After going through basically the entire franchise years ago, I come back to this now after beating all of the Mega Man games on the Game Boy, just for the sake of replaying it and see how it holds up after going through the likes of Mega Man IV and V, 4, 5 (my original favourite back in the day) and especially Mega Man 9. Well, it’s old history now, but yeah, Mega Man 2 STILL is freakishly amazing.
And why? I just can’t pinpoint an exact answer, especially since the games that followed it simply have better stage layouts, graphics and bosses. Yet, Mega Man 2 remains fun in every aspect of it, even the unfair ones, and this is coming from someone who’s beating it under the “difficult” option (which was the original one in the Japanese version). It just works, and maybe this black magic is what made this an absolute classic.
Mega Man 2 was the first game in this franchise I’ve ever beaten. Since I was a kid, I lost count of how many times I’ve tried to play a Mega Man game, always dying at the Cut Man stage in MM1 and never getting to the boss. After an entire decade of frustration, in my late teenage years I found myself with money to spare on the 3DS eShop and decided to get Mega Man 2 on the Virtual Console, just for trying it out. Well, the rest is history.
I still remember how magic it was for me to finally beat my first boss, and how this magical feeling went on when I saw that happening again stage after stage. The enemies, the level design, the stupidly good music… This was my first TRUE exposure to a classic, 8-bit platforming adventure, and getting to know every feature that makes a “Nintendo Hard” game good, it changed my life experience with gaming forever. This genre became one of, if not my favourite kind of videogame, and I went on to play and beat lots of similar, challenging titles ever since I first got to beat Mega Man 2.
This was a milestone to me. A gateway to many, many other adventures, and I’ll be forever grateful for its existence and, obviously, for one of the best aspect of this medium: to be able to replay it, time and time again, and savour the joy that Mega Man 2 was, is, and will forever be.
And, yes, even if there are tons of games that are objectively better built and more intricate.
And why? I just can’t pinpoint an exact answer, especially since the games that followed it simply have better stage layouts, graphics and bosses. Yet, Mega Man 2 remains fun in every aspect of it, even the unfair ones, and this is coming from someone who’s beating it under the “difficult” option (which was the original one in the Japanese version). It just works, and maybe this black magic is what made this an absolute classic.
Mega Man 2 was the first game in this franchise I’ve ever beaten. Since I was a kid, I lost count of how many times I’ve tried to play a Mega Man game, always dying at the Cut Man stage in MM1 and never getting to the boss. After an entire decade of frustration, in my late teenage years I found myself with money to spare on the 3DS eShop and decided to get Mega Man 2 on the Virtual Console, just for trying it out. Well, the rest is history.
I still remember how magic it was for me to finally beat my first boss, and how this magical feeling went on when I saw that happening again stage after stage. The enemies, the level design, the stupidly good music… This was my first TRUE exposure to a classic, 8-bit platforming adventure, and getting to know every feature that makes a “Nintendo Hard” game good, it changed my life experience with gaming forever. This genre became one of, if not my favourite kind of videogame, and I went on to play and beat lots of similar, challenging titles ever since I first got to beat Mega Man 2.
This was a milestone to me. A gateway to many, many other adventures, and I’ll be forever grateful for its existence and, obviously, for one of the best aspect of this medium: to be able to replay it, time and time again, and savour the joy that Mega Man 2 was, is, and will forever be.
And, yes, even if there are tons of games that are objectively better built and more intricate.