Regarding the game's internal plot, things are more or less the same as the first time around. Whereas the background of the first game was that Dr. Wily had stolen and reprogrammed the game's six robot bosses, the intro for Mega Man 2 states that after his defeat (when you inexplicably walked away from him, letting him go where he pleased) Dr. Wily created eight robots of his own in an effort to destroy Mega Man and conquer the world. Which is no surprise, really. We're talking about, as you might recall, the quite literal Albert Einstein of the engineering world, and he just happens to be a total jerk. This is why you don't let villains go free when you beat them. At the very least you throw them in jail. Even the "I'm not gonna kill anyone but I'll use a really gruff voice to make you think I might" Batman realizes this point. Why can't a robot whose sole purpose in existence is to protect humanity from this sort of thing?
The good news, if the stage select screen is any indication, is that Dr. Wily created the eight "Robot Masters" out of whatever he happened to have lying around. I guess he couldn't be troubled to get high quality parts, or maybe couldn't afford to really go all out with it. So he decided to take a floor fan and put some eyes on it. Some lumber and stick a microchip in the top. You know, whatever works.
And for the rest of his robot army, the standards were even lower. Giant bats lie in wait for you in the forests, eager to fly off screen harmlessly when you least expect it. Scary, isn't it? Many of the standard robots from the first game make a return here. Particularly worth noting is the hard hat robot, which hides under its hat until you get near, and then reveals itself to shoot you. Then it retreats again. This thing would become synonymous with Mega Man games over time, and is one of the most memorable "standard" enemies in the game regardless of the fact that it's one of the most basic things you'll see. But hey, we remember Goombas and Koopa Troopas pretty well too, so I guess there's something to be said for the little guys.
In addition to the sharper graphics, one of the first things you notice as you play Mega Man 2 is that music is really quite good. The music in the first game was fine, but I also can't sit here and say that I actually remember any of the tunes or how they went. Mega Man 2, by contrast, has a few really great numbers, particularly on the first Dr. Wily stage. Which is a bit of a surprise (although perhaps it shouldn't be), because when we look for stellar video game music, we often tend toward games like RPGs that are trying to set up an "epic" kind of atmosphere. So bravo Mega Man 2 for saying, through your music, "I am what I am, and this song is gonna kick ass anyway."
But what doesn't kick ass is a water level. The first Mega Man didn't have one (though it did have an ice stage, which is bad enough), so you might enter this game lulled into a false sense of security. Don't be fooled! Mega Man 2 will submerge you, assault you with robotic fish and...metroids...before finally pitting you against the stage's boss, also totally underwater. The only good news is the lack of a need to breathe, which I assume is a product of your being an android. Or "super robot" as the game calls you. I trusted you, Mega Man. I trusted you to be the one game character who didn't have to go underwater to prove himself. But you just had to sink down to that level, didn't you?
That all said, the stages do have nice, distinct feels to them. Air Man's level takes place, predictably, entirely in the sky on various platforms. You'll even have to ride on robotic clouds to get through part of it (which might be a little overboard in the story department. Why is Dr. Wily manufacturing robotic clouds?) There's a good deal of challenge and outright panic from lasers in a stage or two as well. When you enter a given screen, laser beams will begin to fire. These kill you on contact, so the goal is to pass the screen before the lasers block your ability to do so. You'll probably die quite a bit, and it's very hectic, but an interesting concept.
The weapons system is all snazzied up now as well. Now you get a screen telling you the name of each weapon when you acquire it, and showing Mega Man's suit change colors. Oooooooh. At three different points along the way, Dr. Light will interrupt you on this screen to tell you that an "item" has been completed. The only way to have any idea what these items are is to use them in the game, and figure it out from there, which is a little confusing initially. Each one is helpful though, as Item-1 creates a platform that rises when jumped upon, Item-2 creates a platform that moves forward laterally, and Item-3 creates a platform that crawls up the sides of walls. The game will force you use all of these at some point or other to progress, even if only to justify their existence in the game.
There are also now energy tanks to be found in the game, or E-tanks for short. These are found in often hard to reach places in the levels, and are collected for use at any time down the road. Opening the pause menu will show how many E-tanks you have, and using one will completely fill Mega Man's life bar. This is a great addition for difficult bosses and the like. Enemy special weapons also bear more use outside of boss battles. While the convention of having each weapon be extra effective against a specific boss remains, now some standard enemies can only be damaged by special weapons. There are more weapon-specific shortcuts through stages to be found as well. While you still don't really know what weapon will help in what way outside of trial and error, the fact that they have added worth is a bonus.
