Mega Man 2

Betcha can hear the title music just by looking at this. If you can't, then listen anyway.

In The Year Of 200X, A Super Robot Named Mega Man was created. Dr. Light created Mega Man to stop the evil desires of Dr. Wily. However, after his defeat, Dr. Wily created eight of his own robots to counter Mega Man.

"So we, of our own accord, got together, spent our own time, we worked really, really hard, you know, just 20-hour days to complete this, because we were making something we wanted to make. Probably in all my years of actually being in a video game company, that was the best time of my working at Capcom, because we were actually working toward a goal, we were laying it all on the line, we were doing what we wanted to do. And it really showed in the game, because it’s a game, once again, that we put all our time and effort and love, so to speak, into it, designing it."
—Keiji Inafune on Mega Man 2, circa 2004.

Mega Man 2 [1] is a run and gun Platformer Video Game, released by Capcom for the NES in 1989.[2]

While the core gameplay of beating bosses in a non-linear order while acquiring their weapons to use against another boss a la rock, paper, scissors is largely the same, many changes have been made to make the gameplay far more flexible and accessible to gamers than the original. Two difficulty settings and a new password function are present, three items and E-Tanks are around to make the game far more forgiving in difficulty. The new boss roster has been bumped up to eight robots rather than six, and the stage designs are far more ingenious than before. The presentation has also been taken up a notch, with lushly designed stages, better spritework, a cartoony plethora of enemies cribbed from design contests, and some energetic 8-bit tunes to top off the sundae. The scoring system from the original was permanently dropped, but it wasn't missed. All in all, it manages to top the original in just about every way.

While the original game was only a modest hit, this sequel became the best selling game in the entire Mega Man series, selling over 1.5 million copies. To this day, it is considered not only one of the best NES games and one of the best, if not the best, Mega Man game, but also one of the greatest video games of all time. It has also been said to be Keiji Inafune, the co-creator of Mega Man, to be his favorite Mega Man game.

The game later received a 16-bit upgrade for the Sega Genesis, as part of the Europe and Japan only Mega Man: The Wily Wars/Rockman Megaworld cartridge, as well as the Japan-only Rockman 2: Complete Works PS 1 port. The game eventually saw a major re-release as part of Anniversary Collection for PlayStation 2, Game Cube and Xbox. The NES version has also received a Virtual Console re-release.

Not to be confused with Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters for the Arcade, or Mega Man II for the Game Boy.

