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

"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..."

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.

Outro jogo que já havia jogado há alguns anos, mas resolvi revisitar pra completar minha planilha.

Diferente do Mega Man 1, aqui o avanço é bem explicito ao jogador. Melhoraram tudo como um todo e o azulão deixou de ser um robô duro e apelou para os cardios, deixam de ser o Robocop.

Brincadeiras a parte, aqui o que realmente tomou forma foram as músicas visto que o jogo é praticamente o mesmo que o anterior de forma menos jokenpô possível: use apenas uma arma e vença todos os inimigos, assim como você nunca conseguirá derrotar o Airman.

Este jogo carrega um dos melhores memes da série. Sério, I Cannot Defeat Airman é a melhor música que eu já ouvi sobre qualquer jogo. Já o Metal Man morrer pra apenas um tiro foi sacanagem da Crapcom.

Aqui no Mega Man 2 temos um upgrade legal do jogo anterior.

TL;DR: Controls - 8/10
Weapons - 3/10
Levels - 4/10
Bosses - 2/10
Overall - 4/10

Mega Man 2 is commonly referred to as not only one of the best Mega Man games but one of the best games of all time. As you can see by my evaluation above, I don't share this same sentiment. Before we dive right in, this will be a more charged review compared to my Mega Man review (because this game inspires so much vitriol in me) so if that makes you uncomfortable, I understand if you want to skip. If not, sit tight as I tell you why your favorite game is bad.

Let's briefly touch on the controls. They are more or less identical to the original game's controls, except for the slippery factor. Still has some pretty steep jumps, though. Overall, the control is improved but still not refined to the standard that we hold for Mega Man.

As for the weapons, they are absolute dogshit in this game. Everyone already knows how broken the Metal Blade is. If you wanted to, you could practically beat the entire game this way. How no one on the dev team thought it was severely unbalanced to have an 8 directional weapon with such high ammo is beyond me. Quick Boomerang comes the closest to matching the Metal Blade, and it's not even a question. It has much more ammo, but is shorter and a bit weaker as a consequence. Still, it tears some enemies that the Metal Blade cannot. Air Shooter is almost a good weapon, but the tornadoes don't deal enough damage unless you have a big target or your buster is lodged inside their nose. Metal Blade covers diagonal trajectory anyway so don't even humor me with that. Time Stopper is ok here and there but is generally bad otherwise. Not being able to shoot and outright preventing certain flags while draining all of your ammo are such huge design flaws that this had to have been made as a joke.

Crash Bomb is just Hyper Bomb but slightly better since it can deal contact damage this time. Let it stick on a wall, however, and you have to wait for it to detonate just to switch to something more practical. Leaf Shield seems like a decent weapon at first glance, until you start moving around with it. Oh wait, you can't because it fires when you move. What the fuck is that nonsense? It's a shield! I guess it's useful for Crash Man's stage and Wily 3/4 but that's really about it. Atomic Fire has to be hands down the worst charging weapon in the Classic series. It will straight up not do anything until you hold down the B button for at least 20 seconds. Sure, it's powerful but in all that time you were charging, you could've been using something much better. LIKE THE METAL BLADE, FOR FUCK'S SA-! And last and definitely least, Bubble Lead. This weapon is worthless and is basically only useful against the bosses it's weak to (which is the bare minimum) and even that is questionable. By the time you kill one target that isnt a Met with this thing, you'll likely have run out of energy despite its generous ammo.

Before we move on, let's talk about the Item system in this game. Item 1 is a floating platform that rises up slowly. Doesn't sound great on paper but there are still a good few spots where this weapon is useful and you can have up to 3 at a time. Item 2 is the first jet of the series. Of course, you can't control it like you could with Rush in the later games but it's still a great tool nonetheless for just maneuvering around the game. Lastly, there's Item 3. All this does is cling on to walls and let you scale them if you're trying to conserve Item 1. Not bad but certainly seldom used outside of Wily 1. This is also the first game to feature E-Tanks. You can only carry 4 and unfortunately, you will lose them if you die.

