RESET: Mega Man 2

Bubble Man. Air Man. Quick Man. Wood Man.

Those are just a few of the names of level bosses that caused me so much grief during my childhood.  If those names don’t ring a bell for you, they are the names of characters from Mega Man 2, the smash hit, action platformer released by Nintendo in 1988.  Developed by Capcom, Mega Man 2 was the wildly popular sequel to the original Mega Man.

The basic plot of the game is about Mega Man, a robot created by Dr. Light

The basic plot of the game is about Mega Man, a robot created by Dr. Light, who takes on Dr. Wily who created his own army of robots.  At this point Mega Man has become one of the most storied franchises in video game history.  It has had numerous video game titles released over the last 30 years, a cartoon show, comics, and toys.

Now, I’m no Mega Man buff. I only followed the franchise closely from the original Mega Man through the Mega Man X series on the Super Nintendo. I then followed a little later on when Mega Man Legends was released for the original Sony Playstation.  Out of all of them, Mega Man 2 was by far my favorite Mega Man game. I hold very fond childhood memories of the game from the music to the bosses.  The one thing is specifically remember like it was yesterday was the difficulty of the game.  As much as I enjoyed playing Mega Man 2 I felt it was ridiculously difficult.

Mega Man 2 is one of the thirty titles that is preloaded on the Nintendo’s new retro console.
Over the past few years, I’ve curated my own retro video game collection. With the recent resurgence of retro gaming , it was only a matter of time before I crossed paths with Mega Man 2 again.  Once I got my hands on a Nintendo classic, that’s exactly what happened.

Mega Man 2 is one of the thirty titles that is preloaded on the Nintendo’s new retro console. Before playing the game, I recalled the difficulty of Mega Man 2 and I thought to myself , “Well it was hard, but I was only seven years old.”  Now, almost thirty years later (and after countless hours of sharpening my skills on games I felt were far more advanced), this should be a cakewalk, right?

I was wrong.

Oh, so wrong.

Mega Man 2 was every bit as difficult as I remember it to be when I was 7 years old.  For some parts of Mega Man 2, you have to be incredibly precise with position and timing to get from platform to platform.  Beating the bosses in a certain order also helps you make your journey a tad bit easier.

There will be no spoilers here, so if you are attempting to beat the game yourself, I’ll be of no help.  All these years later I still find Mega Man 2 insanely fun, yet incredibly difficult.

Now I have a new goal for 2017. My seven year old self never beat the game, and my thirty five year old self hasn’t either…yet.