Mega Man 2 - good for a break in the action

I've been plugging away on Air Gallet, Sky Shark and Twin Cobra in equal measure recently and not making a ton of scoring progress. Real progress yes. Especially with Sky Shark where I have all my trouble spots through stage 5 figured out. I'm working on the 1-Life of the first loop and I'm pretty close. Stage 4 still takes me out most of the time, but I'm getting close.

But, all in all, I needed a quick break the other night from STG's and decided to fire up my NES and get back to some lovely, old school console gaming for a night. I popped in Mega Man 2 and went to it.

The last time I played this for a clear was back in grade school and I forgot almost everything about the game - including the kinda important step by step of which robot bosses to take on with what weapon.

It didn't really matter much as I played the hell out of it, hitting some deadends (trying to defeat some bosses without the right weapons) but for the most part the stages were pretty easy and as fun as I remember them. I forgot just how much fun the Metal Blade is, how it absolutely tears through everything and how invaluable it is to passing a number of areas in the game.

The bosses fell in quick succession and I set off to the Dr. Willy stages. The Dr. Willy stages are some of the best in the game and really give you the feeling that you are penetrating deep into his lair, especially with the long run up to get inside in the first stage, which kinda reminds me of another Capcom classic, Bionic Commando.

I ran through those, dying once on the big dragon in the first section, because I kept trying to jump and then shoot backwards, which is absolutely not what you supposed to do. Once I got to Dr. Willy, I made him fall pretty quickly and actually remembered that his last form was vunerable to the Bubble Shot, the worst weapon in the game, and I took him out with relative ease.

Mega Man 2 is stellar, but I probably don't need to tell you that. Pick it up in its original NES cart form or on the super cheap Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the PS2 and remember just how good this series once was. Now, I have to get some Mega Man 9 love in the house...