(Hello again! Today we are talking about Mega Man 2, a game whose gravity is massive. Quite possibly the most revered action platformer on NES, and even if you don't agree with that you have to admit that it's way up on the list. It's far too much for even my esoteric madness to handle, so I'm proud to introduce the first guest post of The Nintendo Project, Resumed! My pal and intrepid game designer, John Thyer, is here to tell you why Mega Man 2 is brilliant. Most of you already "know" that, but much like Phil Sandifer's TARDIS Eruditorum, we are here to ignore what we "know" in favor of talking about when a revolution has taken place. I'll defer to John now, but not before popping you a link to the games he's made. They're pretty neat. And now, friends and constant readers... Mega Man 2.)
So.
Let’s talk about title screens.
NES
games, by and large, did not have great title screens. For a long
time they all followed the “text on a black background with no
music” template set up by the earliest games on the console, like
Mario
Bros.
and
Donkey
Kong.
Even once they moved beyond that template, very few did anything
interesting. Most of the exceptions were from Nintendo games --
Legend
of Zelda, Metroid, Super Mario Bros. 3
--
but even these didn’t do anything more than set the mood. Very few
added to the story
of
their game in a truly meaningful way.
Mega
Man 2 is
the exception. It stands toe-to-toe with the the best title screens
of the 16-bit era, when heavy-hitters like Chrono
Trigger,
Final
Fantasy VI,
and Earthbound
entered
the scene.
You
can give it a watch over here.
Let’s look at a few interesting details:
1)
The first detail that sticks out is the music: the song playing is
the same as the ending music to Mega
Man 1.
This
is a cute touch, and it’s a clever way to provide a bit of
connective tissue between the two stories.
2)
Later Mega
Man
games
would come to use expository intro text as a crutch, but 2’s
manages
to summarize the entire setup of the game in only three sentences.
Not only that, but it’s the only expository text in the entire
game!
3)
The pan up the side of the building it still damn
cool.
4)
Listen to how the music develops during the pan upwards. The
transition to the big, heroic Mega
Man
theme
at the top is seamless.
5)
When the player presses the start button, Mega Man puts on his helmet
and teleports away, signalling the start the game. (This will be
important later.)
That’s
a staggering amount of clever ideas to fit into such a small amount
of time. Keep in mind that Mega
Man 1 doesn’t
have any sort of intro, and neither does 3
for
that matter. The intros from 4
onward
are all overlong and boring, and I’m pretty sure most players skip
past them on replays. Speaking to my own experience, I let 2’s
play out every single time.
So, that’s
the first forty-five seconds. What about the rest of the game?
Well,
one of the most striking things about playing Mega
Man 2
in
2014 is how messy
it
is. It has dozens of little design problems and unfair moments of a
sort that aren’t really present in the later Mega
Man
games.
The
most egregious offender is the Boobeam Trap in the fourth level of
Wily’s Fortress (or as its more commonly known, that goddamned
Crash Bomb boss). It’s easily the most poorly thought out enemy in
any of the NES games; failing the puzzle means choosing between
farming energy for ten minutes or killing yourself over and over
until you run out of lives. Getting stuck in that situation
completely sucks the momentum out of the game, and many players give
up rather than deal with it any longer.
Other
quibbles! Wily’s forms have only one attack each. Mega Man’s
controls are still just loose enough to occasionally throw you off of
a key jump. Air Man has attacks that are actually impossible
to
dodge. There’s only one boss theme in the whole game. And then
there’s the debatable matter of the disappearing and reappearing
blocks in Heat Man’s stage and the lasers in Quick Man’s level --
whether or not those parts are fun, they’re almost definitely at
least a little unfair.
Unfair
or not, Quick Man’s level is still one of my favorites. The stage
is a careful, rehearsed race against instant-death lasers that
demands absolute perfection on behalf of the player. What I love is
how this contrasts with the messy, chaotic boss fight against Quick
Man, which isn’t so much about memorization as it is about reflex
and instinct. Interestingly, in both cases the player has an “out”:
Flash Stopper can make either the stage or the boss trivial. But it
can’t be used on both, so the player has to decide which one is
more threatening.
This is an
example of how the robot master stages take a simple idea (in Quick
Man’s case, speed) and prod at it from a number of different
angles. It also showcases how the levels play off each other in neat
ways, like how Flash Stopper totally changes the dynamic of the
level. Some of the levels are more traditional and straightforward,
while others focus on neat gimmicks. Some are brilliant and incisive
like Metal Man and Wood Man, and some are only successful in spite of
themselves, like Flash Man’s poorly conceived maze and Crash Man’s
slightly-obnoxious vertical climb.
