Mega Man 4 is easily the best of the original 6 Mega Man games, and honestly, I think at this point it's the best game in the entire series. The newly upgraded Mega Buster adds a whole lot to the base formula, as its inclusion makes it a lot easier to fight Robot Masters with your base weapon, which makes the game more replayable as you're more capable of choosing new level orders if you get bored of the basic boss order. I found myself using just the Mega Buster to go through a lot of the later bosses in the Cossack in Wily Castles and had a whole lot more fun doing that than just spamming the weaknesses. This is easily one of the best games on the NES, and additionally one of the best games out there. Absolute must play.
Specifics:
- I found the weapons in this game to be extremely well done. None of them felt broken like in Mega Man 3, and I found myself using them all the time. I think the only one I didn't end up using much was Toad Man's ability because I wanted to keep it for when I most needed it, but my cautiousness led me to never actually use it in battle.
- The music in this game feels far ahead of Mega Man 3. My favorites were Cossack Stages 3-4, Wily Stages 1-2, Pharoh Man, Dive Man, and Drill Man.
- I'm happy to see another intro cutscene in this one after the surprising lack of one in the previous title. I really loved it.
- Rush Jet has been downgraded in this game, but I honestly don't have too much of an issue with it. Yeah, I missed being able to move more freely, but I still got plenty of use out of Jet here.
- I'm very impressed this game managed to work in 2 new utility abilities alongside rush without making the new abilities feel useless. The ballon, while basically the same as Item 1 and accomplishing much of the same things Rush Coil does, was very useful in my playthrough. Though more than Balloon, Wire was by far the most useful utility in the entire game, even more useful than Rush.
- My one big issue with this game is Phase 2 of the Wily Machine. I could not figure out how to hit Wily without having to use a utility like Balloon or Rush Coil and then immediately switching out of it. How was I going to beat him if I ran out of energy on those utilities? Maybe there was some other way that I was not aware of...
- While having to refill my Pharoh Shot for the final boss was bothersome, the final boss itself was very cool.
-I really like that this game relied on newer characters rather than just having Wily return from the jump. Works especially well since he "supposedly" died in the last game getting crushed under the rubble of the falling Wily Castle. That's something I really like in 5 & 6 too, even if they do fall back on Wily for a big reveal.
10/10
Specifics:
- I found the weapons in this game to be extremely well done. None of them felt broken like in Mega Man 3, and I found myself using them all the time. I think the only one I didn't end up using much was Toad Man's ability because I wanted to keep it for when I most needed it, but my cautiousness led me to never actually use it in battle.
- The music in this game feels far ahead of Mega Man 3. My favorites were Cossack Stages 3-4, Wily Stages 1-2, Pharoh Man, Dive Man, and Drill Man.
- I'm happy to see another intro cutscene in this one after the surprising lack of one in the previous title. I really loved it.
- Rush Jet has been downgraded in this game, but I honestly don't have too much of an issue with it. Yeah, I missed being able to move more freely, but I still got plenty of use out of Jet here.
- I'm very impressed this game managed to work in 2 new utility abilities alongside rush without making the new abilities feel useless. The ballon, while basically the same as Item 1 and accomplishing much of the same things Rush Coil does, was very useful in my playthrough. Though more than Balloon, Wire was by far the most useful utility in the entire game, even more useful than Rush.
- My one big issue with this game is Phase 2 of the Wily Machine. I could not figure out how to hit Wily without having to use a utility like Balloon or Rush Coil and then immediately switching out of it. How was I going to beat him if I ran out of energy on those utilities? Maybe there was some other way that I was not aware of...
- While having to refill my Pharoh Shot for the final boss was bothersome, the final boss itself was very cool.
-I really like that this game relied on newer characters rather than just having Wily return from the jump. Works especially well since he "supposedly" died in the last game getting crushed under the rubble of the falling Wily Castle. That's something I really like in 5 & 6 too, even if they do fall back on Wily for a big reveal.
10/10