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.

The Game Boy Mega Man games tend to have a reputation of being nothing more than remixes of their NES counterparts. Barring Mega Man World 5, they’re often seen as nothing but poorly put together remixes slapped on inferior hardware to make a quick buck, and I really don’t think that’s very fair to those games. From what I’ve played of the Mega Man World games up to this point, they’re probably some of the most ambitious Mega Man games I’ve ever played, especially coming off hardware as limiting as the Game Boy. Sure, they use elements from the NES games and that can leave them feeling a bit samey if you’ve played the NES games a lot like I have, but they use these enemies and gimmicks in new and creative ways that still make them feel unique from the entries on NES. Hell, they even opt to go out of their way to add completely new elements to these stages, like, Cut Man’s stage in Dr. Wily’s Revenge is practically unrecognizable from its NES counterpart. And a lot of the time, I end up preferring the decisions made in the Mega Man World games, because there’s a good amount of thought put into the levels designs, especially for a remixed Game Boy game. What I’m saying is that the Game Boy Mega Man games don’t deserve the less than stellar reputation they end up getting, as they have a ton of passion and heart poured into them. At least… the ones made by Minakuchi Engineering do.

Despite doing a pretty decent job with the first Game Boy game, Minakuchi Engineering did not make the 2nd Game Boy Mega Man. Instead, development of this entry was outsourced to a different company, Thinking Rabbit. Upon looking them up on Wikipedia, they’re most well known for publishing the original Sokoban, a puzzle game where you push blocks around. On the surface, this change in developers doesn’t sound like a bad thing. I’m all for giving different developers a chance to craft their own take on a well-established franchise, while giving the main development team time to work on other projects. However, while a lot of Minakuchi Enginerring’s dev team (particularly the lead developer) happened to be huge Mega Man fans, Thinking Rabbit knew next to nothing about the Mega Man franchise, and hasn’t developed another Mega Man game since this one. This, along with the lukewarm at best reception towards the game and music (which I’ll get to later), made me a bit skeptical about this one going in. However, I still wanted to give this game a fair chance despite all the things seemingly going against it, and hey, it’d be interesting getting a look at Thinking Rabbit’s take on the Mega Man franchise. So after all is said and done, what did I think of it?

Yeah, I’m sorry, but this ain’t it. Mega Man World 2 didn’t click with me at all. None of it felt engaging or really that fun to me, and Thinking Rabbit’s lack of knowledge or care about the Mega Man series really showed in this one. But before I get to why I feel that way, I actually want to highlight some of the things that I feel like Mega Man World 2 does better than its predecessor. As you can already tell from the 2 star rating and from what all I’ve said so far, this review isn’t going to be very positive, so I figured I should at least give the game some merit and talk about what I think it does right before going into what it does wrong. The first thing I quickly want to highlight is the fact that they FINALLY gave the Mega Man 3 Robot Masters proper stages. This was one of my biggest criticisms of Dr. Wily’s Revenge, and I’m so glad to see that they fixed it in this entry. In Dr Wily’s Revenge, the Mega Man 2 Robot Master fights were kind of just shoved into teleporter rooms at the end of Enker’s stage, which not only made the game feel way too abrupt, but gave you next to no time to use any of their weapons, as you only got to use them for one stage. Adding the Mega Man 3 Robot Master stages near the end fixes all of these problems, not only by making the game feel more complete, but also by giving you more opportunities to use the latter half of this game’s weapon roster. And while it probably would be better to have all 8 stages available from the get-go, this is certainly a massive improvement over what Dr. Wily’s Revenge did. Another cool thing that Mega Man World 2 did (or, I guess, didn’t do in this case) was that they removed a lot of the spike drops present in Dr. Wily’s Revenge. In the first game’s endgame, you’d have a lot of situations where you’d drop down a screen, and then immediately get killed by a pit of spikes you couldn’t react to because you happened to be in the wrong position. While you could mitigate this with the Carry item, it’s something that you shouldn’t have to do if you don’t know the game. Thankfully, these were a lot less frequent in Mega Man World 2. There was one from what I recall in, I think Metal Man’s stage? Still, I didn’t die to it, and there weren’t any more death defying drops from that point onwards. So overall, Mega Man World 2 isn’t sounding so bad. I mean, it fixed my two biggest issues with Dr. Wily’s Revenge, so why do I feel like this game is so much worse?

