Collection essentials #79: Mega Man 2 (NES)

This is the game that really made a name for Mega Man. The first game wasn’t a huge success, and the higher-ups at Capcom concluded that a sequel wasn’t a priority, at least in the immediate future. But the developers themselves saw the potential to build on the concepts of the original game and very much wanted to make another one, so they managed to convince their superiors to allow it with the stipulation that it wouldn’t interfere with other unrelated projects they were already assigned to work on. Passion projects are often an ideal foundation for a quality piece of entertainment, so it shouldn’t be a big surprise that Mega Man 2 rose above the original in every way, including sales, and it would be the best-selling game in the series for nearly 30 years.

There actually isn’t a whole lot new in Mega Man 2 in terms of changing the core gameplay features. The biggest new feature is “E tanks,” which are healing items you can find in the levels that you keep on hand for any moment you really need them. Otherwise, it’s the same basic formula as Mega Man 1, just with more content (eight robot masters instead of six) and more refined. It must be noted that Mega Man 2 has an absolutely excellent soundtrack with many catchy songs, and as of my right it’d be my personal choice for best music of any game in the NES library. 

The American version of this game is better than the Japanese version, because they added an easier difficulty mode, something that the original game probably could have benefited from. This is a significant contrast from a common practice that I’ve mentioned before where developers like to make their games harder for their international release so gamers couldn’t rent them for a weekend and blow by all the content with little effort. 

Mega Man 2 is the overall most highly-regarded game in the series on the NES by fans. This is certainly not unanimous, though, as there’s significant competition that I'll be writing about in the coming days. And now I must make a confession I’ve been holding off on, which may surprise you, which is, I’ve always felt that Mega Man 2 is overrated. My original experience with the game came in my early teen years when I got my hands on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection. I had tried to play through Mega Man 1, and I wound up never finishing it due to difficulty frustration, so I decided to move on to Mega Man 2. And, well, I was again put off by some of the design choices in the game that really weren’t to my liking, and I didn’t finish the second game either. And because of that I kind of gave up on Mega Man as a series for years. It wasn’t until my early 20s that I picked the series back up and delved into the sequels beyond.

What didn’t I like about Mega Man 2? Well, the game at times definitely feels like it throws unfair, trial-and-error difficulty at you. The example that sticks out in my mind the most from when I first played the game is Quick Man’s stage. Midway through it, there’s a section where you have to descend, and a series of high-speed lasers shoot across the screen that will kill you instantly upon contact. Yes, the game does demonstrate to you that they’re coming before they’re actually a danger to you, but the sections that follow require you to be VERY precise with where you fall so much that you basically need to memorize it through dying and figuring out where to go the next time. Yes, there’s a boss weapon that can stop the lasers, but this isn’t a great solution because there’s no guarantee you will even have it, and if you use it then it will make the fight against Quick Man itself significantly harder. 

I do have to admit, however, that my initial negative reaction to Mega Man 2 was a bit much, and it is a better game than I had first thought. I didn’t realize the most fun way to play the game back then. You see, I have a “conservationist” sort of attitude when it comes to any game that has limited resources. All the boss weapons in Mega Man games consume ammo, so my default strategy is to never use them until they’re absolutely needed. And this is a flawed strategy, because a lot of the fun of Mega Man is supposed to come from using the different weapons you acquire. And Mega Man 2 in particular has a highly useful and fun weapon called the Metal Blade which allows you to shoot in eight different directions as opposed to only being able to shoot left and right as normal. Yes, it consumes ammo, but it takes a LOT of uses to deplete your supply, AND additional ammo is pretty common to find as you’re playing through the levels. I sampled Mega Man 2 a little while back as I was constructing this list and I found myself really enjoying the game more than I ever had before and this was in part because I grabbed the Metal Blade first and used it more freely.

I still to this date have not actually ever finished Mega Man 2, but I do intend to revisit it at some point and get to the end. I do generally prefer the sequels and the gameplay additions that they brought, but Mega Man 2 is still a highly significant quality title in the NES library and clearly deserves to be an essential.

Future update: I beat this game for the first time ever on August 20, 2024! Yay!