But what would a Mega Man game be without gobs of spikes waiting to obliterate you with a single poke? Mega Man 2 turns up the spike content of the game, culminating with rooms like the one at right. Here you must wait for the little platform to go around its winding track to drop from your ladder safely. Then you must ride it around, jumping strategically at various points to avoid certain spiky death, all while avoiding the enemies that fly in at you from the sides of the screen (and they will continuously spawn if you kill them). This goes on for a few screens in a row, and it's quite traumatizing if you happen to have a paralyzing fear of stationary pointy objects. Personally, I now shudder any time I see a conical piece of metal, and I blame Mega Man for it.
With all this, you'd think the game's difficulty would be significantly higher than its predecessor, but you'll be pleasantly surprised. For one thing, in a move of typical Japanese gaming arrogance, Capcom made an easier difficulty level for the North American release of the game. Rather than call this mode "Easy," they called it "Normal" and made the original product "Difficult." Yet even on "Difficult" mode, the game isn't as hard as the first. Part of this is from the E-tank and added weapon functionality. Part of this is a tighter control that means Mega Man doesn't scoot as much when walking as he used to, which was a minor problem the first time around. But the main advantage was the password system. As the game still lacked a save function, players could now write down passwords that contained which stages they had completed (and therefore what equipment they had), as well as how many E-tanks they possessed, allowing them to pick up where they left off after any length of time. It was a great idea and helped buck the notion that "real games" had to be played start to finish all at once.
By the Dr. Wily stages at the end of the game, you've encountered a lot of enjoyable content. Which is why it's pretty satisfying to see the triumphant return of Gutsman from the first game, now in tank form. He also launches those hard hat bots at you, which is a great if silly way to lay on the attack. The only really confusing thing is his size. If Dr. Wily just grafted his upper half onto some tank treads, as it would appear, then how is he so big? Wasn't he just barely taller than Mega Man in the first place? Either way, he's one of a few memorable bosses at the end of the game, the others being a dragon and Dr. Wily himself.
And that fight is interesting, because after enduring the long battle with Wily's new big riding contraption, he leaps out all kung fu style, in slow motion even, with wind blowing his hair and labcoat. And then he transforms into a flying alien and starts shooting you. What in the world. It's a great twist, and even cooler when you defeat him and realize what's actually going on (I won't ruin what, but suffice it to say appearances can be deceiving). But infuriatingly, you let him go. Again. Artificial intelligence my butt.
Mega Man 2's improvements to the formula weren't drastic and didn't alter the feel of the game, but there is no doubt that they were all important and successful. The public must have noticed, because the game caught on like wildfire and suddenly Capcom felt justified in keeping the series alive. Mega Man 2 is not a perfect game, and possibly not even an excellent game, but it had to be good in order to survive, and it definitely is, and definitely is better than the first. Check it out if you haven't already.
Bottom Line: 15/20
The second major change from the previous versions was the addition of new special moves for many of the characters. For instance, as pictured, Chun Li can now shoot a fireball. Dhalsim can now teleport, borrowing a popular convention from a rival game. Ryu and Ken can now hurricane kick while in mid-air. The new moves naturally alter the way most of these characters can be played, opening up entirely new strategies, and therefore requiring entirely new strategies to defeat them as well. Which might be exciting and interesting, but the moves haven't been balanced incredibly well. Most of the new moves are a bit overpowered here in their first incarnation, though they'd eventually become great additions to the franchise. Dhalsim's teleport comes to mind, which allows him to clip through most any attack during the animation - before he actually performs the teleport itself.
Of course, when you toy with the game speed and give everyone new moves, gameplay balance is bound to change quite a bit. That's not necessarily bad in every case, but it really doesn't strike me as a positive in this game. I'd like to single out E. Honda as possibly the most broken character in Hyper Fighting for that reason. He was never a fast guy, so he was always fairly strong...probably third behind Balrog and Zangief in terms of sheer strength. He also had a couple decent special moves and okay mobility. But now they give him a giant butt splash that allows him to leap diagonally from one corner of the screen to another, hitting potentially twice. Of course, it's commanded with a charge (holding a direction a certain amount of time before releasing, to give the general idea), to prevent you from abusing it. But the computer doesn't need to charge anything - it just says "This move is in my programming, I want to do it now, done." So he'll chain this crap and it's stupidly powerful. Not to mention he is now able to actually walk while doing his rapid hand slap attack. A sample (and honestly not unusual in the least) match against E. Honda might go like this:
The first thing you'll notice is that the four boss characters from Street Fighter II: The World Warrior are now selectable. Players can now be Balrog, Vega, Sagat, or even M. Bison, complete with the special moves of all. All four of these characters therefore also received their own endings, though they are less personalized or interesting than the original eight characters.