One might think that with making the jump from 1 to 2 and having 8 Robot Masters as opposed to 6, the quality of the level design would drastically improve. Unfortunately, this isn't the case, as the levels are less inspired than in the original. Sure, there are the occasional gimmicks like the Quick Man lasers and the first truly underwater level in Bubble Man's stage but nothing truly profound. Flash Man's stage has ice physics for some reason. I guess it's because his weapon freezes enemies but that's a stretch. It's just more of a time waster for an otherwise fodder level. Quick Man, aside from the aforementioned lasers, has nothing interesting going on his stage whatsoever aside from some darkness mechanic that's haphazardly introduced in one screen and then absent for the rest of the level. Metal Man's is ok but the conveyor belts aren't much to write home about. It's neat that you can freeze them with Time Stopper but they're not as impactful to the stage as you might think. Wood Man's stage has very distinctive enemies, but none that offer anything all that interesting. P.S. you can skip at least two of the dogs completely.

Air Man's stage might actually be the best in the whole game. It at least has a little bit more challenge and complexity than the other Robot Master stages. It's still not hard but requires some precise platforming, which is absent in most stages. Crash Man's stage loves to waste your time by spamming Pipis and Tellies which I am definitely not a fan of. Also, with stupid wired platforms that have no challenge. Bubble Man's stage is fine. At least there are some spikes on the ceiling to check your jumping as most good underwater Mega Man stages should have, but the outdoor sections aren't all that intriguing. Heat Man's stage is also fine until the Yuko Blocks section. It is terrible design to have disappearing blocks to leap across over a long, bottomless pit. Not even Mega Man 1 would think of something like this.

Now to be frank, the Wily Castle stages don't get much better than this. Wily 1 is pretty mediocre and has a really annoying ladder section where you have to perfectly time your Item 1s just to reach the next one. The most challenging obstacle in Wily 2 is the drill section... which you can just use Time Stopper in. Even if this game were great, these damn drills are terrible to put in an endgame stage. Otherwise, you're dropping down a bunch of spike rooms with spikes you'll probably never touch even if you're bad. There is almost nothing interesting to talk about for Wily 3, except for jumping over sharks(?) in a pool of piss. How ironic. The last notable stage is Wily 4, which is probably the worst stage of the game. It once again introduces a mechanic in an uninteresting way and it simultaneously disappears just as quick. Ooh but this time, it's invisible platforms! They also recycle the stupid fucking Crash Man platform 3 or 4 times in a row. To cap it all off, a problematic room with Sniper Joes. This will be more evident in the bosses section. Wily 5 is not worth evaluating, because it's a graveyard stage (a trend that should've never occurred) and Wily 6 will be discussed along with the bosses.

So I've shit-talked this game plenty, but the bosses are the worst part of it at least to me. Flash Man is a joke until he randomly freezes time and sometimes catches you in an unfavorable spot. Quick Man is just really annoying to deal with because he zooms all over the room and makes him hard to hit in the process. Thankfully, you only need to hit him 7 times with your buster before freezing him. Fighting him under other circumstances is atrocious. Metal Man's patterns aren't tough to avoid but at least the conveyor belt gives the fight some personality. Wood Man's difficulty is quite oversaturated. Once you've figured out how to time your jumps, you've pretty much figured out the whole fight. Don't even bother with the Atomic Fire, just use Metal Blade as it deals 2 damage a shot anyway. Oh yeah, Metal Blade nukes pretty much half of the bosses in the game. Geez, you think it's powerful enough or what?

Air Man can actually be fun, but sometimes he'll just give you horribly stupid patterns to screw you over. If you're playing the original ROM, you can try persevering through his tornadoes and shoot until he reaches the left side, at which point, you can hug said side turning your back on him and spam Leaf Shield. Crash Man is kind of like Fire Man except he jumps like he's on crack once you make your move. Easy boss otherwise. Bubble Man's bubbles can hardly hurt you if you just stay close to him, and they are the hardest part of the entire fight. Heat Man is so tedious because every time you hit him with anything, he dashes at you. He will sprinkle some fire which is tough to avoid, but he'll only do it once if you catch him in a loop. Welp, the Robot Masters are subpar but surely, the Wily bosses have got to be better. Well...

