Doctor Cossack looks like my dad.

Starting off with what can only be called a "previously on Mega Man!" cutscene sequence before the title drops, Mega Man 4 is a game that has fully embraced its Saturday Morning Cartoon nature.

You get more guys to fight, more music to listen to while you make your way to fight them, and two new ways to get around on that way.

Sadly though, the Wire Adaptor is made pretty useless when compared to the already established Rush Coil and Rush Jet. What a shame.

Despite the stumbles it made in the movement department, Mega Man 4 finally gives us the ability to fire a charged buster shot, dealing triple the damage of a regular shot. The charge shot itself looks kind of weird though. It looks slimy and not at all like something that will blast through a robot.

Mega Man 4 also has the most infuriating final boss, because you can't fight it without its weakness. Good luck grinding to fill up that ammo after you already spent it all.

I've beaten Mega Man 4 something like three or four times. It's pretty good, and the new additions are cute and fun, but it doesn't shine, it doesn't sing. It goes by too fast to even hear any singing that could happen. I don't think i could fully recommend this one, but i would certainly recommend checking out the promotional art for it. Skull Man's skull shaped shoulder pads are an excellent design choice.

There’s no real reason for Mega Man 4 to be a huge drop-off in quality. Really, looked at in a certain light, it’s got more polish than ever, but that’s part of the problem. Mega Man 4 is the double-digit seasons of The Simpsons; a high-quality failure whose greatest failing is a misunderstanding of what made the golden era of the franchise so perfect.

The plot and the presentation is straight-up intrusive here. From the opening video to Mega Man’s cartoon-ready presentation on the weapon get screens to the actual in-game dialogue from Cossack’s daughter, you get the feel of a game that really wants you to know it could be an animation if it really wanted. These touches don’t necessarily create the impression of a development team ashamed of the fact their creation is reduced to a video game, but it does make it seem aspirational, like being a fun, gameplay-focused video game isn’t enough anymore.

The levels are… cheaper? The series as a whole gets a bit of a bad rap for sudden enemies knocking you into pits or onto spikes, and up until now I don’t think that was merited, but the bullshit is here in spades. Lots of cheap one touch deaths, where twitch response or memorisation are now essential, and it feels like it’s replaced the smarter level design of the earlier games. This is particularly annoying in the obnoxiously plentiful Cossack/Wily stages, which outstay their welcome long before we even learn Cossack’s reasons for attacking us. Harsh but fair level design ruled the first three Mega Man games, and yet here it’s more common to just get comedically fucked over.

The robot masters… well… it’s nice to see Dust Man, a creation of Yusuke Murata, who would go on to be the artist for Eyeshield 21, as well as One-Punch Man. It’s nice to see him. But he’s a chump. As is Frog Man. Two entry points to the loop, and they’re both the sort of easy bullet sponge idiots I was hoping wouldn’t exist after MM3’s stronger opening gambits. On the plus side, half the weapons you get for blasting through this easy assortment of Masters are dreadfully boring, so you can resent your quick victories in more ways than one. It’s hard to be creative this many masters in, but a less good time freeze, a lump of shit, and a homing fist are not gonna get the old brain going, and frog man’s rain ability is just a great example of a power making ‘sense’ not stopping it from sucking.

The new robot master weapons aren’t the only new weaponry to hand, as we have a charge beam, which feels like a long overdue feature, mainstay of the series that it becomes, but that isn’t actually any more effective than my quickly flailing thumb is in most situations. Thankfully the wire grapple goes a bit further as a unique and interesting weapon, and the returning Rush abilities are… wait, why did this game have Rush Marine? I didn’t use it once! I forgot all about it!

All these abilities are chosen from the new pause menu, sending us completely away from the action for the first time so as to fit everything on one screen, and while it feels wrong somehow after the first three games, the added clarity of the full screen is appreciated.

I really can’t overstate how this outstayed its welcome with me. I don’t know that it’s actually any longer than the other games, especially considering the doc robot stuff in MM3, but by having two separate maps for the final sprint I had fatigue set in way earlier, not helped by the shittier design choices along the way. And then at the end I got a 3 stage Wily who’s beyond easy to beat. The first Wily boss literally has a safe spot to stand right next to it! That level of exhaustion with one of the most surefire franchises for me as a person who plays games is weird, especially when these games are all such short experiences.

A drop from 5 to 2 stars feels harsh, but MM4 feels like an exercise in making the wrong choices within the right framework. I know things improve quickly again, but for me this is the black sheep of the NES Mega Man games, and that’s a bit of a bummer. Onward to MM5, it can only go up from here.

I typically don't have much to say about Classic Rockman games, as the X series is much more my cup of tea, but this one was cool enough to warrant some comments. The Robot Masters of this one were much more challenging and fun to beat than other games, I loved learning all their patterns. Genuinely takes some skill to beat a lot of these guys if you're not just looping or stalling them with weaknesses like Toad Man or Pharaoh Man. I don't think their weaknesses are particularly obvious, though, and that's half the fun of Rockman for me: seeing the names and designs of all the bosses you'll face, trying to "solve" their weaknesses with logic, and then experimenting to see if you're right. Some made sense, some were completely wack to the point where I was getting frustrated spending time playing through the whole stage, many of which are also very difficult, just to find out I was wrong. Even so, I love all the designs of these Robot Masters, if nothing else.

Dr. Cossack and Kalinka were cute as a subversion of expectations, the first time a "twist" villain was done in one of these games.

The final Wily Capsule fight is absolutely the standout part of the whole game, though. Really awesome and challenging fight.

Mega Man 4? More like Mega Man bore.

I've only liked one Mega Man game so far (MM3) but this is the first game in the series that I think I'd call outright bad. MM1 and 2 may be fundamentally flawed in a way that 4 isn't, but this is a much more soulless experience. Weapons are mostly just slightly altered versions of previous weapons, the music doesn't match up to 2's, and I just hate the level design. The level design in this game is completely barren, basic, and way less intricate than in previous games, with virtually no risk-reward elements. To compensate, there's way more enemy spam throughout, as if that can substitute for challenging difficulty. And the castle levels, my least favourite part of any Mega Man game, are doubled down here, making them feel even more endless than they already were. Yippee...

Two stars because Mega Man controls great as always (the only reason I'm still pushing through these games), the charged shot is a welcome addition, and the visuals and presentation are an awesome step up from the first three games and probably one of the best-looking NES games in general. Still, bad game. Holding out hope that I'll like 5 and 6 because I've made a commitment to finishing these games before I start the X series.

Mega Man shattered Dr. Wily’s plans three times and world peace has been maintained so far… but history repeats itself.

If you couldn’t tell from my journal entries, I am absolutely obliterating Mega Man games this weekend. Mega Man 4 introduces the Mega Buster, thereby rounding out the arsenal that will define these games for years to come. This one just feels great, and it’s also got my favorite group of Robot Masters so far (ESPECIALLY Skull Man). It also seems like Capcom is getting closer and closer to defining the perfect difficulty curve for these games, although I should note that this one drops lives and Energy Tanks like candy. Even with all of that in mind, Mega Man 4 doesn’t have too many new tricks. On to Mega Man 5…