After Mega Man World was only okay, and after reading reviews for Mega Man World 2 that called it the worst of the Game Boy games, I went in pretty skeptical. People generally don’t like this game, but I think people often struggle to articulate why. That’s pretty frustrating to me, because I think this game is far and away better than the first Mega Man World game, and while it’s not an unsung masterpiece, it’s certainly not terrible. I’ll get into this more in the next review as well, but ultimately Mega Man World 2 and 3 are both games that blend together and are almost exactly equal in quality. Both are good, but neither is great.

Read the full review for free here: https://medium.com/@QueenEmilysCourt/mega-man-world-2-mega-man-ii-a-step-in-the-right-direction-74cba166a30b

I’ve just beaten Mega Man II in a single sitting just over an hour’s playtime. It follows the same formula of Wily’s Revenge. You get to choose from 4 Robot Master stages from MM2 (Crash Man, Metal Man, Wood Man and Air Man), also in the mix are the Rush Coil, Jet and Marine. Metal Saw is OP in this, I initially had fun with the Air Shooter at first, Crash Man’s weapon is incredibly finite… all of them are useless when you reach Wily Stages.

The Wily Stages introduce the next four Robot Masters from 3, this time they each have a short stage before their boss fights. Top Man, Needle Man, Magnet Man and Hard Man. Ultimately you might use the MM2 powers initially, but once you figure out the weakness system it’s much easier to exploit each boss using the respective weakness.

I found much like in Dr Wily’s Revenge the weapons are really useless beyond their use against Robot Masters, the final Wily Stage doesn’t drop enough energy for you to use each power more than a few times each, forcing you to really optimise each weapon’s use. However, the game can be cheesed, at times I found taking damage and bolting through some rooms easier than actually engaging foes.

The Wily Stages have sections that can be easily navigated with the Rush power-ups leaving more difficult paths unchartered, it leaves the option open for a more difficult pathway for some form of honour. I’m playing all of these over a King’s Birthday weekend so the less time the better.

The new boss Quint is sorta funny, he looks like Mega Man or Proto Man and rides a Pogo Stick, which is the only weapon strong against Dr. Wily. I half think the reason there are so many E Tanks present in the game is so you can use them in the final Wily fight because only the P Shooter can damage Wily.

Overall, I think it’s easier than Dr Wily’s Revenge, but has a lot of general balance issues. I’ve read reviews To say this is a “bad game” is a poor statement, it’s a serviceable Mega Man on the Game Boy, however there are other options. Some preliminary research brought up this blog which details more of the feeling of what is missing compared to other Mega Man games. https://gameboyessentials.com/articles/dmg-w2

Edit: I forgot to talk about the music, some notes are pitched maybe octaves higher than they should be? Somethings up with the ost.

The second entry in the Game Boy Mega Man games is better than the first one in many ways.
The level design is overall better and feels less cramped, even with the console's small screen size. The game itself is much easier than the previous game, and this game also brings in Energy Tanks and Rush from Mega Man 2 and 3, helping easing things up.

Most of the bosses aren't really difficult, but I like how in the Boss Rush, we actually get to go through a stage before we fight each of them, making this game have more content than the previous one, even if not by too much.

This game also introduces Quint, who just like Enker, just kinda exists, and is probably the most pathetic boss fight in the series, right up there with Toad Man.

The presentation is pretty fine, similar to the last game, but I appreciate the new songs, even if they weren't that memorable to me.

In spite of the game sometimes being a bit easier than it should, I had a good time playing through Mega Man World 2.

Another weird game in the series. It takes most of the elemenst of the first games, specifically 2 and 3, and adds a new teists to them, combining different robot masters, making new remixes and making new levels designs that gives the title a strongr identity despite its name. The presentation is also pretty good for a game boy game

Though it feels like Capcom notices the insane difficulty of the first Game Boy title and decided to... just not make this one difficult as all. Like I suck at these games and despite all of it I was able to go throught this with ot many save states and deaths (which is surprising coming for me lel)

Overall a cool reimagining of the first games that while not doing anything that special, was still a decent time

Also Wily just straight up dies at the end: he tries to escape in space, megmana chases him and throws a missile at him that make him exploed like a nuclear bomb, the the credits roll. That was kinda funny

Açò sí és un joc de Mega Man com toca, la veritat. No sé si inclús és massa fàcil o només m'ho pareix per com d'infernal era l'anterior.