The second major change Champion Edition brings is that characters are now able to fight themselves using alternate color schemes. This also adds an extra match to the single-player game, but is great for multiplayer; for the first time, two people who love to be Ken, for instance, can both have their way. It's a feature that virtually every fighting game thereafter would adopt. Of course, if viewed from a story perspective it doesn't exactly make any sense whatsoever. But that's not the point, and who could complain in this case?
With your selection, the game begins, but don't let this title screen fool you. You don't see this until a ways in. Instead, after choosing your party, you're sent right into the world. You know that the basic background story has something to do with some orbs that you're carrying, but that's sort of all you've got to go on. So you find the nearest king and ask him what in the world you should be doing. He tells you that some rogue knight named Garland has kidnapped the princess (ugh...) and is holding her in a ruined temple. So off you go on your little errand.
Instead you get to jump from town to town doing things like scaring off pirates. Please. And really, even if you're not saving the world right now, what you really want is to just get into that treasury in the first castle. That's your real motive as you're playing the game at this point - you want that damn treasure, so you have to find the key. And that's when the horrible truth reaches you. The desire for this key will send you on a chain of monotonous and otherwise pointless errands. You find out that the key is held by the elven prince, so you go to talk to him. But he's been cursed and the only cure is an herb, held by a witch on the other side of the continent. So you find her, but she won't cough up the herb because she's lost her crystal and gone blind. Some guy named Astos evidently stole it, so now you're hunting him. So you find an area you haven't been to and ask some guy about Astos, and he won't help you until you find him a crown. The crown just happens to be in a cave swarming with enemies, but in you go anyway, because what else can you do? So you get it for him and he tells you he actually was Astos all along and then tries to kill you. Are you bored yet reading about this? If so, that's a good thing - it means you're still sane. And imagine having to play it! Let's sum up your order of tasks here:
That's a whole lot of work just to open a few treasure chests, but there is literally no other motivation provided for doing any of it. And the entire time you're wondering why you aren't doing something more important, or even related to the overall plot. So off you go, destroying groups of undead Thomas Dolbys, hoping that eventually you'll have a real purpose in this game. But it won't come soon, considering the treasury just gives you another item that causes you to go off on more errands. Isn't this game supposed to be about story? Isn't that supposed to be its strength? Shouldn't I have some reason for engaging in battle after battle?
And you'll need a lot of gold because things get expensive in a jiffy. Some characters are cheaper to maintain than others (for example, the Black Belt never uses any equipment), but by and large you will be pressed for cash quite often. Which results in a need to "grind" out extra gold by deliberately engaging in battles. This aspect of the game is honestly a bit of a nuisance, and would be incredibly detrimental if the battling weren't enjoyable in itself. Even still, it does get tedious, particularly because the battle system isn't perfect. For instance, if you told a character to attack an enemy, and that enemy dies before your attack occurs (say, from an attack from one of your other three characters), your attacker will not follow common sense and target another enemy. He will instead unleash a fury of blows upon the empty space, and you will be told it was "Ineffective." That's just silly. Battles can also last longer than it seems like they should, because magic spells work incredibly slowly. Casting a spell is often necessary, or at least highly beneficial, but they take so much real-life time that you might just skip it most of the time.
Now I'm aware the tone of this review has seemed more negative than positive so far, and that's probably because the areas in which this game falls short are the ones that drag it out longer and create an impression of mindless repetition in the game. But if you are patient enough to get through the meaningless adventuring that comprises the first half of the game, you're nicely rewarded with a very fun experience. Suddenly you start to find out more and more about the mysterious orbs you're lugging around. Suddenly you start encountering the powerful evil beings that are threatening the world as you know it. Suddenly you realize that your mages have enough spells to not be annoyances, and that battles take less time to complete with a higher reward for their completion. Suddenly you start finding yourself in various vehicles, including, eventually, an airship that lets you travel the entire world very quickly. And that's a godsend. Suddenly you start seeing and appreciating the subtle humor in the game's text and dialogues, such as a mermaid in the underwater shrine asking you how you can breathe underwater (for which no explanation actually is given), and another making a pretty hilarious reference to 
Now I won't spoil the plot here, because it's actually pretty neat. I think that was their plan, really. They made the story so worthless for so long that when it finally shifts back into reasonable and interesting territory, you're eating it up like it's the best thing you've ever heard. And hey, can't fault them for what works. I will say though that the "ultimate evil force" that you have to defeat at the end (regardless of how or why it got to that point) is Chaos. That's right, your goal is to fight an abstraction and lay it to waste. And by abstraction I mean big yellow demon. Because I'm sure that's what chaos would really look like, if it materialized.
