That Mega Man 2 is still highly praised today would probably be a fair understatement, and it's no secret that for many this game is the best part of the entire series. Now it would be easy to say that with these introductory words, "completely surprisingly" I would go against the mainstream and contradict that and everyone else is blinded by their nostalgia. However, this would simply be childish and would contribute little to a fair review. I already let assume with this explanation what I will now say straightforwardly: Mega Man 2 is not the best or second best Mega Man game in my opinion, let alone one that I would immediately recommend to a beginner. However, I agree in almost all respects that Mega Man 2 far surpassed its predecessor and could be considered the real beginning of the franchise, since from here on the basic formula of the series was clearly defined. Mega Man 2's goal was basically to improve on its predecessor's formula and reach a larger audience, keeping the franchise alive. The team succeeded in both, making Mega Man 2 probably the most important game in the franchise.
But what about the game itself? I actually have to say that about 2 thirds of the game is really great and probably a milestone for the series. The levels are much more structured and now constantly follow the simple rules of a 2D platformer that the Super Mario series set: "Show the mechanics of the level and test the player over its course with increasingly complex applications of them." Mega Man allows itself more freedom than Mario, but it rarely hurts the levels. The battles against the Robot Masters have also been greatly improved. While each one is still challenging, and has a clear pattern that must be understood in order to master them. The weakness dynamic is now expanded to 8 robots, but the fair structure of the fights means that it is possible to defeat each Robot Master in any order imaginable without being subconsciously punished by the game for doing so. Trying out the different routes is rewarded by the Dr. Light items, since they make individual passages in the levels easier with clever use. The new E-Tanks are also helpful here, as they replenish Rock's full life bar, but you always have to assess whether it's the right time to use them.
With all this praise, however, the legitimate question arises as to why I explicitly only referred to 2 thirds of Mega Man 2.
This is because I would argue that once the blue bomber sets foot in Wily's fortress, Mega Man 2 falls back into old habits of its predecessor level-wise and boss design.
The first level is actually still fine, at least up to the point where the mega dragon appears. I don't like this boss for two reasons: First, the sprite flickering gets so bad that most of the time I don't even know where the bursts of fire or Mega Man himself is. On the other hand, you are forced to jump back and forth between three platforms to avoid said bursts of fire while you are over an abyss. This means that one wrong jump or unfavorable burst of fire can mean instant death. The reset point, which is relatively far from the boss fight, only makes all of this more annoying. While the second stage is hardly challenging, it feels pretty jumbled and doesn't have an explicit theme or any interesting mechanics. However, the boss of this stage is to be viewed relatively positively and would have preferred to fight him first instead of the much heavier mega dragon.
As a level, Wily Stage 3 actually comes close to the first in terms of quality. Only the Guts Tank seems ridiculously simple, and many times I've just fought it with the stock weapon instead of its weakness in order to have some sort of challenge. And one could hope that things will get better from here. But unfortunately even Mega Man veterans know only too well that Wily Stage 4 is terrible from start to finish: Annoying invisible holes in the floors, slow platform rail parquors and in the end probably the worst boss of the entire Mega Man series and the only point in the game where I always do a quick save. Not even a real boss per se, Boobeam Trap is a collection of glowing demi-shells that fire an almost unavoidable laser at Rock every few seconds. These half-shells are located behind blastable walls. Both can only be destroyed with Crash Bomber. And. Everyone. Separate. Shot. counts. One mistake and you've already lost. There isn't a part of Mega Man 2 that I hate more and wish I could skip, however, the password system doesn't cover each Wily stage, so I have to deal with this junk every time I play Mega Man 2. Stage 5 is the well-known boss rush, which is quickly completed before you finally have to deal with Dr. Wily takes care of himself. And this one is also filled with Mega Man 1 garbage or in its second phase. In the first one you simply have to dodge his energy balls flying downwards. And you should survive this with as little damage as possible, otherwise you have already lost the second phase, since it is impossible to avoid Wily's projectiles in this one. And impossible is not meant as an exaggeration. The second phase is literally a mindless race to see who can smash the other's life bar down the quickest. It's not hard, it's just stupid. The third phase is just weird as Wily seems to be trying to confuse Mega Man with an alien hologram and give him the easiest boss fight in the entire game.
