Hello everyone! My week break is being cut short with Mega Man 4 starting my return to the Mega Man Retrospective! Hope you enjoy my look at this okay sequel.
History:
This game started development not long after Mega Man 3 released and Capcom wanted to pump out as much Mega Man games as they can to the market, as it became a killer and flagship IP after the release of Mega Man 2.
Other important information on the games development stems from its entree on the games Wikipedia Page:
"Mega Man series artist Keiji Inafune, credited as "Inafking", stated that the development team had very few problems while working on Mega Man 4. Inafune designed Dr. Cossack and Kalinka as two new storyline characters for the game. Cossack, who was originally named "Dr. Vice", was made much younger than Dr. Light and Dr. Wily. Inafune also considered giving him American traits, but decided upon influences from Russia instead. Kalinka was created because so many male characters already existed in the series at this point. However, Inafune did not intend for players to compare her to Mega Man's sister Roll. The idea for Eddie originally came about during the development of Mega Man 2. Eddie was designed as a supporting character that "would behave like a lottery", either pleasantly surprising or disappointing the player with the item he gives Mega Man.
Mega Man 4 was the first game in the series for Hayato Kaji, credited as "K. Hayato", a prominent designer for many later Mega Man games. Kaji was responsible for the chargeable Mega Buster, a gameplay mechanic that would become a staple of the series. "We knew adding a two-level or three-level charge would change the whole flavor of the game in some respects, and we were very mindful of that," Inafune explained. The Robot Masters in Mega Man 4 are a result of a design contest for fans held in Japan. With over 70,000 character submissions, the development team spent an extended period of time narrowing them down to only eight bosses. According to Kaji, the team was very satisfied with many of the chosen designs and almost no changes were made to their original illustrations. They were so impressed with Skull Man that they scrapped an entire level being created just so they could restart it and devote it to that Robot Master. The winning eight contestants of the design contest were each issued a special "golden cartridge" edition of Mega Man 4. As there are only eight of these cartridges in existence, they are extremely rare and fetch a large collector's price today. The musical score for Mega Man 4 was composed by Minae Fujii, credited as "Ojalin", while the sound programming and sound effects were handled by Yasuaki Fujita, credited as "Bun Bun", who had composed the soundtrack for Mega Man 3 the previous year."
This history is interesting, as it was nice seeing a new developer Hayato Kaji, give some new gameplay mechanics to Mega Man and the concept of fans pitching Robot Master concepts is something that continued in later Mega Man Classic titles. Mega Man 4 released in December 6, 1991 to strong critical reviews and development on Mega Man 5 soon followed.
Gameplay & Level Design:
The gameplay is strong, mirroring Mega Man 3 on many levels. The slide returns, as does the core Rush features. But the new addition is the Charged shot, which allows you to fire two types of blasts (small charge and full charge); that is very helpful for the robot master fights. The game appears to be very hard, which was the case for me making this Retrospective, but its in the end, one of the easier Mega Man games.
Mega Man 4 has a lot of spikes placed in its level design and that could appear to be lazy, but thanks to creative gimmicks like the grasshopers in Bright Man's stage or moving platforms, they can become a fun challenge to overcome. Items you get like the hook shot and balloon also make these annoying parts more manageable.
I mean that, as Toad Man is a good example of this. His fight has a simple pattern and is a great first robot master to fight.....but his stage is initially quite hard. You fight two snail-like robots at points in the stage and it can be annoying. You have to dodge bombs that have a wide blast radius and his eye attack can be annoying. Not to mention the second fight where you have a waterfall in-between a platform that gimps your jump if you are under it. But once you get the pattern, it feels so rewarding to get through it with enough practice.
The level design has some great points, like Pharaoh Man's quick sand being a great stage gimmick and Bright Man's moving grasshoppers being a great platforming gimmick. Others stages like Dive Man's water moon jumping and Ring Man's rainbow platforms also present fun challenges to over come too.
Lastly for gameplay, we have two towers to run through. Yes, not one but TWO towers to fight through and this is a first for the series. You fight three-four stages against Cosec but after Protoman saves his daughter, he stops fighting Mega Man and we head to a few Wily Stages. This was a great reward and felt like an improvement over the Doc Robot stages in Mega Man 3; it IS padding to make the game longer, but done in a better fashion. This continued in Mega Man 5-6 as well.
Will comment on other gameplay mechanics though. You have new Items (like in Mega Man 2) such as the hook shot that can pull Mega Man up on walls above him and a balloon platform that can be stacked. These make some platforming elements more easier to deal with (large pit in Bright Man's stage......really needed this item for me). Rush returns with Rush Jet, Underwater Craft and Rush Coil too.
Not to mention Mega Man's new power; the charged buster. This is a very powerful tool that can be used even when you get hit. Once you charge it enough, it can take out powerful foes with less shots and make some robot masters very fun to fight.
The new robot master items you get are fun to play around with too. Like Ring Man's weapon a lot and the rain storm power you get is a great screen nuke.
Presentation:
Game looks great like past Mega Man games with bright colors and very detailed stages. Toad Man's rain and Pharaoh Man's stars shining in the sky really stand out to me.
Musically, its a great soundtrack like the other Classic Mega Man games and I like it quite a bit.
Bright Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OJ-uYd-F-8&list=PL4D2790D9626692B4&index=7
Toad Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zncV6Vado9g&list=PL4D2790D9626692B4&index=8
Pharaoh Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T11JGxCxFPY&list=PL4D2790D9626692B4&index=10
Ring Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtZUl2IpgQU&list=PL4D2790D9626692B4&index=11
Skull Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy-2JyPyQDg&list=PL4D2790D9626692B4&index=14
Overall:
I enjoyed my time with this game when I went back to play it again; it has fun gameplay, offers rewarding challenge and overall, does a lot right. But please, play this on a NES, Wii (VC), Wii U (VC), or Nintendo 3DS (Legacy Collection/VC). The original version I played for the initial Retrospective? The Complete Works PS1 version on my Vita. That version reportedly has bad input lag, leading to all the frustrations I had with my initial playthrough for this Retrospective.
In the end, many love the game and it is a quality Mega Man title.
Next up for the classic series is Mega Man 5 & 6 and I can't wait to go into those games, as I never played them before!