RGM Goes Retro – Mega Man 2

Growing up, I’ve played a lot of Mega Man games. I’ve actually played and beaten all of them in the original series and the X series. Every Mega Man game, in my opinion, is good and worth a play through. Some have more creative robot villains than others but the Mega Man formula for me, never got old. I still play these games on the Legacy Collection on my Xbox One and own the collection package for PS2 for all the X games. Out of all the 16 or so Mega Man games I have played my all time favorite is none other than Mega Man 2.

Mega Man 2 was released in Japan in 1988 and in North America and Europe a few years later. It takes the formula that was built-in the original Mega Man and enhances it with some graphical tweaks, fantastic music, and more boss villains. The interesting thing about Mega Man 2 was that I never owned it originally on the NES. My neighbor and my cousin did and I borrowed it from them countless times. I loved the game and to this day I still have the boss order and their weapon weaknesses memorized. I have also beaten this game without dying before. It’s the one game I always go back to so I can test my old school platforming skills to see if I still have it. I just completed it again a few weeks ago so yea, I still got it.

My favorite memory of this game was taking turns with my friends to figure out the boss weaknesses on our own. Back then we didn’t have the internet to look it up so we had to experiment. One of my favorite discoveries was using freeze on Quickman to automatically take off half his health. Another strategy I discovered was that you should always start the game against Metal Man. Metal blade is the best weapon in any Mega Man game hands down. Once you acquire the metal blade, you will be using it 90% of the game due to its power and directional aiming ability. Also fun fact, when you fight Metal Man again in Wily’s Castle, metal blade defeats him in one shot. I have played through Mega Man 2 at least 50 times to completion possibly even more, I lost count. It’s lasted the test of time because when I played it at 31 years old, I loved it all over again. Playing this game is like reuniting with an old friend that’s never changed or grew up. I have changed but playing Mega Man 2 takes me right back to my childhood thinking about all the great memories I have with this game and how the music gets stuck right in your head all day (looking at you Crash Man).

I am going to post my boss order and my weapon weakness strategy for Mega Man 2 out of pure memorization. This may not be the order you use but it’s what I’ve used since the 90s.

megaman2boss-610

  1. Metal Man – He’s easy to beat with your basic gun and his weapon will be come your regularly used weapon in every level for the rest of the game.  It can also defeat most bosses despite not being their direct weakness.
  2. Flash Man – Use your metal blades and just avoid touching him, he isn’t tough and your blades will kill him faster than he can kill you.
  3. Quick Man – This is a tough level with the instal-kill light beams so it’s a good idea to get it done early.  When facing Quick Man, use the freeze power from Flash Man, this will take off half his health bar.  For the rest of the fight use your basic power gun and just dodge carefully.  He’ll be destroyed in no time.
  4.  Wood Man – Wood Man’s weakness is actually the atomic fire ability from Heat Man but he is easy to defeat using Metal Blade and should not cause you any trouble.
  5. Air Man  – Air Man’s weakness is the leaf shield you acquire from Wood Man.  Avoid his wind gusts and shoot the leaf shield at him when he’s lined up in your sites.  The basic gun is also not that bad against him either if you are good at dodging.
  6. Bubble Man – You can go right to Bubble Man after Metal Man if you would like to.  He is weak to Metal Blade and pretty easy to defeat.
  7. Crash Man – Crash man is weak to Air Man’s air shooter.  He jumps around a lot so you’ll want to get close before using your air shooter to make sure you land a hit on him.
  8. Heat Man – I save Heat Man for last because of his level difficulty.  He has a very difficult level with a lot of disappearing platform blocks.  However, by this time you should have item #2 and can use this to rocket past the hardest part in the level making it much easier.  He is weak to Lead Bubble from Bubble Man but watch out for his fire teleport.

wilycastle

Wily’s Castle

After defeating all the robot bosses you will head over to Dr. Wily’s castle.  Here are the boss weaknesses for each level.

  1. Fortress Dragon – this boss is tough because you have to fight him with very limited space to move around on.  One hit from his projectile can knock you off the platform and kill you instantly.  His weakness is Quick Boomerangs.  As long as you take your time and avoid his projectiles, the boomerangs will defeat him rather easily.
  2. Picopico-kun – I had to look up this bosses name because I had no idea what it was called or what to call it.  It’s a boss fight with multiple robots that are easy to defeat but hard to dodge.  Lead Bubble and Metal Blade are the most effect weapons here.  I prefer Metal Blade due to its directional shooting.
  3. Guts Tank – the Guts Tank is based on a boss from the original Mega Man, Guts Man.  Despite his intimidating size he’s one of the easier bosses to defeat.  Jump up on his tank platform and unload some Quick Boomerangs into his head.  He’ll be destroyed extremely quickly.
  4. Boobeam Trap  This boss is a little tricky.  You need to use Crash Man’s Crash Bomber to destroy each module on the wall.  The caveat is some of the modules are blocked by walls that need Crash Bomber as well to destroy.  If you destroy all the walls you will run out of energy for your Crash Bomber gun and be forced to die.  If you do lose a life, you can refill your Crash Bomb energy by defeated enemies before the boss battle and all the walls you destroyed will still be gone when you return.  The strategy here is to use your items to navigate the maze like structure and conserve your bombs the best you can or if you have the lives, destroy the walls, die, refill, and return to finish the boss off.
  5. Boss Rematch  – This level you will have to fight all the robot bosses again, use my reference above for their weakness but one note, Metal Man and Wood Man are weak against their own weapons and make them extremely easy to defeat.
  6. Wily’s Machine – You’ll want to use Atomic Fire on Wily’s Machine.  It’s important that you do not stand still because his projectiles follow your path and will hit you if you stand still, keep moving and use Atomic Fire to defeat him.
  7. Alien – The final boss of the game is an Alien, his weakness is Lead Bubble, you will need to get close to use it since he hovers and Lead Bubble has basically no projectile movement.  Get in close, use up any remaining E-pellets you have and finish him off.

Congratulations you just beat Mega Man 2 one of my favorite games!

What is your favorite Mega Man game?  Leave us a comment below or in the RGM forums!