And unfortunately, my criticism doesn't stop at the mere boss or level design of the final stages. Let me talk about balancing. As I mentioned at the beginning, Mega Man 2 should reach a larger audience since its predecessor had a rather moderate success with buyers. Mega Man could have already become a dead franchise at this point. So in order to reach the desired audience the developers did two things: The whole design and level philosophy was rethought and improved and on top of that Mega Man 2 was made a lot easier than the first part. On top of that, Western players got different difficulty levels to appeal to players with different skill levels. At least it seems so. However, the "Normal Mode" is actually a hidden "Easy Mode" which dullly doubled item drops and halved the health bar of enemies, including bosses. The "Difficult Mode" is the difficulty that Mega Man 2 was actually originally designed with and was the only one available in Japan. I don't have anything against different levels of difficulty, but they shouldn't be misnamed and the balance of the game shouldn't go completely against the wall. Robot Masters have almost no chance in "Normal Mode", especially not with their weakness. Air Man, for example, doesn't even need two hits to die from Leaf Shield. And this problem runs through the entire game. I would even go so far as to say that the two modes are fundamentally different gaming experiences. Except for the level layout, "Normal Mode" doesn't really prepare the player for "Difficult Mode" either. How are you supposed to learn the patterns of the bosses when they die in 30 seconds anyway?
What I've also mentioned throughout the review so far are the new weapons that Rock has to choose from. All are great in their own right and have at least one practical use throughout the levels. However, there was not a good balance here either with one specific weapon: The Metal Blades. Needless to say, how overpowered they are. Everyone knows it, everyone has mentioned it dozens of times and I hardly need to go into more detail about what makes this weapon so good. Or rather too good. The Metal Blades basically ensure that you rarely use the other weapons, no matter how useful they would be in the given situation. Metal Blades are almost always stronger and much more efficient. Metal Blades are so good that they can easily replace Rock's default weapon for the rest of the game. Metal Blades are essential to Mega Man's Super Shotgun from Doom 2: Popular for their power, however, this greatly overshadows the other weapons in the games. Not only does the Metal Blades unhinge Mega Man 2 even more, but they go against the philosophy of the game itself, which actually wants to encourage the use of the various weapons, but really can't. The first Robot Master that almost all players run to when they restart the game is Metal Man, and that's only because his weapon right at the start makes the game a whole lot easier on any difficulty.
These balance issues were actually addressed by the developers themselves. The reasons for this were not necessarily a lack of expertise, but rather a lack of time, which is mainly reflected in the final levels. While Mega Man 2 was a huge success, the developers wanted to make a lot more out of this game than they ultimately could.
Finally, what is left for me to say? Despite my harsh criticism, especially in the second half, this review shouldn't be taken to mean that I think Mega Man 2 is a bad game. Because that's clearly not the case. It's one of the better games, even for me. However, I firmly believe that Mega Man 2 has been surpassed more than once in terms of gameplay and quality as the classic series progresses. Which is also an frankly difficult place to hold, considering this series has 11 games as of this writing.
But what about the game itself? I actually have to say that about 2 thirds of the game is really great and probably a milestone for the series. The levels are much more structured and now constantly follow the simple rules of a 2D platformer that the Super Mario series set: "Show the mechanics of the level and test the player over its course with increasingly complex applications of them." Mega Man allows itself more freedom than Mario, but it rarely hurts the levels. The battles against the Robot Masters have also been greatly improved. While each one is still challenging, and has a clear pattern that must be understood in order to master them. The weakness dynamic is now expanded to 8 robots, but the fair structure of the fights means that it is possible to defeat each Robot Master in any order imaginable without being subconsciously punished by the game for doing so. Trying out the different routes is rewarded by the Dr. Light items, since they make individual passages in the levels easier with clever use. The new E-Tanks are also helpful here, as they replenish Rock's full life bar, but you always have to assess whether it's the right time to use them.
With all this praise, however, the legitimate question arises as to why I explicitly only referred to 2 thirds of Mega Man 2.
This is because I would argue that once the blue bomber sets foot in Wily's fortress, Mega Man 2 falls back into old habits of its predecessor level-wise and boss design.
The first level is actually still fine, at least up to the point where the mega dragon appears. I don't like this boss for two reasons: First, the sprite flickering gets so bad that most of the time I don't even know where the bursts of fire or Mega Man himself is. On the other hand, you are forced to jump back and forth between three platforms to avoid said bursts of fire while you are over an abyss. This means that one wrong jump or unfavorable burst of fire can mean instant death. The reset point, which is relatively far from the boss fight, only makes all of this more annoying. While the second stage is hardly challenging, it feels pretty jumbled and doesn't have an explicit theme or any interesting mechanics. However, the boss of this stage is to be viewed relatively positively and would have preferred to fight him first instead of the much heavier mega dragon.
