Mega Man II
(Rockman 2: The Enigma of Dr. Wily in Japan)
System: NES (Famicom), Reissued 1999 PlayStation
Released 1987

The Basics
Mega Man came into his birthright in this, the second title in the series. Unlike the first title, Mega Man II was wildly popular and earned the accolades of the mass consumer. Instead of facing a mere six robot bosses, Mega Man faced eight - which became the series standard. The next important innovation was the addition of passwords, which let you re-enter the game at a later date without starting from scratch. There were also three upgrade items from Dr. Light to augment Rock's powers. Add in the excellent music and the distinctive graphical style that surrounded the game - including portraits of the bosses - and the amazingly huge dragon in Dr. Wily stage 1, and we can assume that Capcom intended to make Mega Man its star.

Gameplay
First, select between normal and difficult mode and then pick a boss - the order you play them in can be important. Make sure to start with Metal Man because he's easy and his blades are absurdly useful. In fact, you can smack down most of the bosses with these blades, especially if you've chosen normal mode. Then, make your way around trouncing bosses and collecting weapons and items. Those huge wolves in Wood Man's stage look really nice, don't they? After you defeat all eight, Dr. Wily shows up again. Play through a few more stages, revanquish the henchmen, and off you go to fight... an alien?

The Weapons and Bosses
The Metal Blade is probably the best weapon in the entire series. The rest of them aren't bad either - the Mega Man bosses aren't even lame - yet. Bubble Man is kind of sad, challengewise, but he's made up for by his stage's superlative tune. When you defeat him you'll get the Bubble Lead, which rhymes with "need," not "head."

You weren't trying to poison the evil robots this time. You tackled Metal Man and his saw blades, Bubble Man and his bubbles, Heat Man and his chargeable "atomic fire," Flash Man, who will let you stop time, Quick Man, whose boomerangs were lethal, Air Man and his baby tornadoes, Crash Man and his bombs, and Wood Man and the leaf shield - a very useful rotating circle of protection.

Japanese Version
Rockman picked up a subtitle in this version - a convention that would be maintained throughout the series and has not been carried over to the US games even to this day. The game was otherwise the same, except that Crash Man was known as Clash Man in Japan (and one can't help but wonder why they bothered - both are kind of silly and both are real words), and there was no choice of modes in the Japanese game. It turned out that normal mode was an easy mode and difficult mode was the only way to play in the original version. Things changed a lot since those days, with this situation being reversed in Metal Gear Solid.

Final Thoughts
Capcom had a huge hit on its hands with this title. Taking the ideas laid down in the first game and refining them, the company came up with an excellent and imaginative game - with some shining spots in graphics and music to help it along. It's one of the true NES classics.