Tropes used in Mega Man 2 include:
  • Abnormal Ammo:
    • Mega Man himself gets to use bubbles, leaves and mini-tornadoes.
    • Many enemies use thematic ammo: Rabbit-shaped robots fire carrots, Pipis drop eggs that spawn small robotic birds, Croakers fire small frogs and Lightning Lords throw thunderbolts.
  • Advancing Boss of Doom: The Dragon boss in Skull Castle 1.
  • Airborne Mook: Air Man and Crash Man's stages in particular are full of these.
  • American Kirby Is Hardcore: The US boxart features musclemen dressed up as Mega Man, Quick Man and Crash Man in a airbrushed futuristic setting. While cheesy, it's nowhere near as infamous as the first game's box art.
  • Angry Guard Dog: The Hot Dogs in Wood Man's stage.
  • Animal Mecha: The bats, hot dogs, gorillas, rabbits and roadrunners in Wood Man's stage.
  • Anime Hair: Mega Man in the opening.
  • Art Evolution: The game's art started to become more anime-influenced than the previous game, and the spritework is more refined.
  • Auto-Scrolling Level: The final part of Wily Stage 1.
  • Awesome but Impractical:
    • The Atomic Fire is very powerful and looks cool when fully charged, but it chews up so much ammo that it's best used sparingly, and otherwise its normal shot is so pathetically weak that it's all but useless.
    • The Time Stopper is only really useful in certain situations, as it consumes ammo quickly, and Mega Man can't attack or change weapons while using it.
  • Awesome Yet Practical:
    • Metal Man's weapon: high damage, can shoot in eight directions, very large ammo capacity. Goodbye, Mega Buster!
    • Quick Boomerangs aren't a bad substitute. They too have a ton of ammo, and while the range isn't quite as good as the Metal Blade, the arc they travel in makes it easier to hit things above and below that the buster can't.
  • Battle Boomerang: Quick Man's weapon of choice.
  • Beneath the Earth: Just before the real final boss.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Though there is no text narration in the ending cutscene, the somber tone of the soundtrack suggests that Mega Man feels quite alone and confused, having shouldered the task of fighting his own kind "for everlasting peace".
  • Blow You Away: The main attack of Air Man, as well as a few of the mooks throughout his stage.
  • Bootstrapped Theme: The famous title screen music is generally regarded as Mega Man's main theme song.
  • Boring Yet Practical: The Mega Buster, and the 3 "Items", which are essential for beating the game.
  • Boss Dissonance: In both ways.
    • Hard Levels Easy Bosses:
      • Heat Man's stage contains the fiendish disappearing block challenges that are very difficult to cross without using Item 2. Heat Man himself is an easy boss with an easily exploitable pattern.
      • Quick Man's stage contains the difficult beam challenges that punish a small mistake with instant death. Quick Man himself is a fairly easy boss with a Kryptonite Factor that can whittle off half of his hitpoints with ease.
    • Easy Levels, Hard Bosses:
      • Wood Man's level is easier than most, but Wood Man himself is difficult to defeat without one of his AchillesHeels. His leaf shield protects him while he fires his hard to dodge attack and even when exposed he can take more punch than most robot masters.
  • Boss Rush: Just before the fake final boss. And for the first time, the boss doors are all in one room, rather than one after the other.
  • Bottomless Pits: Notably in the Metal Man and Skull Castle stages.
  • Bullfight Boss: Heat Man.
  • Charged Attack: Heat Man's weapon, predating the charged buster of Mega Man 4.
  • Cool Helmet
  • Cores and Turrets Boss: The boss of Skull Castle 4.
  • Deadly Disc: Metal Man's weapon of choice.
  • Denial of Diagonal Attack: Every weapon that isn't the Metal Blade or Quick Boomerang.
  • Difficulty by Region: The Japanese and Wily Wars releases are much harder than the US release, the latter of which included a Normal mode.
  • Disc One Nuke: The Metal Blade.
  • Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: Air Man's weapon is a Spread Shot of mini-tornadoes.
  • Dramatic Thunder: In the Skull Castle map screen.
  • Dungeon Bypass: The numbered items. Item-2 in particular can be used to bypass several tricky obstacles.
  • Easter Egg: Holding B when you select a boss will cause the stars on the bosses intro screen to turn into birds.
  • Elemental Barrier: Wood Man's Leaf Shield.
  • Elemental Powers: Again, Wood Man's Leaf Shield.
