Topic: 2018/10: Mega Man II (NES) - Revned / Rick Bruns

[JonLeung]

Mega Man II

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to Revned's / Rick Bruns's Mega Man II (NES) maps.

Dr. Wily is causing trouble again!  Seeking revenge after his first defeat, Dr. Wily creates eight of his own Robot Masters to counter Mega Man, including Metal Man, Air Man, Bubble Man, Quick Man, Crash Man, Flash Man, Heat Man and Wood Man.  Can the heroic robot Mega Man defeat them all and put a stop to Dr. WIly's nefarious schemes yet again?

We've featured a few Mega Man games here for the Maps Of The Month honour before, but the only other NES one featured before this one was Mega Man III, which was the first honouree way back in May 2004 (also mapped by Revned)!  It is, of course, a little odd that it has taken this long to recognize it, since Mega Man II is by far the most popular of the Mega Man games, making a reappearance on the NES Classic Edition, and more recently rereleased on cartridge by iam8bit.

This is the first time I am honouring two mappers - but not for working together.  Revned has fully mapped the six Mega Man games on the NES - and though his maps were certainly more than adequate, he went back and remapped all of them.  That's mega-dedication!  Rick Bruns of nesmaps.com has also mapped this game, opting to show the placement of enemies.  Either way, they've totally mapped this classic from the 8-bit era - isn't it about time we enjoy some more Mega Man?

So to recognize the effort put into mapping a mega-iconic game in an already mega-iconic series, Revned's / Rick Bruns's Mega Man II (NES) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for October 2018.

[JonLeung]

Fun fact: The VGMaps font has the letter "I" and the number "1" appear identical, both each as a solid line.  Since the convention on VGMaps is that whenever there's a discrepancy between the box title and the in-game title, there's a preference for the in-game title.  Hence, the second to seventh Mega Man games on the NES, despite appearing as "2" to "7" on their boxes, are listed here on VGMaps as "II" to "VII".  However, Capcom has been consistent with 8 to 11, so "Mega Man II" and "Mega Man 11" would have looked identical in the VGMaps font.

Also, it would have been confusing to have it look like "Mega Man 11" was featured for the Maps Of The Month beginning October 1, since the game comes out October 2.  

So choosing this for the Maps Of The Month meant also going back to EVERY thumbnail on the site of a game with a title using Roman numerals and adding the top and bottom lines to make it clear what these numbers are.