Today we enjoy a wealth of video game merchandise. From soundtracks to toys to movies and beyond, there’s more game-related stuff out there than anyone could ever consume. But back in the NES days, game goods were a rare treat – so rare that I (and everyone I knew) devoured the “Worlds of Power” series of books that took NES titles and re-imagined them as novelizations.

Naturally, some of them are super weird. Mega Man 2 certainly has its fair share of “…Huh?” moments, but now, instead of merely reading the book like some 15th century scholar, you can watch it unfold in a series of YouTube clips.

Here’s part one, with the additional 11 episodes available on YouTube. Hats off to Protoman85 for piecing these together over the course of a year (May 2010 to April 2011), especially for making all the custom images and reading the whole thing out loud!

Fun fact about the Mega Man 2 book – the cover uses the classic/awful/amazing Mega Man 2 NES box as its own, but removes the gun in Megs’ hand. Similar edits grace the cover of the Ninja Gaiden and Metal Gear books (which I still somehow own), and even the limited violence that took place in those games is subdued in the text.

1up posted a thorough look at these books a while ago – if you missed the article, take a look for a truly unique and bizarre moment of game history. I mean, the Mega Man 2 book claims he’s a human who uses a special gun, not a robot who steals the powers of other robots, and the Castlevania II book is about a kid obsessed with chocolate. Super. Weird.

Via The Mega Man Network