Oh boy, the Mechadragon. Where do I even begin with this thing? To give it credit, it has a pretty cool setup with a semi-escape sequence. This all goes to shit when you realize just how little room you have to fight it. You get three little platforms and you have to juggle between the upper two. Fun. You touch it, you explode and if you get hit by its fire anywhere but the top, you fall. Spam Quick Boomerang in its face and it'll go down in a few cycles. I should mention that none of the Wily bosses have i-frames, even the dragon so go ham. Another side note: cover your eyes for when you take down ALL these Wily bosses. Game tries to give you a goddamn seizure. The next boss, Picopico is refreshingly simple. The room dismantles itself to make... whatever this thing is. The further you get, the faster it'll go. Just remember to keep calm and spam Metal Blades. You also get 2 E-Tanks before this fight, so don't worry if you have to use any. Guts Tank is the easiest castle boss by far, as Quick Boomerang once again makes quick work of him. He can shoot out Mets but good luck getting hit by them or his standard pellet. Now it's time to bring up the Sniper Joe room again. The Wily 4 boss, Boobeam Trap, requires pretty much a full set of Crash Bombs. So if you don't have enough of them, you need to kill the Joes. This is a problem for 2 reasons. 1: while the standard Joes are easy to kill, some are in tight corners which can make it hard to farm off of them in addition to 2: the Joes on the mechs will maul your ass if you're not careful. This is a problem because the Boobeam Trap does a lot of damage and you can't pause while the Crash Bomb is out. Brilliant. You pretty much have to have full ammo and some life insurance to guarantee your success. Even then, you need to know where you should aim. So yea, horrible design all across the border with this one.

As for Wily, phase 1 of Wily Machine 2 is actually pretty smooth. He shoots a pellet in a u-shaped direction and all you have to do is dodge it. I don't even wanna know what it actually is. Phase 2 takes the piss, though. He'll start off normally with just one shot, but then he'll suddenly fire three in a row. These three shots cannot be dodged which means this fight is not viable Buster only and you have to use the Crash Bomb. Oh yeah, you already used up most if not all of your uses on the last boss so time to die again. After that bullshit barrage, it's time for the real final boss. You're taken into this cavern where blood is dropping from the ceiling. Looks tough, right? Well if you use this frame perfect trick, you can pass this more easily. Here it is: hold right and jump when you face a wall. I have to ask, why the hell are there no energy capsules here? Seriously, how are you expected to beat this boss if you run out of weapon energy? Never mind. The ultimate final battle is... an alien? Ok weird but cool, I guess. This is actually a solid fight but you can only damage it with Bubble Lead. Everything else deals negative damage. His patterns are easy, just keep calm and attack when there's an opening. Ah so Wily was controlling it this whole time with VR. Could we have gotten this instead of the Virtual Boy?

And that's the game. I hope you'll at least understand my reasoning as to why I think this game is so bad. In the last review, I said if you do not like hard games, then don't blame the game. And I'm not necessarily trying to blame the game for being too easy especially for a follow up. There's just more to be desired in this entry. I can't entirely blame the devs, as this was more of a side gig. And I see the effort they put into this one. Unfortunately, effort doesn't always equal quality. And no matter how much effort you put into something, there will always be critics who can't derive the same enjoyment as the fans can. That is to say, if you love this game, more power to you. But don't go around saying it's the best Mega Man game ever. It's not a competition and it doesn't matter. Whether or not you hate this game or that game, no one can deny the massive impact Mega Man has on its audience, including me. Despite me hating the shit out of this game, I'm also glad that it happened because it allowed the series to grow and be better over time... and worse in some cases. But the next entry definitely isn't the latter!

Mega Man 2 es uno de los juegos más sobrevalorados no solamente de Mega Man, sino del todo el catálogo de la NES. No puedo quitarle todos los méritos pues a fin de cuentas es un rato decente y es verdad que tiene momentos bastante icónicos, un soundtrack envidiable y una fórmula tan buena que a Capcom le bastó con hacer copypaste al momento de desarrollar cada entrega, pero es de esos juegos cuyo prestigio recae más en la popularidad y la suerte de haber sido el juego por el cual la mayoría se introdujo a la franquicia en su tiempo que por algo que haga excepcionalmente bien frente a títulos posteriores, los cuáles son en su mayoría superiores en casi todos los sentidos. No me cabe cómo es que otros juegos de Mega Man clásico tienen un promedio menor a este en Backloggd cuando son lo mismo pero sin las cagadas que esta entrega tiene. Mencionaré sus fallas más cruciales.

