i got filtered by air man,,,,,,, no pun intended,,,,,,,

So, I guess I'll just walk through my thoughts on the stages and such.
Metal Man Stage: I heard Metal Blade was a good weapon, so I started here. I think this was probably the best decision I could've made; Metal Blade is fucking BUSTED apparently. As for the stage itself, not the biggest fan of the conveyor belts in the ceiling spikes section and that weirdly tight jump after, but it's pretty much inoffensive otherwise. Metal Man himself is also pretty simple, so I beat him first try.
Bubble Man Stage: Metal Blade kind of trivialized every enemy I had to fight, so all I can mention is the stage design, which is solid enough. Water physics surprisingly are fun to play around in this game and while I do think spikes instakilling you are kind of brutal, they're not too bad... yet.
Heat Man Stage: So, uh, I didn't know that Item-2 was tied to Air Man, so I just went ahead and played this stage without it. As it turns out, I am a fucking gamer because I managed to clear that long stretch of memory blocks based on purely intuition and reflexes first try. Definitely one of the more memorable experiences I had with this game, and probably my proudest? As for Heat Man himself, he was kind of a pushover, I just bubbled him to death and that was that.
Wood Man Stage: Not much of note, Metal Blade killed everything in my path (it helped a ton against those fuckass birds) and Wood Man was kind of a pushover.
Air Man Stage: This was probably my least favorite section of the game... The Air Man platforms are just kind of tedious with the enemy spam and having to wait for the drills. It's iconic and all but still...
Oh, and then I got filtered by Air Man kind of hard, as I said earlier. I could NOT for the life of me figure out how I was supposed to dodge some attack patterns. I tried using Item-1 and it froze the tornadoes in place? I have no clue what happened there.
I ended up brute forcing it with charged Atomic Fires and finishing him off with the Buster, but I still have no idea how you're intended to beat him.
Crash Man Stage: A much better change of pace. This one was probably my favorite normal Robot Master stage? The platform gimmick is pretty fun and it's not super punishing. Crash Man died in like 2 hits from Air Shooter and that was that.
Flash Man Stage: Weird floor physics in a platformer,,,,,,,, I do like how near the end, the level rewards you for taking the difficult paths forward by letting you skip some enemies. As for Flash Man, I have no idea what he does because he died to like 4 Metal Blades. I still don't know what he does.
Quick Man Stage: Here's a fun stage gimmick. I ended up doing most of the timed sections without Time Stopper and it was pretty fun. It's kind of weird how Quick Man has the pitch black sections instead of Heat Man though. Anyhow, Quick Man put up a good fight since I was out of Time Stopper by the time I got to him. Unfortunately for him, he's also weak to Crash Bomber, so he exploded in a couple of easy hits.

With the main robot masters out of the way...
Wily Castle Stage 1: I am disappointed you can't blow up the building walls with Crash Bomber. Huge missed opportunity in my opinion. Anyway, the stage is pretty inoffensive. I ended up getting oneshot by the dragon because I didn't see him coming, but I ended up beating him around my third try. I really don't like how the screen decides to have a seizure everytime you hit the dragon, this isn't the Atari 2600 anymore.
Wily Castle Stage 2: I don't think this stage has anything too memorable except the big Mole Tunnel with the guys from Metal Man's stage. I don't mind it since it helped to refill all my weapons and HP. The boss is kind of weird but I dig it, I beat it on my second attempt.
And onto Stage 3–
MY GAME CRASHED
So I had to redo both Stage 1 and Stage 2 from the start. Thanks Capcom.
While we're at it, holy shit the Wily Castle music is phenomenal for the NES. Really surprised at how good it sounds.
Wily Castle Stage 3: This stage wasn't too memorable aside from the random drop with spikes you couldn't have known were there. Great game design. Guts Man coming back as the boss is cool, but I still have yet to play Megaman 1.
Wily Castle Stage 4: Probably my favorite Wily Castle Stage barring the "boss". The Crash Man platforms return and you get to use the Items in more creative ways. Pretty fun all around tbh. Then I got softlocked at the boss. And I had just made a savestate when I entered.
So I had to load an older savestate and fight Guts Man from Stage 3. THANKS CAPCOM
Wily Castle Stage 5: It's just the robot master rematches. Kind of funny how Metal Man instadies to his own weapon. I used the same strategies for every boss, so nothing new. As for Wily... It took me a bit to figure out how to dodge the balls, but I figured it out and it was just a test of patience (and my E Tanks)
Wily Castle Stage 6: Really fucking cool thematically. You think it's all over and then all of a sudden there's another stage and you drop down what feels like forever only to see you're in a cave and there's no music. It's super eerie and I could totally see some kid making a creepypasta about it. The boss in this Stage is also pretty cool, you just have to be patient and land the Bubbles while guiding his shots away.