To really go into detail on why I don’t like this game very much, like always, we’re going to have to start with the level design. And this is definitely my biggest point of contention with this game. Like I’ve said so many times you all are probably sick of it by now, the level design in Classic Mega Man is one of, if not, the defining factor in making classic Mega Man so great, especially since this is where you’ll be spending most of your time platforming, fighting all the enemies, using your special weapons, etc. So when your game fails at its level design, you’re not going to be having fun for most of your experience. Mega Man 8 is a great example of how poor level design can ruin an otherwise great game. It has a lot going for it, like great bosses, cool collectibles, and neat weapons and environmental interaction. However, the frustrating and boring level design just completely ruined it for me, and I just didn’t end up having much fun with the game. Unfortunately, Mega Man World 2 doesn’t fare much better here. The first issue I have with this game’s level design is some of the absolutely GOD AWFUL enemy placements in this game. I swear, in nearly every level, enemies are placed in a way where it’s either really awkward to take them out, or in a way where it’s damn near impossible to get by without taking damage. Like, good luck doing a no damage run of Air Man’s stage in this game. All of the fan enemies in this game are placed in a way where once they show up, you’re going to be taking damage from the cloud enemies around you because you’re pushed back into their drills. Or in Crash Man’s stage, where the tellies spawn below you, meaning that if you’re riding on the platform, you can’t even shoot them, forcing you to take damage unless you play around it in a really awkward way. Mega Man World 2 is full of awkward enemy placements like this, however, this isn’t my biggest issue with the level design here. While the bad enemy placements are annoying, they aren’t too big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. No, my biggest issue with Mega Man World 2 as a whole is that it is boring as SIN, in more ways than just one. Remember at the beginning of the review, how I discussed the undeserved reputation the Game Boy Mega Man games get? Like I mentioned earlier, the Mega Man World games tend to deviate their level designs from their NES counterparts in really creative ways, either by adding entirely new gimmicks, adding enemies from different stages, or just by using their already existing enemies in creative ways. However, Mega Man World 2 is basically the only entry in this series that opts not to do this. There are very few instances in this game where the levels attempt to deviate from their NES counterparts in any way. The only two that I can think of off the top of my head are some of the Needle Man elements in Wood Man’s stage, and the underwater section in Top Man’s stage. Hell, World 2 will often just shoddily port over rooms and even entire sections from the NES games! And, I’d at least be a lot more forgiving of this, if not for the fact that the levels themselves are insanely unmemorable and boring. Mega Man World 2’s levels suffer from what I like to call “Seven Sirens Syndrome”, where the levels of the game feel like nothing more than going through the motions, without attempting to take any risks or exciting the player in any way. And unfortunately, even with its original rooms and ideas, Mega Man World 2 doesn’t make me feel anything with its levels. Like yeah, it’s certainly a Mega Man stage, but it feels like nothing more than just shooting at enemies used in the most mundane ways possible while occasionally jumping across platforms. It also doesn’t help that this game is insanely easy. Even when you do take damage from an unfair enemy placement, it’s not much, and you’re probably not taking damage from anything else. The frequent health powerups appearing throughout these stages don’t help matters here either. And look, I don’t mind an easy game at all. Pokemon Omega Ruby is one of my all-time favorite games. But when your easy game starts to border on mind-numbingly boring, that’s where I start to take some issues. Mega Man World 2’s levels are just a whole bunch of nothing. Like the reputation of the Game Boy Mega Man series as a whole, they unfortunately remain nothing more than shoddy ports of much better NES stages that you’re better off playing instead.

