Rockman 2 - Dr. Wily no Nazo Review by: Azul Fria - 10/10

OVERVIEW

 

Mega Man 1 through 6 had gotten a rerelease on PSX in Japan as separate games and they were given a few added modes and features such as Navi Mode where you can see how much damage you've dealt to the bosses and damage that has been done to you similar to that of Mega Man 8/Rock Man 8. There is also a mode where you can view information on defeated enemies and weaknesses. A pocketstation mode also exists where you can raise Rockman like a Virtual Pet.

 
The Blue Bomber returns in an all-new adventure called Mega Man 2 aka Rockman 2: Wily no Nazo in Japan. This time around you fight against eight robots instead of six robots from the first Mega Man and these are robots created by Dr. Wily himself instead of Dr. Light's robots being reprogrammed.

 
The game's eight bosses are (in order of creation): Metal Man – the metal gear on his head makes him look like a doctor and he heaves metal blades every times he jumps in response to you shooting at him, Air Man – a robot with a fan for a belly that blows you away as he sends waves of tornados at you, Bubble Man – a robot in scuba gear that sends bouncing bubbles at you and his room has spikes above that kill you if you jump too high, Quick Man – as his name implies he is quick and throws boomerangs around, Crash Man – one of the toughest robots to face in the series as he'll jump and shoot delayed explosives every time you shoot at him, Flash Man – he's relatively easy but he will occasionally freeze time so he can shoot at you, Heat Man – looks like a giant zippo lighter that sends three flame pillars and then do a flaming charge when hit, and Wood Man – Looks like a walking three stump and he protects with him with a leaf shield that he'll throw at you and leave himself open for damage momentarily.

Graphics - A+

The graphics are so much better in this game than the previous game. In fact, some of the stages are well animated in the background such as Flash Man's stage where the glass will light up on and off. Metal Man's stage has treadmills that will move the player in a specific direction but you can also see the clock gears moving in the background. Heat Man's stage is so full of red that it gives the stage that hot feeling as his name suggest and the lava also flows on the bottom and looks like actual lava as opposed to what Fire Man's lava looked like. Bubble Man's stage contains a waterfall that flows and in the water parts, water physics actually exist unlike the water in Ice Man's stage in the original game. Crash Man's stage will change from day to night during the course of the level.  Air Man's stage has clouds that can conceal enemies like the Pipis (birds) so you may not see them drop their eggs until it's too late and the Copipis will hatch from it and home in on you. 

 
Controls - A

Nothing much has changed from the previous game. The game gets rid of the use of the Select button to hard pause the game along with the trick used to negate post hit invincibility. However, there is a new trick added to where you can pause the game rapidly to reset your downward descent speed to zero and this allows you to jump over long pits especially the one in Metal Man's stage after you get the E-Tank without having to use any of the three special items to cross it normally. You still don't have the slide yet but you do get to introduce yourself to the charge shot in this game. The only thing about is that you don't use your normal buster to fire one. You use the Atomic Fire (obtained from Heat Man) to do the duty. Hold down the fire button and you will charge the weapon up to three levels then release the button to fire the shot. The Level 3 Atomic Fire is so powerful that it kills most enemies in one or two shots including bosses.

 
Gameplay - A+

 

The American and possibly the European version offers two difficulty modes: Normal and Difficult. The Japanese version is only one mode and it is based off the difficult mode and the behaviors of the enemies change as does the damage they take to defeat. Each robot is weak to another's weapon. The rock-paper-scissors concept is a bit complex in this game as some of the bosses are weak to more than one weapon.  In addition to the 8 weapons, you can get three special items to use for traveling purposes. Item-1 (obtained from Heat Man) lets you create up to three propellor platforms on the screen at a time to reach higher places out of reach. Item-2 (obtained from Air Man) lets you fly across extremely long pits and spikes. Item-3 (obtained from Flash Man) is a wall crawler that lets you ride up the side of the wall and is a bigger convenience than Item-1 in some spots. 

 

Here is a small guide to the weaknesses of the bosses in order to their creation:

 

Metal Man (weak to Quick Boomerang, Metal Blade during rematch)

Air Man (weak to Leaf Shield)

Bubble Man (weak to Metal Blade, Bubble Lead restores his health)

Quick Man (weak to Time Stopper, Crash Bomber, Air Shooter, Atomic Fire)

Crash Man (weak to Air Shooter)

Flash Man (weak to Crash Bomber, Atomic Fire, Bubble Lead, Metal Blade)

Heat Man (weak to Bubble Lead, Atomic Fire and Crash Bomber restore his health)

Wood Man (weak to Atomic Fire, Metal Blade, Air Shooter, Crash Bomber when shield is active)

 

