Mega Man 2 (NES) Review

MEGA MAN 2 REVIEW

I feel like in the late 80’s Capcom really hit their stride, some excellent titles in

the arcades and on home consoles as well.  They had a deal with Disney to make

games for the NES and were also bringing games based on their arcade titles

home to the console as well.

Top it off, they were bringing out some original games, one of which being the

first Mega Man game, which didn’t sell as well as Capcom hoped, but as long as

it wouldn’t interfere with other games they were working on, Mega Man creator

Keiji Inane and his team could create a sequel.  What came of it wasn’t just the

best selling Mega Man game ever made, but also one of my absolute favorite NES

games.

If you’ve never played the original Mega Man, truth be told you’re not missing out

on much.    The gist of the gameplay and story don’t really change all that much 

from one game to the other, at least not until later games in the series.  You just

choose you stage and jump and shoot your way through it.  If you beat the robot

master, you add his weapon to your arsenal, just like every other Mega Man game.

I honestly don’t think I ever played the original until not that long ago.  It’s quite

difficult and pales in comparisons to it’s sequels.  Frankly, I think you can just skip

it and jump right into Mega Man 2.

After defeating Dr. Wily in the last game, the evil doctor vowed his revenge and 

builds 8 new robot masters to take down the blue bomber.  The enemies in this

installment are Air Man, Bubble Man, Metal Man, Flash Man, Wood Man, Heat

Man, Crash Man and Quick Man.  Just as before, each master has a weakness

to another’s attack.  That’s the “rock, paper scissors” mechanic which is why the

main character is called Rock Man in Japan.  With this game, even though the

Masters are all weak to certain attacks, Metal Man’s metal blade attack is kind

of overpowered, and without a doubt the most effective weapon in the game.

Another neat addition in this game are the three travel abilities you pick up as

you progress in the game which create bouncing or hovering platforms, and

even a rocket sled to help you past tricky platforms.  This evolved into Rush the

robot dog which appeared in later games, but that’s for another review.

Making this go around much more manageable than its predecessor, this game

introduced the password feature and the Energy tanks, two features which the

series is known for.  Also the standard difficulty setting of the Japanese version

is what we call the “difficult” setting on the US version.  Enemies take more

damage from Mega Man’s attacks in this “normal” setting, making things even

more approachable for a new player, I didn’t get my NES until December of 

1988, so platform games were all new to me at that point.

From what little I’ve seen of the original Mega Man, it just seems kind of dull

when it comes to the visual design.  Mega Man 2 was a big improvement, the

enemies and stages have a lot more personality and way more interesting to

look at.  The color schemes background detail are so unique and have great

variety to them.

One thing I know I’ve mentioned many, many times over is the music.  While

Manami Matsumae, who is one of my favorite game composers did the first 

Mega Man game, it was Takashi Tateishi who did most of the composition and

arrangement in this game, and he did some amazing work here.  I’ve always felt

that the Flash Man stage music was simply infectious and has ben ingrained

into my brain for the past 26 years.  The rest of the music is just as good.

As many of you know, Mega Man went on from this to become one of the

biggest franchises in video games, I think only Mario has more games as a whole

to his credit.  None of it would have happened it if wasn’t for Mega Man 2.  

Inafune-san himself said so.  Capcom could have just as easily swept our

android hero under the rug and the gaming world would have been a completely

different place,

If you’ve never played any Mega Man games, this is probably one of the best

places to start.  Especially if its the classic series that you want to tackle.  It’s

a widely available game, found on many downloadable services, mobile phones,

Virtual Console, you name it.  There was also a compilation of the classic Mega

Man games to the GameCube, PS2 and original Xbox.  I’ve played the PS2

version, and I wasn’t a big fan of the arranged music and the controls seemed a

little off.  Regardless, if you’re into classic platform games, this is one of the

essentials.