I’m not going to go too in-depth on the bosses, because what did you expect? They’re, once again, exactly the same as their NES counterparts. I could go into detail again on how I’m not a big fan of the NES Robot Masters, but I’d like to take this time to discuss a change to one of the bosses that I liked. Specifically, Air Man and his tornado patterns. In the NES version, Air Man has a tornado pattern that is completely impossible for the player to dodge (unless they were to use, like, Item 1 or something). However, in Mega Man World 2, not only are all of Air Man’s patterns dodgeable without the need of a utility weapon, but they also make pretty great use of Mega Man’s slide. This is definitely a change I appreciated, as it makes Air Man’s fight a lot more fun to play than its NES version. As for the other fights, though, they’re pretty much exactly the same. And like their NES counterparts, they’re typically either way too easy to cheese, or rely on your inputs, making them way too hard if you don’t understand how they work. The overall selection of bosses is a bit better than Wily’s Revenge, but overall, I’m still not a big fan of them.

Mega Man World 2’s weapon roster is also not great, mainly because it suffers from a lot of the same issues that made Mega Man 2’s weapon roster pretty bad. I don’t feel like this is entirely the developers’ fault, as two of the weapons present in this game are Metal Blade and Mega Man 3’s Rush Jet, two of the most broken Mega Man weapons of all time. However, I do still feel like they should’ve at least attempted to balance these two weapons a bit, as they’re so overpowered, there’s basically no reason to use any of the other weapons. I did play the game without trying to use these weapons, as I wanted to give this game’s weapon roster a fair chance. Unfortunately, the other weapons are nowhere near as good, and only served to make the game’s weapon selection even more unbalanced. While there are some decent ones sprinkled in there, like Leaf Shield and Hard Knuckle, they’re situational at best and don’t see much use compared to your buster. What’s even worse is that they kept that dumbass immunity thing that 80% of Mega Man 2’s enemies had! Like, nearly every airborne enemy in this game is immune to the Air Shooter, and it’s like, where can I even USE this weapon then????? All this shitty mechanic serves to do is limit your experimentation with the weapons, which just doesn’t make any sense in a game series where you’re encouraged to do so. The weapon roster overall really did need some more fine tuning to make it actually balanced, because when you’re not using a weapon that breaks the game in two, you’re using a weapon that ranges from mediocre, to bad, to the Sakugarne. And let’s talk about the Sakugarne real quick. This is the weapon you get from the game’s special Robot Master, Quint, and it’s hands down the worst weapon in the game. It’s supposed to function like a pogo stick where you can bounce on enemies and traverse spikes, but not only can you NOT actually traverse spikes with this thing, but its damage output is laughably bad. Meanwhile, you’re still taking damage from enemies as you bounce on them while the energy gauge goes down faster than the short ass Wily stage where it’s your only chance to even use this weapon. Speaking of which, this seems like a good time to transition into the final part of the game, its endgame.

After beating the first four Robot Masters, like in Dr. Wily’s Revenge, you can move on to the Wily stage. After a cutscene with Mega Man and an oddly-chiseled Wily plays, you can actually get to the remaining 4 robot master stages from here, which is a pretty unique approach that hasn’t been done in a classic Mega Man game since. After you beat all 4 robot masters, you can finally face off against this game’s Mega Man Killer, Quint, a more powerful version of Mega Man sent from a distant future sent to destroy Mega Man. Oh man, this sounds so cool, I wonder how the fight is- aaaaand it’s the most miserable excuse for a Robot Master fight you’ve ever seen in your life. Like, I know I complained about the previous Mega Man Killers when talking about the other Mega Man World games, but at least their patterns are still well-designed, despite the less than stellar execution. But here, Quint just hops towards your location and just bounces on his pogo stick for like, 5 seconds. And that’s all he does for the entire fight! You might as well be handed Quint’s shitty weapon on a silver platter! It’s one of the most pathetic and lazily designed boss fights I’ve ever seen in a video game, and it’s over in like, 5 seconds on top of that. So much for a cool fight with your future self. Anyways, after Quint’s been defeated and you get his weapon, you can finally move on to Wily’s Space Fortress. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything positive to say about this stage. I don’t even have much to say about the stage at all. It’s insanely forgettable, because not only are all of the enemies and stage hazards just placed haphazardly with no real theme to them, but the stage itself is basically over before you know it. The same goes for all 3 Wily phases. They’re incredibly easy to dodge for a Wily fight, and forgettable to the point where I can’t even remember anything about any of the phases this time around. All I can recall about this fight is that after you defeat Wily, Mega Man chases down Wily’s ship and shoots him down with a missile, killing him and thus completely ignoring the very first law of robotics. And with that, the game’s finally over. I’m sorry, I know this part might feel completely anticlimactic to some of you, but this endgame has given me absolutely nothing new or interesting to say without repeating the same shit I’ve been saying about the stages for the whole review. Hell, I would’ve preferred the last stage be a little bit frustrating, or have spike drops like in Wily’s Revenge, because at least then it would’ve given me something, anything to talk about. Well, that technically is the end of Mega Man World 2, but I really don’t want to end off on a note as anticlimactic as this. So before we wrap this review up, I’m going to touch upon something that some of you have probably been clamoring for since the beginning of the review; the music.