  • Emergency Energy Tank: This was the first game in the series to give you E-Tanks, which can instantly refill your health on the go, and were essential to toning down the difficulty of the original game.
  • Everything's Better with Monkeys: The gorilla robots from Wood Man's stage.
  • Excuse Plot: Dr. Wily is back for revenge with a batch of his own robots to counter Mega Man. Go at it!
  • Exty Years From Now: As mentioned into the intro.
  • Fanfare: The iconic Mega Man theme at the title screen, as well as the "Boss Selected" music. Finally, there's the triumphant victory theme after defeating the final boss.
  • Flight: Wily's Alien form is capable of this by virtue of a floating holosphere.
  • Fragile Speedster: Quick Man, who takes double damage from the mega buster.
  • Frickin' Laser Beams: Quick Man's stage has two areas where you have to outrun giant, instant kill laser beams.
  • Game Mod: More rom hacks exist of 2 than any other game in the series (possibly more than all of the other games combined).
  • Hair-Raising Hare: The robot rabbits from Wood Man's stage, although their only means of attack is shooting carrots at you.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Metal Man is killed in one hit by his own weapon (two on Hard).
  • Hollywood Acid: Presumably what is dripping from the ceiling in the very final level, judging by the high damage it inflicts on Mega Man.
  • Humongous Mecha: The Guts Tank you meet in Skull Castle 2.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Bubble Man, as well as the robot rabbits from Wood Man's stage.
  • Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: All throughout Metal Man's stage, AND in his boss room. When refighting him, however, it's not there, making it an Inconveniently Misplaced Conveyor Belt for him.
  • Invincible Minor Minion: The Mets, and those floor thingies that spring out.
  • Joke Weapon: Bubble Lead, which is only useful for beating Heat Man, one of the Skull Castle bosses, and the real final boss. It's also useful in detecting the fake floor traps in Wily Stage 4.
  • Kill It with Fire: Wood Man's biggest weakness is against Heat Man's weapon.
  • Kill It with Water: Heat Man's weakness, as well as the weakness of the real final boss.
  • Laser Hallway: Taken Up to Eleven in Quick Man's stage, where the bulk of the stage has Mega Man evading giant, instant-kill laser beams.
  • Lava Pit: In Heat Man's stage, although that may actually be super heated water, due to the setting being a sewer.
  • Logical Weakness: Wood Man despite being a robot is weak to Heat Man's weapon. Heat Man, however, is naturally weak to Bubble Man's weapon. Bubble Man's weakness to the Metal Blades also makes sense as bubbles do not react well to sharp stuff. Quick Man, meanwhile, is weak against the Time Stopper. This even extents to the enemies: the fire-y Changkey Makers are destroyed in one shot by the Bubble Lead and Air Shooter.
  • Malevolent Architecture:
    • The Skull Castle stages are a particular standout. Heat Man's stage also has this with its infamous row of disappearing blocks.
    • The Wall Robot boss.
  • Mascot Mook/The Goomba: Mets.
  • Mini-Mecha/Hopping Machine: The AT-ST Joes, the latter also applies to the robo-rabbits from Wood Man's stage.
  • Minus World: The glitchy version of Skull Castle stage 2, which is accessed via a glitch in Air Man's stage.
  • Misplaced Wildlife: Gorilla robots in what looks like a mid-western forest?
  • Mission Pack Sequel
  • Musical Nod: The first part of the game's opening theme is a remix of the first part of the previous game's ending theme.
  • Nintendo Hard: While the games difficulty is much more forgiving than the original game, Difficult mode is not a cake walk.
  • Not Even Human: The final boss reveals that Wily was an alien the whole time! Or not, since it was just a hologram.
  • Nothing Is Scarier: The very final level has no music, and the only objects prior to the final boss are the echoing drips of acid from the ceiling...
  • No Waterproofing in the Future: How Mega Man is able to defeat the Wily Alien (which is really just a hologram projector).
  • One-Hit Kill: The spikes as usual. The lasers in Quick Man's stage will do this to you.
  • One-Winged Angel: Wily pulls this by turning into an alien in the final boss battle! Of course, that was just a hologram.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: This one is a robot with a blimp built into its body.
  • Outside the Box Tactic:
    • Returning Sniper Joes in Sniper Armors are very vulnerable to the Air Shooter and Leaf Shield, and several Humongous Mecha are vulnerable to boomerangs.