Once you do away with all eight robots, you go straight to Dr. Wily's Castle and you fight through five stages. Your special items are a must in this set of levels. You face off against the Mecha Dragon in the first stage and physical contact with it will result in instant death. In the second level, you will need to use Item-2 to get across the spike pit but grab the right ladder to get an extra life and lots of weapon energy. In the third stage, there is a section where you must guide yourself through a series of spikes that will shift at times and the boss here is a giant tank called Guts Dozer that is based off of Guts Man  from the first Mega Man which I assume is Dr. Wily's favorite robot. We will be seeing him and other enemies similar to him in future games as we did the Rock Monster. The fourth Wily Stage has hidden gaps that you can fall through if you are unaware of where they are. It is best to pull out your bubble lead and watch where it falls so you will know where to avoid that hidden gap especially the one that is over the bed of spikes. The boss of this level is five Beam Traps that requires Crash Bombers to defeat. You got seven of those at your disposal and there are several walls to get rid of. What is worse is that if you run out of Crash Bombers, then you are screwed with a capital F. With proper placement, you can blow up two walls in the lower right and blow up one of the guns along with another wall. With that you should have one bomb left and that will come in handy in the next stage. The next stage consists of another famous niche in a Mega Man game (boss refights). They had that in the original Mega Man but that was more of a gauntlet. Here on the other hand, you can choose who you want to fight and you'll get an energy refill after defeating the boss. Once all eight bosses fall again, you face Dr. Wily. You will have to hop over his shots. It is best to conserve your Atomic Fire in Difficult Mode/Japan Version against Wood Man rematch and use Air Shooters instead. In Normal Mode, it's a 1 shot kill against him but a 2 -shot kill in Difficult/Japan Mode. Against Dr. Wily's first form it is the same. His second form is tougher, but if you managed to save that one Crash Bomber from the previous stage then you can shoot him in the correct spot to defeat him instantly as the explosion will gradually damage him to zero. It ain't over yet, you got one more stage with acid drips raining down. The final boss fight requires the use of the Bubble Lead and any other weapon will refill him to full health and that is a downer.

 
Difficulty - 4

 
After playing the normal mode for a while, it will be very easier to play through this game at least one time without dying once but since there are two modes I gave two different scores for difficulty as normal is very easy to play but difficult mode (which is default for Japan) is a killer especially towards the end of the game as the bosses take less damage compared to normal mode and it can come back to bite you in some spots that seemed like clockwork.

 

Other dangers that you should be aware of as during the course of the game aside from the afformentioned info above are stuff like the laser beams in Quick Man's stage that spell instant death if one touches you. It is possible to get through Quick Man's stage first but it is best that you use the Time Stopper to keep the laser beams from coming out till the Time Stopper wears off. The Springers you will mostly see in Metal Man and Heat Man's stage can't be hit with normal fire. Bubble Lead gets the job done on them instead. Another enemy to be wary of is the Sniper Joe riding in armor. They do severe damage but with the right weapon which is the Air Shooter, it goes down in an instant and leaves Sniper Joe to function as normal. Two enemies affected the most by difficulty levels are the shelled crab enemies and the enemy that shifts its body. In the difficult mode, they will shoot a part of themselves at you. Crabs will throw it shell but will do the same if you shot it with a Metal Blade regardless of difficulty and the shifter will shoot its body segments then reform.

 
Sound/Music - A+

 
The soundtrack is much better and the songs are more catchier. My favorite songs out of this lineup are the ones by Crash Man, Flash Man, Bubble Man and the 1st Wily stage. Heat Man's stage has the redundancy factor but it's not as Guts Man's music so I won't take off points for it.

 
Replay Value - A+

 
Once again, experimentation is a key factor in replayability as this game offers more options than before such as the bosses having more than one weakness and the fact that there are two difficulties for the player to try their hand at. There are even some tricks that the user can exploit for the full feel of the game. Aside from the pausing jump trick but there is a way to constantly save weapon energy for some weapons. You will discover that Metal Blades (4), Bubble Leads (2), and Quick Boomerangs (8) have more than one use before a single bar is used up. You can use up to 1 less than the mentioned amount then pause the game and the usage amount will reset so let's say you for Metal Blades, 4 uses is worth one bar but if you use three and pause then you can unpause and use up to three more without using a single bar. This trick can come in handy if you go up against the final boss and you are down to your last Bubble Lead. Shoot once and pause then shoot again and pause, etc. You will still hold on to that one bar of Bubble Lead and players who want to be fancy can use that exploit on purpose for a tough guy fight.

 
Overall - A+

 
It's a shame that this game as well as this series of games were never released outside of Japan but more recently, the PSN store on the PS3 allows for outsiders to enjoy these exact games as imports in their native language. At least no modchip is needed to enjoy the game if you buy it from the Playstation Network. It's a wonderful gem to have if you can get your hands on it.

10