History YMMV / MegaMan2

* OnceOriginalNowCommon: While the game is well-liked even to this day, the refinements it made have been taken for granted amongst other games, it's suffered from HypeBacklash, and many of the game's own faults (such as bosses that necessitate use of a specific weapon [[UnwinnableByDesign or else you can't beat them]], E-Tanks being limited to four, all of which are lost upon getting a GameOver, and an unbalanced weapon roster that's divided into "[[ScrappyWeapon rarely if ever used outside of boss fights]]" and "[[GameBreaker the Metal Blade]]" categories) have been addressed in later games.

* DemonicSpiders: The Sniper Armors are giant monstrosities that replace the [[BossInMookClothing Big Eyes]] from the first game. You're better off running into them to avoid fighting them -- unless you have the Leaf Shield, which wipes out (just) the Walker in two hits (the Air Shooter can even do it in ''one'').

* MemeticBadass: Air Man, due to "Air Man ga Taosenai", tends to be portrayed by fans as pretty badass. Funnily, opinions among actual serious players is that he's one of the easier bosses unless you're doing a NoDamageRun (one of his attack patterns is more or less undodgeable), but the song ended up sticking. It certainly doesn't hurt that he has one of the niftier designs.

* HypeBacklash: As probably the most popular game in the series and one of the most acclaimed games of all time, it naturally tends to get this reaction. In particular, more than a few fans consider ''VideoGame/MegaMan3'' or ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' to be the actual pinnacle of the series's NES days, and consider this game to be overly simplistic by comparison. Some have criticized the game on that the Metal Blade is [[GameBreaker too powerful]] while most of the weapons are useless or impractical. Enemy placement and attack patterns are also rather cheap, making a NoDamageRun of certain levels, particularly Wood Man's to be almost purely memory-based. The first Wily Castle theme also gets this reaction, having been so heavily hyped and remixed over the years it easily overshadows all other Wily and villain themes in the franchise.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: While the game is well-liked even to this day, the refinements it made have been taken for granted amongst other games, it's suffered from HypeBacklash, and many of the game's own faults (such as bosses that necessitate use of a specific weapon [[UnwinnableByDesign or else you can't beat them]], E-Tanks being limited to four, all of which are lost upon getting a GameOver, and an unbalanced weapon roster that's divided into "[[ScrappyWeapon rarely if ever used outside of boss fights]]" and "[[GameBreaker the Metal Blade]]" categories) have been addressed in later games.

* GameBreaker: [[GameBreaker/MegaMan Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.]]

** Heat Man's stage becomes this during the disappearing blocks segment (unless you happen to have Item 2 on hand). Until you memorize the three tricky jumps (which isn't easy because it's somewhere around 30 blocks long) you need split second reflexes. One slip up will send you to your death. This segment makes the Ice Man and Guts Man stages from ''Mega Man 1'' look ''easy''. Much of this can be attributed to the fact the rhythm the blocks follow is very awkward, unlike anything else in the entire ''franchise''. Not only that, but while most of the time, a "disappearing blocks" section will make it possible to see the whole pattern from a single point, the Heat Man blocks section has a massive portion of it happening over a pit of lava.
** Crash Man's stage is filled to the brim with enemies attacking you from above or below, usually while you're either on small mobile platforms or on ladders, meaning guaranteed lost progress whenever you get hit. Fortunately, if you have Leaf Shield it renders the majority of these threats rather trivial, and you can even use it to farm the endlessly respawning Pipi enemies for health pickups and the rare extra life.

** A certain [[SoBadItsGood poorly-done]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PceDnkPCmA MIDI of Wood Man's stage music]], called [=mm2wood.mid=], has made that particular song memetic thanks to Music/SiivaGunner, particularly when paired with an MS Paint drawing of Wood Man.

** Metal Man's [[HoistByHisOwnPetard weakness to his own weapon]] was actually meant to be a [[https://shmuplations.com/megaman/ secret EasterEgg by the developers so that gaming magazines back then would talk about it and gain more coverage]]. Nowadays, anyone who knows the slightest amount about the game and the Metal Blades will know to select the blades when rematching Metal Man.

