Mega Man 2: Atari De-Make is a Fan Remake of Mega Man 2 with a graphics style reminiscent of the Atari 2600.
The basic controls are the same, but there are a few tweaks in the gameplay. You can save your progress and revisit levels (including Dr. Wily ones), the weapon system has some changes, and the Item-1 and Item-3 are written off.
Examples:
- Adaptational Early Appearance: Met Daddy, a fortress boss in Mega Man 4, appears as a Mini-Boss in Crash Man's stage. This game is a Fan Remake of a game before it. Also, you have the Energy Balancer, which debuted in Mega Man 6.
- Adaptational Wimp: The Wily Alien here can be damaged with the Mega Buster, loses three hit points instead of just one when hit by Bubble Lead, and does not heal if hit by any weapon other than Bubble Lead.
- Adapted Out: Items 1 and 3 are absent. Mega Man only has an Item similar to the Item-2.
- Advancing Boss of Doom: Averted this time, as Mecha Dragon does not chase you prior to his boss fight.
- Antepiece: The robot master stages prepare the player to a gimmick before progressively making it harder and dropping it.
- Balance Buff: To compensate for the criticisms to the unbalanced and nearly useless weapons system of Mega Man 2, most weapons were tweaked.
- The Bubble Lead can damage more enemies than it initially could and it is much more powerful overall.
- Atomic Fire now has a fire orb in the hand while it is being charged. This buff was an inspiration to the Mega Man Maker version of that weapon.
- Leaf Shield now blocks projectiles and can be carried for all a screen in a smiliar way to shield weapons from later games in the series. It is now tossed with the fire key.
- Time Stopper can be interrupted to avoid unnecesary waste and to get better use to the weapon.
- Crash Bomb explodes on contact with enemies and by volition of the player, compared to the original Mega Man 2 where enemies absorbed the bomb and took minuscule damage as a result and the only way to get it to explode otherwise (setting it on a wall) was on a timer.
- Mini-Boss: Met Daddy from Mega Man 4 appears as a miniboss.
- Nerf: The original Metal Blade was infamous for its sheer power. Here, it can no longer be fired upwards nor downwards (diagonals are still fair game), and there can only be two blades at the time instead of three.
- Not His Sled: Despite being based off Mega Man 2, it's not the same game at all. Some level objects are changed, and some bosses behave a bit differently.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: To better emulate the limitations of the Atari 2600, some level objects were changed. Instead of the Crash Lifts, there are moving platforms moving from left to right and with a pointer that spins from time to time and damages the player. The Air Chariots do not have a circular trajectory, but are moved through shots from the opposite direction Mega Man is standing and are separate from Kaminari Goros. Another important change is that there are no continuous screens. The Atari controls were overlooked in favor of an accessible gameplay.
- Retraux: The game is an adaptation of a NES game into an Atari 2600 game. Thus the graphics are simpler than those of the original game (though they are still beyond the limitations of the 2600).
- Wave-Motion Gun: Flash Man has one in lieu of his rapid fire shots.
