Repost from Romhacking.net:

Specialagentape does it again! Having played the original recently, this colorization patch does so much to improve World 2 that it should be mandatory for any playthrough.

Forple’s contributions cannot be understated. His music and sound effect improvement goes such a long way into making World 2 a better experience. No longer will the Gameboy screech at you as you play, nor will the sound effects sound like they are bootleg. I could actually appreciate the melodies of the songs; they’re honestly pretty decent. It’s nice to see the audio driver this game uses disprove its infamous reputation; ‘’with the right user, any tool can do the job'’.

Specialagentape’s colours are well-chosen, sticking mostly to the colours of the NES originals. While this does mean that, unlike World 1’s GBC patch, the stages can come off as imitations of the NES originals, I feel that there are enough variations and additions in the later stages that help World 2 retain an identity of its own. I particularly liked the look of the final stage with the shades of purple and green. The added animations really help sell the aesthetics and the replacements of some of the more janky sprites such as Mega Man’s slide show the attention to detail present in this hack.

Overall, this is an excellent upgrade that takes a mediocre game and makes it good. It won’t fix some of the level design being pretty whatever, the bosses not being all that interesting, nor Quint being incredibly lame. However, it does let World 2 shine on its own merits, without the limitations of the Gameboy.

Now, onto some notes and bugs:

When I first started the game on mGBA 0.10.1, switching from remix to classic and back to remix caused the game to freeze. I reset and attempted to replicate this behavior by mashing select on the title screen, yet the game worked just fine. I can only assume this to be the fault of my own laptop, rather than a fault with the hack.

During the credits, one of the enemies (I think the guy that rides the Metal Cog in Metal Man’s stage) causes Mega Man’s face to briefly disappear.

I find it odd that typos such as Clash Man have not been corrected. While I understand if it would be kept to stay as close to the original release as possible, but the hack in its sheer existence goes against that mentality. As such, I would welcome the typos be corrected.

Two of the weapon icons, Leaf Shield and Hard Knuckle, have their item icon frames missing a few pixels. I understand the intent is so that the weapon icon within the frame is emphasized, but no other icons have it be as extreme as these two. This is especially egregious for Leaf Shield, as its icon does not even have a need to go outside the frame like some of the others. I feel both of these could be changed to be more consistent with the rest.

This is really nitpicky, but I still don’t like the pause/teleport sounds, nor the landing-from-a-jump sound. The jumping sound can get pretty annoying due to its pitch and how frequently you hear it; I didn’t find it to be too big of an issue, but I still dislike it. Meanwhile, the pause sounds still feel pretty ear-piercing, fitting right in with the original sound effects the game had. I managed to get used to them, but, if I had to pick one thing to change about the hack, it would be the pause/teleport sounds.

Ultimately, my “complaints” are very minor and something I see as easily fixed with an additional patch update. Even if they aren’t addressed, this is still an excellent hack; one where you can feel the sheer passion and effort put into it. Specialagentape and Forple, you have all my admiration and gratitude for breathing new life in this small, obscure piece of the Mega Man franchise. Thank you.