El diseny de nivells ja no és un intent d'assassinar-te constant i els Robot Masters addicionals tenen les seues fases i tot. En conjunt es nota que el joc ha tingut més dedicació (o ganes), molt recomanable, la veritat.

També es nota moltíssima milloria en els gràfics (especialment els fons) i el rendiment (enemics repetits del 1, ara no produeixen ralentitzacions).

After trying to chip away at this game for years, I finally gave up trying to beat it legitimately and may have slightly abused the 3DS virtual console save state feature to complete it. I have to say that in its vanilla state I think this game is absolutely awful. Just a horrible experience all around. Every room has some unfair enemy that's impossible to predict or some projectile that comes flying in from off screen to ruin your day, even more so than the NES Megaman games. Some people may enjoy that but it's really not my thing. However, with the 3DS save state feature I actually quite enjoyed the game. It became an experience somewhat similar to Celeste, where sometimes the challenges you face can seem absurdly difficult, but the game is very generous with checkpoints and gives you many opportunities to improve. On its own this game offers you no time to improve. Did you die three times? Well have fun completely restarting the entire game and going through every single infuriating level again. With save states you can master every room at your own pace and feel good about yourself if you manage to complete a level perfectly. It also stops the game from being artificially inflated to several hours long when it really should only be a one to two hour game based on the content it contains. Essentially had I not played this on Virtual Console, I probably would have rated Megaman 2 significantly lower than I have, but I actually quite enjoyed it the way I chose to play it.

Also this game’s soundtrack is awesome.

Well, this was definitely on the much easier and less frustrating side compared to the first Mega Man for Game Boy. I probably enjoyed it more because of this.

The Rock Man World are fine for what they are by the end of the day. They do their job for being 1 hour or less of Mega Man compacted action.

Rush is definitely wasted here. The only one part where you have mandatorily to use it is with the submarine (and maybe for a coil in the first Dr. Wily level). After that nothing.

*Played this game on the Nintendo Switch.

Mega Man World II (the name I'll refer to not to confuse the NES MM2 and follows closely to the original name) is a bit better than MM: Wily's Revenge (MM World I), though still isn't nothing too memorable.
Like the first game, MMW II remixes stages and Robot Masters from Mega Man 2 and 3. You'll fight four Robot Masters from MM2 (Wood Man, Air Man, Crash (not Clash) Man, and Metal Man) and gain their abilities while gaining the Rush powers (Coil, Marine, and Jet). Interestingly, you enter the Wily... Cave and you go through four more remixed stages of Robot Masters from MM3 (Top Man, Hard Man, Magnet Man, and Needle Man) before fighting the pathetically easy Quint, then head to one last stage in space to fight Dr. Wily.

Other than the additions of the Rush abilities and the slide, the game still plays the same along with the same problems of screen scrunch making dodging still difficult. Though, I did pay attention that the enemy dropped a lot more health drops than the first game.

The OST is incomprehensible. I didn't hear any remix formed of any of the stages and even then, the music was just bland to listen to.

Like MMW I, MMW II is still an inoffensive Mega Man experience that could be played on the go. Though, the game's existence is rendered moot due to the Legacy Collection on Switch offering you the definitive NES Mega Man experience to take on the go. Not bad, but only worth playing once. 3.5/5.

Wow. I genuinely hated playing this. So much garbage in the level design. I seriously don't think I garnered an ounce of fun from it.

Except from the dog. I like the dog.

Played on NSO Gameboy

[played on mGBA Wii w/ GBC Edition patch by SpecialAgentApe]

After playing through Mega Man: Dr. Wily’s Revenge recently and enjoying it a lot more than I expected, I figured the next logical course of action would be to play the second Game Boy game! I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this one considering its reputation, but I had a fairly decent time! There’s certainly a few issues and places where it falls flat in comparison to the first game, but I still mostly had fun.


Despite being handled by a different studio (Biox/Thinking Rabbit instead of Minakuchi Engineering), Mega Man II retains a lot of its predecessor’s DNA. The Robot Masters are still split into two groups, although the latter four get their own stages this time around, which helps make the game feel a bit longer. And just like Dr. Wily’s Revenge, II takes after the NES titles in regards to bosses and stage themes (pulling from Mega Man 2 and 3 this time), which means the slide, Rush and E-Tanks make their Game Boy debut! I’ll get more into Rush when I talk about the weapons, but E-Tanks are always nice to have for their convenience, and the slide’s still a fantastic movement option.