I don’t normally ever mention the music when reviewing a Mega Man game, because good music is kind of a given when it comes to this series. Nearly every classic Mega Man track from 1-11 sounds amazing to me, on top of being extremely memorable and having a tendency to get stuck in your head quite easily. Because of this, I kinda find it redundant to mention the music when talking about this series because I mean, all of it sounds good! HOWEVER, Mega Man World 2 might be the only game in the series where this is not the case. You see, unlike the Minakuchi Game Boy games, Mega Man World 2 opts to create original tracks for its Robot Master stages as opposed to remixing them. And while this sounds like a good thing, man, these tracks sure are something. Nearly all of them “bless” your ears with incredibly jarring high pitched sounds that completely ruin the tracks, not at all helped by the awful high pitched sound effects that accompany you throughout the whole game. The thing is, the compositions themselves aren’t actually that bad, as composers like RushJet1 and Tpcool have made them sound great before. However, they’re completely ruined by the awful instruments that they’re cursed to be accompanied with. And with this, I feel like this is a perfect note to end this review off, because in a lot of ways, Mega Man World 2’s gameplay is a lot like its music. Because while Mega Man World 2’s great compositions still manage to sound like shit, its promising elements from Mega Man 2 and 3 still manage to be used in a way that’s both boring and frustrating at the same time. This game shouldn’t have been as mediocre as it ended up being, but it’s very clear to me that Thinking Rabbit put next to no care into this entry before releasing it onto store shelves. The stages are beyond bland and unmemorable, the weapon roster is unbalanced as all hell, and all the promising ideas it does have fall flat on their face. It kinda saddens me to say that out of all the Game Boy entries, this one really is nothing more than shoddily ported elements from the NES games with little thought or passion put into it. And while Minakuchi Engineering thankfully returned to do the rest of the Game Boy entries, there’s next to no reason to invest any time into this one. (4/10)

*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.

How to counter Mega Man II bossfights:
Metal Man: Quick Boomerang/Metal Blade
Air Man: Leaf Shield
Wood Man: Atomic Fire
Crash Man: Save State/Load State

With Dr. Wily's Revenge being a successful jump to the Game Boy, it's no secret that sequels were greenlit. But instead of the original devs returning to make the sequel exist, they hire someone else who is inexperienced with the franchise itself. Mega Man II on Game Boy is just that with Biox working sequel instead of Minakuchi Engineering, and usually with new developers at the helm, there are always going to be some changes that don't quite capture the magic of what makes the predecessors special, and in the case for this game, the difficulty. This is the easiest Mega Man game I've experienced, and I've only played about 20+ games thus far if we're counting the sub-series. This is a big departure from what came beforehand as once was a decent challenge with a ridiculous difficulty spike near the end of the first game is now a cakewalk from start to finish in the second game. Also the music takes a hit, it doesn't sound as pleasant to the ears as it was with Dr. Wily's Revenge. I've heard worse, but it’s very noticeable when experiencing it for the first time. The naming is also atrocious as it's called Mega Man II (NA and EU), not to be confused with Mega Man 2, contrary to how it was called in Japan as Rockman World 2. It would've made perfect sense to tell the difference overseas, but no, Roman numerals would help.