* ItWasHisSled: No, Wily isn't really an alien. The alien form in general counts, though: Back when the game came out it was a huge surprise for obvious reasons, but now it's one of the most famous moments in the franchise's history.

** The final level and boss is even worse in a sense. While easy in of itself, there are no refills, no enemies to farm, the alien boss is only weak to Bubble Lead and absorbs everything else (a single hit restores it to max). If you run out of Bubble Lead, well, hope you don't mind getting a game over.

* SignatureScene: The opening is this, to the point where ''anything'' that pays homage to the 8-bit era has a high chance of beginning with an ascending shot of a building with the hero at the top. Even the promotional video for the ''VideoGame/MightyNo9'' Kickstarter alludes to it.

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: The Metal Blade is ''insanely'' broken, being an omnidirectional weapon with high damage, a large bullet, and so many shots it might as well be unlimited. Many players prefer to go after Metal Man first simply because they want the Metal Blade.

* GameBreaker: The Metal Blade. It's a weakness of Bubble Man, Wood Man, Flash Man, Metal Man himself, and the second-to-last boss, not to mention it uses a ludicrously small amount of ammo per shot, meaning it would take a conscious effort to try and deplete it of ammo! Also, unlike any other weapon in the game, this one can be thrown in all eight directions, making it much easier to strike any GoddamnedBats. Plus it can cut through lesser enemies in a row, and it has a huge size, making it easy to hit with, especially against enemies that are so small that the Mega Buster goes over them. Their only downside is that they ''don't'' work against [[ThatOneBoss Quick Man, Air Man or the Boobeam Trap]].

* ScrappyWeapon:
** When the Time Stopper is active, it drains its energy like no tomorrow and stops only when its energy has drained completely. Not to mention that the Mega Buster (and any other weapon) can't be used while the Time Stopper is active. It's only real use to to freeze the beams in Quick Man's stage (which aren't ''that'' difficult to avoid once you've put in some practice), or to cut Quick Man's own health in half.
** The Atomic Fire is a neat weapon in theory, being able to be charged up for more powerful shots. In practice, however, the charged Atomic Fire shots use up so much energy (with a full bar of energy, only two fully charged shots can be fired) you probably won't bother with the thing outside of Wood Man and the first phase of Wily Machine 2.
** The Crash Bomber, like the Atomic Fire, is a glutton with weapon energy, has surprisingly bad damage, and takes a while to explode when pinned into a wall (and doesn't explode at all if it hits an enemy). While it's ostensibly Flash Man's weakness, the [[GameBreaker Metal Blade]] ends up doing a better job at destroying him as it does the same amount of damage, can be fired more rapidly, and doesn't require strategic placement to defeat him with the fewest amount of shots possible. Oh yeah, and it's needed against [[ThatOneBoss the Boobeam Trap]].
** There are a number of okay ground-crawler type weapons in the series, from the Search Snake to the Plug Ball, but Bubble Lead certainly ain't one of them. It doesn't even ''damage'' most enemies, and when it does, its damage is usually bad. It is one of the few weapons that can destroy Springers (those annoying enemies that crawl along the ground and speed up when you're in the same level as them, and the Mega Buster only stops them for a short time), but the Quick Boomerang and Leaf Shield can also do it and are better weapons. It's practically a JokeItem.
** Leaf Shield. Doesn't block projectiles, can't be used while moving, and vanishes unless it kills the enemy on contact. It pretty much started the series trend of shield weapons being kinda bad. Its only real good point aside from being Air Man's weakness is that you can use it while on moving platforms to take out or farm weak enemies, which can be handy on Wily Stage 4. On the other hand, some players actually ''do'' find it useful in other occasions, as it can destroy certain annoying enemies (like the Shotmen and unarmored Sniper Joes) in one hit, as well as making the Mole sections in Metal Man and Wily Stage 2 and the ladder climb in Crash Man's stage (with the egg-dropping Pipis) much easier.

