Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
The Best & Worst of Nintendo: Megaman 2

As a child I had the "Worlds of Power" paperback for Megaman 2, a book series having the distinction of being the first “professionally” published video game fanfiction. Remember, this was a time when Nintendo was the hottest thing since unprotected sex and just about everybody and their brother was rushing out the door to put out anything with the Nintendo name on it. Bedspreads, clothing, wallets, cereal boxes. I for one carried the nerdiest fucking Zelda II lunchbox to school well past the period where that sort of thing was acceptable, and stopped long before the kitch factor kicked in and a Zelda lunchbox was cool again. I even had a Tetris backpack shaped like a giant gameboy.

Jesus fucking christ

Point was, it was this period in time when hiring people to write short chapter books about Ninja Gaiden seemed like a good idea. I’m not sure exactly how they went about it, I mean, at least Ninja Gaiden had cutscenes to work from, but as far as Megaman’s storyline goes, there’s not much to build off of.

“In the year 200X, Dr. Light sent his only begotten son Megaman to die for our sins defeat the evil Dr. Wily and his eight evil robot creations.”

Somehow I imagine this writer, young and full of hope after finally completing his brilliant masterpiece. A stunning and harrowing drama through the depths of the human psyche, the toil of several years. He waits, hiding his anticipation as best he can, as the grizzled editor chomps on a cigar in the dimly lit office.

“Look kid, your stuff is good, I think we can work something out.”

“You—you liked it?”

“Yeah, well I mean, I didn’t read the whole thing but whatever. Point is, you’re wasting your talent on this artsy fartsy bullcrap.”

“I’m--I’m sorry?” He manages to squeak out, a bit confused.

“Look, I’ve got an assignment for you. It’s some video game thing, this “mega man” character. He’s got a gun for an arm; he’s a robot or something. Don’t make it fancy or anything-- just you know, gunfights and all that whiz-bang action the kids like. Have it back to me by Wednesday morning.”

“But… today’s Tuesday.”

“Hey, you’re the writer. I’m not gonna tell you how to do your job.”

But we’re not here to talk about books. We’re here to talk about games.

There are three constants in this world, death, taxes and Megaman sequels. If Capcom ever actually came out and said they were going to stop making Megaman titles, I'm pretty sure the magnetic poles would reverse and the whole world would fucking explode like in that really shitty movie "The Core."

However, that's part of what makes Megaman so enjoyable for people like me. I know it’s a joke at this point, there are so many sequels and spinoffs that it can be overwhelming, and anything resembling a reasonable plot continuity is little more than a trick of the light. But still, I’m oddly compelled to standby the series even knowing that no matter how good the newest Megaman Zero or Megaman X or Megaman Legends or Megaman Battle Network or Megaman ZX is, it won’t make up for all the shitty Megaman games that came before it.

If you’re still really lost at this point, this is Megaman, also occasionally known as the Blue Bomber for reasons no one really gets (he… doesn’t use bombs, it’s an odd moniker). As the story goes, Dr. Light with the help of his probably evil colleague Dr. Wily, created the world’s first robots, six of them, in order to assist mankind. This point has always confused many Megaman historians, as how does Cutman, a robot with a giant pair of scissors on his head, benefit humanity in any way? Point is Dr. Wily ends up stealing the original robots, reprograms them for evil, and sets them loose to achieve his scheme of ruling the world. Dr. Light is lost as to what to do, when his underage housekeeping robot boy Rock steps forward and volunteers to take down Dr. Wily himself. A reluctant Dr. Light quickly outfits Rock with a set of bright blue armor, gives him a gigantic gun for an arm, and sends him out in the world to destroy his former brothers and the evil Dr. Wily.

All of this plot was really just an afterthought though. The original Megaman was more of an experiment than anything else, the premise being a video game where you could select the stages in any order, and whenever you defeated a boss you gained their power. Aside from these interesting ideas, the game was kind of horrible. It was fucknuts hard as hell, the graphics weren’t spectacular, and most people could only beat the game using this glitch where pausing the game when hitting a boss with Elecman’s power would cause them to die with one shot. But this was a time before video game magazines were truly popular, when titles were forced to sell themselves largely on the strength of their box art.

Oh jesus hell what the fuck is that

With box art like this, I wonder how in the hell Megaman sold any copies at all. The “Oh my god the Megaman box art is the most horrible act against god I’ve ever seen” joke has been done to death, so I’m willing to leave this one alone after a few sentences. Still if this is your first time gazing upon its horrors, don’t be afraid. The shock eventually fades.