The first improvement is obvious from the beginning. While Street Fighter only let you play as Ryu (or Ken if you were in two-player battles), Street Fighter II expands the character selection to eight. And while Ryu and Ken are still essentially the same fighter with different appearances, each of the remaining six choices are completely unique from one another.
Finally, there's Blanka, who gets Street Fighter II's "Why Do You Exist?" award. He's supposedly human, despite the greenish appearance, and he's supposedly fighting with the Brazilian martial art capoeira, but most of the time he'll be somersaulting, biting his opponent like a vampire, or generating electricity by constipating himself. Not that I'm upset he's in the game; he's a great character and fun to play. It just doesn't make much sense when compared to everyone else. In that sense we might call Blanka the father of all the bizarre characters in fighting games...those guys who always seem just a tad out of place.
Bonus stages make a return in Street Fighter II, occurring after every three victories through the single-player game. Now instead of kicking through boards, however, you have to beat a car to death with your bare hands, or destroy barrels that are falling on your head. These stages make less sense than their predecessors, but perhaps that's part of why they're so much more fun. And it's nice to have a diversion on occasion from the senseless violence the rest of the game espouses.
After defeating every selectable character in the single-player game, you must fight through four consecutive boss battles. The common thread is that all bosses are members of the criminal organization Shadaloo, which is also sponsoring the tournament. When the game was released in Japan, the first of these four bosses was an African American boxer named Mike Bison who was designed to be, of course, Mike Tyson. He even had the gap in his teeth, and wore some bling in his closeup photo. Because in America that would result in a suit for copyright infringement (you can copyright a human being?), they changed his name to Balrog.
Finally, when everyone else is defeated, you fight the end boss. In Japan this was the original Vega, but because Vega was now the claw dude, America was left with Mike Bison as the remaining unused name. But does a military dictator in full uniform really strike you as a "Mike Bison?" No? What about an "M. Bison?" Yeah, sounds better now doesn't it? What's the M stand for now? Murder?
Rare decided to make a platforming game that was simultaneously true to old formulas while breaking new ground. They utilized fancy rendering technology to make the game look great, which is probably the main reason people remember this game as being awesome (it wasn't). They gave us a huge, detailed map screen, an extended credits sequence, and a truly outstanding musical score. But you'll notice that I didn't include gameplay in that list of notable positives in this game.
Of course, then you start riding around on a rhinoceros. Occasionally in the game you will find a crate with the picture of an animal on the side. These can be the rhino, a swordfish, a frog, or even an ostrich. They all have special abilities that are supposed to aid you. I say supposed to, because often you'll end up screwed due to the difference in how they play. For example, when riding the ostrich, you can't jump on enemies anymore. But that's all you do in the game so how was I supposed to know? So I jump on an enemy and my ostrich gets hurt and runs away. And now I'm flashing temporarily invincible because the game doesn't want me to get hit multiple times in a row. Which is normally respectable, but I can't interact with anything on screen (enemies, objects, etc) during this time period. In fact, I even clip through enemies. So now when I try again to jump on that same enemy because I'm no longer a worthless ostrich, I go through it. And then the invincibility wears off and the game says "Hey, you're standing in the enemy. Unacceptable." And you die. I wish I could say this kind of glitchiness is infrequent, but it's not.
The functional difference between the two is fairly clear. Donkey is heavier than Diddy and can therefore kill more enemies by jumping on them than Diddy can. Diddy will usually just bounce off these enemies (more often than not straight into a bottomless pit). Donkey attacks with a somersault, and Diddy with a cartwheel, though this is meaningless since you never use these attacks anyway. That said, Diddy is faster than Donkey, jumps higher, and his smaller frame helps him avoid hits that much easier. As a result, throughout the game you will virtually always want to be Diddy, unless you are forced to be Donkey for certain enemies or situations. How sad is it that he's not even the best character in his own game? And when you have both, the one you aren't controlling follows you around, ignoring physics entirely. He'll float in midair, phase through objects, you know, whatever suits his fancy at the time. It's like they weren't even trying.
