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Mega Man 2 NES Box Art

I am on a streak of excellent game reviews, to give you the reader an idea of how I take into account certain things about a game.  By showing you what I think the BEST games are, I can show you some mediocre and horrible games later.  But not today!  Today we have one of the greatest entries in what may be one of the top 5 video game franchises ever, Mega Man 2.  A little background, the original Mega Man arrived on the Nintendo Entertainment System 18 months prior to this entry, and was well received by critics, but virtually unknown by players.  However, with the incarnation of Nintendo Power, Capcom made it quite clear that Mega Man 2 was THE game to have in the summer of 1989.  Full page spreads, maps, posters, colorful artwork; this game could not go unnoticed.  The game stars Mega Man the protagonist fighting off the evil Dr. Wily and his 8 Robot Masters: Bubble Man, Air Man, Crash Man, Wood Man, Heat Man, Quick Man, Metal Man, and Flash Man.

The Mega Man games were unique at the time, because it allowed the player to choose what level to start with. (Although if you started with Quick Man, he lives up to his name, and you quickly die.)  After a robot master was defeated, Mega Man could acquire his weapon to use against future enemies in other levels.  Trial and error was needed to find out what weapons the 8 robot masters were weak against.  There are energy and weapon power-ups scattered throughout the levels, and Energy Tanks which the player could collect and save when they needed an extra burst of health during battle.  A password feature using a unique grid system was also implemented, allowing the player to continue later and still leave the same robot masters as defeated.  This obviously takes away the challenge presented by the original Mega Man game, but I think Capcom may have done this on purpose….

Capcom knew that as a second entry in the franchise it had to do EVERYTHING right.  Marketing, gameplay, soundtrack, difficulty.  It all had to be balanced..  If something wasn’t right, it would get lost in the sea of other NES games that flooded the market at the time.  

Mega Man 2 - Stage Select for the 8 Robot Masters

You have to think, this game was going up against some big names at the time!  Super Mario 2, The Legend of Zelda, Ninja Gaiden, and Contra were all out before Mega Man 2.  This game had to be the best.  And it is.  The graphics are impressive by NES standards, giving us HUGE sprites, some bosses taking up the entire screen!  The gameplay is solid. Mega Man controls exactly how you want him to control, if Mega Man falls into a pit of lava, it’s because you made him fall. The soundtrack is excellent.  So excellent that I have it playing in my iTunes right now as I am writing this. All stages have a catchy tune from start to finish, there isn’t a dull one in the bunch.

The difficulty varies.  Most stages allow the player to blast through the level with basic run-and-gun tactics to get through, however others require the player to utilize logic such as to find the correct path of disappearing blocks over the Heat Man lava pool, or the correct pattern to navigate through those damn laser beams in Quick Man’s stage.  There is even one part in Dr. Wily’s castle where if you don’t conserve a certain weapon for use on the Turret Boss at the end of the level, Mega Man cannot defeat his rival and must start the stage over.  When you first play any Mega Man game it can be very overwhelming on what stage to choose first, what weapons to use on the boss, etc.  However, I think Capcom encouraged magazines such as Nintendo Power to include the level maps, secrets, and boss weaknesses on purpose.  They wanted you to progress.  They wanted 7-year old Chris and 5-year old Sean to see the giant dragon in Dr. Wily’s castle.  They wanted the public to say “This game is awesome, you have to try/rent/buy it.”  

Mega Man 2 - Wood Man's stage battling the Fire Dog.

And they succeeded. It was just right.  The password system worked well and had players coming back for more. However, Capcom was smart and added in a “difficult” game in addition to the regular mode.  This allowed pro-players to run through the game with harder enemies, and potentially take more damage.

The game as a whole is a masterpiece, and I hope that everyone who worked on it got a raise, which I am sure they did after sales of the game were phemonemal and eventually spawning many successful sequels on almost every console some of which include SNES, Game Boy, Game Gear, Saturn, Playstation, Nintendo 64, and an all new downloadable game on Wii, 360, and PS3.  This game is relatively easy to find as it sold millions of copies.  The NES cartridge will run you about $10-$12 but you can also find it on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for Gamecube, Xbox, and Playstation 2.  Also, Mega Man 2 is available on the Wii Virtual Console for download for a measly 500pts. ($5)  Get equipped with Mega Man 2. 10/10 -C