Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters

The Short

Pros
- Fight through another batch of robot masters in a boss rush mode
- Wider arrange of masters mixed up better across multiple games
- Improved HUD and UI
- Masters actually get unique stages this time around, which is appreciated
- Enemies also get more advanced movesets when you knock down their heath, increasing the challenge
- New playable character Duo.
- Lets you actually pick the order rather than some pseudo-random thing from the first game
- Still playable co-op

Cons
- While a bit harder than the first game, it's still too easy
- Duo is stupid. Just...in general.
- Again, music doesn't match the stages
- Also again, I find Capcom's taste in robot masters questionable, as is some of their 32-bit redesigns
- Can beat the whole game in under 45 minutes

Bubble Man, your redesign is awful. 

The Long

I liked Mega Man: The Power Battles, despite giving it a low score. I mean, sure, it was a really easy game and didn't properly execute on it's awesome premise, but it's still a fun co-op romp. When I heard they made a second one (which, if I remember correctly, never made it to American arcades), I was excited to see what they'd changed between games. Maybe it would have X in it? Maybe it would actually be hard? Maybe they'd pick less stupid robot masters?

Well...Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters (great title, BTW. That was sarcasm.) is certainly a sequel, and it's certainly at least a little better than the original, but to be honest it still makes all the same mistakes. 

Those are totally the SNES sprites. 

First off let's go over the differences between this and the first Power Battles. Most everything is actually the same with a few minor nuances. Duo, that space...police...guy whose name doesn't have anything to do with music is now playable. He's bigger and slower and does more damage but has less range. Basically he sucks because he's a stupid character and besides...whenever you pick Protoman it plays his little whistle theme at the start of every battle. Why would you pick anybody else?!

Another key difference is the three scenarios. Rather than segregating the games into their own clusters, they just mix 'em all together across three unique campaigns. You can search for Wily, rescue Roll (seriously? Does she do anything useful?), or...search for parts. Um...yeah. Parts, Dr. Light? When all this other stuff is going on? Ok...

I'm just saying, the first two should probably take priority. 

Anyway, it's still just Mega Man 1-7 (no 8 here) across these missions, but at least they are all mixed up. You have a lot of recycled robot masters from the first game, but they also mixed in a few new ones this time around...and most are stupid ones. Centaur Man? Gyro Man? Bubble Man? At least we finally get Air Man up in here (aka the best robot master), but still, I find their taste in robot masters lacking. At least we didn't have Hard Man, and Pharaoh Man is finally in here. 

Heat Man...where you always that short?

There are a few other minor changes. The game lets you pick the order manually this time, while in the first one it just sort of randomly shuffled them. This actually makes the game easier if you know the boss order (or can guess, based on previous Mega Man experiences) because whenever you hit somebody with their weakness in this game it does an overblown attack animation letting you know that, yep, you got the right powerup. Game's about to get easy. 

Luckily they (sort of) compensate for this by having the difficulty continue as it moves on at a more dramatic climb than the first game. Robot Masters also have "desperation" attacks, meaning when their health drops below half they get a more powerful, more obnoxious batch of attacks that you have to work with. While not accurate to the original games, it certainly is a much appreciated increase in challenge.

More like Cen-tard man. 

The game looks decent, though some of the arcade redesigns look a bit dumb. Again, they recycled a lot of content from the first game but it looked fine to begin with so I'm not complaining. The new HUD is a bit better with an actual health bar and a cleaner interface, which is appreciated, and the backgrounds tend to be more exciting, colorful, and fit the characters you are fighting better. 

The music is also recycled with a few new remixes. They still couldn't bother to actually match the robot master with his song, but whatever...I'm past that at this point. 

Heat Man still looks like a tiny Zippo. 

I'll give Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters this: it's a bit more challenging, a slight improvement over the original, and still boasts fun two-player co-op. Aside from that, it's a very minor upgrade from the first game, so much so that I have a hard time discerning screenshots. The game is still way too easy, feels a bit unbalanced (in your favor), and only has a limited roster. As a sequel that should have offered substantial improvements over the original, this one just feels like a few minor upgrades.

I guess this is where I should insert a "Capcom Fighting Games Charging $60 For Next To No Upgrades" joke, but I'm tired and since I just explained it I guess that covers it...

As it stands, Power Fighters is technically better than Power Battles, but only by a small margin. However, the improved backgrounds, a better mix of robot masters, and overall minor improvements make it the arcade Mega Man fighting game to play, if you were in the market for one to begin with.

Three out of five. The game is also available on the Mega Man Anniversary Collection along with its predecessor, which is currently the only way to play this game in the US.

Duo is still stupid, though.