Video Game #16: Mega Man 2

I have told Tork time and time again that I don't like Mega Man. He never seems to believe me. So why am I not surprised that he's telling me to play Mega Man? Here's the challenge:

Challenge: beat one of the bosses and use his weapon. 15 minutes.

I guess if I have to.







So, yep. That's the backstory. Dr. Light is an asshole who hates the very idea of his rival Dr. Wily's happiness, so he goes and creates a whole goddamn SUPER ROBOT just to follow Dr. Wily around and make sure he never relizes a desire ever again. Dr. Wily, naturally, objects to this and builds some robots of his own to protect himself. We're supposed to disapprove of this perfectly reasonable course of action.

Yeah, it's actually Mega Man II. I made the mistake this one time of telling Tork that I only ever played the first Mega Man (and did not like it). Of course Tork was all like, "Well that explains it! Mega Man II is so much better! It fixes all the flaws of the first Mega Man game!" and has now decided to force me to try it.

I guess it did fix a lot of flaws, but it missed one: Neither game is fun.


So every Mega Man game has a boss selection screen. The gimmick is that instead of doing the levels in a set order that the game decides, you can pick whatever level you want and do the levels in any old order. (The game won't let you just skip all that and go straight to Dr. Wily, though.)

Of course, you don't actually have as much freedom as the game wants you to think. You're meant to use the powerups you got from one boss to beat the next until you win. That means you actually do have to go through the levels in a set order, just the game doesn't tell you what order that is.

Thanks game.

I don't know what order I'm supposed to play these levels in. I went with Quickman first because he looks like Cutman and I think Cutman was first in the other game.

I find out I'm wrong pretty much immediately when the level starts me next to a ledge with a 1-up on it that's too high for me to jump on. I guess I was supposed to use some powerup I got from a different level. Great.

This level instakills me pretty much right away by making these bars of death shoot through the screen. You have to get to the bottom fast enough that they miss. If you don't know they're there that's unlikely to happen.


When I finally get to the bottom of the well the game turns out the lights on me.

They come back on when I get to these jerks, though. You can kill them but that turns the lights out again and you don't know when to jump. On the other hand, letting them live means they get to hit you a lot before you run past.

I got hit a lot either way so I pretty much let them live. I got no beef with Dr. Wily or his robots.


I get past that and suddenly more stupid light bar things out of nowhere.


It was at this poin in the playing that I noticed that I forgot to start my timer. After staring at it in angry disgust for a good minute I subtracted several minutes and started it up.

Quickman was a bad choice, so I decided to go with Bubbleman because he's in the upper left and I have been trained by years of reading to start anything from the upper left hand corner.

I forgot the Japanese read from the other direction.


Geez. This level hasn't even started yet and I'm already blind. Thanks, level.

The frogs are kind of cool-looking, I guess. There, Tork, I said something nice. Happy?

I don't know why Mega Man's face is invisible.

Those pink blocks fall off the screen the second you step on them. I hate them.

Buh.

I seem to have trouble with jumping so maybe beating Airman will help me. He's Airman so I can get more air with his powerup, right?

These demon dudes the floor is made out of would have been kind of cool, but they keep making me think of goatse. The Internet ruins everything.

Most of this level consists of jumping on these freaky clown head things and they have horns that go up and down and you can't jump on the horns or you fall and they also shoot out these crappy little flying assbag head things that swarm around you and either make you fall off the cliff or just die outright.

This screen is getting to become kind of a relief at this poin.

I chose Woodman next because heeheehee... His name is Woodman...


He has bunny rabbit robots that are kind of cute and are easy to kill. Those bats look kind of suspect to me, though.

The robo-doggies, though cool looking, were my undoing. Stupid flamethrower.

I don't know where Megaman is. His life bar is still pretty full so he should be visible in this shot. Oh well. I'm not too shaken up about his disappearance.


Time's up! Thank God.

Sorry, Tork. I still don't like Mega Man. In fact, I think I can pretty safely say that I hate Mega Man. I hate him more now than I ever have before. So good thinking making me try it, I guess.