This review contains spoilers
Mega Man X4 was an interesting game in the series, unlike the previous game, this wasn't outsourced and we have the main team again for this. Though unlike Classic Mega Man's lackluster debut to 32 bit consoles, X4 would make a much better attempt and I'll talk about it for a bit.
I'm not going to go too much into the plot but I didn't really put too much attention on it. It's weird to me because I have played this game like three times and I still don't feel like I fully understand it. I will say the awful dub does make feeling anything from them basically impossible, it's just as awful as it was in 8. I'd recommend playing Rockman X4 if you want to get more out of the story with its much better voice acting. (If you can even understand japanese that is.)
Screw the story though let me actually talk about what makes this game very good, the gameplay. So the biggest innovation is that Zero is now a fully separate playable character, which is a big improvement from what they did in X3. This means you can have two different experiences with X or Zero though they still will go through the same stages. The biggest change is how they go through the story and they also both get a unique boss later in the game.
First let me talk about X. He is pretty much everything you expect if you have played any of the previous 3 games. The only new thing added for X was the new armor X can get which is called the Fourth Armor. Getting each part can give you abilities like a hover, an air dash, double defense, infinite energy on special weapons as long as you don't charge them, a special attack called the Nova Strike and you can even choose from two buster upgrades. One of them lets you store multiple charges and the other lets you shoot an even bigger charge shot that I'm personally more a fan of.
The special weapons didn't really have too much use for me sadly, maybe I should experiment more in a future playthrough but as of right now I felt more comfortable just using the buster.
Another thing you can do is if you do several button inputs before selecting X and then get an armor piece, you'll be awarded the Ultimate Armor. This armor is busted, not only do you get all the armor benefits already but you get infinite uses of the Nova Strike making the game pretty much no challenge. Use this armor if you want to feel unstoppable for most of the game.
Now we have the "new" playable character Zero. He introduces a new way to combat enemies. This is with the help of the Z Saber. Now while past games in X and Classic have used melee weapons before, this is the first time where its the huge focus of the gameplay. Zero can do a 3 slash combo and slash in the air as well. Zero can also dash and wall kick like X can. He will also need to collect heart tanks like X to raise his health though Zero has no way of getting armor upgrades so make sure you get heart tanks if you can.
What really makes Zero fun is when you beat bosses, you can get abilities that affect your movement like double jump and air dash or some new moves to your saber like being able to spin in the air with it and a long range electric move that stays out for a few seconds. You'll be making lots of uses for these as not only do they not use energy, they are as easy as holding a direction or just pressing the special attack button to do them. Zero can also get this giga attack and is the only move that actually requires energy. This makes Zero a really capable fighter in the later half of the game and it can sometimes make him even more fun then X.
Like the previous games you'll be fighting 8 mavericks going through each stage beating them one by one and then being able to go to the last few levels in the game. The levels in this game can be pretty fun though it's more of the same for the most part. There are some pretty fun levels like Cyber Peacock's first half is going as fast as you can to get fast times to get the upgrades awarded for the S rank times. In fact the only level I don't really like is Jet Stingray's level. It's this level where you use this hovercraft like vehicle and it feels very trial and error and I never enjoy it when I have to play it. It's arguable that some of the levels play a bit too safe like Web Spider's stage but to me I don't mind because the levels are just so much fun to just play in.
Sub tanks from past games also return though there's only 2 in this game with the other 2 being replaced with new tanks called a Weapon tank and Mystery Tank. The weapon tank refills any weapon energy depleted back to full similar to the one from the classic series. The mystery tank will make it so you'll start with 5 lives instead of 3. Though these won't really be that useful due to this game's difficulty.
The game is actually pretty easy this time, even game over's in this game aren't punishing since getting one on the second half will now just restart you on the second half. The game will even refill your weapon energy if you happen to die. A lot of the levels also just aren't hard to begin with either excluding Jet Stingray's level where I probably died like 15 times.
Then you have the bosses, if you disliked how easy they were in past games, you won't like them here either. A lot of them reset their pattern when hit with a weakness making them real easy to get stuck in a loop. Granted you could just defeat them without the weakness, I still was never huge on them being a joke with the weakness. The only boss in the game that really gives me trouble is the final boss. It has 3 forms and while I can beat the first two forms easily, it's the stupid last form that gets me so much, I think it's more me just playing bad but it took many tries to beat it but damn it feels nice winning the fight.
The game's presentation is pretty good, the jump from 16 bit to 32 bit really shows and lots of environments look really nice. Though not all of it is great, the 3D stairs area in Split Mushroom's stage hasn't really aged that well but still most of the other stuff is still great. The music also shines well here too. There's some great theme's for Cyber Peacock, Frost Walrus, Web Spider, and many more. There's even two japanese songs for the intro and ending if you play Rockman X4 and they sound nice though I feel like the ending music feels kind of unfitting for what the ending of this game is.
