So, we now have the second entry in the Game Boy series, and one that actually has a story behind it! So, Mega Man II shares a bit of a similarity with Mega Man 3. In that it's a pretty rushed and unfinished game, outsourced to a different company than the team who developed the first Game Boy title and unlike Mega Man 3, this one is not particularly well liked whatsoever. Typically called out for having a screwed up difficulty balance, the same issues as Mega Man: Dr. Wahwee's Revenge, and bad collision + music, Mega Man II does not seem to be well liked at all. Hell, even Inafune believes it's the worst Mega Man game ever made during his oversight on the series.

As for me? 

Honestly, I kind of dug it more lol.

Mega Man II is pretty much the same story as the first Game Boy game. It's basically various levels of Mega Man 2 and 3 that's been mashed together to create new level layouts, albeit this time, it's been expanded, with the Mega Man 3 robot masters actually getting their own stages this time around in place of the Wily Castle.

Unfortunately, whereas the first game had a pretty eh excuse plot, the second game has a potentially cool plot that it does nothing with due to the rushed development. Dr. Wily has used the Chronos Institute's time machine in order to travel into the future to capture a retired Mega Man, weaponizing the futuristic blue bomber into his latest Mega Man Killer to use against his own variant of the Blue Bomber, and then using the time machine to time clone eight of his previous robot masters (Wood, Air, Metal, Crash, Needle, Magnet, Top, and Hard retrospectively). 

But other than that, the game doesn't use the time mechanic in any way, other than the final Wily stage being a legitimately cool time-themed level. 

Either way, the more important question is why do I like this game over the first, despite it's reputation? Well honestly, not only did I not run into a lot of it's issues, and frankly enjoyed how the difficulty curve was lower, feeling it didn't have nearly as many issues with screen crunch this time, but it also has a unique aspect of being a clash of various Mega Man ideas that would never be used in the series again other than their original games. This game has the Metal Blade along with the original Mega Man 3 version of Rush Jet. 

Already, having two of the most broken Mega Man weapons/abilities in the game is really fun to play with, but in general, the weapon lineup in the game isn't half bad, with Metal Blade, Needle Cannon, and the Rush abilities all being present, along with other elements such as the slide and E-Tanks being added to the game this time around. In general, I just enjoyed the level clashes here more than the first game, and I do think there's a lot more effort put into it's ideas this time around, especially when the Wily Castle starts with a silly moment where you cut right to the chase and find Wily, only for him to trap you into the next four stages.

It's certainly got it's issues. The hitbox problems can be pretty dumb, the game has some random difficulty spikes - with Crash Man in particular being pretty stupid, even against his weapon weakness, and the excuse plot is pretty annoying given how interesting it could have been. Speaking of...

Our second Mega Man Killer, and the king of wasted potential - Quint, despite the cool as hell idea of being a future Mega Man who has been captured and forcefully reprogrammed to be used against his present self, Quint is possibly one of the most pathetically easy bosses in the entire series. Even Copy Robot uses the idea of a evil Mega Man better than Quint. Quint just moon jumps over your head repeatedly with a pogo stick while you easily pelt away at him with your Mega Buster, and his weapon is so terrible that you're better off just using the Mega Buster against Wily's 3 phases.

Still, regardless of all that, while it's still just a pretty meh re-tread of the second and third games, which is done far better with the originals anyways, I still think the game gets a pretty bad rap all things considered. It's nothing special, but it's a fun oddity with more unique attributes compared to the first Game Boy title, and I think it's a better conversion of the gameplay all things considered. Maybe if I wasn't playing with save states, I'd have a different view, but I don't know, I feel like there's a lot more worse in this series.

And hey, we get another showcase from smug-ass Mega Man.

hopefully the covers get better