Every Mega Man game gets a sequel.
(Aside from the weird racing and soccer tomfoolery.)
This is a fact proved by science.
Just think up eight new bosses, eight new weapons, and some justification for the bad
guy - though defeated in the last version, to not be defeated - and BAM.
You get to do the whole thing over again.
What lets Mega Man get away with it, though, is excellent level design, wonderfully exacting
platforming, and... a sponge?
I know that ideas must be tight in a long-running series...
BUT THIS IS THE SECOND ONE.
C’mon.
Second verse, same as the first, except Zero’s not on the scene because... he’s dead, Jim.
Not only is he dead, he’s been TRIFURCATED!
(There’s a word I didn’t expect to be able to use today.)
And the various chunks of your trusted comrade-in-arms (the chunks that have arms, at least) are
held by... these jokers, seemingly plotting some evil scheme.
You’ll have to beat them up to put Humpty Dumpty back together again (and not have to
face him as a boss later), but put them on the shelf on the moment, because for whatever
reason, all those power-ups Dr. Light gave you in the original X have been stripped away.
Why?
SO YOU CAN COLLECT THEM ALL AGAIN, in all new obscure locations.
Fortunately, one of the new upgrades is a targeting reticule that indicates false walls
and secret passages, which you might have to cut through using the ground-travelling
wanna-be Metal Blade, or just land a ridiculously tight jump, possibly involving the new air-dash.
There’s also a double-fisted Mega Buster that fires two charged shots, as well as an
armor enhancement that turns the damage you take into a massive, screen-clearing blast.
It’s a standard Mega Man sequel: You do all the same things, just a little bit better.
The biggest improvement in X2 isn’t in the gameplay, but in the actual hardware of the
cart itself.
Sure, folks talk about the Super FX chip, and if they’re hardcore JRPG addicts (like
me), the S-DD1 compression chip that made Star Ocean so freakin’ huge... but less
heralded was the wireframe-manipulating Cx4 chip, used only in this game and Mega Man
X3.
It’s this chip that powered revolutionary 3D effects, like... this sword.
That’s a sword, trust me.
And they were revolutionary at the time.
Trust me.
After all, these effects are set against some of the most iconic sprite art of in the history
of gaming.
But for all the haters who said, “It’s just the same game every single time,” it’s
not.
Things changed inside here, even if at first glance it doesn’t appear as such.
Also, how can you hate on a game with a Wayne’s World reference... that segues into giving
you the Shoryuken.
I know I can’t.