Is this 2 or II? The title screen says II, but everywhere seems to reference it as 2. Up until writing this, I’d thought the roman numeral numbering system for Mega Man games only applied to the NES ones, and the Game Boy games used standard decimals, but I don’t suppose it really matters. What does really matter? The game!

Which is just the same as the first one. Well, OK, that’s a slight lie. There are differences. First of all, there are eight robot bosses, not six. Secondly, the “Wily levels” are shown on a level map. You also have three additional tools – uselessly named “Item-1″ to “Item-3″ – which allow you to create various platforms. Finally, it’s a lot easier.

Apart from those relatively minor changes, Mega Man 2 plays more like a level pack for the first game than a sequel. I expect that’s how they’ll all end up.

As I said, it was easier than the first game. The levels seemed a bit shorter, and the boss fights were certainly much less impossible (although I seemed to fluke a one-hit-kill on Air Man, somehow). Overall, though, the game was a lot longer with more Wily Levels and a full all-eight-robot-masters SuckySuck(TM) bit. I never like boss rushes. There was also the issue of the final few levels becoming impossible if you use up certain weapons, meaning you’d have to lose all your lives and continue should this happen. Thankfully, I’d been pre-warned, so stuck to the stock arm cannon as much as possible.

Oh, and another wrinkle in the game was the introduction of those nasty patterns of appearing and disappearing platforms. Luckily one of the items you can use (Item-2, I think – they’re not described at any point) lets you skip over the worst bits on Heat Man’s stage. Phew. Unfortunately, I know they’re also in Mega Man 9 so I expect they’re a series main-stay from this point on.

And the dragon that comes out of nowhere and forces an autoscroll section! And the massive horizontal laser bits! OK. Perhaps it wasn’t easier than the original game after all.

At least the final, final boss was really very easy. For a Mega Man game. Once I’d figured out that only one weapon could damage him, anyway. I sent him packing, and then… Mega Man 3? Yeah, I think so.

When I downloaded Mega Man X the other week, I didn’t really anticipate playing any of the older Mega Man games. I sort of intended to play X, and, if I liked it, to pick up X2 and play that.

Capcom clearly anticipated this and in their recent sale (all the NES Mega Man games on the Wii U Virtual Console are half price) failed to drop the price of X2. This forced me to pick up the original Mega Man, and, just in case I liked it, Mega Man 2 as well. I nearly got all six, but that would have been silly.

I’m now probably going to get the rest of the six before they put the price back up.

As previously mentioned, the NES Mega Man games mostly passed me by, and it was only Mega Man 9 and 10 that I actually put any time into (and completed). Until now.

First impressions were as I expected. It’s the same as Mega Man X only without the ability to dash, no charged shots, no passwords,  six rather than eight bosses, very little story exposition, and (obviously) poorer graphics. It’s the same damn game, in other words. Which is fine, actually. If it ain’t broke clearly worked for the series.

In advance of playing, given the difficulties I had in X, I looked up the “correct” order for doing the bosses. This meant every (main robot) boss was easy, aside from the guy I was supposed to use Gutsman’s power for (Cutman, I think), and at that point Gutsman’s power appeared to do nothing at all. It was only later in the game I found he could pick up and throw blocks, so I had to beat Cutman “normally”. Thankfully he was easy.

Also like X, the final stage was split into a few sections, with a SuckySuck(TM) bit near the end (Boss Rush, if you didn’t know) before a two part final boss.

The game was pretty short, taking maybe 90 minutes in total, but very difficult. In particular, some of the horrid appearing-and-disappearing block platforming sections (also in Mega Man 9) and a moving platform on a rail which “flips down” to drop you off, were especially swear-worthy. Those jumping robots on a single leg which appeared before most of the boss fights were a pain too.

Now onto Mega Man 2, I suppose!