Angel_Arle Rockman reviews
Part 1: Rockman for Famicom
Part 3: Rockman 3: Dr. Wily no Saigo!? for Famicom
Part 4: Rockman World for GB
Part 5: Rockman 4: Aratanaru Yabou!! for Famicom
Part 6: Rockman World 2 for GB
Part 7: Rockman 5: Blues no Wana!? for Famicom
Part 8: Rockman World 3 for GB
Part 9: Wily & Right no RockBoard: That's Paradise for Famicom
Part 10: Rockman World 4 for GB
Part 11: Rockman 6: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai!! for Famicom
Part 12: Rockman's Soccer for Super Famicom
Part 13: Rockman World 5 for GB
Well I decided I will be continuing doing these Rockman reviews at least until I get tired of them. So hope you’re all ready for me to go on deep analysis on many of these games because it’s going to be a big journey. Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo (translated as Rockman 2: The Mystery of Dr. Wily) is a direct sequel to that first game. What started as a side project due to Capcom not really approving a sequel at first went to become a big hit when it arrived on the Famicom. In fact Rockman 2 for the longest time was the best selling game in the entire Rockman franchise. It’s cited as not only one of the best games in the series but just on the Famicom alone, it’s that popular. Even in western territories it’s popular. Though nowadays you might find people who will bash it calling it overrated. Where do I stand? Well I gave it a replay so let’s dig into it.
One thing you’ll notice as you begin playing is now there are 8 robot masters to choose from. This was something they wanted to do in the first game but now it’s finally been fulfilled here. The game itself though is the same as before, you can jump and shoot and still climb those ladders like there’s no tomorrow. This time your opponents will be Bubble Man, Air Man, Quick Man, Heat Man, Wood Man, Metal Man, Flash Man, and Clash Man. There’s even a plot this time where Dr. Wily is back and is out for revenge on you and unlike last time, he created these bad bots to destroy you for good so it’s off to defeat all eight and defeat Dr. Wily once more and Roll will once again do nothing, she isn’t even in the credits this time.
The controls have been a little improved from last time, you don’t have as much delay when beginning to move which will feel really nice for anyone who didn’t like that aspect of the original game. Rockman still has the plasma cannon to defeat enemies and it works as well as it did last time. Sadly if you were hoping to have anything from the 1st game well you don’t, it’s all gone. Rockman also has new physics for being in water where he jumps very high so be careful as this can end being the death of you if unaware of surroundings. One big improvement is they fixed his air momentum where in the previous games you could sometimes plummet really fast though there’s now a new issue. If you pause in the air while you’re falling fast, you can delete all that speed you have, meaning sections that time your movement while falling really fast have absolutely no challenge to them.
Stage design has really improved since last game with not only better theming to them overall but adding some really cool ideas. You have stuff like being in the sky and riding on clouds and jumping on strange giant red platforms in Air Man’s stage, Fighting various robotic wildlife in a forest for Wood Man’s stage with a strong mini boss in the middle of the stage, and icey physics and a top route that will reward you with an E-tank for your platforming skills in Flash Man’s stage. Oh yeah this game brought in a new item called E-tanks where you can have up to four and using one will refill all of your health so make sure to collect one if you can! Just be careful as a game over will get rid of any you have. While stages are much better here they also aren’t perfect. One of the main problems I have is just the difficulty of it all. Though this really depends what stages you do in what order. If you’re wondering what order I did it was: Heat -> Wood -> Air -> Clash -> Quick -> Metal -> Flash -> Bubble. Because of this I had to do the really hard appearing blocks section in Heat Man’s stage and Quick Man’s trial and error instant death laser section. While I’ll compliment the game for having ways to make levels easier, I do think it makes the difficulty feel very inconsistent which I felt like the first game wasn’t too bad about doing.