-El balanceo es una mierda. He visto gente que se queja del arsenal en otras entregas de Mega Man pero aquí lo perdonan o pasan por alto cuando en general sigue siendo bastante mediocre y situacional. Pero lo más chocante acá es que básicamente cualquier arma queda inútil en comparación al Metal Blade. Es un arma tan potente que no te verás en la necesidad de usar el resto salvo en una que otra situación; rompe el juego, te puedes cagar a mitad de los jefes y al Dr. Wily en su primera etapa con ella sin esfuerzo y lo más gracioso de todo, la consigues a los primeros minutos.

-El diseño de niveles está...bien. Las fases de Metal Man y Bubble Man son las mejores mientras que fases como las de Flash Man o Air Man son algo repetitivas y carecen de complejidad pero funcionan. Quizá las peores entre las fases de los Robot Masters serían las de Heat Man y Quick Man, nada particularmente malo pero son niveles que giran entorno a una gimmick pedorra y no hay mucho más a destacar. La calidad se va en picada luego de la primera fase de Wily, con los niveles restantes siendo muy monótonos y simplones, algunos ven secciones vacías de estos niveles como un intento de crear atmósfera, yo lo veo como si ya hubieran querido terminar con el juego de una vez.

-El jefe de la cuarta fase de Wily es una porquería y el que le dio visto bueno a algo así merece ser despedido, genuinamente uno de las peores jefes que se hayan hecho en un videojuego. Es un intento de puzzle en el que debes usar la bomba de Crash Man para destruir unos muros y luego explotar a unos bichitos metálicos pegados por las paredes. El problema es que es un troleo de los malos; debes seguir un patrón de acciones muy específico y si se te acaba la munición del arma sólo te queda suicidarte múltiples veces hasta conseguir un game over y jugar todo el nivel de nuevo, porque al morir no se recargan las armas. Una cagada que parece no haber pasado por testeo alguno.

En resumen, Mega Man 2 es un juego que me gusta mucho.

Mega Man 2, a game in the series that many have called one of the best. For me, though, this is far from the legendary great that many have made it out to be. Don't get me wrong, it's still good and I still enjoyed it, more than the first one, but specifically near the end game, there was just way too many things that irked me to my core that prevent me from calling it one of my favorite Mega Man games, or even putting it in the S tier.

Wily Stage 3, Wily Stage 4, and Boo Beam Trap specifically made my enjoyable experience into a horrific one. If my enjoyment had remained consistent and if these sections weren't more than just a minor inconvenience, then I probably wouldn't pay them much mind, but my god, do I even need to say anything? I'm not ashamed to admit I used save states during these sections, because there is no way I was going to subject to that kind of plain bad level/boss design and torment.

Luckily, the good outweighs the bad here. Everything up until Wily Stage 3 was a blast to play through, and you can definitely tell all the improvements that were made compared to the first one. A good 7/10 here, but it could have been rated so much higher for me if those particular sections weren't what they were.

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!

i got filtered by air man,,,,,,, no pun intended,,,,,,,

So, I guess I'll just walk through my thoughts on the stages and such.
Metal Man Stage: I heard Metal Blade was a good weapon, so I started here. I think this was probably the best decision I could've made; Metal Blade is fucking BUSTED apparently. As for the stage itself, not the biggest fan of the conveyor belts in the ceiling spikes section and that weirdly tight jump after, but it's pretty much inoffensive otherwise. Metal Man himself is also pretty simple, so I beat him first try.
Bubble Man Stage: Metal Blade kind of trivialized every enemy I had to fight, so all I can mention is the stage design, which is solid enough. Water physics surprisingly are fun to play around in this game and while I do think spikes instakilling you are kind of brutal, they're not too bad... yet.
Heat Man Stage: So, uh, I didn't know that Item-2 was tied to Air Man, so I just went ahead and played this stage without it. As it turns out, I am a fucking gamer because I managed to clear that long stretch of memory blocks based on purely intuition and reflexes first try. Definitely one of the more memorable experiences I had with this game, and probably my proudest? As for Heat Man himself, he was kind of a pushover, I just bubbled him to death and that was that.
Wood Man Stage: Not much of note, Metal Blade killed everything in my path (it helped a ton against those fuckass birds) and Wood Man was kind of a pushover.
Air Man Stage: This was probably my least favorite section of the game... The Air Man platforms are just kind of tedious with the enemy spam and having to wait for the drills. It's iconic and all but still...
Oh, and then I got filtered by Air Man kind of hard, as I said earlier. I could NOT for the life of me figure out how I was supposed to dodge some attack patterns. I tried using Item-1 and it froze the tornadoes in place? I have no clue what happened there.
I ended up brute forcing it with charged Atomic Fires and finishing him off with the Buster, but I still have no idea how you're intended to beat him.
Crash Man Stage: A much better change of pace. This one was probably my favorite normal Robot Master stage? The platform gimmick is pretty fun and it's not super punishing. Crash Man died in like 2 hits from Air Shooter and that was that.
Flash Man Stage: Weird floor physics in a platformer,,,,,,,, I do like how near the end, the level rewards you for taking the difficult paths forward by letting you skip some enemies. As for Flash Man, I have no idea what he does because he died to like 4 Metal Blades. I still don't know what he does.
Quick Man Stage: Here's a fun stage gimmick. I ended up doing most of the timed sections without Time Stopper and it was pretty fun. It's kind of weird how Quick Man has the pitch black sections instead of Heat Man though. Anyhow, Quick Man put up a good fight since I was out of Time Stopper by the time I got to him. Unfortunately for him, he's also weak to Crash Bomber, so he exploded in a couple of easy hits.