It includes the four Robot Masters from Mega Man 2 (NES) with the final four coming from Mega Man 3 (NES) in the latter half of the game. It's the same as Dr. Wily's Revenge structure-wise with Robot Masters to destroy, and encounter a new foe that is exclusive to the handheld games, this time being Quint; a Mega Man from the future... that is on what seems to be a combination of a pogo stick and a jackhammer (riveting I know). Obtain the special weapon that is only used for fighting Dr. Wily, and then credits. There isn't much for me to say here, so I'll wrap things up.

Mega Man II on the Game Boy in my opinion is a slight improvement compared to its first Game Boy outing. Yeah, the challenge is almost non-existent, but at least it's consistent which I can't say the same with Dr. Wily's Revenge. Even though I had a slightly better time with the sequel, this isn't something I want to replay in the near future.

This game fixes a lot of the issues of the first game like the screen crunch and (mostly fixes) the unfair screens. But in exchange, this game does several things worse.

The issue that this game is most well known for is every single sound being an octave too high. This makes all the sound effects and especially BGM hard to listen to, but listening to the corrected soundtrack it's okay. I did miss the arranges of the NES music the last game went with as here they are all original tracks, but songs from Mega Man 2 like Metal Man's theme, wood man (very nice) and Top 27 Anime Boobs (aka Crash Man) are iconic tracks that I would have loved to hear in a Game Boy style arrangement.

These versions of the GB stages feel closer to their NES counterparts, which is a little less exciting as when playing the previous title I only had half of an idea of what to expect and would be surprised by what other elements (or even unique elements) would be thrown in. Now it feels like portable versions of the NES stages, for better or worse, which made me wonder why I wasn't playing those games instead. The fall into spikes and die rooms from Wily's Castle were moved to Metal Man way earlier in the game and the Yoku Blocks feel far less consistant here than in the previous game. Despite this the game as a whole is overall notably easier than the first since everything else is much more fair, but really that translates to blowing through it a lot quicker. The bosses are copy-pasted from the NES so expect to take hits on some bosses, but E-Tanks are in abundance in this game so you'll never really have an issue.

The stage count increases from 6 to 9, as the game handles its Robot Master roster in an interesting way: the first 4 you'll know who you pick, but in the second half you won't know who's stage you're going to in a blind playthrough until it's already begun. This also allows you more time with the second half of the weapon roster (which pulls from Mega Man 3) allowing them to actually see practical use.

Speaking of Mega Man 3, the slide and Rush parts are also here which are a welcome addition. They're all their MM3 counterparts except Rush Marine controls worse. This means you have the busted Rush Jet that never gets used up if you spam jumps while on him! Don't forget the Metal Blades are in this game, meaning you have all the tools you need to blast through the stages with reckless abandon once you get those two.

In some ways it's a better experience than the previous, but I think I prefer that game to this, as its challenge at least justified its short length while here you get both the best weapon and transport item in Mega Man history in an already fairly easy game.

Does the game not stopping when you heal/grab energy feel uncanny or is it just a me thing?

Mega Man II is annoying.

However, the game is not annoying in the ways you would expect. You'd think I'm annoyed by some sort of unfair or uncalled-for spikes in difficulty, but I'd report the exact opposite; Mega Man II is annoyingly easy. The challenge I love and expect from a classic Mega Man title is nowhere. Levels are simple and bosses are absolute pushovers, even with the mega-buster. This includes Quint, who is supposed to be Mega Man from the future. From that title you'd expect him to be very tricky. A future Mega Man means a Mega Man with more technique and experience than you. Instead, he just hops around on a pogo stick until you shoot him enough. Similarly, the three-phase Wily fight is also a pushover. Attacks are relatively easy to get around as the boss patterns are not complex. Additionally, at this point in the playthrough you'd have maxed out E tanks, so i you actually had trouble here you could just power through it no problem. Nothing on display is at all challenging, and as a result the identity of Mega Man you want to see here is missing.

Another issue is the audio. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but all the music is pitched incredibly high. The ear-splitting noises are quite a shame because you hear hints of an ok melody through it all, and end up just wishing it were all pitched down. Maybe then it would sound good.