Boss doors also now just act as a checkpoint and you fight the Robot Master immediately so don’t worry about any obstacles here. They got all new strategies to take you down so let me go over them. Bubble Man has you with him in the water with spikes at the top which is pretty evil though Wily programmed him to only be able to move while in the air making him pretty easy to hit. Air Man has a weak defense but his tornados are hard to dodge and block your attacks so it’s best to hit him as his tornadoes are gone or as he’s jumping to the other side. Quick Man is hard like you’ll need some practice as he loves to jump around and dash at you and his stage layout benefits him way more than you, he even shoots quick boomerangs at you giving you even more to dodge. Heat Man is pretty easy as he’ll shoot three projectiles and he’ll try to dash at you everytime you hit him, it’s very easy to put him in a loop till he’s down making him an easy first stage if you can master his stage. Wood Man can hit you hard with his leaves and even throws his shield at you as you’re dodging other leaves so you better beat him fast if possible. Metal Man likes to change the conveyor belt movement during the fight and throws fast metal blades at you when you shoot at him so just don’t let the belt get to you. Flash Man really only moves around and does tiny jumps until he stops time and gets a free easy shot on you if he has you in his sight. Clash Man likes to attack as you attack so try to recognize that and learn a safe pattern to knock him down. The robot masters here are still great compared to the ones from last game and I’d argue are down better here and provide a nice fight to end off some already good stages.
Once again you’ll get weapons from each one that use up limited ammo that can be refilled by the same pickups from before though now they have a new design along with the life ups. Now it’s once again time for me to rate all the weapons that will no doubt make this paragraph massive. First we have Bubble Lead from Bubble Man which is one of the worst weapons in the series like I’m not joking. It’s meant to move forward on the ground but it’s never useful anywhere outside of a few invisible pits in a Wily stage but once you know that, it’s pretty much worthless besides maybe killing those roomba things. Air Shooter from Air Man is okay but it’s only good in niche situations due to just not really being helpful for enemies you think it be good for. Quick Boomerang from Quick Man is really good and I’d argue underrated! You not only have a ton of ammo for the move but it’s got rapid fire and its angle makes it good for hitting some enemies like the monkeys in Wood Man’s stage. Atomic Fire from Heat Man is bad and has very limited use due to the large amount of charge time on it and limited ammo, you can only fully charge twice with a full bar. Leaf shield from Wood Man is good. It’s got nice utility protecting you from many things especially with stuff that constantly spawns and can even make for good refill stations, sadly you throw the shield if you move with it limiting some of its possible use. Metal Blade from Metal Man is busted and you all know this so I’m not even gonna bother explaining it. Time Stopper from Flash Man lets you stop time but you can’t shoot during the move and you can’t cancel it meaning you have to use a full bar of it. That said it can be useful like stopping the lasers in Quick Man’s stage or to skip the mini bosses of Wood Man’s stage, it’s just a shame its negatives bring it down so much. Clash Bomb from Clash Man can be used as a normal projectile but can even break down specific walls with the explosion. Sadly its ammo is very small leading it to not be as useful as one could hope. Now while the magnet beam is gone, never fear! Dr. Right is here to help as after defeating three specific robot masters, you’ll get one of the 3 items to use for stages. They all specialize in having a use to find items you normally can’t reach and it’s best you try to get them early if you know where they’re at. Sadly the weapon balancing isn’t as good as one can hope but I’d still argue that metal blade isn’t the only good weapon here, that said however I’d argue the first game had better balancing even if two of the weapons were atrocious in that game.
Like before, once you finish every stage it’s now time to face Wily. He even has a map to show you the progress you’re making which is pretty cool. The stages here can be pretty tricky and make good use of your weapons including the items but be careful as like before, weapons don’t restore on ammo as you use them in stages so make sure you preserve it as much as possible. Thankfully there’s no more of that bs of being forced to get an item to beat a stage that you weren’t told to do. That said the balancing of it kind of reminds me of the first where the first two stages are harder than the last few in the game. It even feels like by the end they were running out of time. Stage 4 has some pretty poor enemy placement, Stage 5 is just a boss rush room, and Stage 6 is just a hallway with barely any obstacles in your way. While I do feel this is the weakest part of the game, at least the first two stages offer a nice challenge.