* GameBreaker: The Metal Blade. It's a weakness of Bubble Man, Wood Man, Flash Man, Metal Man himself, and the second-to-last boss, not to mention it uses a ludicrously small amount of ammo per shot, meaning it would take a conscious effort to try and deplete it of ammo! Also, unlike any other weapon in the game, this one can be thrown in all eight directions, making it much easier to strike any GoddamnedBats. Plus it can cut through lesser enemies in a row, and it has a huge size, making it easy to hit with, especially against enemies that are so small that the Mega Buster goes over them. Their only downside is that they ''don't'' work against [[ThatOneBoss Quick Man, Air Man or the Buebeam Trap]].

** The Buebeam Trap at the end of Wily Stage 4. Not only do you have to use Item-1 to reach the higher part of the chamber, with the boss's attacks being almost unavoidable for much of the fight (you need ''frame perfect timing'' to dodge its attacks, which makes a NoDamageRun against it a nightmare), but the boss can only be defeated by Crash Bomber, and unless you're ''very'' skilled at placing the bombs, you are required to use all seven of your extremely limited supply of bombs correctly. If you waste even a single one of them, [[UnwinnableByDesign you're screwed]].

** Among the Wily Castle stages, Stage 4 easily qualifies due to its tedious string of fall-through floors and line-guided platforms, constantly respawning enemies from all directions, and [[ThatOneBoss the Buebeam Trap]] at the end.

** Also, "Okkusenman", to the point that some fans [[IAmNotShazam think it's the name of the song]] it's based on.

* DisappointingLastLevel: After clearing the Wily Castle's exciting and challenging first couple of stages, the fourth stage is where things start to falter. You have to get through a puzzle level outfitted with illusion floors and line-guided platforms; once you figure it all out, the stage becomes very tedious. To top it all off, you must fight the Boobeam Trap, which requires the Crash Bomber's entire weapon energy to defeat (a fact made worse as the only nearby enemies to item-farm from are Tellys and Sniper Armors). It doesn't help that instead of hearing the amazing Dr. Wily Stages 1 & 2 theme throughout this stage, you hear a more melancholy tune instead, which is used in Stages 3, 4, and 5, dampening your spirits even more. After that comes the series' very first Boss Rush teleport room in the next stage, which doesn't even have a segment giving you the chance to restock your weapon energy beforehand. You have to fight a battle of attrition with Dr. Wily once the Robot Masters are dealt with. Luckily, the last stage and its boss are far less brutal.

** There are a number of okay ground-crawler type weapons in the series, from the Search Snake to the Plug Ball, but Bubble Lead certainly ain't one of them. It doesn't even ''damage'' most enemies, and when it does, its damage is usually bad. It's practically a JokeItem.
** Leaf Shield. Doesn't block projectiles, can't be used while moving, and vanishes unless it kills the enemy on contact. It pretty much started the series trend of shield weapons being kinda bad. Its only real good point aside from being Air Man's weakness is that you can use it while on moving platforms to take out or farm weak enemies, which can be handy on Wily Stage 4.

* BreatherBoss: In the BossRush, Metal Man is infamous due to the fact that he dies in one hit (or two on Difficult). The weapon that can do that is ''[[HoistByHisOwnPetard his own weapon]]'', which isn't even remotely difficult to use. Once players learn which teleport spot is his, he is generally saved for when you are low on health and need an easy one to refill your life meter.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Most of this game's Robot Masters are very popular, in particular Crash Man (for his MemeticMolester reputation), Metal Man (for his GameBreaker weapon), Quick Man (for being ThatOneBoss) and the [[MemeticBadass undefeatable]] Air Man.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: While the game is well liked even to this day, the refinements it made have been taken for granted amongst other games, it's suffered from HypeBacklash, and many of the game's own faults (such as bosses that necessitate use of a specific weapon [[UnwinnableByDesign or else you can't beat them]], E-Tanks being limited to four, all of which are lost upon getting a GameOver, and an unbalanced weapon roster that's divided into "[[ScrappyWeapon rarely if ever used outside of boss fights]]" and "[[GameBreaker the Metal Blade]]" categories) have been addressed in later games.

** Bubble Man gets picked on quite a lot, especially in the [[ComicBook/MegaMan Archie adaptation of the game]], where he is destroyed with the Leaf Shield -- a weapon that [[AdaptationalWimp doesn't even faze him in the game itself]]!

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: While the game is well liked even to this day, the refinements it made have been taken for granted amongst other games, it's suffered from HypeBacklash, and many of the game's own faults (such as bosses that necessitate use of a specific weapon or else you can't beat them, E-Tanks being limited to four, all of which are lost upon getting a GameOver, and an unbalanced weapon roster that's divided into "[[ScrappyWeapon rarely if ever used outside of boss fights]]" and "[[GameBreaker the Metal Blade]]" categories) have been addressed in later games.

** The Buebeam Trap at the end of Wily Stage 4. Not only do you have to use Item-1 to reach the higher part of the chamber, with the boss's attacks being almost unavoidable for much of the fight (you need ''frame perfect timing'' to dodge its attacks, which makes a NoDamageRun against it a nightmare), but the boss can only be defeated by Crash Bomber, and unless you're ''very'' skilled at placing the bombs, you are required to use all seven of your extremely limited supply of bombs correctly. If you waste even a single one of them, [[UnwinnableByMistake you're screwed]].

* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: The poor sales of [[VideoGame/MegaMan1 the first game]] internationally and the SleeperHit sales of the game in Japan gave Capcom [[ItWillNeverCatchOn little faith that the series would catch on]], so ''Mega Man 2'' was only greenlit as a minor side-project inbetween working on its other major titles. The small dev team proceeded to knock the project out of the park with it, and it not only resulted in one of Capcom's best selling and most critically acclaimed titles, but also established the Mega Man franchise as Capcom's [[CashCowFranchise headlining breadwinner]] for decades.
* BreatherBoss: In the rematch with all eight Robot Masters, Metal Man's rematch is infamous due to the fact that he dies in one hit (or two on Difficult). The weapon that can do that is ''[[HoistByHisOwnPetard his own weapon]]'', which isn't even remotely difficult to use. Once players learn which teleport spot is his, he is generally saved for when you are low on health and need an easy one to refill your life meter.
* BrokenBase: The Metal Blade tends to provoke this. Fans of ''2'' tend to love it for being a phenomenal asset and one of the most all-around effective weapons in the series, and lots of fun to mess around with in general. Detractors tend to dislike it for unbalancing the game to the point of it being a SelfImposedChallenge to go without it, as well as making an already generally mediocre weapon roster even worse by comparison.

* DisappointingLastLevel: After clearing the Wily Castle's exciting and challenging first couple of stages, the fourth stage is where things start to falter. You have to get through a puzzle stage outfitted with illusion floors and line-guided platforms; once you figure it all out, the stage becomes very tedious. To top it all off, you must fight the Boobeam Trap, which requires the Crash Bomber's entire weapon energy to defeat (a fact made worse as the only nearby enemies to item-farm from are Tellys and Sniper Armors). It doesn't help that instead of hearing the amazing Dr. Wily Stages 1 & 2 theme throughout this stage, you hear a more melancholy tune instead, which is used in Stages 3, 4, and 5, dampening your spirits even more. After that comes the series' very first Boss Rush teleport room in the next stage, which doesn't even have a segment giving you the chance to restock your weapon energy beforehand. You have to fight a battle of attrition with Dr. Wily once the Robot Masters are dealt with. Luckily, the last stage and its boss are far less brutal.

* GameBreaker: The Metal Blade. It's a weakness of Bubble Man, Wood Man, Flash Man, [[{{Irony}} Metal Man himself]], and the second-to-last boss, not to mention it uses a ludicrously small amount of ammo per shot, meaning it would take a conscious effort to try and deplete it of ammo! Also, unlike any other weapon in the game, this one can be thrown in all eight directions, making it much easier to strike any GoddamnedBats. Plus it can cut through lesser enemies in a row, and it has a huge size, making it easy to hit with, especially against enemies that are so small that the Mega Buster goes over them. Their only downside is that they ''don't'' work against [[ThatOneBoss Quick Man, Air Man or the Buebeam Trap]].

** Tellys -- small tube-like bots that infinitely respawn from holes / pipes. Avoiding them unless you need resources is the best solution.

** When pausing and unpausing, Mega Man will be in the "teleport" animation for a split second. During this time, Mega Man is invulnerable to all weapons.

* GrowingTheBeard: The [[VideoGame/MegaMan1 first game]] was good, with some very obvious flaws and parts that are [[FakeDifficulty unreasonably hard]]. ''Mega Man 2'' takes the solid gameplay foundation, smooths out most of the rough edges and cuts much more slack on the difficulty while still staying challenging, beefs up the weapons, adds 2 more bosses to the stage roster, and improves just about everything else.

* HypeBacklash: As probably the most popular game in the ''Mega Man'' series and one of the most acclaimed games of all time, it naturally tends to get this reaction. In particular, more than a few fans consider ''VideoGame/MegaMan3'' or ''VideoGame/MegaMan4'' to be the actual pinnacle of the series's NES days, and consider this game to be overly simplistic by comparison. Some have criticized the game on that the Metal Blade is [[GameBreaker too powerful]] while most of the weapons are useless or impractical. Enemy placement and attack patterns are also rather cheap, making a NoDamageRun of certain levels, particularly Wood Man's to be almost purely memory-based. The first Wily Castle theme also gets this reaction, having been so heavily hyped and remixed over the years it easily overshadows all other Wily and villain themes in the franchise.

** Air Man's toughness has inspired the project-Delta song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opADNvgeZYY "Air Man ga Taosenai"]] ("I Can't Beat Air Man" among other varying translations).

* PolishedPort: The ''Wily Wars'' re-release gave the game a 16-bit graphical upgrade, remixed music, and a save feature.

* SequelDifficultyDrop: Due to the addition of more utility items, [[EmergencyEnergyTank Energy Tanks]], and a password save system; plus an actual Easy Mode in the international version (there called "Normal", but the "Difficult" mode is actually the original difficulty). Mind you, it's still {{Nintendo Hard}}, just not so much as the first game.

** Quick Man leaps from one end of the room and back in about a second, tossing out spreads of homing boomerangs along the way. He's bad enough if you're playing normally -- most players just load up on E-Tanks and whittle him down in a battle of attrition -- but he's ''infamous'' among those who try for a NoDamageRun, as demonstrated [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDNEzzLPxIQ here]]. [[labelnote: Why's that?]] Quick Man's collision detection is bugged if he touches one of the outer walls of the room (and there's no real way to stop that from happening, especially in the rematch room), which changes his pattern from "three fast jumps of varying height and length, then run at the player" to "''zero'' to three jumps of varying height and length, then run at the player". As programmed, the only random factor is supposed to be the height and length of the jump (either a long and high jump over the player, or a mid-size jump directly onto the player, or a short hop in front of the player), and the Quick Boomerangs are only supposed to be thrown at the peak of the second jump, but the collision detection issue throws the normal pattern for a loop.[[/labelnote]] It's also worth noting that Quick Man is one of the few bosses who's straight up ''immune'' to the [[GameBreaker Metal Blade]].
** The Mecha Dragon at the end of Wily Castle 1 is no slouch, either. After a brief AutoScrollingLevel with the Dragon chasing you, you must fight it on a set of three tiny platforms (where the KnockBack from any of its fire breath attacks is likely to be fatal). The Dragon can also [[OneHitKill kill you in one shot]] with CollisionDamage. If you die, you don't start right before the boss as usual -- you respawn [[CheckPointStarvation at the midpoint of the level]].

** Crash Man's stage is about near constant upward movement and is filled to the brim with enemies attacking you from above or below, usually while you're either on small mobile platforms or on ladders, meaning guaranteed lost progress whenever you get hit. Fortunately, if you have Leaf Shield it renders the majority of these threats rather trivial, and you can even use it to farm the endlessly respawning Pipi enemies for health pickups and the rare extra life.