As a level, Wily Stage 3 actually comes close to the first in terms of quality. Only the Guts Tank seems ridiculously simple, and many times I've just fought it with the stock weapon instead of its weakness in order to have some sort of challenge. And one could hope that things will get better from here. But unfortunately even Mega Man veterans know only too well that Wily Stage 4 is terrible from start to finish: Annoying invisible holes in the floors, slow platform rail parquors and in the end probably the worst boss of the entire Mega Man series and the only point in the game where I always do a quick save. Not even a real boss per se, Boobeam Trap is a collection of glowing demi-shells that fire an almost unavoidable laser at Rock every few seconds. These half-shells are located behind blastable walls. Both can only be destroyed with Crash Bomber. And. Everyone. Separate. Shot. counts. One mistake and you've already lost. There isn't a part of Mega Man 2 that I hate more and wish I could skip, however, the password system doesn't cover each Wily stage, so I have to deal with this junk every time I play Mega Man 2. Stage 5 is the well-known boss rush, which is quickly completed before you finally have to deal with Dr. Wily takes care of himself. And this one is also filled with Mega Man 1 garbage or in its second phase. In the first one you simply have to dodge his energy balls flying downwards. And you should survive this with as little damage as possible, otherwise you have already lost the second phase, since it is impossible to avoid Wily's projectiles in this one. And impossible is not meant as an exaggeration. The second phase is literally a mindless race to see who can smash the other's life bar down the quickest. It's not hard, it's just stupid. The third phase is just weird as Wily seems to be trying to confuse Mega Man with an alien hologram and give him the easiest boss fight in the entire game.
And unfortunately, my criticism doesn't stop at the mere boss or level design of the final stages. Let me talk about balancing. As I mentioned at the beginning, Mega Man 2 should reach a larger audience since its predecessor had a rather moderate success with buyers. Mega Man could have already become a dead franchise at this point. So in order to reach the desired audience the developers did two things: The whole design and level philosophy was rethought and improved and on top of that Mega Man 2 was made a lot easier than the first part. On top of that, Western players got different difficulty levels to appeal to players with different skill levels. At least it seems so. However, the "Normal Mode" is actually a hidden "Easy Mode" which dullly doubled item drops and halved the health bar of enemies, including bosses. The "Difficult Mode" is the difficulty that Mega Man 2 was actually originally designed with and was the only one available in Japan. I don't have anything against different levels of difficulty, but they shouldn't be misnamed and the balance of the game shouldn't go completely against the wall. Robot Masters have almost no chance in "Normal Mode", especially not with their weakness. Air Man, for example, doesn't even need two hits to die from Leaf Shield. And this problem runs through the entire game. I would even go so far as to say that the two modes are fundamentally different gaming experiences. Except for the level layout, "Normal Mode" doesn't really prepare the player for "Difficult Mode" either. How are you supposed to learn the patterns of the bosses when they die in 30 seconds anyway?
What I've also mentioned throughout the review so far are the new weapons that Rock has to choose from. All are great in their own right and have at least one practical use throughout the levels. However, there was not a good balance here either with one specific weapon: The Metal Blades. Needless to say, how overpowered they are. Everyone knows it, everyone has mentioned it dozens of times and I hardly need to go into more detail about what makes this weapon so good. Or rather too good. The Metal Blades basically ensure that you rarely use the other weapons, no matter how useful they would be in the given situation. Metal Blades are almost always stronger and much more efficient. Metal Blades are so good that they can easily replace Rock's default weapon for the rest of the game. Metal Blades are essential to Mega Man's Super Shotgun from Doom 2: Popular for their power, however, this greatly overshadows the other weapons in the games. Not only does the Metal Blades unhinge Mega Man 2 even more, but they go against the philosophy of the game itself, which actually wants to encourage the use of the various weapons, but really can't. The first Robot Master that almost all players run to when they restart the game is Metal Man, and that's only because his weapon right at the start makes the game a whole lot easier on any difficulty.
These balance issues were actually addressed by the developers themselves. The reasons for this were not necessarily a lack of expertise, but rather a lack of time, which is mainly reflected in the final levels. While Mega Man 2 was a huge success, the developers wanted to make a lot more out of this game than they ultimately could.
Finally, what is left for me to say? Despite my harsh criticism, especially in the second half, this review shouldn't be taken to mean that I think Mega Man 2 is a bad game. Because that's clearly not the case. It's one of the better games, even for me. However, I firmly believe that Mega Man 2 has been surpassed more than once in terms of gameplay and quality as the classic series progresses. Which is also an frankly difficult place to hold, considering this series has 11 games as of this writing.