is behind you! BEHIND YOU!So it's 1991, or rather December 1991 when Rockman 4 is released in Japan. What else is going on in the gaming industry? Let's see... anything significant... Oh, Sonic the Hedgehog came out on the Sega Genesis in North America, one of my other favorite franchises! Oh look, there's the Super Nintendo with both a new Mario and Zelda game! Final Fantasy II is out in the US also! I tell you, these new systems sure are looking great, I can't wait to try the new Mega Man game on one of these babies...
Wait? It's a NES game? Why? Sure, there's a large install base already for the NES/Famicom, but people are moving on and trying new games, with new hardware! Have you seen the graphics on some of these games? Mode-7! Blast Processing! Don't you get what Mega Man is missing?
And now you're already going to see a problem that Mega Man will carry on with him to this day. Capcom hates hardware upgrades.
Lets be fair though, the SNES just came out, it's not like they're going to wait a whole two more years to put Mega Man in some form or another out for the system right? Right? Right?This isn't a bad game, but people are starting to move on to newer and bigger things. Mega Man 4 looks great in comparison to it's previous releases, but Mega Man isn't competing with himself! He's gotta take down these other gaming giants in the frey. Mega Man 4 is unfortunately the start of the decline of the series as a whole. Here and there from this point on, there will be a few spikes in popularity as certain games come out, but Mega Man won't have what he had in Mega Man 2 probably ever again. This is where we start dividing the casual fans of Mega Man, and the veteran fans. But enough about the harsh realities of the business, let's look at the game itself.
New Features
- The Plasma Cannon has been replaced with the brand new
Mega Buster! This allows Mega Man to charge up his plasma shots before releasing them, dealing much more damage than a standard shot. - New characters as the mysterious Dr. Cossack has turned loose his own Robot Masters to take over the world!
- Rush Jet has been altered so it performs more like Item-2 in Mega Man 2, going in a straight line that the player can slightly steer up and down, but not stop the momentum. So Rush has essentially been neutered for his effectiveness.
- Eddie joins the team providing Mega Man in the field with mostly useless power ups that will make you scream at him!
- Some levels have alternate routes, and for the first time ever some helpful items are obtained by finding them in the field, rather than getting them from defeating a robot master.
- The new pause menu would become a standard for Mega Man 4, 5, 6 and 9.
This game actually starts out with some cutscenes, explaining the previous games up to this point, even going to point out that Mega Man's canon US name is Rock, but he became Mega Man. We're treated to some nice animation as Mega Man heads off to deal with a new Mad Scientist, Dr. Cossack! That dirty communist sunofa... what? The cold war's over? Oh... nevermind...Anyway, Mega Man defeats Cossack's robots and goes to his big castle of doom to face him in a final showdown for the world, BUT WAIT! Proto Man stops them in mid battle, bringing Dr. Cossack's daughter Kalinka back to him who was apparently kidnapped by... DR WILY!? What!? He survived the cataclysm in Mega Man 3?! Impossible! How could we have missed the completely obvious flying UFO in the distance of the Mega Man 3 credits?
So with this new plot twist revealed, Cossack helps Mega Man track down Wily to his skull fortress where Mega Man faces his true enemy! Mega Man defeats Wily, but before he can arrest him, Wily activates his self destruct on the fortress and escapes. Mega Man then catches a train ride home from the roof, despite being able to teleport... well at least it looks kind of cool.
Aesthetics
As I said before the game just looks fantastic compared to previous Mega Man games. He's reached a new point in color, animation and form that pushes the NES to the limits of it's hardware. Oh if only there was a new system out for Capcom to really push the graphical powers of this game!
Every facet of this game looks good though, and most of the bosses
and stages look interesting, but it's still dated for it's time. Capcom isn't pushing an envelope here anymore, just fine tuning what they already have. Sure, I like to see that my favorite character is getting more polish, but I just can't say with an honest face that Sonic or Mario didn't look way better at the time. Graphics in the gaming industry are always graded in terms of relativity instead of terms of actual art. Even if the game is interesting to look at, I can't in all honestly say it competes against systems with twice as many colors available to them.It looks great for an NES game, but Capcom is huge in the arcade business, and they have worked with a much bigger pallet before so why are they restricting themselves so much? It's hard to say.
