Memories #12: Mega Man 2

Yet another gamer is writing about Mega Man 2. My, how original. Yes, Mega Man 2 gets talked about to death. The best Mega Man game by far for many fans. I do love the game, but at the same time, I can see why some would say it's overrated. Heck, I've been known to feel that way about the game myself on numerous occasions. For all this game did for Mega Man's status and for how great it is, this one isn't even my favorite Mega Man title. But it's fine game and it's the very first Mega Man adventure that I ever played so it only feels right to have the first Memories post about Mega Man feature the game that got me into the series.

My first entry into the extensive
Mega Man series.

Do you remember the days of going over to a friends house, sitting in front of the TV and playing video games for hours on end as a child? I certainly do. This routine activity was how my love affair with the Blue Bomber began. The year was 1989 and it was the summer time. I went over to my friends Justin and Matthew's house after Sunday school. While everyone in our circle of friends owned an NES, one of us had quite the selection of games that Justin and Matthew had. They had games I'd never even heard of, one such game being Mega Man 2. The purple window that held the image of Mega Man shooting at Quick Man as the cowardly Dr. Wily hid behind Crash Man greatly appealed to me. Of all of the games Justin and Matt had, this was the one I wanted to play the most. There's and old saying in regards to books that we read. I believe it goes, sometimes we don't choose the books, but the books choose us. I think the same can be said for video games.

Selecting a stage was totally new to me
at the time.

When I first started Mega Man 2, I wasn't
very good at it. I was met with this screen
a lot as a result. 

Since there was a group of us over at Justin and Matt's house, we had to share to make sure everyone got a chance to play the games they wanted. I was given two continues on Mega Man 2. When I started the game up and went to the stage select screen, I was pretty shocked. The fact that I was able to choose my destination was quite strange to me at the time. I wasn't really sure where to go. Somehow I ended up picking Bubble Man first. Not even five minutes in and I'd already gotten my first game over. I didn't even make it past the robotic frog that shoots smaller frogs. I think I was too accustomed to jumping on my enemies instead of shooting at them (I blame Mario and Luigi for that). For the second continue I went to Wood Man's stage where I didn't fare much better and quickly got my second game over. But the music to Wood Man's level quickly sank into my head. I may have made Mega Man look like a scrub with my lackluster skills, but I still liked Mega Man 2 and the music was already speaking to me.

Matt and Justin were always great friends and were more than willing to loan out their games. Matt saw that I really liked Mega Man 2 so he told me I could borrow it. He had already finished the game, after all, much to my surprise. Needless to say I was thrilled. When I got home I raced to the NES and quickly popped the game inside and went straight to Wood Man's stage so I could hear his theme. I don't think my mom had ever seen me dash towards the NES and starts up a game that quickly before.

Forget Air Man, this guy was the bot I
had trouble beating as a kid.

I loved coming to Wood Man's stage just
so I could hear his magnificent theme.

Since I had Mega Man 2 in my possession for a while, this allowed me to get much better at the game. And improve I did. Before long, making it through stages became easier as the days and weeks went by. I got the hang of how Mega Man controlled and even defeated a few Robot Masters. I didn't dawn on me that went I took down a boss, I earned his weapon. That whole "Get Equipped With" screen was lost on me for a while. In fact I didn't know I was getting the bosses weapons I until I paused and looked at the sub menu screen. I noticed I had extra energy meters. When I checked them out, I was amazed to see that Mega Man had changed colors from his usual blue and cyan. Not only that, with his new colors he could use different abilities like the Leaf Shield or the Metal Blades. It was a lot of fun seeing how the weapons worked in Mega Man's hands. I'd go through the levels killing robot mooks with the various abilities and then it hit me: what if I could use these powers on the bosses? When I started doing this, figuring out what weapons worked on who, my life become a whole lot easier. This was before the internet and I was not a reader of Nintendo Power. I hadn't even heard of the magazine at the time. No one told me how to beat these guys or what weapons to use on them. These were all things I figured out on my own and it greatly enriched my experience of Mega Man 2.

My numerous encounters with Pipis
taught me to loath them.

I quickly discovered the joys of the
Metal Blade.

Still, for all my improvement on Mega Man 2, there were still some troubled spots for me here and there. That long lava pit in Heat Man's level was something I never would have cleared without Item 2 and Quick Man's instant death Force Beams perplexed me until I got the idea to use the Flash Stopper to get through that section. Even Quick Man himself was a pain for a while. Speaking of pain, Crash Man and his Crash Bombs kept doing a number on me. I always had such terrible time dodging him and the Crash Bombs. One day I decided to use Air Man's Storm Tornadoes on him and was shocked to see him drop like a brick.