The bosses here also suffer from this same problem. It starts out so good too. You have to run away from a mecha dragon as you do tight platforming and then you fight him on three tiny platforms as he can instantly kill you via touch damage and even has fire that does a lot of knockback on you. Tip from me, just be on the top block as knockback won’t get you killed. Next is a guard room with these things called Picopico-kun that come from the walls to attack you and do a lot of damage, just be aware of the spots it's already been in and use Bubble Lead and it’ll be down quickly. Next is a…Guts tank? What the heck, why base it off Gutsman? Come to think of it, there were also those statues from Rockman 1, what does Wily think he’s like peak robot form or something? Regardless, just stand on the left edge of his tank and fire away with boomerangs and he’s out, what a riveting fight. The boobeam trap though for stage 4, screw this stupid fight! You need to kill it with clash bomb but you have to navigate through it a certain way or you won’t have enough to defeat it meaning you’ll have to die and grind for more energy to refill the ammo, easily the worst part of the game and I have no clue who thought this was ok, I’d take Yellow Devil over this stupid thing anyday. After the boss rush you’ll fight Wily Machine 2 where he forgot to make his machine fire resistant this time and then you can chuck metal blades at him till he’s done for, he does do a lot of damage so try to keep an E-tank if you can just in case, you wouldn’t want to do that boss rush again now would you? Though you can kill Metal Man in 2 hits with his own weapon so maybe that be funny to see twice. Wily does have one more trick however because he was an alien this entire time! That’s right he’s fighting back without machines and he even heals from all of your weapons except for Bubble Lead. Once you defeat him for good you find out it was just a projection to fake his look…what? Well I guess he’s done now because he begs for forgiveness as Rockman just…leaves I guess. I never understood what the ending meant but maybe I’m too stupid. For now, Rockman can rest easy knowing Wily knows not to tempt evil anymore.
Graphically, Rockman 2 is a big improvement over last game. I mean just the intro alone will amaze you as it’s a vast improvement over the simple title screen of the 1st game. Stages having more varied locations help the look of each one really stand out and while the game isn't hesitant to still use single color backgrounds at times like in Clash Man’s stage, the positives do outweigh it. The enemy designs are also improved having a lot more fun designs to even match the levels more just giving those levels more of an identity. If there is one complaint I do have is the sprite flickering. It’s horrible and happens a lot and I can’t stand it during the Mecha Dragon fight. Later rereleases and emulation can at least make it more bearable so you can at least rely on those. The music is also legendary stuff with almost every theme being great. Really the only stage theme I don’t like is the 2nd theme for the Wily levels, it’s very droning and annoying. Some would argue this is one of the best OSTs in the franchise but to me it’s up there but not my favorite. I also love how the beginning of the ending theme from the last game is used as the same beginning piece as the intro song before going into a brand new melody, it’s so good. If you somehow haven’t listened to it, do it when you can!
Rockman 2 really did launch what was a beginning for Capcom into a greater galaxy. Rockman 2 wasn’t just a sequel, it was a burst of light that showed Rockman wasn’t just a one and done idea and this game proves that. While I don’t love the game as much as other people do, replaying this game made me realize how my older score doesn't really match with how I feel about the game. It does have issues don’t get me wrong but it also improves so much of the 1st game that it makes up for that. I still think you should play the 1st Rockman first before playing this but Rockman 2 is still a must play for anyone who hasn’t tried it already. There are still 4 more Famicom games left to tackle so I’m very curious how I’ll feel about those when I get to replaying them. To this day I’ve played this game countless times and I’ll continue to replay the game in the near future, thank you Capcom for this awesome game!
