RETRO REBOOT | Mega Man 4: It's Starting To Get Tiring... (NES)

I'll get around to Mega Man 3, but I kind of thought about getting Mega Man 4 off my chest. As a kid, I loved the first three games, and I still contend that Mega Man 3 is a better game than Mega Man 2 (just more polished overall, with a stronger challenge). But after three entries of noticeable improvements, Mega Man 4 was the beginning of the disappointment for the original series.

Mega Man 4 was released in 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The gameplay from the previous titles remains intact, no far departures from what Capcom had established; fight Robot Master, defeat and acquire Robot Master powers, then proceed to defeat Robot Masters in sequential fashion based on their weaknesses. The slide from MM3 returns, and Rock gains the "Mega Buster", an enhanced chargeable shot that deals greater damage. 

Alright, so the development team certainly found a niche. But this was getting pretty old. I remember the couple times we rented it, it just wasn't as fun as the previous games. Perhaps Capcom was running on fumes with Robot Master ideas (Toad Man and Dust Man never stuck with me as memorable bosses, beyond how easy they were), or the fake-out villain Dr. Cossack, who only pads the extra final levels to the point of exhaustion before Dr. Wily just shows up anyway, the degradation is very apparent.

Graphically, it still looks fine. Stages are fairly diverse, the colors are striking, and other than the greater instance of flickering, the game runs fairly decent. And I may not be a fan of some of the Robot Masters in this entry, at least Skull Man looks cool. But Bright Man is just a lamer Flash Man, and Pharaoh Man is just stupid. The Cossack and Wily mid-bosses phoned it in the hardest, with just hunks of indecipherable mechanical parts that fire things at you. 

I mentioned the flickering, a regular occurance with NES games, Mega Man 4 feels very overclocked. A good amount of slowdown, which may or may not hurt your experience with it. Generally, depending on the game, the slowdown gives me a critical moment to rethink a decision. 

Mega Man 4's overall challenge is severely lacking. Even the level design just feels like a step down in creativity, and more so shined a brighter light on the flaws the series already suffered from. Mostly recycling themes and obstacles used in the previous games, and lazily regurgitating them with a different skin. So the stages are lacking in providing something different, the Mega Buster just makes the game way too easy and mitigates any real need to rely on the special skills acquired from the Robot Masters.

The Cossack/Wily stages are alright, they don't pack any real punch and feel a little more of going through the motions. Some gimmicks, like the Rush sub, are neat to use, those made their way into the Ruby Spears cartoon. So that's technically kinda neat. It would be a long time before I find a Mega Man game that I could flatten without giving it much of a thought.

Overall, is Mega Man 4 a bad game? No, it technically isn't. The music, while a step down from 3 and 2, is still pretty solid composition. It's certainly playable, as the controls remain fairly tight and responsive. So it might be a satisfying passing of the time, or if you just wanted to marathon the series. MM4's issues are just a noticeable lack of enthusiasm or ingenuity. Even Capcom's own Darkwing Duck, which is practically a more refined Mega Man, is a much more fun action platformer.

Sales were up from 3, but still considerably down from 2, so fan apathy was setting in. The Robot Masters were getting more generic, the stage design was running out of tricks, and resolution of defeating Dr. Wily, only to have him escape in a placid manner for the fourth time was old hat. There's just very little here that put enough of a shine to keep things interesting, at least until the X series begins...before those eventually ran into essentially the same problems.

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