Mega Man 2

Mega Man 2
Also known as: Rockman 2: Dr. Wily no Nazo (JP, translated as Rockman 2: The Mystery of Dr. Wily) Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom Platform: NES Released in JP: December 24, 1988 Released in US: June 11, 1989 Released in EU: January 1991 This game has unused code. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused sounds. This game has regional differences. This game has a prerelease article

Mega Man 2 is, as you may have guessed, the second entry in a very long-running series. Introducing many new concepts and improving on all the flaws of the original, this game is considered by a number of fans to be among the best of the series.

To do: Leftover rooms from Mega Man. iam8bit 30th Anniversary version differences (patch)

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Prerelease Info

Unused Sprites

This small detail was supposed to close Friender's front paw, but it was either removed or forgotten due to going out of the area the Frienders stand. Of note, in Friender's updated sprites from Mega Man: The Wily Wars, the opening in the front paw was just closed with a black outline, and its shading makes the difference between the other paws more apparent.

Unused sprite for Quick Man firing while standing. Since he only fires his Quick Boomerangs at the peak of a large jump, this sprite is never used.

Unused sprite intended for Quick Man's intro animation.

Unused sprite for Flash Man. It appears to be either for falling off a platform, or for firing his gun when in midair.

Unused sprite for the Acid in Wily 5.

Located near the graphics for the Wily Machine is an unused duplicate of the sprites used for the fight itself. The first one is an unused sprite that would've given Wily some much needed back support, the second is for the ball on his machine, which would've flashed for some reason, and the third is an earlier version of the debris that shoots off the Wily Machine at the end of the first phase of the fight. It should be noted that the sprite of the ball is present and identical on both versions of the sprites.

Unused Level Tiles

Metal Man

A tile to be used in the center of horizontal screws with five tiles. Only vertical screws use more than five tiles.

Crash Man

Hidden amongst the background tiles is what appears to be a Met generator, judging by the Met-sized mouth and (obviously) Met-like features. This is probably the most significant and mysterious set of unused tiles in the game.

Flash Man

Two unused platform tiles. Top-left and bottom-left corners exist as well, which actually were used in a single room.

An unused background tile. While a similar tile with no shadow is used twice in a single room, this one isn't.

Wood Man

While the cave terrain only has shading on the bottom, there are unused tiles that would've added details to the left and right walls and the "stalactites". The walls may have been scrapped due to not having space for corner tiles to link them with floors and ceilings.

As a forest stage, it has plenty of green tiles, but these ones are unused.

Quick Man

An unused background tile for Quick Man's stage.

Other

These katakana symbols ("aki") were used to fill empty spaces in the enemy graphics. They mean, appropriately enough, "emptiness".

Unused Item Drop Code

To do: Find out how to activate this by whatever means.

There is coding in the game for enemies to drop E-Tanks upon death, but the code is typically rendered inaccessible due to its potential game-breaking effects.

(Source: TASVideos)

Unused Level Palettes

Wood Man

Wood Man's stage has two sets of unused palettes. Since it is part of the animation space, the palettes will cycle.

A 2011 interview with planner Akira Kitamura sheds some light on this:

In MM2, in the forest at the beginning of Wood Man’s stage, I had [Nobuyuki Matsushima] code it so that if you used Atomic Fire on the trees, everything would burn up and the Batton (bat enemies) would all fly off. Sadly that ended up getting removed from the game. (laughs)

A similar effect would later be implemented in Slash Man's stage in Mega Man 7.

Quick Man

The palette for Quick Man's stage is unanimated. Forcing it to animate reveals that the Force Beams throughout the stage once palette cycled between two frames. This was disabled because it causes problems with the hall of Changkey Makers.

Wily Stage 2

In Wily Stage 2, there is a palette cycle intended for one more frame of the turbine cycle, which would make them rotate a bit slower.

Unused Sounds

There are three unused sounds. Edit offset x3DC59 to any of these values, then select Flash Man's weapon to hear them.

Sound ID 22. Sounds like an explosion. It is placed between the sound effects for Time Stopper and Metal Blade meaning it was likely used for a weapon.

Sound ID 40. A "whoosh" sound similar to Top Spin from Mega Man 3 placed just before the death sound. Unknown purpose.

Sound ID 33. Sounds similar to many fire based enemies in Mega Man 6. It's placed near the boss door sound and was likely meant for Heat Man's stage.

Heat Man's Hidden Atomic Fire Sound

When fighting Heat Man, there are two instances when the sound effect for firing Atomic Fire is called: when Heat Man encases himself in fire, and then again when he charges at the player. However, the normal "hit" sound effect lasts enough seconds to overwrite the game's attempt to call the first Atomic Fire sound- only successfully calling up the second usage of the sound under normal circumstances.

Hacking the game (or using a Randomizer) to replace the "Enemy Hit" sound effect with a shorter sound will cause both usages of the Atomic Fire sound effect to play successfully.

(Source: Superjustinbros)

Regional Differences

Title Screen

Japan	International

Rockman 2 has a copyright tag and trademark symbol on the title screen. Mega Man 2 moves all copyright information to the start of the game, and also moves the building down a bit to accommodate the larger title graphic.

Rockman 2 does not have difficulty levels, and is equal to the Difficult mode in Mega Man 2. The Mega Man 2 port found in Mega Man: The Wily Wars has no difficulty selection for all versions, due to it being based on the Japanese game, as does Complete Works and Anniversary Collection.

Password

Japan	International

The erroneous "Pass Word" was corrected in Mega Man 2.

Clash or Crash?

Japan	International

Crash Man is known as Clash Man in Rockman 2. It's likely the name was always meant to be Clash Man, as it is kept in Mega Man II (GB) in all regions, though Mega Man: The Power Battle goes with the localized name in the international versions.

Big Fish

In the Japanese version, you don't receive any collision damage if you are hit by the "Big Fish" enemy that appears in Wily Stage 3. This was adjusted in the international versions, where they inflict 10 units of damage.

Credits

A couple of typos in the staff roll were fixed for the international versions.

Japan	International

Character Designer was fixed.

Japan	International

And so was Sound Programmer.

Japan	USA	Europe

Also, the "Presented by" was altered due to the different Capcom divisions.