The
levels manage to accomplish two totally disparate goals. 1) They each
have their own unique and memorable identity. Later Mega
Man
games
often had stages that just sort of blended together, and as a result
the games were way less interesting. 2) They come together to create
a singular emotional journey. While it’s impressive that each stage
succeeds on its own merits, what’s more impressive is that they
form a own cohesive narrative arc.
Let me
explain. Every stage ends the same way: Mega Man triumphs over the
robot master and collects a powerful new weapon, and occasionally a
special item from Doctor Light.This ritual is repeated eight
different times, and each time it’s clear that Mega Man is growing
stronger and stronger, until finally he has defeated all eight of
Wily’s Robot Masters.
There’s
this idea in game design that the most important thing a game can do
is make the player feel powerful. This is where the whole methodology
of power-ups and experience points comes from. Start the player off
with a fairly weak ability set, and then as the game progresses
reward them with stronger and stronger abilities. This creates the
sense that the player character is going on an actual journey, with
actual trials and growth.
This is a
nice concept, but it’s really only half of the equation. The player
can’t just keep gaining new abilities. They also must have those
abilities tested.
The Robot
Master stages are ultimately about empowering Mega Man; Wily’s
Fortress is about testing him. It’s a final exam on all of the
abilities the player has learned throughout the game. Sometimes its
obvious, like walls and pits that require understanding Dr. Light’s
Items. Other times its more subtle, like the false floors in Wily 3
that can be identified with knowledge of one of Bubble Lead’s more
obscure characteristics. It can even be cruel, like the Boobeam Trap
demanding perfect weapon energy management while pummeling your
energy meter with nigh-undodgeable attacks.
The
Wily Levels are also the first stages that force the use of Dr.
Light’s Items. It raises the stakes in a meaningful way; instead of
playing through obstacle courses clearly designed with eventual
victory in mind, parts of these levels can only be circumvented if
the player uses an outside force. This contrast with the Robot Master
stages creates the sense that in order to progress, the player has to
break
the game.
The
boss fights also raise the stakes in a dramatic way. While
all of the previous bosses are humanoid, roughly Mega Man’s size,
and take place on solid ground, the first boss of the fortress is a
gigantic fire-breathing robot dragon that’s fought on several
precariously placed blocks, and they progress in increasingly strange
directions from there. It’s also important to note the excision of
the transition screen between the stage and the boss fight, so not
only is the first appearance of the dragon also an effective
jump-scare, it also further differentiates the Wily levels from the
preceding Robot Master stages.
Most
important of all is the music. Wily 1
is
probably the most famous Mega Man song ever, and for good reason.
It’s the most musically elaborate piece in the whole game. Listen
to the way it establishes the core melody and then holds onto it for
most of the song, often playing it in the background with one square
channel while the other bounces around doing something else entirely.
It’s a masterful little diddy, and there’s a reason it still gets a lot of attention.
Try
contrasting that with the second tune.
There’s a reason it doesn’t get nearly the same amount of love:
it’s just plain unpleasant.
It’s repetitive, dreary, and unbearably suspenseful. Try listening
all the way through and feel the way it builds and builds and builds
before
finally slipping back to the starting key. It’s the chiptune
equivalent of the heartbeat in Space
Invaders,
a song purely designed to compliment the game and raise the intensity
of the experience. So while it isn’t the sort of melody you’d
listen to in your car, it might be the single most effective
song
in the whole series.
The two
songs together give the Wily Levels a subtle aesthetic arc. The
player starts out empowered and ready to take on Wily, then descends
deeper and deeper into the center of the fortress. It’s a little
similar to the descent-into-Hell vibe established in the early
Metroid games, but the linear structure actually makes it more
focused and dramatic.
All of
this is leading up to the immaculate climax. After the mandatory
rematch against the robot masters, Mega Man comes face to face with
Dr. Wily himself. The battle is nearly identical to the final battle
of the first game (except with strangely less interesting attack
patterns), so veteran players will expect this to be the final battle
of the game. Not only that, but the map of Wily’s Fortress clearly
marks this as the last stage. When Wily escapes after the defeat of
his machine and the floor falls out from under Mega Man, it’s a
genuinely well-executed twist.
The
final stage begins with a lengthy falling sequence, and unlike in
previous levels, there aren’t any spikes or other obstacles to
distract the player. There’s no music whatsoever; the only sound
comes from the deadly acid globules dripping from the ceiling (a
set-piece borrowed in Daisuke Amaya’s Cave
Story).
The acid isn’t difficult to dodge, so the stage isn’t much of a
challenge to move through. It’s purely in place to build suspense.
Then comes
the final boss. Dr. Wily’s saucer descends, and he leaps out and
starts hovering in the air (this is significant because Dr. Wily has
never done battle directly with Mega Man before), and then reveals
his true form: an alien! It comes out of absolutely nowhere, and it’s
exactly the sort of insipid “twist” many game designers of the
era would pull out of their butts for a last boss.
