This is one of those games that we loved when we were kids... because we hated it. It drove us nuts and made us reconsider going outside for fresh air... all of this on the normal difficulty setting. The Mega Man series was spawned out of the Japanese version known as the Rockman series... games available for play on the Famicom system. Since then it has grown into one of the most iconic titles in video games, spanning multiple consoles. There were 6 Mega Man games made for the NES, this one was, and is, my favorite.
It was released in North America in 1989. You play Mega Man, who is trying to stop Dr. Wily from taking over the world with his robots... typical weak story that is fairly underdeveloped. However you don't find yourself looking for more story or wanting to know more about the characters. This is a game that is gameplay driven and while it is weak from a plot perspective, it is impressive on nearly every other level.
I played this game when I was young more than any other platform game out there. It is, for many reasons, my favorite platform game of all time. Some would argue that it is not a platform, but after jumping into spikes, falling into giant lasers, getting trampled by robot rabbits and crushed from above by falling blades, there is no
better description for this game. Immensely hard but immensely fun...about the only problem with this game is that when you finally know the ins and outs of it, it actually becomes almost easy... but there is always the higher difficulty setting to move on to. The graphics are strong for an old NES game. The games is crisp and clean. The framerate almost never suffers, although there is a distinctive 'slow down' when there are a lot of enemies on the screen. The colour palettes are vibrant without becoming a strain on the eye. Thus for a NES game, this is a strong showing in the graphics department.
The music, composed by Takashi Tateishi, is fantastic for a game of this era... it keeps you moving and playing for hours. The sound effects are not astonishing for an 8 bit title but they are integrated very well into gameplay and are not overdone or annoying.
A reason to love this game is the exceptionally low amount of time it takes to get into playing it. We have all sat through those games that show us the five companies that made it, then the storyline comes up, then character development, etc, etc. You can read a little plot development about Mega Man being created in the year 20XX to stop Dr. Wily's evil desires BUT you can press start and actually START the game. This game should be used as a guideline for platform/action games for how quickly the player is allowed to play the actual game.
Gameplay is fairly straight forward. Like with Mario games, you are required to jump, climb, drop down and shoot your way through 8 standard levels, before moving onto the Dr. Wily levels culminating in a 'final?' battle with Dr. Wily. Mega Man has an arm cannon that fires energy bullets fairly quickly. Upon completing each level, Mega Man is awarded with an additional weapon depending on the level completed (Bubble Man=Bubble Lead, Metal Man=Metal Blade and so on). There is no set order to completing the levels, players can pick from one of the eight levels at the start of the game. Upon playing it for awhile however, you quickly learn that playing certain levels first makes the other levels much easier to complete, due to getting weapons that work well on a particular level, or power ups that make them easier to navigate. Mega Man has a fairly large health meter but most of the time you are trying to keep it as high as you can for the boss battles at the end of each level. He also has 'energy meters' for any of the special weapons he has picked up, so if you overuse a weapon without powering it up with pick ups (which there are plenty of), then it is unusable until recharged.There are not a lot of negatives with this game. The only thing that comes to mind is when Mega Man gets hit by an enemy. When this happens Mega Man goes all blurry and gets knocked back slightly. While the blurryness actually makes you invincible for a moment, the knockback is what can be problematic. Too many times have I been hit by an enemy to be knocked back over the edge of a precipice. Beyond this minor detail, the game is an incredibly immersive experience keeping the player on edge for a solid amount of game length with an array of interesting and strange enemies.
Mega Man 2 will likely always be in my top twenty games of all time. It is fun, engaging and totally addictive... three elements that are hard to find, particularly in games made today.
