I really wanted to love Mega Man 4, (or Mega Man IV if you go by the in-game title as opposed to the boxed title). Even after reading some of the negative opinions on the Wikipedia article, I wanted to believe that MM4 was not the beginning of the end for the Mega Man franchise on the NES. After coming off of the great level design of Mega Man 3 (specifically going back through stages that have sustained damage after the first robot boss was defeated), I was looking forward to seeing how MM4 was going to improve upon this great, yet formulaic series. While MM4 still felt very Mega Man-y such as the monster design, the New Mega Buster and the overall look of the stages, I felt that the creators seemed to have run out of new ideas for bosses, boss weapons, and lost steam level design, especially later in the game.
I had previously played Mega Man 4 sometime in the early '90s, either while on vacation in Lake Arrowhead (thanks again Grandma for the many NES rentals), or back home in Nor*Cal (thanks Mom & Dad for taking me countless times to Placer TV/Video), but I know that I had previously had a go against Skull Man, Toad Man, Ring Man, and Pharaoh Man.
And speaking of the bosses, I started to question the reasoning behind the bosses, their names, their associated weapons and how in the hell you are supposed to surmise which order to go through so that you have even an inkling as to the boss' weakness. In previous games, you could deduce that in Mega Man 2, Wood Man would be weak against Heat Man's Atomic Fire, or that in the first Mega Man, that Fire Man would be weak against Ice Man's Ice Slasher. I found that these types of deductions were not at all intuitive in MM4, although you could say that this sightly confusing boss weakness method started with Mega Man 3, but let us stick with MM4 for now. Looking at the list of bosses to our right, you might deduce that either Pharaoh Man or Skull Man's weapon would be strong against the other seeing as how they both can be associated with pyramids and death. You would be wrong in that assumption since Pharaoh Man is weak against Bright Man's Flash Stopper (supposedly because Pharaoh Man is in the dark and it blinds him) and Skull Man is weak against Dust Man's Dust Crusher (probably because you "crush someones bones into dust), or even that Toad Man should be weak against Bright Man's weapon since water is typically weak against lightning attacks (see everything from Final Fantasy to Pokémon), but instead he is weak against Drill Man's Drill Bomb. But again, I cannot blame MM4 for being confusing as to trying to decide which weapon to use against which boss since there have been combinations from previous games in the series that do not always seem to make a lot of sense until after the fact (Metal Man < Quick Man's Quick Boomerang; Crash Man < Air Man's Air Shooter; Needle Man < Gemini Man's Gemini Laser; Shadow Man < Top Man's Top Spin).
One other issue I had with the game was that once you reach Dr. Cossack's Citadel, with the exception of the first stage, the rest of the level designs felt very uninspired.
The above map is taken from Dr. Cossack's Citadel Stage 3 and consists of jumping on levitating platforms while not too many enemies come at you and while being shot at. And the level is on rails, so there is that too. Sure, that sounds like a bit to deal with, but if genuinely felt like, the level progressed as such:
- Okay, the level moves on it's own (but not at all fast).
- Okay, cannons are shooting at you while electric balls hamper your jumping onto platforms without issue.
- Okay, big jumping guy then ladder.
- Okay, more level on rails.
- Platforms that rise when you jump and sink when you're standing on them.
- Oh, those passive flying Saturn enemies.
- Boss: Cockroach Twins.
From my perspective, that is not an interesting level for a Mega Man game. I played through this level a handful of times, but that was because the Cockroach Twins gave me a bit of trouble and I fell off the platforms more than a few times. I think that is how the Dr. Cossack stages boiled down for me: the levels were easy while the bosses presented a bit of a challenge, which made going through Dr. Cossack's Citadel a lot less frustrating than Dr. Wily's Castle in previous Mega Man games. Another stage [SPOILER] comes in the Dr. Wily's Castle stage 1 where is seemed like the development went along the lines of:
- Take a modestly designed Mega Man stage
- Add some disappearing blocks, but only in two areas (that can be bypassed with weapons).