Besides those gripes, I find it hard for me to call this a truly bad game. At the end of the day, it's still mega man, just so easy that it's kind of boring. This is nowhere near as excellent as any other console of handheld Mega Man title as of the time this came out, but it's not like this was screwed up so bad that you must avoid it at all costs. If you really want to play through all these handheld Mega Man titles, go ahead. If you're looking for a Mega Man game that's miles easier than the others, pick it up (though Mega Man 2 on the NES is a better option with its normal mode). You won't be angry but you won't be ecstatic either.

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.

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.

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

Angel_Arle Rockman reviews
Part 1: Rockman for Famicom
Part 2: Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo 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 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

It’s only been one game and we are already back on the Game Boy for another Rockman World game. Get used to this because these games get made quickly like the Famicom games. Though unlike last time, this entry is a more devious one in quality. It’s pretty obvious once you see who made this game. This one was developed by a company named Thinking Rabbit which I've think of heard of once before. Oh wait I remember, their name was on the Famicom version of 8 Eyes! This is also the only Game Boy game that Minakuchi Engineering did not develop and it really shows. Let’s just get into it.

Well in terms of plot it’s actually quite detailed for the series standards. The game doesn’t actually have one when you start so you’ll have to read the manual. After the events of the first World game, I’m assuming Rockman 3 as well, Dr. Wily has a new ambitious idea. He’s about to steal a Time Machine from the Time-Space Research Laboratory. He steals it successfully and tries to go to the past but his plans are futile. He decides to do a new idea and go to the future instead. Meanwhile Rockman and Dr. Right try to figure out the culprit and thanks to Rush, they find out it’s Wily once again. As Wily heads in the future, we see a peaceful one where Rock is back to being a peaceful housekeeping robot. Dr. Wily has the dastardly idea to steal him and reprogram him into his new creation named Quint. Now Dr. Wily goes back to the present with Quint and it’s up to Rockman to stop not only Quint but revived Robot Masters as well. Wait a second Dr. Wily couldn’t go to the past but he can go back from the future to the present? Who designed this thing? Also don’t even bother asking how this wouldn’t cause time fabric issues or whatever, do you think they put much thought into this plot? Well at least they aren’t trying to hide it’s Wily this time.

Rockman controls a little better in this game. I remember thinking his movement in the first game was a little off and if it’s one thing I’ll give this game is they definitely improved it, especially with the platforming. He doesn’t feel hard to stop at all in this one. You can slide in this game like in Rockman 3 but for some reason you can’t jump out of it which I’m not sure was intentional design or not.

One thing for sure that isn’t as good is the stage design. A lot of the design feels like it was ripped from their respective stages on the Famicom. Now I know some of it is original but a lot of it seems to be copied. This makes the game a lot less interesting as it now just feels like you’re playing an inferior version of said Famicom games. Which is such a shame because I praised the first one for not doing this. Because of this, there just isn’t much to say except some of the changes I noticed. Metal Man’s stage has this really awful falling down section where you have to guess where the spikes are placed which was a problem I had with the second half of the previous game though at least it’s only in the beginning of the stage. Wood Man’s stage not only has a section where there’s water you can go in but it also has the needle hazard from Needle Man’s stage for some reason. Clash Man’s stage for some reason feels the most unique to me even if it still has a very similar feel with how it progresses vertically. Maybe it’s just the placement on level design. Look I’m not an expert on this stuff so apologies if there’s more that could be said. For the order I went Air -> Clash -> Metal -> Wood.

The Robot Masters once again are just previous ones meaning the way you beat them are the same. Though there are changes though mostly with damage outputs. Remember how strong Wood Man was with leaf shield? Now it does like 2 hp at you, like it caught me so off guard. Clash Man also takes so many Air Shooters that it drains all of its consumption. Air Man is easier in this one then he was in 2 since you have the slide. It also just doesn’t change the fact that not much effort needs to be done to win these.

Once again we must discuss special weapons for these four. Well I have some news for you! They completely screwed up the balance in this one. Metal Blades are once again completely broken but now for a new reason. Almost every weapon in this game uses way too much energy. Clash Bomb especially feels like it drains fast. Even Leaf Shield and Air Shooter don’t have much energy either. Maybe I’ve just never noticed in the Famicom game but these weapons just have such limited use because of it. Except for Metal Blade which still has a lot of ammo so you’ll probably be using it for most of the game. It’s not to say they’re all just useless but the limited ammo discourages me from bothering.