So, that was Megaman 2. Is it a masterpiece? At the time, it probably was, but it's a little dated due to the usual Megaman shenanigans. That said, I definitely don't regret playing this game.

Colorblindness Rating: B+
I think the color of the armor can mix someone up if they don't know what the letters stand for. It's a bit of a nitpick, but it's not going to ruin the experience honestly; and I can excuse it because it's a game on the NES.

This is one I've played a lot over the years, between having it on my Wii Virtual Console as a kid and then having easy access to it on my NES Classic and Famicom Mini, but I wanted to review it properly here particularly because I finally beat it on Difficult mode. That was always something I saw as "just too unreasonable" simply out of its reputation, but I finally tackled and conquered it recently, and it really brought a lot of perspective about the game's design to me. I beat the game on Normal and Difficult mode, and it took me a little over an hour to beat it on each.

Mega Man 2's story is pretty bog simple, with it basically just being that Dr. Wily is back and more determined to conquer the world this time! This time instead of just six robot masters, he's brought along eight of them! The stages here, particularly Wily's Fortress stages, are overall longer and more polished than the first game's. Mega Man 2 sets the trend for the rest of the series in taking what came before and making it generally "more" and "better polished". Though not every entry in the series could hold up to that standard, Mega Man 2 is a strong first step forward.

The stage design in Mega Man 2 is very highly improved from the first game. First and most importantly is the fact that Mega Man's movement has been tightened up a LOT. He's still a little slippy, but he controls way more precisely and intuitively than the first game, and it raises the quality of the platforming of the game as a whole significantly. Secondly is that you now get several "Items" for defeating a few bosses instead of just their signature weapons. These Item weapons allow you to skip or make easier certain platforming challenges, although they are required for several sections of Wily's stages. The gimmicks are generally more interesting and fair compared to the first game, and it feels like the game isn't trying to mulch you quite as often. There are still some rough stages, as I think the instant-kill lasers in Quick Man's stage make it a pretty strong contender for one of the worst stages in the NES series, but overall the stages feel fair and fun to go through.

The bosses have been improved for the most part from the first game as well. On Normal mode I find them a little too easy at times, as some die absurdly fast to your normal mega buster weapon, but the last few bosses feel a bit too hard on Difficult mode. I think there's a happy medium possible between the two, but overall each difficulty mode gives you a nice modicum of control over just how hard you want bosses and normal enemies to be (and that's especially true given that this game finally adds E-tanks you can use for mid-fight health refills). Their patterns are more often consistent and readable, with bosses like Bubble Man and Heat Man being super fun fights. However you have some bosses that are just a bit too fast and frustrating to be much fun to kill with anything but their weaknesses, like Crash Man or Quick Man. The final Dr. Wily fights are overall pretty fun, but the fortress bosses are pretty bad. They're either really easy like the Guts Man Tank, or cheap and needlessly difficult feeling like Picopico-kun (the one that is composed from platforms) or the Boobeam Trap (which is easily one of the worst bosses in the entire series). They're a mixed bag of quality, to be sure, but they're ultimately a meaningful step forward for the series.

The presentation of Mega Man 2 is definitely one of the highlights of the series. You have the colorful, quality enemy and boss designs, sure, but the music really stands out here. Damn near every track is one of the best in the series, with the famous first song of Dr. Wily's stages being a well-deserved classic of 8-bit tunes.


