A Critical Look at Mega Man 2 Stages: Dr. Wily Stage 6
Wily escapes in his ship, and the map shows a second boss marker underground. Mega Man appears in the middle of falling down a long shaft.
The first thing you’ll notice after landing is the lack of music, and the only sound here is the dripping of whatever red stuff is leaking from the ceiling, which can kill Mega Man in three hits. This section is doing a great job setting up the reveal here, as the creepy and out of place setting would almost make you believe that Wily is actually…
…an alien!
Alien Wily floats around the room in a figure-eight pattern, shooting at you now and then. The only thing that can damage him is Bubble Lead, and it deals one damage per hit, so if you walked in with a full bar you’ll need to hit with half of them. While that’s not difficult to do, it’s very easy to die here if you’re not taking it carefully, since you’ll need to get close and those shots hurt. This sets the tradition of Wily being weak to the most difficult weapon to hit with, but the fact that you can’t hurt him with the Buster causes the same problems we already went over with BooBeam.
Aside from the weapon requirement, the setup and reveal for Alien Wily is great, and the fact that his pattern is so simple is a reasonable decision here, as his whole purpose seems to be an attempt to scare the player into making mistakes rather than being truly difficult. I’d argue that the first two forms are actually worse than the first game’s though.
Overall though, Mega Man 2 swung pretty heavily between being awesome and being unnecessarily frustrating, though there’s much more of the awesome.
I can’t think of much to add for this one since I covered it more thoroughly than the first, so the one last thing I want to say about it before moving to on to Mega Man 3 is that nearly every time the game gave the player too much grief, it did so with style. Stuff like Heat Man’s bridge and BooBeam were the sort of things that got talked about around school, and instead of just being annoying like Foot Holders, they had a flair to them that tends to stick with you. People may have torn their hair out over Quick Man’s lasers, but you don’t forget that sound. If the dragon kills you when it warps in, you’re not likely to bitch about it much because holy crap a robot dragon just warped onto the screen!
Tags: A Critical Look at, editorial, Mega Man 2, Mega Man Classic
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Alien Wily is great because at first it is very intimidating though his pattern is very easy. The stage is creepy-weird; having no music and that sole, eerie echo of the acid drops to add a sense of isolation.
The ending is one of my favorites in the franchise. Next time take a look at the endings too!
I love your Critical Look series. Can’t wait for Mega Man 3! That was my first MM game. I read about it back in Nintendo Power when it was new and wanted that game SO bad.
Can’t wait for the review of Megaman EIGHT
Allright MM2, now hit the eShop in europe and the usa
Yeah, that stage was very creepy. No Sound, just the noise that the red acid makes when it drops down. The cave like graphic design makes the isolation experience complete. Short, but very effective. That stage remembers me of the feeling i had when i first played Metroid 1. I love it.
The logical consequense was what made a markout moment: Wily steps out of his UFO and transforms into an alien. Holy shit. It was so damn great used and the stage prepares you for it in some way. Absolutely great. Thats it what makes the Megaman Series so special.
The Wily fight is easy, the eight pattern is easy to learn and easyer do dodge. But you still need good reflexes and perfect timing with the Bubble Lead. And that is what makes this Wily Fight disappointing. Again you need a special weapon, without warning or a hint. That ruins it a little. Not a wise move by Capcom.
Keep it going man, i love your look at the Megaman Series. I can’t wait for Megaman 3.
This is a technical reason why there’s no music on the last stage: the noise of the red stuff leaking from the ceiling would take away a good part of the music, I realized this when playing romhacks.
Despite how overrated this game is, it is a great game I had plenty of fun with, back in the day. I’ve always liked this final stage, regardless of how incredibly easy it was to clear.
Still, I have to say I like the first Mega Man game better. I also happen to think that it’s one of the most underrated games in the series.
On to Mega Man 3, one of my other favorites!(Yes, I know that game is somewhat overrated, too.)
I would so much like to congratulate you, Glass Knuckle, for your 15-week uploading of the “Critical Look at the Mega Man 2 stages” sequences. It is one of my favorite Mega Man games up to date; a colorful array of Robot Masters and Dr. Wily as an Alian for the finale.
When and if you ever start a “Critical Look at the Mega Man 3 stages”, do you think you could put the stages in this order: Snake Man, Gemini Man, Needle Man, Hard Man, Top Man, Shadow Man, Spark Man, Magnet Man? Anyway, Mega Man 2 has been a real experience for me and it will for years to come. Thank you for all those stage walkthroughs.
MavhunterX: We begin MM3 next week. =)
And sorry, but the stuff is written well in advance; in fact, we’re most of the way through Mega Man 4, though none of it has been formatted yet (I usually do that just before it goes live– which is why we had a small problem last week when I left for Otakon and forgot to prep it in advance… whoops!).
But, since you asked nicely, I will go ahead and tell you that Magnet Man is the first one up, followed by Snake Man. I think Glass Knuckle plays them in a random order, hence the… randomness of the order.