Retro Game of the Week 066: Mega Man II (NES)

Mega Man 2 has been named the best Mega Man game for the NES for many different reasons. Unlike the rest of the games excluding Mega Man 1, the game continues on from where it left off. I'm not sure if this entirely true as in some later Mega Man games Dr. Wily gets freed by his robots so that would only indicate that he was successfully placed in jail at the last Mega Man game. It doesn't really matter anyways because we play these games for the awesome classic gameplay and Mega Man is king of it. The game plays great and with the usually great Mega Man soundtrack, you'll be loving this game all the way through.




The Mega buster charge shot is missing in this game as it wasn't introduced until Mega Man 4 so you'll be having some tough times ahead. The regular Mega buster does damage the robot masters in strong quantities. In fact, you can defeat all the robot masters with just your mega buster in normal mode. Speaking of modes, the game comes with two modes, normal mode and hard mode. I'm sure you can figure out which is which and what they do so I won't go into further details. As with every Mega Man game once you defeat the robot master you'll gain their power and be able to use it for the rest of the game. You will also gain additional gadgets that looked more like Rush's body parts that will help you in your quest.



The goal is quite simple as you defeat the eight robot masters and then head to Dr. Wily's castle. There you will go through various levels until you reach the end. It's odd that in some Mega Man games he decides to go all around the castle only to end up in an area where he could have just gone around and skip all the battles. It's alright though, this only benefits to you and the replay value.

There is not much more to say about this game except that it's a true classic and it should not be ignored. The game is might affordable for the NES but if you are aiming for the Famicom version get ready to pay up big time. The complete in a box Rockman 2 can go well over one hundred dollars. My advice, stick with the NES version. So that's about it for this week, be sure to check out next week's retro game of the week.