Mega Man 2

Mega Man 2, known as Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo (ロックマン 2: Dr.ワイリーの謎) in Japan, is the second game of the Mega Man series and is considered by many fans the best Mega Man game for the NES.

Overview
Dr. Wily is back, and now he's created eight of his own Robot Masters to defeat Mega Man. Mega Man will have to stop Dr. Wily's robots and bring him to justice again.

Story
From the game:

"In the year 200X, a super robot named Mega Man was created. Dr. Light created Mega Man to stop the evil desires of Dr. Wily. However, after his defeat, Dr. Wily created eight of his own robots to counter Mega Man."

Version differences
There is no difficulty select in the Japanese version of the game. There is a Normal mode and a Difficult mode in the English versions, in which Difficult is the original Japanese mode and Normal is an easier mode in which Mega Man's attacks cause twice the damage. The difficulty select is only available in the American NES and mobile phone ports of the game.

Trivia

 * Keiji Inafune feels that this game is the most memorable for him, both in that it was the most fun to develop and the most stressful.


 * This is the first Mega Man game that shows the map of Wily Castle.


 * This is the first Mega Man game to have Dr. Wily create his own set of Robot Masters, instead of using someone else's.


 * This is the first Mega Man game to feature the standard eight robot masters instead of six from the first game.


 * This is the first Mega Man game to use Robot Master mugshots instead of their sprites like in the first game.


 * This is the first Mega Man game to have the "Teleport System" when encountering the Robot Masters again.


 * This is the first Mega Man game to have Energy Tanks, although the player could only carry four, instead of nine as in later installments.


 * Mega Man 2 was made into an incredibly stripped-down handheld electronic game by Tiger Electronics.
 * Every level is, in essence, the same; Mega Man must run to the right a specific distance while attacking or avoiding two differing enemies and leaping on two occasionally disappearing platforms until he reaches the area's boss. However, the player can still select any Robot Master level in any order.
 * This version had only six of the original eight bosses (Wood Man and Crash Man are not present) and the graphics art for Mega Man borrows from the cover art as well as the original graphic (he attacks with a pistol instead of an arm cannon which, strangely, has a limited amount of weapons energy). The bosses that exist also bear little resemblance to their NES counterparts.
 * Of the eight bosses to fight, only Quick Man, Heat Man, Bubble Man and Metal Man have their regular sub-weapons in check; Air Man and Flash Man fire out bullets similar to Mega Man's gun that can actually counter each other out. As a result, their sub-weapons are another batch of regular bullets.
 * The bosses do not possess any energy bars and can be destroyed by either fifteen shots with the regular shots or three hits with their specific weakness.
 * Once all six are destroyed, Mega Man then chases after Dr. Wily in his escape pod until he reaches the end of the level. However, like the original version, Bubble Lead is still his weakness, as no other weapon will damage him in the ensuing fight.


 * Like the first game, using a Game Genie on Mega Man 2 will cause the music to be riddled with quirks and odd sounds.


 * Quick Man's stage is taken from this game and is used as Dr. Wily's fortress stage in the Game Gear Mega Man game.
 * Also, Shadow Devil's stage in Mega Man X5 and QuickMan.EXE's stage in Mega Man Network Transmission are similar to Quick Man's stage.


 * Despite the original Mega Man having an alternate music track for fortress bosses, Mega Man 2 lacks this feature. This is the only game in the classic Mega Man series to have the same music for all boss battles.


 * Many ideas that were not used in the original Mega Man game, due to cart size limitations, were recycled for Mega Man 2.


 * This is the only Mega Man game so far to have a Robot Master that is weak to his own weapon.


 * This is the only Mega Man game where Mega Man can't receive any items in mid-air.


 * Flash Man and Bubble Man are the only two Robot Masters who did not appear in the cartoon.


 * Mega Man 2 is the game that caused the original Mega Man series to sky rocket in popularity.


 * In the stage select screen, if you hold the A and B buttons and choose a stage, the stars that sit behind the presentation of the boss will turn into birds.
 * At Wily Stage 5's boss rematches, if the player defeats a boss while not moving from the spot, a glitch will occur and the boss' life meter will freeze and turn green momentarily and then lets the player go. It's the easiest doing this glitch with Flash or Metal Man.
 * This game was the first one to have more than 4 Fortress Stages. Mega Man 10 would somewhat repeat this later on.