Wii

Mega Man 4

Genre: Action
Publisher: Capcom Developer: Capcom

Release Date(s): US: 2010-04-19

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Mega Man 4 Review

by Lucas M. Thomas - IGN.com | 23 April 2010 12:00

The Blue Bomber's divisive fourth NES adventure is back on Virtual Console. Is it one of your favorites, or one of your least?

Opinion is split on Mega Man 4. To some, it's a solid sequel -- an excellent entry in Capcom's classic action series that helped push the franchise's gameplay to new heights. To others, it's a disappointment -- an installment that ranks among the least engaging of all the Blue Bomber's many adventures, with gameplay changes that only served to mess up a formula that wasn't broken to begin with. I can appreciate both points of view. But I'm going to side more with the second. Mega Man 4 is a great game, no doubt about that -- on its own, as a standalone, it's one of the best experiences the NES library can offer. But when you place it alongside its many sequels -- which is inevitable, since there are so many of them -- it fails to impress as much as they do. Its boss characters aren't as interesting, its array of acquirable weapons is totally forgettable and, overall, it's just never managed to stand out from the crowd as much as its hero's other 8-bit adventures. Capcom itself seems to have even recognized its relative shortcomings, way back with its original release -- because Mega Man 4 was released in America in January of 1992, and Mega Man 5 quickly followed in December of that same year. Just an example of the company's rampant sequelism at work? Maybe. Or maybe confidence in 4 was just never very high.

Take that, Toad Man.

In Mega Man 4, you once again step into the role of the short, helmeted, blue-suited robot Mega Man as he runs and jumps his way through a series of side-scrolling action stages. You can choose the order in which you attack each of the first eight levels, and after defeating the boss at the end of each one you're awarded with his signature weapon -- which you can then use against the remaining bosses. Finishing the first eight stages then moves you into a linear sequence of final levels that takes you all the way through to the end of the game, and challenges you to master the full arsenal of abilities earned up to that point. That's the same as most every other Mega Man game. Now, here's where 4 is different. Mega Man 4 introduced the Mega Buster. A new piece of standard equipment available to our hero from the start of the game, the Mega Buster let you hold down the fire button to charge up your shots before unleashing them. Again, opinion's still split on this shift -- some people loved it, as it let you always have a strong blast at the ready. Others thought it was an unnecessary change, and preferred the normal old small shots instead. And again, I side more with the second perspective -- I think the introduction of the Mega Buster messed up the balance in the 8-bit Mega Man games, and led the coolness factor of the Robot Master weapons to greatly diminish. The weapons in 4 here, for instance, are remarkably weak. The Ring Boomerang? The Toad Flush? There's actually a weapon that gives you the power to literally throw garbage at your enemies. That's bottom of the barrel stuff. Capcom has since shifted back to Mega Man's original, non-charging main gun for modern sequels 9 and 10 -- and the Robot Master weapons are back to being memorable and fun to use. Mega Man 4 also introduced the second castle concept, though, and that's a change that I wish Capcom wouldn't have eliminated -- it extended the game's length significantly. Mega Man 3 had a set of four extra levels between its first set of eight and its game-ending run through Wily's lair, but those were still pick-and-choose selectable. 4 removed your ability to select stages sooner, setting up more drama and making you think you were at the end of the game when you met up with Dr. Cossack -- only to hit you with the old switcheroo. That was pretty slick, and 5 and 6 benefitted from that innovation too. And Mega Man 4 also gave us the first appearance of Flip-Top. Everybody loves him.

Closing Comments
If it seems I've gone a bit back and forth in my assessment of Mega Man 4 here, it's only because I have -- I've always sided with the camp that argues this particular sequel is one of Capcom's least likable, but it is still an 8-bit Mega Man game. And all of the 8-bit Mega Man games, on their own, are awesome experiences. If you've got the cash, I recommend the whole set -- there are six on sale in the Wii Shop right now, and each one's worth your Points.

To rank my recommendation and give some priority to your purchasing though, I will land on the opinion that out of the six now on sale in the Wii Shop, Mega Man's fourth adventure is probably the fifth best. You should check out 2, 3, 9 and 10 first before diving back into the '90s for this one. Though I expect many of the comments just below to disagree with that -- because if anything's sure about Mega Man 4, it's that opinion on it is always split.

Supplied by IGN.com

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