Verdict: Highly Recommended. It's not my favorite in the series, and it's honestly not even close, but it's still a game I really like a very good action platformer on the NES. Probably one of the biggest things that would make me recommend it as the first game someone plays in the genre is how easy it is compared to most of the others (although I still wouldn't say it's "easy", just "easier" XD). It's certainly outshined by several of its NES brethren, but I think it's damn impressive just how steep an improvement Mega Man 2 is compared to where the series started.

significant improvement over the previous entry in every way; far less annoying enemies and other obstacles (some notable exceptions), far more consistent behavior where it matters, much better sprite work and overall aesthetics, much better music, etc. just holistically far more pleasant.

the first game had an issue a lot of games of this generation had wherein many enemy and especially boss encounters are either trivial or absurd because you can't realistically dodge their attacks. due to that, the dominant strategy -- at least given the limitations of most human beings -- is just tanking damage and shooting the enemy hoping you win. most of the bosses in Mega Man 1 require this "strategy"; some still do in 2, but it's much less. enemy behavior overall is also less buggier and more predictable, which in a similar vein allows for more neuron-activating tactical decision-making instead of mindless spam. these are all sort of "platformer 101" elements, so it's hardly high praise and compared to contemporary offerings this game still isn't very special, but given the quality of 1 noting these improvements is relevant.

also weirdly... profound? the [famous] intro, some of the levels, combined with the [famous] ending, are all very emotional and evocative for what this otherwise is. i presume that's mostly the music working its magic; actually, the music in general is very good, able to capture a lot of tones (i.e. "vibes", not musical tone) in ways that contemporaneous games don't come close to. with this game one can start to see what people see in this series.

This game is such a marked improvement over MM1 up until the Wily Castle where I sure hope you can a beat boss in one go because Crash Bomb is required to beat it and your dumb ass is NOT getting refills after death.

I kinda love how much of a mess this game's boss weakness diagram is, with absolute nonsense like Metal Blade being strong against four of the bosses, including himself where it instantly KO's him. And even then, it's an effective upgrade over the Mega Buster against pretty much anything. There's still a lot of jankiness to it and a smidge too hard for something with limited lives, but almost all the stages are really short anyways. Just gotta do the NES thing of really practice at it.

Just if there's ever a Mega Man where you're better off acting like beating the 8 robot masters is "beating the game" and disregarding Wily Castle, it's this one.

Outro jogo que já havia jogado há alguns anos, mas resolvi revisitar pra completar minha planilha.

Diferente do Mega Man 1, aqui o avanço é bem explicito ao jogador. Melhoraram tudo como um todo e o azulão deixou de ser um robô duro e apelou para os cardios, deixam de ser o Robocop.

Brincadeiras a parte, aqui o que realmente tomou forma foram as músicas visto que o jogo é praticamente o mesmo que o anterior de forma menos jokenpô possível: use apenas uma arma e vença todos os inimigos, assim como você nunca conseguirá derrotar o Airman.

Este jogo carrega um dos melhores memes da série. Sério, I Cannot Defeat Airman é a melhor música que eu já ouvi sobre qualquer jogo. Já o Metal Man morrer pra apenas um tiro foi sacanagem da Crapcom.

Aqui no Mega Man 2 temos um upgrade legal do jogo anterior.

I want to preface that I was not born during the time of Rockman's initial creation and popularity. I'll never understand what it was like being there at the time that these games were coming out. That said, I'm playing all these games for the first time in my early 20s and, in advance of writing a review of 9, I decided to go back and journal my thoughts on 2. I just thought this game was... okay? So okay that I didn't even bother writing a review when I played it.

As I write this review, this is the game leading the Street Fighter 6 Rockman popularity poll. But I want to know what kind of factors led to this one being the most popular of the original series? Is it just "right place, right time?" Is the game similarly held in high regard in Japan? My honest guess is that people just had so much fun with 2 that, as the transition from NES to SNES took place, nobody really cared to bother with more NES Rockman games when the SNES and Mega Drive were releasing.

Prior to actually playing the games for myself, this is the only one I ever saw talked about ANYWHERE, and it's lauded as one of the greatest games on the NES or something. At its best AND at its worst, this game is good. But it's not really anything more than that imo.

I genuinely believe every other Classic game that released after it outclasses it in some way or another. 3 introduced the Slide and even had the Doc Robots bring back the RM2 Robot Masters after you beat the first 8. 4/5 introduced/refined the Charge Shot. Even 7 and 8 both capitalized on the strength of the new hardware to create gorgeous graphics that still look great today, and introduced neat changes to the formula found in the NES games. 2 being the golden child, so much so that 9 decided to ditch nearly everything I liked in 3-8 and even removed the Slide/Charge Shot, just confuses me.

I'm sorry if this doesn't come off very much like a review of the game and more a review of its status? Or sounding salty that its popularity influenced a direction on the series temporarily for 9 and 10 that I disliked. I would just really like to hear from folks who grew up with this game to understand what I might not be seeing about its greatness compared to everyone else.