WT Lite

Anthony from the Capes on the Couch podcast joined Squidge to talk about the classic NES game Mega Man 2

Players

Squidge

Anthony

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Show Notes

Because he started us off last time (and even though he was the guest for this one), Squidge introduced the episode and the idea behind it:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

Waffling Taylor’s Lite: the pocket size podcast that packs a gaming punch.

In this serving of byte sized banter with a side of gaming goodness. We catch up with Anthony from Capes on the Couch podcast about Mega Man 2 for the NES.

Take it away, guys

The WT Lite series of episodes will be peppered in alongside the “standard” episodes, so keep an eye out for them. These episodes allow us to focus specifically on a specific game or series, and really focus on our guest’s thoughts. But before the episode got bogged down with talk of Mega Man 2, Squidge wanted to know about Anthony’s podcast:

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

My name is Anthony. I’m co host of a podcast called Capes on the Couch, and we analyze the psychiatric and mental health issues of comic book characters.

My best friend is a board certified psychiatrist, and so each episode we cover a character or a group or a relationship or a theme. And we examine the portrayals of the various neuroses in comic books and then how realistically are they portrayed, and what would treatment options look like for that character. We role play a little therapy session towards the end of what therapy with that character would sound like.

It’s edutaining is kind of what we call it because it’s educational but also entertaining. We have a lot of fun with it. We’ve got over 170 episodes, I think, at this point. We’re currently on hiatus, although as of this morning, we did just release an episode to break the hiatus because we occasionally talk to creators about their comics.

How Long To Beat?

Squidge wanted to start off with a deviously simple question: how long did it take you to beat Mega Man 2 when you first got it? We all know that those older games are tough as … well, something that’s quite tough.

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

I was probably an adult because I don’t recall ever beating it as a kid, because it was always so hard and because the game and the series, especially the original series and those original Nintendo games, they’re Nintendo hard for a reason. It’s pattern recognition, that’s all it is. And if you cannot nail those patterns, if you cannot nail the timing of those platforms that appear and disappear or the enemies that go in the same, if you can’t nail those patterns, you’re not beating the game. So I don’t think I beat the game until I was an adult.

How long it took me, I don’t know. What I can tell you is that I remember specifically one instance of beating it:

I was live streaming for a charity fundraiser. I do a lot of work with Extra Life, which is a charity where you raise money through playing video games and the money all goes towards Children’s Miracle Network affiliated hospitals. I’ve been raising money for Extra Life for over ten years at this point.

And I was doing a fundraiser, I was live streaming myself playing Mega Man 2, and for every time I died, I had to do X number of burpees. And the more money I raised, the more burpees I had to do. And the plan was I had to beat Mega Man 2 in 90 minutes with taking breaks for burpees. So all of that kind of factored in and I’ve spent weeks practising. I had everything down, I knew my routes, I knew my order.

The day of I’m live streaming, I’m 2 minutes into the Airman stage and I fall off one of the platforms. Now I have to drop and do - I think I had to do was it like it was over 50 I had to do over 50 burpees every time I died. So now the game is running, I think I hit pause, whatever, like that, but the live stream is still going and here I am, one, two, three and the now I’m out of breath after doing 50 plus burpees. And now I have to pick up the controller and get back to playing.

And I beat it with I got to Wiley, I had no lives left. I’m on my last life, literally. There’s two bars on the hit bar left. I can take one more hit and I’m and then the password screen went and I’ve got the bubble lead and I am timing everything because he’s going in that infinity pattern as the snake thing, and I have to hit him with the bubble lead and jump and hit him and avoid the things and everything else.

And I got it done with one hit left on the bar and it was like I think it took me like an hour 25, because of all the other times that I had died and had to do burpees and everything. So I got it done by the skin of my teeth and I was like, "I don’t ever want to play this game again because it was so traumatizing." I’ve played it since then and I’m 90% certain I’ve beaten it since then.

A Custom Robot Master Appears

The next question called upon Anthony’s love of both video games and comic books.

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

With all the different personalities and the abilities of the robot masters, and with your in depth knowledge of all different comics and superheroes and stuff, create a robot master that you could put in that game right. But you’ve got to give me the personality and what sort of weaponry the would use.

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

It’s funny because the character I was thinking of, or at least the name that I was thinking of, was actually used in Mega Man Eleven.

It’s not the exact power set, but I was thinking Acid Man and the the weapon, he would shoot acid at you. And the initial hit itself wouldn’t do damage, wouldn’t do a lot of damage, but it would last over time. And so you would get hit and you would continue taking damage for a couple of seconds after you got hit. And the more you got hit, the more damage would happen. So the first one wouldn’t be that bad. And then the second one would be would take off like two bars per every second for 3 seconds. And the the third one would be three bars of every 3 seconds. And so it would accumulate over time the damage.

As far as personalities go, I think because he’s acid, he would be very sarcastic and kind of nasty and quippy and just kind of like a real jackass towards Mega Man. Not that any of them are really nice, but that would be the kind of the personality to match the power set that I would use.

Gig Economy, Gig Hero

Squidge’s next question was all about hobbies and side gigs:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

If Mega Man had a side gig, what odd job or hobby do you think he’d pursue in his downtime?.

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

I tried to think about this for a while and I came to the conclusion that whatever Mega Man does as a side gig, I don’t think is going to have anything to do with his powers because it’s going to be just rooted in his personality. I think he’s going to want to do something fun. I think he’s going to want to do something that isn’t going to involve battling or technology, whatever.