With the main robot masters out of the way...
Wily Castle Stage 1: I am disappointed you can't blow up the building walls with Crash Bomber. Huge missed opportunity in my opinion. Anyway, the stage is pretty inoffensive. I ended up getting oneshot by the dragon because I didn't see him coming, but I ended up beating him around my third try. I really don't like how the screen decides to have a seizure everytime you hit the dragon, this isn't the Atari 2600 anymore.
Wily Castle Stage 2: I don't think this stage has anything too memorable except the big Mole Tunnel with the guys from Metal Man's stage. I don't mind it since it helped to refill all my weapons and HP. The boss is kind of weird but I dig it, I beat it on my second attempt.
And onto Stage 3–
MY GAME CRASHED
So I had to redo both Stage 1 and Stage 2 from the start. Thanks Capcom.
While we're at it, holy shit the Wily Castle music is phenomenal for the NES. Really surprised at how good it sounds.
Wily Castle Stage 3: This stage wasn't too memorable aside from the random drop with spikes you couldn't have known were there. Great game design. Guts Man coming back as the boss is cool, but I still have yet to play Megaman 1.
Wily Castle Stage 4: Probably my favorite Wily Castle Stage barring the "boss". The Crash Man platforms return and you get to use the Items in more creative ways. Pretty fun all around tbh. Then I got softlocked at the boss. And I had just made a savestate when I entered.
So I had to load an older savestate and fight Guts Man from Stage 3. THANKS CAPCOM
Wily Castle Stage 5: It's just the robot master rematches. Kind of funny how Metal Man instadies to his own weapon. I used the same strategies for every boss, so nothing new. As for Wily... It took me a bit to figure out how to dodge the balls, but I figured it out and it was just a test of patience (and my E Tanks)
Wily Castle Stage 6: Really fucking cool thematically. You think it's all over and then all of a sudden there's another stage and you drop down what feels like forever only to see you're in a cave and there's no music. It's super eerie and I could totally see some kid making a creepypasta about it. The boss in this Stage is also pretty cool, you just have to be patient and land the Bubbles while guiding his shots away.

So, that was Megaman 2. Is it a masterpiece? At the time, it probably was, but it's a little dated due to the usual Megaman shenanigans. That said, I definitely don't regret playing this game.

Colorblindness Rating: B+
I think the color of the armor can mix someone up if they don't know what the letters stand for. It's a bit of a nitpick, but it's not going to ruin the experience honestly; and I can excuse it because it's a game on the NES.

Megaman 2 is often considered one of the best titles not only in the franchise, but one of the best games ever.

And honestly I don't buy that.
I played this game multiple times and yeah, I totally see the things that does incredibly: the movement and jump-&-shootery is fluid and fun even today, the grphics are nice, the ability to approach the game as you want was a novel concept for the time and the soundtrack is a banger to this day (Seriously, Wily Castle 1 still gives me goosebumps)

But also there is a lot of weird design choices, specifically in the later sections of the game. Some parts of the final levels are straight up unaccessible if you don't have the good equipment (ITEM-1 and ITEM-2 being so important to progress feels kinda weird too), and one specific boss (the worst mf I have ever fought) is impossible to pass if you used Crash Bomber at all before it.
Not to mention that, after playing later titles, I really felt the lack of Slide Kick, Rush and Charge Shot in thos one.