In terms of control, Mega Man feels a lot tighter, and closer to his NES self as a result. He does have an odd sense of rigidness that I never fully got used to, but it’s only a minor blemish since he still feels better in just about every other way.


The Robot Master abilities are a bit strange this time around. Due to the fairly high difficulty of Dr. Wily’s Revenge, I felt incentivized to use them often to deal with tougher enemies. But because of how easy II is by comparison, I didn’t use them anywhere near as often. Even with access to the Metal Blade, Leaf Shield and Magnet Missile, I barely touched them due to how effective the Mega Buster was. They do come in handy for quickly dealing with smaller enemies and ones hidden in weird spots, but that’s basically it.

By comparison, Rush gets a lot more mileage. There was a surprising amount of underwater sections that required the use of his Marine form, and due to Jet taking after its Mega Man 3 incarnation, it was really useful! An interesting change is that you have to unlock Rush Coil in this game instead of starting with him, which I honestly prefer since it makes jumping up to higher spots for items like E-Tanks and extra lives feel a bit more meaningful.

The Sakugarne item you get from the exclusive boss Quint is an interesting addition that could’ve been really fun, but it’s unlocked right before the final stage and there’s no real opportunities to take advantage of its unique functions in that stage. Maybe this could’ve been avoided if you fought Quint before the second set of Robot Masters, thus giving you more of a chance to test out Sakugarne and its quirks.


In regards to the level design, I think it’s both a step forward and a step back from the previous game. The stages feel more polished and nowhere near as rough, but they’re a lot more derivative of their home console counterparts, and are also far easier. Personally, I’m of two minds about this; on one hand, being more accurate to the levels of the NES games is nowhere near as interesting as the remixed stages of Dr. Wily’s Revenge. But if I look at it through the lens of the time, having closer renditions of these home console levels on a portable system is a massive plus!

Besides, the stages are still fun and enjoyable, even if they are more derivative. There’s still a few interesting and unique areas, like an underwater section in Wood Man’s level or Crash Man’s level being more winding and maze-like instead of a simple vertical ascent like its NES counterpart. The final Wily stage is also completely unique, and ended up being my favourite in the game!


Just like the level design, I think the visual quality’s a slight step back from Dr. Wily’s Revenge. The player and enemy sprites still look solid (although a few are crunched down and look off-model as a result), and the stage graphics are a closer match to their NES equivalents. I think the only category that’s flat-out worse is the backgrounds. Even with the Game Boy’s monochrome display, Dr. Wily’s Revenge still managed to have some fairly detailed backgrounds, which are mostly just solid colours with occasional secondary elements here. It’s not a massive deal-breaker, but compared to the original game, it still feels like a step down.

Probably the most infamous aspect of Mega Man II is its soundtrack, and if you’ve played the game for yourself or listened to it on YouTube, you already know why. Instead of reusing music from the NES games, each Robot Master stage gets an entirely new theme… which doesn’t mean much when they’re all incredibly high-pitched, screechy and grating, mostly due to the way they were arranged. But beneath all that, the compositions themselves are actually quite good! Several fans have rearranged these tracks to correct their pitch, and those versions sound far better. Overall, it’s a bit more somber than most Mega Man soundtracks, but still incredibly solid! My personal favourites are Crash Man, Air Man, Metal Man, Top Man and the title screen/Wily’s Fortress theme. If you want to play the game with this improved music, I’d strongly recommend Forple’s improvement patch, which is also included in the colourization hack.


On the whole, Mega Man II’s a bit better and a bit worse than Dr. Wily’s Revenge. It makes a few solid improvements in regards to controls, length and additions to the formula, but is a bit more derivative of its home console brethren. Regardless, I still had a fun time! If you’re just a casual Mega Man fan, I don’t think it’s necessarily worth playing, but if you’re interested in the series’ history or want to see if it really deserves the negative reputation, I’d say it’s worth a go! (And besides, it’s not even an hour long, so you won’t be wasting that much time.)

And if you want to play the colourization hack I’ve mentioned a few times throughout this review, you can find a link to that here! The colour palettes really help bring the game to life, and I’d highly recommend it just for the improved soundtrack alone.