So somehow, despite being not all that great and having the worst fucking box art in Nintendo history, Megaman got a sequel.

Brining us to the aptly named, Megaman 2. And what a turnaround it was. To this day, if you ask somebody what the best Megaman game is, 99% of the time they’ll respond with Megaman 2. 1% of the time they’ll respond with something like “Megaman Soccer” at which point you should feel free to dissociate yourself with that person entirely. Truth is though that the sequel came a long way from the errors of its drooling half-retarded brother of a predecessor. Competent level design, bright shiny graphics, and best of all the most competent run and gun style of gameplay that would ever grace the NES. Sure, some may blow their load over the muscle-bound boys of Contra or something along those lines, but if you ask me there’s no greater pleasure than firing up my NES and watching as the title screen slowly slides into sight.
 

Here’s a screen you’ll be seeing a lot, the stage select screen. Here the ragtag group of robot adversaries has assembled themselves into a manner reminiscent of The Brady Bunch, with the wily Dr. Wily waiting in the middle. It’s time to get blastin’

The general consensus among most NES aficionados is that Metal Man should always comes first, the reason being that Metal Man’s weapon is simply a devastating addition to Megaman’s arsenal. For one thing it can be fired in eight different directions, which in a game where your little pea-shooter only likes to fire straight in front of you is kind of a revelation. Secondly, it causes your gun to now fire these giant fucking buzzsaws that will kill most enemies in a hit or two. Compare this to say, Airman’s weapon, a trio of air cyclones that can only be fired in one direction and immediately begins travelling upwards when you fire it, great for fighting just about nothing. No, once you have Metal Man’s weapon there’s little reason to use anything else. Lucky it’s a simple stage, some conveyer belts and the like though it’s pretty much a breeze all the way to the gate.

(There should be a really awesome picture of Megaman jumping through a gate right here but for some reason I can't find one. Just try and picture the awesome.)

This is probably the most important part of a Megaman game, the gate to the final boss. More or less, every game has kept this design feature in, the idea of a gate standing between Megaman and the boss of each stage. What has also thankfully stayed with the series, is the ever important dramatic jump. See, the second Megaman touches the gate, it slides open with this clicking noise, the screen then scrolling over to the right and bringing Megaman with it. However, if you jump into the gate, Megaman freezes in mid-jump as the gate slides open, and when the screen scrolls Megaman travels with it, still in the middle of this awesome dramatic slow motion jump. Best of all there’s another gate before the boss himself, so you get to do it twice. This may seem unimportant if you’ve never done it before, but it’s just something that you do because you can. It’s as important as trying to catch the scepter in mid air after beating a boss in Mario 3, or trying in vain to hide from the evil black death tendrils in Shadow of the Colossus. It’s not necessary, but it’s part of the game. I think it speaks volumes where programming has obviously reached the point where the game can register you’ve jumped in the gate, and instead have Megaman fa;; to the ground and walk in like a regular person. But yet game after game, Capcom keeps the floating jump gate trick in for the fans.

There’s no better way to walk through a door.

Once you have Metal Man’s weapon, it’s pretty much a matter of personal preference as to where to go next. If you remember which weapons are super effective against which bosses, you can go that route, something that becomes almost essential to beating later games in the series. However Megaman 2 is easy enough where you can go pretty much whichever route you want. Myself, I usually go after Wood Man, just because he is one dumb looking motherfucker and I love the idea of lodging hypersonic buzzsaws in the tree robot. Wood Man starts a trend of feeling sorry for these poor robots saddled with Dr. Wily’s design choices. I mean, Quick Man at least looks kind of like the flash and I’ve always been a fan of Bubble Man’s underwater commando type outfit. But Woodman is a fucking robot made out of wood. He has a tree trunk for a body, tree trunks for legs, and a hollowed out tree trunk with a goddamn branch hanging off the side of it for a helmet.

Sorry buddy, but goddamn are you stupid looking

Which isn’t to say any of the other robots make it out any easier. I mean, Heat Man is a fat kid trapped inside a Zippo lighter, and Air Man is a big angry fan with eyes. Still, these guys are gems compared to the Megaman X series where they really ran out of ideas. The series began by basing all the robots on animals. Unfortunately, there’s really only like, ten-fifteen cool animals you can really come up with to base a robot off of. I mean, “Vanishing Gungaroo,” “Burn Rooster,” “Bamboo Pandamonium” and “Shield Sheldon” are kind of ridiculous, but it’s when they actually ran out of animal ideas that the maverick design really started to shine.