    • During the Boss Rush portion of the same game, Metal Man dies to one hit of his own weapon on Normal difficulty, two hits on hard.
    • Detonating a Crash Bomb just below Wily Machine 2's cockpit during the second phase will cause the explosion to hit it multiple times when it moves backwards, defeating it very quickly.
    • When using the Crash Bomber against Flash Man (who is obstensively weak to the weapon), ideally, the shots should be pinned to walls and timed so they go off when Flash Man uses the Time Stopper and stands still in the bomb's explosion. Said tactic also works well against Quick Man.
    • Destroying all the walls in the Boobeam Trap room, dying, refilling the Crash Bomber, and returning will result in the walls not returning (so long as the player didn't get a game over), making it significantly easier.
  • Petal Power: Wood Man's leaf shield.
  • Platform Battle: The fight between the boss of Skull Castle 1.
  • Playing with Fire: Heat Man, and Mega Man himself when he gets his weapon.
  • Power-Up Letdown: Most if not all of the weapons the player obtains are less potent than their boss versions. The Time Stopper is the most noticeable example. While Flash Man can fire while using it and can use it multiple times, the player can only use it once before having to seek ammo and can't fire while using it.
  • Punny Name: The fire-breathing dog robots in Wood Man's stage are called Hot Dogs.
  • Puzzle Boss: The Wall Shooter boss.
  • Recycled Soundtrack: 9 would later recycle six songs directly from this game.
  • Regenerating Health: Using the wrong weapons on some bosses will replenish their health.
  • Rubber Forehead Aliens: Wily's One-Winged Angel in the final battle.
  • Sequel Difficulty Drop: Due to the addition of more utility items, Energy Tanks, and a password save system; plus an actual Easy Mode in the North American version (there called "Normal", but the "Difficult" mode is actually the original difficulty).
  • Shout-Out:
    • Heat Man looks like a human-sized Zippo lighter.
    • There are a batch of enemies in Bubble Man's stage that look uncannily similar to Metroids, especially since both games were released in the same year.
    • In Wood Man's stage, you fight a giant blue robot wolf/dog that breathes fire. Its name? Friender.
  • Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: In Metal Man's stage, and Skull Castle 2.
  • Spikes of Doom: Particularly in parts of Bubble Man's stage and Wily Stage 3.
  • Spread Shot: Air Man's weapon, the Air Shooter.
  • Standing On The Roof: Mega Man, in the opening.
  • Supervillain Lair: Skull Castle.
  • Tank Goodness: Guts Tank.
  • Temporary Platform: Both malevolent and benevolent, both of the "Timed" variety. Heat Man's stage brings back the infamous disappearing blocks. The three Items you get in the game serve as helpful platforms.
  • This Is a Drill: The mole enemies that pop up in Metal Man's stage, and later Skull Castle 2.
  • Throwing Your Shield Always Works: Wood Man's weapon of choice--the shields in question are leaves.
  • Time Bomb: Crash Man's weapon.
  • Time Stands Still: Flash Man's power.
  • Trial and Error Gameplay: Quick Man's Stage. Wily Stage 4, by virtue of its invisible pits, as well as its Wall Shooter boss, also has this.
  • True Final Boss: The Wily Alien.
  • Underwater Boss Battle: In Bubble Man's stage.
  • Unwinnable: The Wall Shooter boss if your Crash Bomber ammo is not completely full. Also, the final boss is impossible to defeat if you don't have enough Bubble Lead ammo.
  • Unwinnable by Design: The Buebeam Trap if you enter with a full supply of Crash Bombs and either waste one and/or run out of health.
  • Updated Rerelease: The Europe and Japan only 16 bit upgrade included in The Wily Wars for the Sega Genesis (although it did get a Sega Channel exclusive American release), and Rockman 2: Complete Works for the PS 1 in Japan (this version was later incorporated into the Anniversary Collection).
  • Video Game Settings:
  • Villains Want Mercy: Wily in the ending.
  • Walk, Don't Swim: Mega Man can't swim, so he just sinks in Bubble Man's stage. However, unlike the first game, he can jump very high.
  • Weaksauce Weakness:
    • The alien can only be harmed by bubble lead. Wait a minute...
    • Metal Man notably can be killed in one shot by his own weapon.
  • When Trees Attack: Wood Man.
  • Zerg Rush: The Tellies in Crash Man's stage and Wily Fortress.
  1. ↑ Rockman 2: The Mystery Of Dr. Wily in Japan.
  2. ↑ 1988 in Japan.
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