I think he would make music probably because in Japan he’s Rock Man, and Roll, and Bass. And so the whole music theme thing is going on there. So that would kind of be my initial impression is Mega Man would play, like, keyboard for some prog rock group and just jam out to Fish or The [Grateful] Dead for like, a half an hour, were it’s like, "okay. We’re going to play three songs and it’s going to take us an hour and 20 minutes to play three songs because we’re just going to noodle over here." And I say this is a fan of Dave Matthews Band and they can definitely stretch out a song way longer than it has to be.

E Tank Too Easy?

We all know that those older games were tough, but did we have it too easy because of the E Tanks that they laid out in the levels? Were those life giving items found too often, or not often enough?

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

I think it was definitely needed because that first game, man, I’ve never beaten the original Mega Man. I do pretty well, but I’ve never managed to get to it… So, yes, the E tank was needed.

Even with the E Tank, it’s still a hard game because, as I said, there’s so much platform jumping and other aspects to it of the pattern recognition and this and that. Even if you have the E Tank… this game [is not] a breeze to go through, it’s still a really friggin’ hard game with the E tank. If you took that away, it’d be damn near impossible. So I’m perfectly okay with the E tank.

I think maybe some of the other stuff, like if you did Mega Man 2 with the E Tank and sliding and the charge shot, maybe that would be a bit much, but with just the E Tank, I’m okay with that.

Best And Worst Fights in Mega Man 2

We all love a good boss fight, but which boss fight always puts a smile on Anthony’s face, and which one makes him want to throw his controller out of the window?

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

Any of them can be can be beaten if you know what you’re doing. The Quick Man is kind of a pain if you don’t use the Time Stopper, and it’s hard to get to him with a full time stopper because you end up needing to use it for the portion of the level where you’re dropping down and the beams are coming through the sides… So I would say Quick Man is a pain if you don’t have the Time Stopper. If you do have the Time Stopper, it takes off like, half of his life, and then it’s just about trying to avoid him and stuff like that.

So I would say that as far as the best where you’re like, oh, as I said, at this point it comes down to, do you have the right weapon? Because some of them, all it takes is you just get the right weapon and you just hit them a couple of times and you’re good. So I don’t know.

Is it cheating to say Metal Man only because once you get the Metal Blade, that kind of opens up things a lot easier. And I know one of your other questions is, "do you spam the Metal Blade?" So I hate to jump ahead, and the answer is: no, I don’t, because I don’t want to play like that. I use the Mega blaster through the level as I’ll go to other weapons if I have to, but I use the Mega blaster because I feel like that gives me enough of a challenge to make it worthwhile. I feel like if I spam the Metal Blade throughout the level and with the bosses and stuff, then it’s not as fun.

Quick-Fire-Round Man!

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

Did you spam the Metal Blade weapon?

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

Nope

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

Dr. Wiley goes to a Halloween costume party. Who’s he dressing up as? The only caveat is he can’t go as himself.

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

Woodman it’s a straightforward costume. I think he know throws on like, a garbage can or something around himself. He puts some leaves and sticks on it. Boom, there you go.

Woodman costume, you’re done. And that’s also a shot because Wood Man is the lamest one in this game, and he’s definitely one of the lamest robot masters in the series as far as I’m concerned

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

All eight robot masters and Mega Man have a dance off. Who wins and what’s the winning move called? And I’ll give you a bonus point if you name all the eight robot masters in Mega Man 2 before you give your answer.

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

Metal Man, Airman, Bubble Man, Quick Man, Crash Man, Flash Man, Heat Man, and Wood Man. Winner.

Winner of the dance battle? I got to say either Quick Man or Flash Man because they’re going to do something with time and speed to make themselves go really fast or slow things down and go and like, slow motion and then go back to normal speed. So it’s going to be one of those I think they’ve got the best moves, probably.

A Good Game For a Good Robo Doggo

What if Rush - Mega Man’s robo doggo friend - had his own spin off game, what kinds of fun, whacky scrapes and adventures would we see him get into?

Anthony's Avatar Anthony:

I want to see, like, Rush and Bass have a spin off of just, like, doing their thing. Because Bass is just like this massive character and kind of goofy as far as I’m concerned. And then Rush is the loyal sidekick and everything.

So I would want to see them in a spin off of Base trying to get things done. And then Rush always bringing him something he doesn’t need or something he discovered, and Bass being doesn’t this doesn’t help me. But Rush is so focused and loyal and he wants to do the right thing. So that would kind of be my, I guess, take on a Rush and Bass spin off.

I don’t know that it’s necessarily accurate to the characterization of Bass and Rush, but that’s where I would like to see it going. I think it would be very [cool] then, you know, Rush keeps bringing Bass, all these things that he thinks he doesn’t need and that he can’t use at the moment. And then towards the end, he finds that all the stuff that Rush brought him can be put together to form something. I don’t know, he could build another robot or something he can do with all these things, and then Base is like, "oh, my God, Rush like, you kind of had this all figured out the whole time,"

Create A Weapon For Mega Man

Squidge’s final question was a doosy and needed a little setting up:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge:

So Mega Man is hurtling towards the final robot master before taking on Dr. Wiley, and his blaster stops working. Or should I say he’s still powered up, but he just can’t shoot his blaster.

Before the goes into the final robot master’s layer, there is a maintenance room in the style of Dead rising Two. So instead of the blaster shooting energy bolts, is Mega Man going to shoot something else out of the blaster? Is he going to turn it into a melee weapon? What creative thing does he do to create a weapon against the final robot master?

And Anthony’s answer is absolute 🔥. So much so that you’ll have to listen to the episode to hear it in all of it’s glory.

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

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Games Covered

We mentioned 24 games in this podcast. In the following order, those games where: