Promo Art
Game: Megaman 2: The Power Fighters
First Released: August, 1996, Arcade
Developers: Capcom
Platforms: Arcade, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Gamecube, Playstation 2,
Xbox, GameTap
Rated: E, for Cartoon Violence
First Released: August, 1996, Arcade
Developers: Capcom
Platforms: Arcade, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Gamecube, Playstation 2,
Xbox, GameTap
Rated: E, for Cartoon Violence
How I Came To Play This Game
Fight Diveman
A long time ago I bought the Megaman Anniversary Collection for the Gamecube which included the first eight Megaman games and two arcade games.
Story
It's a disaster: Doctor Light's lab has been attacked by Doctor Wily, and stolen some crucial parts for robots. And, if it weren't bad enough already, he has taken Roll as a hostage! Mega Man and Proto Man go to stop Wily and stumble upon Duo, the big alien robot, who is willing to help. And Bass, still angry that Wily has revived more Robot Masters, again teams up with the good side to destroy the enemies.
Robot Masters
Bubbleman, Heatman, Shadowman, Gyroman, Centaurman, Plantman, Cutman, Elecman, Diveman, Stoneman, Slashman, Shademan, Gutsman, Airman, Quickman, Geminiman, Pharaohman, Napalmman.
Review
This game follows directly in the footsteps of its predecessor, Megaman: The Power Battle. It is in some sense the same exact game, but they made many new features and improvements from the original. For instance, you can now play as Duo, in addition to the original three characters (Megaman, Protoman, and Bass). Each character was given a special move used by holding up when firing a charge shot. Once again there are three game modes. You can either choose to find Dr. Wily, save Roll, or recover the missing parts. Half of the bosses from the original game make a return, with the other half being a new cast. Another thing that they added was assist characters. During the battle sometimes, Eddie will appear and drop a power up. Whoever grabs this power up will get assistance from another Megaman character. Megaman gets help from Rush, Bass gets help from Treble, and both Protoman and Duo get help from Beat. rush uses his various functions such as the Jet and Coil adaptors. Treble shoots and dashes at the enemy in correspondence with Bass' shots. Beat gives Protoman or Duo a shield for a limited amount of time that makes them invincible. There is also some competition value added into the game. Whenever you kill a boss, a bunch of orbs scatter all around which either give points, recover health, and one of them is the boss weapon. If one character gets the weapon, the other character won't get it. This game has high replay value because they added paired endings. This means that in addition to an ending specific to each charatcer, there are endings for each pair of characters too. You need to play the game at least ten times to see all the endings. One interesting thing to note is that in Bass' solo ending, Dr. Wily reveals he had already started working on the robot Zero and showed a silhouette of him. This all foreshadows the Megaman X series.
Releases
Megaman 2: The Power Fighters was first released as an Arcade game in 1996. Then, a paired game which included this one and it's sequel was released for the Playstation 2 only in Japan, called Rockman: Power Battle Fighters. Then, another paired game was released for the Neo Geo Pocket color in 2000. Finally it was released as part of the Megaman Anniversary Collection for Gamecube and Playstation 2 in 2004, then on the Xbox in 2005. Then it was released for GemeTap in 2006.
My Rating
I give this game a 10/10. They took what they did in Megaman: The Power Battle and made it even better. Just shoot until your target dies.