But then
Mega Man defeats Alien Wily (with Bubble Lead of all things, leading
to a tradition of last bosses best defeated with the most
inconvenient weapon possible), the screen flashes, and the truth is
revealed. It was all a trick, a hologram projector put into place by
Dr. Wily as a last resort. If this isn’t immediately clear, the
screen lingers on the projector as it moves around in the same
figure-8 pattern as the boss. Dr. Wily is in the corner, desperately
fiddling with the controls even though it’s clear the jig is up.
Finally he gives in, falls to the ground, and begs for mercy.
If it
isn’t the cleverest bit of visual storytelling I’ve ever seen in
an 8-bit video game, it’s only because of the next segment. After
defeating Dr. Wily, the screen shifts to an image of Mega Man as he
walks in front of a black background. On the side is an image of a
valley and a little town. The seasons pass, as indicated by the
differing color schemes and precipitation. Finally, Mega Man stops
and looks towards the town. The black background disappears and the
whole village is visible. Mega Man is gone, his helmet lying on the
ground in his place, pulled off and tossed to the ground as he runs
towards his home.
Beautiful.
There’s a couple of metaphors here, and the passing of the seasons
is the most obvious. The ending shows that a lot of time has passed,
and Mega Man has undergone a long journey. He’s fought through all
of Wily’s forces, and all that time he’s been away from his home.
John Teti notes
that
it’s intriguing that Mega Man walks, whereas in the rest of the
game he teleports away after finishing a level. Combined with the
melancholy music, the slow walk home shows that Mega Man isn’t just
the player’s nameless avatar of destruction. It characterizes him
in a really genuine way.
The second
is a little more complex. Way back at the start of the game, we see
Mega Man standing on top of a building, his hair loose and blowing in
the wind. The second we press start, his helmet materializes, and
Mega Man teleports off to battle. Only at the very end of the game,
after we defeat Dr. Wily and lose control of Mega Man, does he
finally take off the helmet.
Do you get
it? We are the helmet! We take control of Mega Man when he goes into
battle, but the ending lets us know that there’s a being that
exists outside of stage select screens and energy meters. We don’t
see this side of Mega Man, but it’s there, just outside the screen.
In a small way, the ending takes this little blue Astro Boy-knockoff
and turns him into a rounded character.
Mega
Man 2
is
not
profound,
not in the literary sense. The only NES game I can think of that can
make that claim is the original Mother
(though
I’m happy to hear about any I might have missed). But that doesn’t
change the fact that this this sixty-second ending is a lovely,
layered scene, and the game would be unquestionably poorer for its
absence.
It’s
followed by credits, overlaid by a perfect reprise of the title
music. Combined with the completed metaphor of the helmet, the music
brings
Mega
Man 2
full
circle. Thank you for playing. Presented by Capcom.
Mega
Man 2
is
a special game for a whole lot of people, and that’s because it
goes out of its way to do more than put a bunch of robots on the
screen for you to blow up. It is, bar-none, the most exciting,
dramatic, and just plain fun story
on
the NES. It has tension, pacing, twists, silence, and symbols. It has
an exciting climax and a meaningful resolution. And while later Mega
Man
games
are vastly more refined mechanical experiences, none of them nail
these concepts nearly as well.
Mega
Man 2
knows
that in order to create a game that really lasts in people’s
hearts, you can’t just duct-tape a bunch of levels together and be
done with it. You have to pay attention to all of the little details,
like the mood created by the music in a specific area or the pacing
before a climactic battle. You need to have a beginning that prepares
the player to undergo a journey, and an ending that brings emotional
closure. You have to tell
a story.
It’s an
exceptional video game. It was exceptional when it came out in 1988,
and it’s exceptional now, twenty-six years later. It will likely be
exceptional for many years to come.
And that’s
because it pays attention to things like title screens.
Gravity. It's all about gravity. Gravity's Man looms over the box art, with his leader a red and white shadow in the distance. Lightning shoots out of his hands, but dear Mega is unconcerned. He's not even fucking looking at Gravity Man as he deflects the lightning. Jesus. Here, then, in the crushing wastes of the post-SNES days, does Mega Man attempt to survive the crushing gravity of life on a system that is rapidly collapsing. Though the game does what it can to spice things up by toying with gravity in places, it... falls flat. Mega Man 5 has long been my personal least favorite entry in the "classic" series... but it has been a long time since I played it. I've grown since then. Hard Game Beater. Beast in the shape of a man. A scholar of the joyful spark that makes an excellent platforming action game. Mega Man 5 does not outright lack that spark, but it has been diminished. I think I've pinpointed the problem. It comes back to empowerment.-0.png)
-0.png)
+%5B!%5D-0.png)
-0.png)