I do like the way this game looks, but I'm just trying to bring in so
me perspective of what developers had available at the time. Out of context 4's artwork is fantastic, back in, it feels stifled of it's potential.Sound
Once again it's a matter of out dated hardware. We have good tunes, but midi's are getting better. Mega Man is lucky it has some of the best game composers of all time that work on them as it really can compete with whats out there, it just can be more than it is a lot of the time. That's not saying Mega Man 4 doesn't have better music than even most SNES game though.
Design
Ah, but as I always say, who gives a shit about story, graphics and sound as long as it plays good? Mega Man 4 plays well. Each stage has it's own unique gimmicks and platforming challenges keeping the game fresh, mostly.
Actually, once you finish the 8 robot masters, the game really stales up fast. The Cossack stages are completely uninteresting and the Wily levels are hardly big enough to even call levels. All the bosses are fantastic though, with my personal favorite being the giant room that attacks you by building itself around you, shooting, then disassembling. It's not a hard boss by any means but it sure is a lot of fun to play.
That statement really describes this game. Not hard, but fun. It's just not a challenging game, except for maybe a few tricky parts here and there. The Mega Buster makes decent work of the Robot Masters, even competing with the actual robot weakness in terms of utility and damage. This is good because most of the other weapons in this game suck. There is so little utility in most of the weapons except for a good few, and really once you get those weapons they're only good for specific situations.
The weapons get reeeeeeeally bad in the next game though, so I won't rip on them too hard. The boss fights themselves vary in pattern and types of fights pretty well and are pretty enjoyable. Ringman still kicks my ass if I don't thoroughly time every button press against him, which usually means I bring an E-tank.Speaking of E-tanks, you'll get lots of them in this game too, extra lives as well. They're handed out like candy. This tends to make me play pretty lazy I guess because when you got 7 E-Tanks, why put so much effort into not getting hit? It plays as well as most other Mega Man games, though not as fun or memorable as it's predecessors.
Playability
The Mega Buster makes a huge difference against a lot of enemies, although some will die faster with rapid fire over charged shots. The change against Rush wasn't exactly welcomed, but not game breaking either.
The only real bug I can think of with this one is with the Pharaoh Shot. If you hold down the fire button in the pause menu, then continue holding it while you come back to the game, it'll charge up without using any weapon energy. Very handy for the last fight if you ask me.
Extras
- Boss Order: Start with Toad Man. His weapon is the most useful as Rain Flush can kill every enemy on screen, even armored ones. He is also killed rather easily by just shooting him with a single uncharged shot from the Mega Buster over and over. He won't be able to even hit you. Bright Man's weapon is useful against the mini-bosses of each stage and then Pharaoh Shot is a charged shot you can aim. Go Toad Man, Bright Man, Pharaoh Man, Ring Man, Dust Man, Skull Man, Dive Man and Drill Man.
- Don't forget to pick up the extra items in Pharaoh Man's stage and Dive Man's stage. The Wire Claw is great for the final levels in the game.
- Skull Man's attack patterned is based entirely on the player input. If you press nothing, he does nothing. You can literally stare at him for hours if you like.
- Don't bother conserving E-tanks. There's almost one per stage.
- Rush Marine is still mostly useless, but there is a cool bug with it where you can float over the top of Dive Man's stage.
- You can avoid all damage by Wily's first form by standing close to him under where he spits his fireballs and hitting the bottom of his machine with a charged shot.
- Eddie almost always gives you a weapon energy refill when your weapons are full. If you want a different item, don't take what he gives you, exit and enter the screen again to respawn him and he'll keep generating new items till you get what you want. He does give extra lives and E-tanks.
Playthroughs
Let's Play Mega Man 4! The thread that killed Raar_Im_A_Dinosaur by Raar Im A Dinosaur
Speed Run by Tom Radovich
Let's Enter the Hula-Hoop Dance of Death in Megaman 4 by Oyster (on-going thread, may require membership).
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