We also now have Rush make a debut for the handheld and you don’t even start with him. Yes they really make you unlock Rush Coil. There’s also Rush Jet and Rush Marine. Rush Jet works like how it did in 3 so have fun breaking some sections with it. Rush Marine also feels weird to control like it has some weight to it but you barely use it anyway so it’s not a big deal. Also idk why but whenever I use Rush Coil, he looks like he is in pain when I use him. I swear it looks weird like a couple of his pixels go away.

Now it’s time for Wily and we get a cutscene that sends us in a trap with the portals already. Oh so I guess that means it’s probably either rematches with the 2 Robot Masters or four Robot Masters from 3. Wrong! You’re doing four stages from Rockman 3! Yep you now have to go through Hard Man, Top Man, Needle Man, and Magnet Man’s stages. Even better is that these stages feel even less new than the previous stages which is just really awesome. There’s really not much to be said here except let me say this right now. This game is easy, like it might actually be the easiest game in the series. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with easy games but when a dumb girl like me could beat this back in the 3DS games with no save states and not get a single game over on the first playthrough, there’s a problem.

In fact, let me just rant for a bit. This game is just not programmed well compared to the first game. Remember how when you pick up energy or health refills it pauses the game to give it to you? Well here, it goes up and you can still move. So you could grab health and then take a hit and it’ll refill your health as all the units haven’t finished adding to you yet. Want to refill two weapons? Just fill one up, pause, and then switch to the other and you fill up two special weapons! Always thought grabbing ladders with no hands was cool? Well in this game just get hit and hold up and down and presto you can climb a ladder in your damaged animation! Did you know that Metal Blade in this game uses the wrong animation which shows Rockman shooting it with his Rock Buster. Then you have Clash Bomb where he uses his hands! I think they somehow swapped the animations by accident, how does this happen!? There’s probably one or two things I’m forgetting but there’s no excuse for this.

I’m not even gonna discuss the Rockman 3 Robot Master fights, just know they are the same so let’s just get on with the weapon discussion again. They all once again fall into the same problem of weapon consumption except maybe Hard Knuckle because I forgot to even use it, OOPS! Btw did I forget to mention that after the first four stages, you never get weapon refills after beating a stage. Why they did this I have no idea. You gotta love how they somehow screwed up Magnet Missile against Hard Man because they home in on his Hard Knuckles and not the actual boss! Top Spin just does not work at all. I swear the hitbox is broken on it. I’m timing the move correctly, why am I still getting hit. You know what’s screwed up? I learned Top Spin is good on those Hari Harry enemies in Needle Man’s stage, did any of you even know this?? Doesn’t mean anything because I’M STILL GETTING HIT WHEN I MAKE CONTACT!! Oh yeah Needle Cannon exists. I think it’s still just turbo fire Rock Buster, idk.

Alright you’ve done all the stages and it’s now time for Quint! Get ready for one of the worst fights in the franchise. What does he do? Well he uses a jackhammer robot named Sakugarne and uses short ranged rocks from the ground to hit you. He will also try to do a slow predictable jump on you. The fight ends in like 15-20 seconds. This fight I can’t tell was actually meant to be a joke or not. It’s seriously hard to tell. Well once you beat him you get Sakugarne. It’s strong and you can use it over spikes! The problem is that it lasts about 11 seconds with a full bar and worst of all, if the enemy doesn’t die in one hit, you take damage from using it. Remember how Enker’s weapon taught you how to use it thanks to the first enemy in the final stage being perfect for it. Here you have a Hammer Joe that doesn’t die in one hit meaning you take damage, how swell. Seriously, don't even bother with it.