Overall Mega Man X4 is a very good game that you should consider playing if you haven't at this point. As of right now it's my second favorite X game and while it does have its problems for me to give it a 10 or even a 9, it's still a must play for people who like these kind of games.
I'm not going to go too much into the plot but I didn't really put too much attention on it. It's weird to me because I have played this game like three times and I still don't feel like I fully understand it. I will say the awful dub does make feeling anything from them basically impossible, it's just as awful as it was in 8. I'd recommend playing Rockman X4 if you want to get more out of the story with its much better voice acting. (If you can even understand japanese that is.)
Screw the story though let me actually talk about what makes this game very good, the gameplay. So the biggest innovation is that Zero is now a fully separate playable character, which is a big improvement from what they did in X3. This means you can have two different experiences with X or Zero though they still will go through the same stages. The biggest change is how they go through the story and they also both get a unique boss later in the game.
First let me talk about X. He is pretty much everything you expect if you have played any of the previous 3 games. The only new thing added for X was the new armor X can get which is called the Fourth Armor. Getting each part can give you abilities like a hover, an air dash, double defense, infinite energy on special weapons as long as you don't charge them, a special attack called the Nova Strike and you can even choose from two buster upgrades. One of them lets you store multiple charges and the other lets you shoot an even bigger charge shot that I'm personally more a fan of.
The special weapons didn't really have too much use for me sadly, maybe I should experiment more in a future playthrough but as of right now I felt more comfortable just using the buster.
Another thing you can do is if you do several button inputs before selecting X and then get an armor piece, you'll be awarded the Ultimate Armor. This armor is busted, not only do you get all the armor benefits already but you get infinite uses of the Nova Strike making the game pretty much no challenge. Use this armor if you want to feel unstoppable for most of the game.
Now we have the "new" playable character Zero. He introduces a new way to combat enemies. This is with the help of the Z Saber. Now while past games in X and Classic have used melee weapons before, this is the first time where its the huge focus of the gameplay. Zero can do a 3 slash combo and slash in the air as well. Zero can also dash and wall kick like X can. He will also need to collect heart tanks like X to raise his health though Zero has no way of getting armor upgrades so make sure you get heart tanks if you can.
What really makes Zero fun is when you beat bosses, you can get abilities that affect your movement like double jump and air dash or some new moves to your saber like being able to spin in the air with it and a long range electric move that stays out for a few seconds. You'll be making lots of uses for these as not only do they not use energy, they are as easy as holding a direction or just pressing the special attack button to do them. Zero can also get this giga attack and is the only move that actually requires energy. This makes Zero a really capable fighter in the later half of the game and it can sometimes make him even more fun then X.
Like the previous games you'll be fighting 8 mavericks going through each stage beating them one by one and then being able to go to the last few levels in the game. The levels in this game can be pretty fun though it's more of the same for the most part. There are some pretty fun levels like Cyber Peacock's first half is going as fast as you can to get fast times to get the upgrades awarded for the S rank times. In fact the only level I don't really like is Jet Stingray's level. It's this level where you use this hovercraft like vehicle and it feels very trial and error and I never enjoy it when I have to play it. It's arguable that some of the levels play a bit too safe like Web Spider's stage but to me I don't mind because the levels are just so much fun to just play in.
Sub tanks from past games also return though there's only 2 in this game with the other 2 being replaced with new tanks called a Weapon tank and Mystery Tank. The weapon tank refills any weapon energy depleted back to full similar to the one from the classic series. The mystery tank will make it so you'll start with 5 lives instead of 3. Though these won't really be that useful due to this game's difficulty.
The game is actually pretty easy this time, even game over's in this game aren't punishing since getting one on the second half will now just restart you on the second half. The game will even refill your weapon energy if you happen to die. A lot of the levels also just aren't hard to begin with either excluding Jet Stingray's level where I probably died like 15 times.
Then you have the bosses, if you disliked how easy they were in past games, you won't like them here either. A lot of them reset their pattern when hit with a weakness making them real easy to get stuck in a loop. Granted you could just defeat them without the weakness, I still was never huge on them being a joke with the weakness. The only boss in the game that really gives me trouble is the final boss. It has 3 forms and while I can beat the first two forms easily, it's the stupid last form that gets me so much, I think it's more me just playing bad but it took many tries to beat it but damn it feels nice winning the fight.
The game's presentation is pretty good, the jump from 16 bit to 32 bit really shows and lots of environments look really nice. Though not all of it is great, the 3D stairs area in Split Mushroom's stage hasn't really aged that well but still most of the other stuff is still great. The music also shines well here too. There's some great theme's for Cyber Peacock, Frost Walrus, Web Spider, and many more. There's even two japanese songs for the intro and ending if you play Rockman X4 and they sound nice though I feel like the ending music feels kind of unfitting for what the ending of this game is.
Overall Mega Man X4 is a very good game that you should consider playing if you haven't at this point. As of right now it's my second favorite X game and while it does have its problems for me to give it a 10 or even a 9, it's still a must play for people who like these kind of games.