Review 15: Mega Man 2 (NES)

Mega Man: Capcom's masterpiece series. The Blue Bomber has been in the gaming industry for more than 20 years now, and it seems that he's far from stopping. The Megaman series, also known as Rockman in Japan, has spawned several spin-off series, cartoons, figurines, and more, and it all came from one small game with very low expectations: Mega Man. That game started off everything we see today. However, it did not sell very well in comparison to some other games. Nonetheless, Capcom decided to make a sequel, and that sequel, Mega Man 2, may just be the reason you see the familiar blue robot today.

Story: 6/10

Actually, basically the only bit of plot in the entire story is that after Mega Man defeated the evil Doctor Wily in the previous game, Wily later counteracted with 8 of his own robots: Metal Man, Quick Man, Flash Man, Crash Man, Air Man, Heat Man, Bubble Man and Wood Man. Of course, Mega Man is able to beat all of them, and makes his way through Wily's Castle, where he defeats Wily again, and Wily begs for forgiveness, upon which Mega Man spares him and returns home.

Although this short plot would have been typical for some NES games, I am downgrading this because even the previous game had more story than this, when it explains Dr. Wily was a colleague of Dr. Light's, the one who created Mega Man, who soon turned bitter and set his efforts on world domination, and re-modified 6 of Light's robots to help him. Here, it just states that Wily built 8 robots to stop Mega Man. This game has the least plot of all the Mega Man games, and even though it didn't have to have a plot, I feel Capcom could have done better.

Gameplay: 9/10

Like every other Mega Man game, the game consists of you choosing a Robot Master's level from a menu without a specific order. Each Robot Master has a different quality: Heat Man is a fire boss and is able to throw flames at you and light himself up, and Flash Man can freeze time while shooting at you so that you can't dodge. The bosses' stages usually have something to do with the boss: Bubble Man's stage has water-based enemies and a section of it is underwater, while Air Man's stage is up high in the clouds with many instant death pits. Of course, at the end of every stage, you must face the Robot Master you chose as the boss. Upon their defeat, you gain their signature weapon.

After the defeat of all 8 Robot Masters, you have to go through Dr. Wily's Castle, which is linear and is composed of 6 stages which have even more bosses at the end. After you beat the last stage, you have beaten the game.

The gameplay of 2 is generally the same as the first one, where you fire your Mega Buster or whatever weapon you've gotten from the Robot Masters at the enemies of the stages while trying to reach the end. However, there were some likable additions, including E-Tanks, a staple of the series, which let you regain all your health, and Items 1, 2 and 3, which let you rise above the air with 3 rising platforms at a time, let you zoom across a stage on a jet sled, and let you ride up walls with a climbing platform, respectively. Because most NES games didn't have saving systems yet, Mega Man 2 also introduced a password system, which continued on 'till the release of Mega Man 8, which finally revealed a save system. 

Graphics: 10/10

The team really made an improvement with the graphics of the game. In the previous game, the graphics were not that impressive. The sprites had almost no shading, and the tiles didn't look that appealing. In this game, however, there are things in the background you probably won't notice unless you look very hard, such as gears and levers in Metal Man's stage, and the stages have all the right colors to support each other, making it look all the more appealing.

Music: 10/10

A lot of the music in this game will be stuck in your head after you play this game. Trust me. For the Robot Masters, there's Metal Man's music, which is upbeat and metallic-sounding, Bubble Man's music, which starts out calm and then comes into a great climax, Heat Man's music, which makes you get the feeling you're in a volcano, and more. 

Then there are the 2 Wily Stage musics, the first of which is fast-paced and complex (not to mention highly praised), and the second one being simpler, but more climactic and suspenseful, really giving you the feeling that you're at the end of the game.

 Finally, there's the boss music, which starts out with a big intro, then dives into a song that gradually goes into lower notes, then loops to right after the intro. Although it is used for every boss fight including the final one, and some people say it gets repetitive after a while, it's still sounds good for boss fights, at least in this game.

--And introducing a new section... REPLAY VALUE!--

Replay Value: 8/10 

This game is fun, no matter how many times you play it. I find it interesting trying to go through all the stages again in different orders and attacking enemies with different weapons every time. In the US release, there are 2 modes, Normal and Difficult, and in a recent release for the iPod and iPhone, Easy is added, so you may want to try those modes out too if you want different levels of challenges.

Overall: 9/10

Despite its lacking plot and things that could have been added that weren't, Mega Man 2 is still a very good game, and may have just set the entire Mega Man franchise for where it is today. You can find it on the Virtual Console for 500 Wii Points, and can buy it on an iPod Touch or iPhone for $2.99 regularly.