- Add an underwater area because.
- Add some spikes.
- Add only one monster that has three variants (Metall EXs or Hard Hats).
- Boss: Metall Daddy.
And now a combination of my two complaints. I never felt that I could tell which boss weapon to use against any of the bosses at the end of any of the Dr. Cossack or Dr. Wily stages. Against all of the bosses at the end of each of the stages, I allowed myself to try and defeat them without knowing what their weakness was, which I tried to do based on the design of the level, if there were similarities to previous stages and what weapons worked on those bosses, and the visual construction of the boss (Does it look water based? Try Drill Bomb since it works against Toad Man). This tactic did not seem to work at all. As it turned out, most of the bosses were weak against either Pharaoh Shot, Ring Boomerang, Dust Crusher, or Drill Bomb.
And speaking of the boss weapons, I found myself rarely if ever using the weapons during the stage, instead saving them for the boss fight. There were a number of times I would use Rain Flush as it would cover the entire screen with a bit of damage, regardless of where it was used. In the later Dr. Cossack and Dr. Wily stages, I would only use the standard cannon shot and New Mega Buster out of fear that I would need one of the boss weapons in the upcoming boss battle. Looking back, I do not think that I used either Skull Barrier or Dive Missile outside of the boss fights where they were strong against the boss robot, Dive Man and Drill Man respectively.
Let us talk about the music for a little bit since the Mega Man series is known for having some great music throughout the years. The composer for this installment was Minae Fujii, which was not only her first game in the Mega Man series, but also the first game for Capcom that she composed music for. While about half of the soundtrack blends well enough in the the background of the Mega Man world, the tracks for Pharaoh Man, Dive Man, and Skull Man, stuck out to me as being particularly well written tracks.
Before I close out today's article, I should finally mention the New Mega Buster, or Charge Shot. Jeremy Parish at 1up.com says that the Charge Shot is "a game breaking innovation," presumably because of it's power compared to the standard shot (1:3). While playing, I did not find myself using the Charge Shot too frequently, and it was not until more than half way through the game that I discovered that the Pharaoh Shot could be charged too, which you are apparently supposed to take away from the fight with Pharaoh Man (that he charges his shots before firing). I personally think that the Charge Shot was a great addition to Mega Man 4 in that it adds a new way to approach levels and certain monsters. Do you spend the roughly 1.5 seconds to charge the Charge Shot in order to do 3 points of damage, or do you fire off 9 - 12 shots (if you're fast enough) in the same amount of time?
I should also mention that in no way was Mega Man 4 an easy game, even with all of the uninspired later level design. I am sure that if the game kept track of deaths, mine would be in the high double digits, perhaps even bordering in the low triple digits. If it kept track of the number of energy tanks I used, that too would definitely be in the high double digits. There were many times where I went back to Bright Man's stage just to pick up easy to locate spare energy tanks. In total I spent just over eight hours playing and beating Mega Man 4, which is about an hour 45 minutes more than I spent playing Mega Man 3. I feel that most of that extra time was spent guessing which weapon to use against the later Dr. Cossack/Wily bosses as well as the overall difficulty of the early robot boss stages. And despite all of my hang ups with MM4, I am glad that I have the game and can play it whenever I want and am in fact, not at all disappointed having purchased it digitally. It is a fun game overall but let me break it down like this:
- Early stage design is well done and fairly interesting as well as difficult (difficult at first, just like any Mega Man game).
- Robot bosses are not as original as previous games, and weapons are uninteresting as well.
- Robot bosses are not easy and even their weakness still present a hard challenge.
- Later stages are uninspiring although some of the bosses are pretty cool (Mothraya, and Square Machine).
- Later stage bosses are not so much difficult as they are confusing to figure out their weakness, which takes either a lot of trial and error, or just looking them up online (which is what I ended up doing).
Now to take a bit of a break and then I will head into Mega Man 5. Because that is the kind of punishment that I like*.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
*But the kind of punishment, and mental anguish dealt by Super Meat Boy can just go to all kinds of Hel.
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