 1st Rockman first before playing this but Rockman 2 is still a must play for anyone who hasn’t tried it already. There are still 4 more Famicom games left to tackle so I’m very curious how I’ll feel about those when I get to replaying them. To this day I’ve played this game countless times and I’ll continue to replay the game in the near future, thank you Capcom for this awesome game!

i genuinely don't even know if i can consider this game much of an improvement over the original. there's simply more content here, an additional two robot masters to round the cast out to eight, the introduction of series staples like wily castle and e-tanks... but i don't really think the game improves on a lot of the issues of the first.

some of the level design here borders on awful, with a lot of the signature "nes challenge" boiling down to "make this specific jump on this specific pixel but also work around these incredibly minute enemy hitboxes and hope to god our failure of a hit detection system doesn't knock you off the platform even if the enemy was a solid 5-6 pixels away".

there's no balance to the mm2 roster; once you get the metal blade, it's over. bosses are either a complete pushover or in the worst case can straight up softlock the game if the player doesn't plan out in advance (industry talk for reading a fucking gamefaqs guide for an nes platformer). still, the soundtrack's great and i like the character designs enough. hesitate to call this one overrated because of its gargantuan influence but i'm not huffing the nes megaman fumes yet.

This one's really hard for me to go back to. I feel like every time I replay it, I like it a little less.

The main thing that gives Mega Man lasting appeal to me is its weapons. Being able to choose any boss in any order and try different strategies out in different stages, to me, is the entire core of what makes these games so special.

So if I whip out Air Shooter, which exclusively fires upward, and those little clown dudes that only ever spawn above you are immune to it, what the fuck am I supposed to do? When I whip out Crash Bomb thinking it'll wipe out a big enemy, and not only does it not explode but it doesn't deal any damage... why would I ever bother with Crash Bomb again? If I swap to Time Stopper, press the button at the wrong timing, and now I just literally cannot move past an enemy until it runs out.... and I can never use it again...... what's my conclusion going to be? "Oh, damn, better luck next time?" No, I'm just not going to bother.

I want to use the weapons, I want to experiment. So why is the game actively punishing me for having "a-ha!" moments and making enemies immune to the perfect firing arc to deal with them? It just discourages me from wanting to try anything else, makes it feel like there is a "right" way to play it. It goes against the entire idea of nonlinearity if trying a different strategy is actively punished.

Just doesn't make any sense. I don't actually want to use Metal Blade for everything.
I can appreciate what this game did for the series and what it did uniquely at the time, but that doesn't make it any more fun to play through...