The final stage takes place in a castle up in space that Rockman reaches using Rush. I’m guessing Dr. Right built that in his spare time after Rockman 3. The background has a lot of warped clocks which is weird. Is this the Time Machine responsible for this? Look there’s nothing much to say. It’s not challenging or even memorable so let’s just skip to Dr. Wily himself. Well first off they got the scale really off in this fight, He’s not even two Rockman sprites tall. He uses the Wily Machine World 2 and it’s got three phases. It’s not really that hard because you probably have 4 E-Tanks by this point so just try to dodge what you can and you’ll win. He doesn’t even need to lose all of his health for the first two phases to end. What a weird way to code that. Well with him defeated we…steal his ability? Yeah you get his weapon to shoot missiles. You teleport out and then Wily somehow escapes first, Rockman shoots a missile and then Wily…crashes onto the Earth. Wait, did he die? What, why is there no ending text to explain what happened, they can’t just end there! Well there is Rockman 4 so I guess we know he lived. Also this credits sequence IS JUST THE SAME ONE FROM ROCKMAN WORLD 1! It doesn't even make sense here since he was piloting Rush and wasn’t on a rocket ship this time. Also what about the Time Machine? OMG this game just angers me. I'm gonna lose it. What even happened to Quint? We saw him teleport away, did he go back to the future? Does Dr. Right reprogram him back to be good? We will never know I guess.

Graphically it’s nothing bad but it does feel off in some ways. With how they had to make some sprites smaller and just some look off like when Rockman slides. I know the first game also changed some sprites but it never looked off to me. Here it just can look amateurish at times. Though it’s not all bad like some of the Robot Masters look alright. It’s far from the game’s problems it already has. The music on the other hand though is decent and bad at the same time. I think there are good and decent melodies here but it’s ruined by how they sound. The pitch is way too high that it becomes ear grating and the instruments chosen just don’t sound correct at times. Usually I like to listen to the OST when writing but this time I listened to this video done by RushJet1 where he remade the OST and it sounds really good. It shows that the music wasn’t just awful in every way. Some of the sound effects sound really weird like getting a special weapon, refilling energy and then the 1-up sound which I swear sounds like a Mario sound effect. I should also mention that this game also has a unused song and it sounds just as ear grating as most of the OST.

Rockman World 2 is a disappointment. This isn’t just a flawed game. It gets a lot of things wrong and it being easy often makes it forgettable. Despite all of my hatred for what was done here, the game is not bad. It’s a bad Rockman game but it really goes to show how good the foundation was for the series and even that first GB game that even this can’t compare it to some of the trash found on the handheld. There’s much worse on the system but Rockman World 2 is easily one of the worst entries I’ll be reviewing in this series. I can’t recommend this one to anyone over the other entries on GB. It makes me wonder what could have been had the previous developers did this entry as well. Thankfully these times are over and we won’t be seeing anything of this quality for a little while. It’s time I head back to the Famicom with Rockman 5. We’re almost at the end of the Famicom tunnel with this series.

Oh and to mention one more thing they screwed up on. Clash Man is not Crash Man in the western release. I don’t even know how they screwed up considering they had to go in and change stuff like the title screen.

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.

Pretty good! I had a little moment with this one outside of the intended game, as I realised retroachievements had an achievement for beating each robot master buster only, and decided that sounded really fun, and you know what? It was! The mega-compact boss areas lend themselves really well to a tight back and forth combat that’s more engaging than just cheesing it with the correct weapon, and it forced me to be a better player and survive longer. And by freeing up my weapons I got to use them more in stages, which made those feel less limited. A winning strategy that I might do again in the future.

The 4 plus 4 approach to Robot Masters feels stronger here for the second wave all getting stages (and passwords, thankfully). It substantially fleshes the game out over its predecessor and gives the new dev team more space to work out what the hell a Mega Man game should even be. I feel like they do a fairly decent, if limited, job on these. Like none of these levels are memorable, and they all sound terrible, but they feel like Mega Man in a way that satisfies enough to keep you playing.

Wily is… too easy in this, and bizarrely small, though not as easy as Quint, a sub-boss so easy that he doesn’t even get a health bar. Still, you get a hilarious pogo stick/piledriver, which is a fun reward that late in the game.

Finally, a shout out to Rush, who once again gets to be good AND not be clothing, which is every dog’s dream. I enjoy seeing him next to Mega Man on the weapon get screen, one of the cutest in the franchise. I don’t want to keep judging these games by how they use Rush, but I’m quickly realising that he’s the canary down the coal mine for Mega Man. Happy dog, happy life. Three stars.

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

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