Part 1: Rockman for Famicom
Part 3: Rockman 3: Dr. Wily no Saigo!? for Famicom
Part 4: Rockman World for GB
Part 5: Rockman 4: Aratanaru Yabou!! for Famicom
Part 6: Rockman World 2 for GB
Part 7: Rockman 5: Blues no Wana!? for Famicom
Part 8: Rockman World 3 for GB
Part 9: Wily & Right no RockBoard: That's Paradise for Famicom
Part 10: Rockman World 4 for GB
Part 11: Rockman 6: Shijō Saidai no Tatakai!! for Famicom
Part 12: Rockman's Soccer for Super Famicom
Part 13: Rockman World 5 for GB
Well I decided I will be continuing doing these Rockman reviews at least until I get tired of them. So hope you’re all ready for me to go on deep analysis on many of these games because it’s going to be a big journey. Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo (translated as Rockman 2: The Mystery of Dr. Wily) is a direct sequel to that first game. What started as a side project due to Capcom not really approving a sequel at first went to become a big hit when it arrived on the Famicom. In fact Rockman 2 for the longest time was the best selling game in the entire Rockman franchise. It’s cited as not only one of the best games in the series but just on the Famicom alone, it’s that popular. Even in western territories it’s popular. Though nowadays you might find people who will bash it calling it overrated. Where do I stand? Well I gave it a replay so let’s dig into it.
One thing you’ll notice as you begin playing is now there are 8 robot masters to choose from. This was something they wanted to do in the first game but now it’s finally been fulfilled here. The game itself though is the same as before, you can jump and shoot and still climb those ladders like there’s no tomorrow. This time your opponents will be Bubble Man, Air Man, Quick Man, Heat Man, Wood Man, Metal Man, Flash Man, and Clash Man. There’s even a plot this time where Dr. Wily is back and is out for revenge on you and unlike last time, he created these bad bots to destroy you for good so it’s off to defeat all eight and defeat Dr. Wily once more and Roll will once again do nothing, she isn’t even in the credits this time.
The controls have been a little improved from last time, you don’t have as much delay when beginning to move which will feel really nice for anyone who didn’t like that aspect of the original game. Rockman still has the plasma cannon to defeat enemies and it works as well as it did last time. Sadly if you were hoping to have anything from the 1st game well you don’t, it’s all gone. Rockman also has new physics for being in water where he jumps very high so be careful as this can end being the death of you if unaware of surroundings. One big improvement is they fixed his air momentum where in the previous games you could sometimes plummet really fast though there’s now a new issue. If you pause in the air while you’re falling fast, you can delete all that speed you have, meaning sections that time your movement while falling really fast have absolutely no challenge to them.
Stage design has really improved since last game with not only better theming to them overall but adding some really cool ideas. You have stuff like being in the sky and riding on clouds and jumping on strange giant red platforms in Air Man’s stage, Fighting various robotic wildlife in a forest for Wood Man’s stage with a strong mini boss in the middle of the stage, and icey physics and a top route that will reward you with an E-tank for your platforming skills in Flash Man’s stage. Oh yeah this game brought in a new item called E-tanks where you can have up to four and using one will refill all of your health so make sure to collect one if you can! Just be careful as a game over will get rid of any you have. While stages are much better here they also aren’t perfect. One of the main problems I have is just the difficulty of it all. Though this really depends what stages you do in what order. If you’re wondering what order I did it was: Heat -> Wood -> Air -> Clash -> Quick -> Metal -> Flash -> Bubble. Because of this I had to do the really hard appearing blocks section in Heat Man’s stage and Quick Man’s trial and error instant death laser section. While I’ll compliment the game for having ways to make levels easier, I do think it makes the difficulty feel very inconsistent which I felt like the first game wasn’t too bad about doing.