For example, barrel blasting. There are a significant number of stages in this game devoted to shooting yourself out of barrels and into other barrels. It sounds like it might possibly be entertaining, but don't be lured in. The occasional barrel launch is fine, but the stages devoted entirely to the cause belong in a vault, never to be played again. You shoot yourself out of automatically-rotating barrels, having to press the button at the right time to go where you want. But the timing is screwed up and it will frequently rotate the barrel an extra notch (even a notch backward) when you tell it to fire. Which of course kills you. If you manage to get it right, you'll end up in another barrel to do the same thing. Or maybe in one that fires you automatically into oblivion. That's right, there are times you can jump into a barrel and it will automatically kill you. No thanks.
But then again, these are the same people who decided to champion the water stages and make them even more intolerable than their predecessors. Mario can shoot fire underwater. Sonic can still just spin into stuff and kill it. The Kongs? They can die. And die repeatedly. You can't touch anything down there - it all kills you. Thank goodness you don't ever have to breathe despite being a land mammal not known for swimming...I'm so willing to take any handicap I won't even question it. If you're lucky you'll find the swordfish to ride around on, so at least you can kill some of the enemies, but only from head-on, and the worst enemies remain invincible. It's an underwater gauntlet that you just want to be over. 
And let's not forget the wonderful cast of characters. The original Donkey Kong has actually aged quite a bit, and is now sitting semi-crippled in a rocking chair, going by the name of Cranky Kong. Way to reinforce stereotypes, game. That means you are actually Donkey Kong, Jr. all grown up. Save points (which are your holy grail as you play) are run by your girlfriend, Candy Kong. And there are airports to get you from area to area, run by this dude, who is, like, more than happy to announce his name to anyone passing by. Who came up with this stuff? There's even an orangutan in some levels (including the ones with no lights!!) that incessantly hurls barrels at you, and the credits list him as Manky Kong. What? Are they related, or is every simian a Kong by default?
The enemies in Final Fight consist of members of the Mad Gear gang, with the common thugs being the game's bread-and-butter enemies and the higher ranking members acting as area bosses. The enemies all look distinctive, be they wearing a belt covered in knives or a neo-punk getup. But why is Andre the Giant in this game? They call him "Andore" so don't act like it's coincidence. Not that I'm complaining - Andre the Giant is welcome in any video game at any time for any reason. But it's certainly a bit random, particularly in that ruby red leopard print he's got going on there.
As Haggar's daughter is being held on the other side of town, the game's direction consists in moving eastward across Metro City through various districts and locales. Usually there's some sense to this, with each stage being subdivided into several smaller areas that all reasonably connect to one another and provide a believable change of scenery. And then, sometimes, you simply appear in a wrestling ring with no explanation, fighting an armored, two-sword wielding dude whose name really gives you some motivation to not let him knock you unconscious.
While every character can attack and jump, and even attack whilst jumping, they all have a special attack as well. The special attack costs health to use, with the amount of health lost dependent on the number of enemies hit with it. As such, it's primarily a tool for getting out of a tight spot, and not to be used liberally. Guy's special move is something a little too similar to Ryu's hurricane kick from 
But you know who doesn't have a problem using weapons? This guy. By this point the question starts to enter your mind about just what sort of gang Mad Gear is. Their bosses have included a samurai, a couple giants, and now...a military dictator? What? And how is he not the last boss? You'd think being the dictator and all, he'd be unlikely to be anyone's subordinate, but that's clearly not the case. And maybe that's what's angering him enough to flip around lobbing infinite numbers of grenades at you. Don't be fooled by that nightstick he's got there. I've only seen him actually attempt to attack with it once. No, Rolento is set on making you explode. Dead set.
Well, I hate to break it to you, but you're looking forward to a fight with a dude in a wheelchair. As if that's fair. You go through this whole game killing a veritable army of knife-throwers, barrel-rollers, and Andre the Giant clones, and when you're ready to put the pain on the dude in charge, he's a cripple? How dare you make me pity my last enemy! And he's a vicious little bugger too. He takes that moment of quiet hesitation and reflection on life's meaning to whip out a crossbow and start a-firing. You know why he has a crossbow? Because he can't shoot a normal bow in that wheelchair of his. See? How's that feel? 
Dude means business.
