Three Great Things About Mega Man II
At long last, there's a new mainline Mega Man game in the works. Mega Man: Dual Override (basically Mega Man 12) is on its way in 2027, and as a huge fan of the Blue Bomber's classic adventures, I couldn't be more excited. And what do I do when I'm excited? I look back on how we got here!
For the next, well, however long it's going to take for Dual Override to come into existence, I'm going to be running through the entire classic series of Mega Man games and coming up with 3 things I like about them. Obviously, there will be some games that I like more than 3 things about. But in the interest of brevity, I'm sticking with the first three that come to mind.
So, without further ado, here are three great things about Mega Man II.
The hilariously terrible soundtrack
If you’ve never played this game before, you may not know about it’s legendarily bizarre soundtrack. I don’t know what it was exactly, but something went catastrophically wrong when it came time to program this game’s music. The compositions are fine. Some are actually quite good. But everything is played at an unbearably screechy frequency that it’s genuinely more difficult to not turn the volume down than it is to see the game’s ending. There are a lot of really cool takes on these tunes from all manner of VGM cover artists because like I said, the songs themselves are actually pretty cool. But even though the music is tough to listen to, it’s one of those strange things that helps give the game its charm, or at least make it memorable. Really, how did this make it out the door sounding like this?
Quint and the Time Skimmer
Mega Man games at this point weren’t exactly known for having very involved stories, but if you take a second to look into the lore behind this particular entry, it involves something called a Time Skimmer. Dr. Wily used this doodad to make Mega Man have to fight previous robot masters again, and a bizarro alternate future version of Mega Man himself named Quint who wears all green, has a dorky-looking helmet, and rides a pogo stick. It’s impossible not to love that brand of insanity.
The Sakugarne
That pogo stick I mentioned? It’s called the Sakugarne, and you can actually get it. AND RIDE IT. It’s easily the most awkward thing I think Mega Man’s ever done in one of his games, and I love how unbelievably stupid this thing it. As if it wasn’t silly enough in concept, it’s also got googly eyes, like it’s supposed to be sentient or something. This image is the coolest it’s ever looked, and it comes from the tragically cancelled Archie comic series. I love this dumb thing, so much.
And that's all for this one. Join us next time as I dive into the world of my least favorite numbered Mega Man game, Mega Man 4 for NES. Yeah, I know. I'm nuts. I still think it's great, just, you know, not as great.