Boss doors also now just act as a checkpoint and you fight the Robot Master immediately so don’t worry about any obstacles here. They got all new strategies to take you down so let me go over them. Bubble Man has you with him in the water with spikes at the top which is pretty evil though Wily programmed him to only be able to move while in the air making him pretty easy to hit. Air Man has a weak defense but his tornados are hard to dodge and block your attacks so it’s best to hit him as his tornadoes are gone or as he’s jumping to the other side. Quick Man is hard like you’ll need some practice as he loves to jump around and dash at you and his stage layout benefits him way more than you, he even shoots quick boomerangs at you giving you even more to dodge. Heat Man is pretty easy as he’ll shoot three projectiles and he’ll try to dash at you everytime you hit him, it’s very easy to put him in a loop till he’s down making him an easy first stage if you can master his stage. Wood Man can hit you hard with his leaves and even throws his shield at you as you’re dodging other leaves so you better beat him fast if possible. Metal Man likes to change the conveyor belt movement during the fight and throws fast metal blades at you when you shoot at him so just don’t let the belt get to you. Flash Man really only moves around and does tiny jumps until he stops time and gets a free easy shot on you if he has you in his sight. Clash Man likes to attack as you attack so try to recognize that and learn a safe pattern to knock him down. The robot masters here are still great compared to the ones from last game and I’d argue are down better here and provide a nice fight to end off some already good stages.
Once again you’ll get weapons from each one that use up limited ammo that can be refilled by the same pickups from before though now they have a new design along with the life ups. Now it’s once again time for me to rate all the weapons that will no doubt make this paragraph massive. First we have Bubble Lead from Bubble Man which is one of the worst weapons in the series like I’m not joking. It’s meant to move forward on the ground but it’s never useful anywhere outside of a few invisible pits in a Wily stage but once you know that, it’s pretty much worthless besides maybe killing those roomba things. Air Shooter from Air Man is okay but it’s only good in niche situations due to just not really being helpful for enemies you think it be good for. Quick Boomerang from Quick Man is really good and I’d argue underrated! You not only have a ton of ammo for the move but it’s got rapid fire and its angle makes it good for hitting some enemies like the monkeys in Wood Man’s stage. Atomic Fire from Heat Man is bad and has very limited use due to the large amount of charge time on it and limited ammo, you can only fully charge twice with a full bar. Leaf shield from Wood Man is good. It’s got nice utility protecting you from many things especially with stuff that constantly spawns and can even make for good refill stations, sadly you throw the shield if you move with it limiting some of its possible use. Metal Blade from Metal Man is busted and you all know this so I’m not even gonna bother explaining it. Time Stopper from Flash Man lets you stop time but you can’t shoot during the move and you can’t cancel it meaning you have to use a full bar of it. That said it can be useful like stopping the lasers in Quick Man’s stage or to skip the mini bosses of Wood Man’s stage, it’s just a shame its negatives bring it down so much. Clash Bomb from Clash Man can be used as a normal projectile but can even break down specific walls with the explosion. Sadly its ammo is very small leading it to not be as useful as one could hope. Now while the magnet beam is gone, never fear! Dr. Right is here to help as after defeating three specific robot masters, you’ll get one of the 3 items to use for stages. They all specialize in having a use to find items you normally can’t reach and it’s best you try to get them early if you know where they’re at. Sadly the weapon balancing isn’t as good as one can hope but I’d still argue that metal blade isn’t the only good weapon here, that said however I’d argue the first game had better balancing even if two of the weapons were atrocious in that game.
Like before, once you finish every stage it’s now time to face Wily. He even has a map to show you the progress you’re making which is pretty cool. The stages here can be pretty tricky and make good use of your weapons including the items but be careful as like before, weapons don’t restore on ammo as you use them in stages so make sure you preserve it as much as possible. Thankfully there’s no more of that bs of being forced to get an item to beat a stage that you weren’t told to do. That said the balancing of it kind of reminds me of the first where the first two stages are harder than the last few in the game. It even feels like by the end they were running out of time. Stage 4 has some pretty poor enemy placement, Stage 5 is just a boss rush room, and Stage 6 is just a hallway with barely any obstacles in your way. While I do feel this is the weakest part of the game, at least the first two stages offer a nice challenge.
