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.

Very painless. And for this series, that makes it above average in my eyes. Nothing to really praise or anything but the hour I took to beat this game left me feeling more positive than I usually am after playing a Mega Man game not gonna lie. It's a very easy game but to be fair NES MM2 is also one of the easier games in the series to begin with. I can definitely see my 7 year old self getting pretty into this one if I played it back in the day. If you love hearing the Gameboy squeal in agony you'll love the soundtrack. Lucky for this game, I'm a 100 gecs fan and I'm into that sort of thing. (But seriously the compositions are great, the soundfont choice is baffling, even if I do get a kick out of it anyway)

Overall a nice palette cleanser if you're doing a bit of a Mega Man marathon. For a series that at the time was getting 2-3 games a year you'd think the Gameboy version would be a LOT worse. I suppose it helps that the games its based on are very simple to begin with.

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

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.

Its fine I guess. Its nothing too special. The music sucks though. Its too high pitched for my liking. The game is kind of a pushover. Once you get the metal blade, the other weapons are practically useless. The bosses are all super easy. I beat all of them with just the buster. Air Man and Wood Man can literally be beaten by standing still and just spamming shots lmao. It controls well though, which is a huge improvement over the first one, but I don't think its nearly as fun. This one is just kind of boring in comparison. Its still good, but like that's all it is.

It's more or less everything that the previous Gameboy game was, but this time taking elements from Mega Man 2 & 3 and making new level layouts around them. It seems like they were trying to play catch-up to the NES games by squeezing levels from two games. Makes you wonder if they were in a rush or something. The one big plus of this game over the prior one is that the final stage isn't bullshit, and the game's level of difficulty stays consistently good (if not a bit too easy sometimes) from beginning to end. The amount of main stages has also been bumped up from 4 to 8, like the NES games. Once again, it's worth playing as a Mega Man fan, but can probably be skipped otherwise.

The most bizarre and talked about part of this game is the soundtrack. They could've done what all the other Gameboy games did and just reuse music from the NES entries, but they opted to go for an original soundtrack here instead. And it doesn't take much of an ear to figure out just how ridiculously dissonant it is, just how high-pitched these instruments are. There was a rumor that this was an accident while importing the songs into the game, but I don't know how true it is.

Even if we ignore the headache-inducing pitch, the other weird thing is just how... sad it sounds? The previous Mega Man games emphasized a sound that bordered between dangerous and heroic, incoporating elements of jazz alongside it. Mega Man II's soundtrack gets kind of close to that, but it sounds more like someone just died. Or there was an apocalypse happening. And weirdly enough, I kinda like how some of it sounds, but in any case, it certainly doesn't carry the element of hope that it should for a hero character like Mega Man.

Anyway, you've got two options on how to deal with this soundtrack. Either lower the volume, or get a romhack that lowers the pitch. Once you deal with that problem, you end up with 1 pretty alright hour of Mega Man gameplay. I liked it, as weird as it was tonally.

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.

Ignoring the blatant disregard the composer had for the project when configuring the music (comfirmed btw, dude apologized publicly about it).

This game isn't much worse than base Mega Man 2, i know it isn't even close to being the same game, but weirdly enough, much of the same issues still apply.

It's a very fun game with some nonsensical enemy placement at times, and bonus point to MMII over MM2 for not having absolute garbage for final stages.

Would definitely recommend as a time waster if you don't mind playing on mute.

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?

Maybe it's just relief to actually enjoy Mega Man again after coming from Dr. Wily's Revenge, but Mega Man II was a way more enjoyable experience than I was expecting. Nothing flashy, or even anything amazing. But just coherent, well put together levels and action platforming that you've come to enjoy from the Mega Man series. The focus on vertical stages instead of the typical screen scroll was much appreciated, and even the traditional screen scroll sections felt much better by comparison.

Still it's a Game Boy Mega Man title, so it's nothing spectacular. The music is actually...worse somehow from the previous game, which blows. Also sucks there's no original Mega Man Killer in this game. But outside of some minor level design gripes, this is a title much more respectful of your time.