My criticism aside, there is not denying that it is a classic that everone should try, and its pros are able to outshine its cons to make it a great experience even after 30+ years.

Mega Man 2 is epic, go figure

I have never understood the love for Mega Man 2. Among many fans of the Mega Man series, as well as fans of platformers and retro games in general, Mega Man 2 is often considered the best game in the series. Of the original classic games for the NES, it sold the best by a considerable margin. Some would say that is reflective of the game’s quality, but to me, that sales figure just reflects why the game is so beloved. It’s the most popular, and most people’s first entry into the series before the Legacy Collection came along. I think Mega Man 2 is the worst of the eleven classic Mega Man games, and I will try to explain my numerous issues with this game. Unlike in Mega Man 1, where most of the issues were systemic and affected many different parts of the game, in Mega Man 2, a lot of the issues are caused by a single bad decision that just casts a wide shadow over the game.

Full review at https://queenemilyscorner.wordpress.com/2024/04/11/mega-man-2-the-worst-classic-mega-man/

There were only four times I experienced pure BS old NES game design and had to look up a guide or abuse save states in an emulator. The rest of the time was a surprisingly fun NES action platformer. Half the weapons were really fun to use, and the other half were fairly lame. The bosses were fair enough and it felt real good to kill some of them in 2-5 shots during the boss rush at the end. I didn't know the ending and actually had a bit of a laugh during it. The soundtrack is a bunch of catchy 8-bit tunes, and I loved it. I still can't rate this any higher than a 3.5/5 though because Wily's fortress stage 4 boss is currently one of the worst designed things I have ever experienced in a video game.

I want to preface that I was not born during the time of Rockman's initial creation and popularity. I'll never understand what it was like being there at the time that these games were coming out. That said, I'm playing all these games for the first time in my early 20s and, in advance of writing a review of 9, I decided to go back and journal my thoughts on 2. I just thought this game was... okay? So okay that I didn't even bother writing a review when I played it.

As I write this review, this is the game leading the Street Fighter 6 Rockman popularity poll. But I want to know what kind of factors led to this one being the most popular of the original series? Is it just "right place, right time?" Is the game similarly held in high regard in Japan? My honest guess is that people just had so much fun with 2 that, as the transition from NES to SNES took place, nobody really cared to bother with more NES Rockman games when the SNES and Mega Drive were releasing.

Prior to actually playing the games for myself, this is the only one I ever saw talked about ANYWHERE, and it's lauded as one of the greatest games on the NES or something. At its best AND at its worst, this game is good. But it's not really anything more than that imo.

I genuinely believe every other Classic game that released after it outclasses it in some way or another. 3 introduced the Slide and even had the Doc Robots bring back the RM2 Robot Masters after you beat the first 8. 4/5 introduced/refined the Charge Shot. Even 7 and 8 both capitalized on the strength of the new hardware to create gorgeous graphics that still look great today, and introduced neat changes to the formula found in the NES games. 2 being the golden child, so much so that 9 decided to ditch nearly everything I liked in 3-8 and even removed the Slide/Charge Shot, just confuses me.

I'm sorry if this doesn't come off very much like a review of the game and more a review of its status? Or sounding salty that its popularity influenced a direction on the series temporarily for 9 and 10 that I disliked. I would just really like to hear from folks who grew up with this game to understand what I might not be seeing about its greatness compared to everyone else.

a massive improvement over the first. all of the levels are decent this time and are made better if you do metal mans stage first and get his broken weapon. robot masters are a lot more iconic and the music is pretty good. my main problems with this game come within the wiley stages which just suck. it all culminates with one of the worst bosses i have ever played with the one that requires the crash bombs. as an overall game though its pretty great and was a rad introduction to the series for me

Played via Mega Man Legacy Collection on PC.

A massive improvement from the first game. One of the few times where an NES sequel to an NES is better than the first game (think of Mario, Zelda, Castlevania, etc.). In MM1, I felt forced to do the boss order or I will have a worse time. In this game, though I did do the boss order, most bosses feel accomplishable with the default power, which is nice to see.

Hard to give this game a higher rating, as there is still remnants of cheap level design, but overall seems much more fair. Boombeam Trap being the main point of contender for an unfair level.