The bosses here also suffer from this same problem. It starts out so good too. You have to run away from a mecha dragon as you do tight platforming and then you fight him on three tiny platforms as he can instantly kill you via touch damage and even has fire that does a lot of knockback on you. Tip from me, just be on the top block as knockback won’t get you killed. Next is a guard room with these things called Picopico-kun that come from the walls to attack you and do a lot of damage, just be aware of the spots it's already been in and use Bubble Lead and it’ll be down quickly. Next is a…Guts tank? What the heck, why base it off Gutsman? Come to think of it, there were also those statues from Rockman 1, what does Wily think he’s like peak robot form or something? Regardless, just stand on the left edge of his tank and fire away with boomerangs and he’s out, what a riveting fight. The boobeam trap though for stage 4, screw this stupid fight! You need to kill it with clash bomb but you have to navigate through it a certain way or you won’t have enough to defeat it meaning you’ll have to die and grind for more energy to refill the ammo, easily the worst part of the game and I have no clue who thought this was ok, I’d take Yellow Devil over this stupid thing anyday. After the boss rush you’ll fight Wily Machine 2 where he forgot to make his machine fire resistant this time and then you can chuck metal blades at him till he’s done for, he does do a lot of damage so try to keep an E-tank if you can just in case, you wouldn’t want to do that boss rush again now would you? Though you can kill Metal Man in 2 hits with his own weapon so maybe that be funny to see twice. Wily does have one more trick however because he was an alien this entire time! That’s right he’s fighting back without machines and he even heals from all of your weapons except for Bubble Lead. Once you defeat him for good you find out it was just a projection to fake his look…what? Well I guess he’s done now because he begs for forgiveness as Rockman just…leaves I guess. I never understood what the ending meant but maybe I’m too stupid. For now, Rockman can rest easy knowing Wily knows not to tempt evil anymore.
Graphically, Rockman 2 is a big improvement over last game. I mean just the intro alone will amaze you as it’s a vast improvement over the simple title screen of the 1st game. Stages having more varied locations help the look of each one really stand out and while the game isn't hesitant to still use single color backgrounds at times like in Clash Man’s stage, the positives do outweigh it. The enemy designs are also improved having a lot more fun designs to even match the levels more just giving those levels more of an identity. If there is one complaint I do have is the sprite flickering. It’s horrible and happens a lot and I can’t stand it during the Mecha Dragon fight. Later rereleases and emulation can at least make it more bearable so you can at least rely on those. The music is also legendary stuff with almost every theme being great. Really the only stage theme I don’t like is the 2nd theme for the Wily levels, it’s very droning and annoying. Some would argue this is one of the best OSTs in the franchise but to me it’s up there but not my favorite. I also love how the beginning of the ending theme from the last game is used as the same beginning piece as the intro song before going into a brand new melody, it’s so good. If you somehow haven’t listened to it, do it when you can!
Rockman 2 really did launch what was a beginning for Capcom into a greater galaxy. Rockman 2 wasn’t just a sequel, it was a burst of light that showed Rockman wasn’t just a one and done idea and this game proves that. While I don’t love the game as much as other people do, replaying this game made me realize how my older score doesn't really match with how I feel about the game. It does have issues don’t get me wrong but it also improves so much of the 1st game that it makes up for that. I still think you should play the 1st Rockman first before playing this but Rockman 2 is still a must play for anyone who hasn’t tried it already. There are still 4 more Famicom games left to tackle so I’m very curious how I’ll feel about those when I get to replaying them. To this day I’ve played this game countless times and I’ll continue to replay the game in the near future, thank you Capcom for this awesome game!