Tornado Tonion ladies and gentlemen, the world’s first deadly onion robot.
How they came up with this one I have no idea.

Holy shit lasers

Quick Man’s stage is probably my favorite overall, the reason being that it breaks up the general tedium of constant fighting for the motherfucking laser gauntlet. Basically it’s a platforming section where a series of gigantic laser beams are being fired from off-screen and being caught up in one will result in Megaman’s immediate death. The stage is essentially a test of dexterity, requiring expert timing to properly maneuver Megaman through the vertical fall without being caught up in a laser and being incinerated instantly. Sure you could be a huge vagina and use Flash Man’s time stop power and ignore the ticking laser death clock entirely, but what the fuck kind of man would you be then?

Always last is Heat Man, because Heat Man’s stage fucking sucks. Remember how I mentioned Capcom’s difficulty in coming up with new robot ideas? Well we start to see that problem in this game, seeing as the original Megaman already had a Fire Man. One sequel in and you’re already reusing the “fire robot” concept? For shame guys, really. Still, I guess having a robot shoot fire is kind of keen, so I’m not going to argue about it. Point is, Heat Man’s stage offers a glimpse into what would later become one of the most horrible and frustrating traditions in Megaman history. 

The goddamn disappearing platforms.

Imagine for a minute a platforming section. Below you is scalding hot lava that will kill you instantly if you touch it. Above this are is series of blocks, which appear and disappear with a certain kind of retarded math-rock timing. You have to memorize the timing of these blocks, and jump across them without fucking up once, or you’ll drop into the lava and die. It can be some incredibly hard bullshit, especially in later games. I think the greatest "fuck you" moment I've ever experienced in a video game was the first Megaman Zero game for GBA. The disappearing platforms are back, 2000 years or so in the future and some asshole is still designing these fucking things. Except now, they have these goddamn gun turrets mounted on them. So whereas before the timing was all that mattered, now you’ve got to take into account the shiny bullets spitting towards you as you attempt to make your jumps. It’s some nutty goddamn bullshit.

Point is, if you do all the other stages before Heat Man, you’ll have the item necessary for crossing the lava section without the blocks, a little sled with a booster rocket that smoothly cruises you across unscathed. It’s a pussy way to do things, but fuck those goddamn blocks. I bested them as a child; I’ve got nothing to prove today.

Once all eight robot masters are finished, it’s time for the final assault on Wily’s Castle.

Look at how awesome that thing is. Goddamn. If there’s one thing I remember about the 80s its that you didn’t want to fuck with the kind of guy who lived in a giant skull. There’s quite the gauntlet of impressive boss battles. A giant dragon, a resurrected Guts Man now piloting himself as a steamroller.

Holy shit! A dragon!

Holy shit! An unholy hybrid of Gutsman and a bulldozer!

Then of course comes what we’ve been dreading. All eight of our previous foes have been rebuilt by that bastard Wily. However this time we’ve got an entire arsenal of special weapons to take them down with. Megaman bosses are hard when you don’t have the right weapon to fight them with, however when you do it can be a piece of cake.

Pick Your Poison

No worries here, just a quick refresher course in robot slaughter to prepare for the main course, Wily himself. And thus does the man reveal himself, piloting his flying machine. But he is not match for the incredible power of a young robot boy in blue spandex, and Megaman quickly makes short work of the old man, only to reveal...

An alien!?

This can’t be?! The dastardly Dr. Wily was an alien in disguise the whole time?! Working behind the scene to manipulate humanity?! It’s unfair, so unfair it makes me want to shoot the thing full of lead. Bubble lead to be precise, as for some reason only Bubbleman’s kind of dumb bubble weapon can penetrate the bastard’s cold green skin. Only to reveal…

Oh never mind, it was just a dumb old man with a hologram machine.

And so finally Dr. Wily has been defeated, the old man reduced to ruin at the feet of what he had thought a boy. But this was no boy, no; this was a man. And what a man he was. And so Megaman walked home, the wind blowing in his favor. And behind him fell the seasons--

...the leaves of autumn blowing around his feet...

...the winter snow falling in drifts all around him...

..the cherry blossoms of spring blooming and scattering their petals...

...and the wet summer rain that dropped from the sky like a rebirth...

And Megaman saw all this, and despite his weariness he smiled,
placing his helmet atop the hillside.

It was time to go home