Part 15: Wily 2+3
Stage Comments (1):
Gifts gifts gifts tricky Bee section, Rush Jet and more gifts and surprise, that sure was a stage!
In all seriousness, this is where there could have been a really evil section with Shadow Man platforms...except that it already was in Doc Shadow. I feel that as the Doc Robot stages already re-used a lot of ideas from the normal stages - and not even their originals, sometimes - there's a dearth of ideas for the Wily stages. As romhacks and...a little creative thinking, really, show, that's no excuse for having them so bare-bone, but I guess it definitely shines through here how rushed the game was at the end.
Bees over traps was even done already, but now we've got spikes; seeing as Hard Man didn't get a Doc Robot remix, that's actually quite sensible. You know how often I lament on how cool stuff like the Mag Flies, Top Man's spinning platforms etc. never get used again? This would have been the place...too bad, really.
Maybe the harsh deadline also prevented them from balancing difficulty correctly and that's the reason for there being so many E-Tanks and other upgrades. I like that they'd rather be too easy on the player than too harsh (something the predecessor never did), but it's seriously overdoing it, especially seeing as the stages themselves simply aren't hard at all!
Boss Strategy (1):
Let me reiterate how much I hate Devil fights, because they take "wait until he shows his weak spot" to the extreme. This time, though, the waiting doesn't boil down to either having great concentration or simply memorizing the unchanging pattern; that's something. At least for the normal part. When Yellow Devil Mk.2 starts dissolving and lets the parts bounce, a hit is almost guaranteed - with perfect sliding, this could well be doable, but it slows down so much that precision is pretty much impossible. Seeing as you've practically gotten showered with E-Tanks beforehand, that's not even a problem; if the fight dragged on longer, I'd nag on more, but if you're using his weakness from the start and punch him in the eye, you'll only see it once. Also, it does make him change sides slower, that's always a plus.
To summarize: Boring waiting that's pretty easy because he's slow and you've got a slide and his pattern is always the same, quickly shoot him, but you've got plenty of time to get more than one hit in, also of course dodge the shots, boring waiting, hit him, get hit with fair certainty, kill him.
Stage Comments (2):
This is one forgettable level. It consists mostly of even more gifts, a completely pointless darkness section - think about it, I lauded the original one for using it in a meaningful and not obnoxious manner! This time, it's still not obnoxious, but mostly for reasons of being criminally short, completely devoid of danger and...certainly not meaningful. In this level, we also encounter two completely harmlessly put enemies, again showing how big of a letdown the design has become; so far, enemy placement has always been very right - enough to prove a definite hindrance and obstacle you had to use thought to overcome, not so much in the way that it became annoying to deal with.
Last section shows again how silly the Hoppers are...but gives me a strong Wily 4 from the previous game vibe. Walkers in narrow corridors...*shudder*. Even the boss reeks of Buebeam Trap!
The one thing that's great about this level is the moving platforms. As Mega controls so well, there's rarely a part in the games where only platforming is required; mostly, the challenge comes from cleverly placed enemies, see above. This saddens me a bit, because as these two screens show, there's definitely room for stuff like that. It doesn't even need to be really hard or anything; it feels good being able to ace that part just because Mega isn't Sonic.
Boss Strategy (2):
The Holograph Megamen are a stupid boss. Their incessant firing, as mentioned, cannot be dodged at all. The real one is going to be one of the three, randomly chosen; they'll always walk the same path, to and fro and vanish and change positions. It's completely non-interactive, and, compared to Buebeam Trap, not even a puzzle. If you're lucky, you can take them out in milliseconds; if not, you'll get knocked down constantly, have to use an E-Tank or two (not that THAT matters), and it's going to be terribly unfun. Bah.
Music:
- Wily Stages 2 - It certainly has a grand atmosphere to it. More serious than the tune of the first two stages, but nowhere near as bad as the switch in the previous game. I'd say it's better than Wily 1.