When I finally defeat all eight Robot Masters, it was time to take on the Dr. Wily stages. In a lot of ways I had to learn these levels just as I did the Robot Masters and their stages. Dr. Wily Stage 1 wasn't too bad but then I reached the Mecha Dragon section. I was making my away across the small platforms and the screen started to auto scroll. Shortly after that, the Mecha Dragon teleported in behind me and let out a roar. I was so scared out of my wits that I couldn't keep making my jumps correctly and fell into the pit. When I actually made it to the fighting area with the Mecha Dragon, I was knocked into the pit due to the fire he shot out of his mouth. Yeah, it took me a bit of time before I actually beat the first Dr. Wily stage boss. Up until this point, I'd never seen a boss so large so his size was pretty intimidating to me.

Dr. Wily Stage 2 took me far less time for me to make it through. It didn't seem like it was as long a stage and the boss, PicoPico Master, despite attacking from all sides, was no where near as frightening as the Mecha Dragon. Dr. Wily Stage 3 started what would be a staple in the Mega Man series: falling through a long pit of spikes. Due to my numerous encounters with spikes and the Force Beams in Quick Man's stage, I became nervous around anything that spelled instant death. I can quite clearly recall how nervous I was to fall through that long spike pit. Never had I felt so closed in while playing a video game. But even though I was sweating bullets, I made it through that section without dying. In fact, Dr. Wily Stage 3 was the easiest of the Dr. Wily levels for me, largely because it was so short. The boss of Wily Stage 3, Guts Dozer was huge but I wasn't scared fighting him, probably because I didn't have to fight him over a bottomless pit.

And then came Dr. Wily Stage 4. Man, I HATED this stage as a kid. The floors with invisible holes irked me, sure, but the biggest buzz kill was without question the boss of this stage, Boobeam Trap. Most of the time when I used the Crash Bombs, it was just to destroy a barrier. It never occurred to me that I'd have to use the weapon to defeat a boss. So when I entered the boss room, I was mystified. Instead of an easy target to shoot at, I presented with five targets that were spread across the room with most of them being behind those blocks that only the Crash Bombs can destroy. I made the mistake of using up my Crash Bombs rather quickly since I never bothered to count how many I could fire before they were all gone. And when I was all out of ammo, I was a sitting duck. None of my other weapons worked on Boobeam Trap. To make matters worse, the thing had insane accuracy, which made avoiding it's shots near impossible. I think this boss frustrated me so much that at one point I shut the game off. I just didn't feel like playing anymore. Sometime later during another play through I made it to this boss again and eventually beat him but it took a lot of time and patience and I think even a few Energy Tanks. Even today I still hate this boss.

I wish I could remember when I first beat Mega Man 2 but I can't. I pride myself on having a good memory but I can't for the life of me remember just when I beat it. What I can remember is sitting in those last few Dr. Wily stages and thinking how far I had come especially when I think back on how terrible I was at Mega Man 2 when I first started. To think that I could better myself that much and make it so far into the game brought a smile to my face.

This thing freaked me out as a kid.

In 1992 we gave away our NES and most of the games away to my cousin and to a friend. I was playing a lot of SNES at the time and had started to neglect my NES. In 1993 I started to miss having an NES as I looked through issues of Nintendo Power. So for Christmas of that year, I told my dad I wanted an NES and Mega Man 2, Mega Man 3 and Mega Man 4. I already knew I'd gotten what I wanted because a week or so before Christmas, I went snooping and found where my dad had hidden my stuff. Even so, I was quite pleased on Christmas day when I opened my presents and found Mega Man 2-4 among my gifts. I beat all three Mega Man games that day.

As I said in my intro paragraph, I think Mega Man 2 tends to be overrated at times. Yeah, it was a huge high point for the series, but I still liked plenty of Mega Man games that came after it. Still, I probably wouldn't be into Mega Man games had it not been for that wonderful summer Sunday at Matt and Justin's house where I briefly got to experience Mega Man 2. I guess it's kinda their fault that I have the huge Mega Man addiction that I do. I have Mega Man action figures, art books, comic books, manga and of course, a ton of Mega Man games. My love for Mega Man wouldn't exist if not for Mega Man 2, so I must give credit where credit is due. And overrated or not, I still think Mega Man 2 is an amazing game.