Mega Man II
Mega Man II |
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Also known as: Rockman World 2 (JP), Rockman II (CN) This game has unused graphics. |
Mega Man II is, as you may have guessed, the followup to the first Game Boy entry. It was made in five months by a completely different development team that knew little about the series, and it shows.
It's also one of the few Game Boy titles to receive an official Chinese release.
Contents
Robot Master Select #2
Set memory address CF66 to 04-07 on the Robot Master select screen and you'll be able to choose the Mega Man 3 Robot Masters. Interestingly, they have animations and text strings that aren't used anywhere else in the game. They were clearly meant to be used, but they aren't. After beating the Robot Master, you'll be thrown back to the stage select.
Their stage select icons can be found below.
Unused Music
Seems to be an alternate version of the ending theme.
Unused Level Tiles
Metal Man
The gears in Metal Man's stage are supposed to be animated, like in the NES version. The two gear frames are loaded into memory, but the developers never got the actual animation part of this done.
Hard Man
A rocky platform, clearly modeled after the NES version. The final game's Hard Man level is decidedly industrial in theme, though it may have changed during development.
Magnet Man
More generic foreground and background tiles. The first tile is based on the tiles used in the NES version for the inside sections of Magnet Man's stage. They were replaced by the more eye-pleasing striped tiles. The next two tiles are intended for the outside background, but aren't used. The last tile should have been placed above the magnets (similar tiles appear in the NES version, and there's even space for them in the Game Boy version), but they're not.
Needle Man
Some background and foreground tiles, as well as some spikes. The long vertical background piece (the one with the hole in it) is used in the NES version of Needle Man's stage for the inside sections. The tiles at the bottom are used in the NES version as floor tiles.
Top Man
The NES Top Man stage had spikes, so it would make sense for them to appear in the Game Boy version, but nope. The other two tiles are background tiles that never have a chance to get used. They're completely unique to the Game Boy version, too.
Time Warp
Short and long pipes. Their actual function is unknown. One part of them is actually used in-game, but it's so ill-fitting that it might be a programming error.
Other Unused Graphics
Unused graphics not related to the actual levels.
Crash Man
Early | Final |
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A poorly-made early walking frame for Crash Man. Luckily, it was replaced with a much better sprite.
Earth
Full | In-Game |
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The Earth graphic is slightly larger than it appears in-game - 16 pixels are cut off from the bottom.
Font
An unused shaded font. This appears after the font used in the credits, so that's probably where it was meant to be used.
Metal Man
Early | Final |
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An early, single-framed version of the Metal Blade can be found in Metal Man's sprite set. This 16×16 sprite seems more accurate to the NES version than the final sprite, which uses two 8×8 tiles that are flipped vertically and horizontally for each frame.
Petit Goblin
Early | Final |
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Some kind of face thing. This appears in the Air Man stage's object set, possibly being an early version of the Petit Goblin.
Pipi
Early | Final |
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The hilarious-looking early Pipi is part of Wood Man's sprite set. These enemies appear in Wood Man's stage in the NES game but not in the Game Boy version, so their art was never updated.
Early | Final |
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The Pipi egg is a dinky 8×8 sprite in the Wood Man sprite set.
Early | Final |
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The Copipis that hatch from the egg have only one frame of animation in the Wood Man set.
Giant Springer
A diagonal sprite for the missiles Giant Springers shoot. A different diagonal sprite is used for said missiles in Mega Man 3, but not here for whatever reason.
Quint Intro
An unused intro animation for Quint. He just stays still in the final version.
Stage Select Robot Masters
Early | Final |
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Early versions of the Robot Masters appear in the ROM.
The early graphics actually use the background palette. They were probably used in a stage select like the one in Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge.
The Mega Man 3 robot masters also have full intro animations. A demonstration can be found in the video above.
Wily Shuttle
Unused | Used |
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A number of different-sized images for Dr. Wily's spaceship.
Mega Man
Unused | Used |
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While tiles for Mega Man inching forward are present as usual, only one of them is actually used in-game, resulting in one of his legs inexplicably shrinking when he first moves forward.
Early | Final |
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This early buster shot based on the NES sprite would get replaced with its equivalent from the first Game Boy entry.
Explosions
Unused | Used |
---|---|
While there are three explosion effects used throughout the game, stored alongside them in the sprite set is an unused fourth one.
Regional Differences
Title Screen
Japan | US/China |
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As usual, the title screen was modified for the USA release. However this also included bumping the copyright date, and updating the copyright info to include Capcom USA. The EU version mostly takes after the USA version, but alters the licensing text to say "Licensed To Nintendo".
Despite being released four years later, the Chinese release simply uses the USA ROM untouched from its original release, despite the added Chinese name on the label claiming the game's name as "Rockman II", as well as the already updated EU release being present.
Top Man's Stage
Japan/US/China | Europe |
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One block was removed from this sliding tunnel. In the Japanese and American versions Mega Man would reach the end of the tunnel and stop moving but remain in his sliding animation, which looked rather silly.
Needle Man's Stage
Japan/US/China | Europe |
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The platform at the top of this screen was lengthened to keep the player from jumping on top.
Room Before Final Boss
Japan/US/China | Europe |
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The platform with a second Scworm generator was removed, replaced with a large background... bubble? Orb? Planet? Round thing.
End Credits
Japan/US/China | Europe |
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The Have "Su" Bee's name had its spelling corrected.
References
- Games developed by Thinking Rabbit
- Pages missing publisher references
- Games published by Capcom
- Games published by Nintendo
- Game Boy games
- Pages missing date references
- Games released in 1991
- Games released in December
- Games released on December 20
- Games with unused graphics
- Games with unused music
- Games with regional differences
- Mega Man series
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