After taking the novice approach to Mega Man 2 — that is, starting in the left corner on the level select screen and working my way across and down — I think I have a better understanding of what “Airman ga taosenai” is all about. You start with Bubble Man, and it’s a kind of […]
If we assume that most newcomers to Mega Man 2 will attempt to play through the eight stages in the order in which they’re displayed (not realizing you can pick and choose your sequence at will), that means the game kicks off with Bubble Man. We also have to assume Capcom’s dev team had observed player behavior from the […]
Leaf Shield Not every Robot Master weapon in Mega Man 2 takes the form of a gun, but even the unconventional armaments are more useful than their equivalent from the first game. The Leaf Shield comes with significant downsides — like the fact that it causes Mega Man to become completely immobilized while it’s […]
Mega Man 2 maintains many of the first game’s mechanics and design choices, including what would go on to be the essence of practically every Mega Man series save Legends: Fighting robots, then claiming their weapons as your own. And, as before, every Robot Master proves to be extremely weak to one of their comrade’s powers, and […]
First sequels on NES have a reputation for going wildly off the rails and taking a budding series in strange directions — into a new genre, sometimes. In truth, this reputation comes from a few high-profile titles, mostly from Nintendo; two of them (Simon’s Quest and Zelda II) have spent time under the Anatomy of Games microscope. The majority of […]
Dr. Wily’s fourth and final stage doesn’t offer many threats, but the ones it does contain mean business. The opening screens feature those floating guys from early in Elec Man’s stage, who attack with the same pincher maneuvers of two sets of three hovering in from both above and below. Here, though, they attack while […]
The second Wily stage eases up the pressure somewhat, but it’s only relatively gentle to what has come immediately before. It’s a shorter stage, with fewer minor hazards… but it also houses two major hazards that must be surmounted in sequence before you can reach a checkpoint. Specifically, those hazards take the form of […]
With the six Robot Masters down, regardless of the order in which you tackled them, the game’s final stage — or rather, set of stages — opens up to you: Dr. Wily’s castle. At this point, you have a choice of where to go next; you can dive right into Wily’s lair, or you can […]
While I’ve saved it for last, Bomb Man’s stage – the sixth and (in this listing) final of the stages in which you can kick off your odyssey in this very first Mega Man game – actually serves as an ideal stage in which to begin the game. It offers the fairest level designs, a diverse […]
The traditional vision of Hell involves flames and burning. But Mega Man goes with the Dante version, in which the deepest pits of Hell appear as frozen wastes, an icy tomb for Satan himself. Compared to Ice Man’s brutal level, Fire Man’s seems comparatively pleasant. Despite being set in a blazing furnace crammed with open pits […]
While I will defend the honor of the Magnet Beam to the death, there is really no justification for Ice Man’s level. It is not a good or fun level. It combines one of the infamous worst things about platformers – low-friction iced surfaces – with the game’s two most irritating unique mechanics. By far, […]
When the original NES Remix came out, back in December or so, I referred to it as Anatomy of a Game: The Game. It almost felt like Nintendo took all those game design ideas I’d been writing about and turned analysis itself into a game. By breaking down old NES titles into their constituent components and […]