CAPCATHON, GAME 14: Mega Man 4 (NES, 1991)

[Note that I played this game on the PS1, as part of the Rockman Complete Works series.]

Compared to its immediate predecessors, Mega Man 4 doesn't seem to have many immediate, "core" improvements to the series' formula. It instead chooses to refine the level designs in order to give the player a much smoother experience- however, it doesn't always succeed, and while still being a great time, in some ways it's lesser than MM2 or 3.

Mega Man controls just as well as he did in the previous game. He retains his slide, as well, but he has a new trick up his sleeve, the Charge Shot: by holding down the shoot button, Mega Man will begin charging his Mega Buster, and by releasing it he will fire a larger energy shot. There are two variations of it; a smaller spherical bullet and a longer blast. It's a great change, and the single greatest innovation the game brings. It's great to have a powerful offensive tool always at the ready even when other Special Weapons may be unavailable.
Speaking of the Special Weapons, I found them to be just as situational as the ones from 3. Some of them do have utility in certain situations, like with the walls that can be broken with the Drill Bomb, or with the Rain Flush's screen-clearing capabilities, but for most of the game I found myself mostly using the Mega Buster.

Rush returns (as do Rush Jet, Rush Coil and Rush Marine), but by going through some secret pathways in two Robot Master stages, you can find two extra "transport items": the Balloon, that can be used to create floating platforms to jump on, and the Wire, an awesome grappling hook that extends to the entire vertical height of the screen and allows Mega Man to hang from ceilings. They're well hidden and hard to find, but it's worth it to get them.

Most levels are well-designed and smooth to navigate; like the previous games I felt like the mistakes I made were my fault and not cheap shots. The levels and bosses that inhabit them are just as cute and colorful as always, so I'm satisfied on that front.
What I appreciate less is the second half of the game's habit of peppering a lot of spikes about the levels, which is never great considering that coming in contact with them means instant death- even a minor slip up means starting from the checkpoint. While not the end of the world, I feel like this cheapens the levels a bit and detracts from the levels' appeal, especially contrasting them with the much easier bosses.

I think that this is about when series fatigue sets in for the classic Mega Man games. While it's still a fun and well-made game, you couldn't be faulted for thinking it's a bit boring. I'd still recommend it, but less enthusiastically than 2 or 3.

CAPCATHON, GAME 13: Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (Arcade, 1991)

Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (henceforth referred to as SF2WW) is a landmark title in the world of video games. Thanks to it, the fighting game genre as we know it was born, and while part of it has aged really badly, its rock solid core still makes a great time when played with friends.

Whether you play against a CPU or a human opponent, the basis of the game still remains the same: your character will fight against your opponent's character, and you must you use your character's skills (whether they be greater acrobatics or special attacks) to overwhelm the enemies' defenses and defeat him, or be defeated yourself. The eight World Warriors are all incredibly memorable, thanks to their stellar designs (carried by fantastic graphics for the time) and unabashed use of national sterotypes, combined with normal and special attacks that fit their characters well. Some characters are more powerful than others (with Guile in particular standing at the top) but in most human vs. human matches this doesn't matter a whole lot. Each character also has a beautiful home stage associated to them with a fantastic theme song each (most of which were composed by the legendary Yoko Shimomura). It cannot be overstated just how great this game's music is. On the topic of the game's sound, the character's sound effects are crunchy but meaty and satisfying, especially when a move hits, and their voices, while bitcrushed and at times nearly incomprehensible, have stood the test of time.

Attempting to best SF2WW's arcade ladder is a herculean endeavor. I opted to leave the game's difficulty to its default setting in order to have a fair experience, but beating the CPU is anything but. Not that I'm a good fighting game player, far from it, but the game is pretty blatant in how it likes to turn up your opponent's advantages in order to steal your quarters. From spamming jabs, to performing instant special moves, to doing more damage than you, the CPU will react instantly to anything it throws at you until it decides you can proceed.

If you've played any Street Fighter game after this one, or even any fighting game, SF2WW is going to feel barren or lacking in some areas you'd think are synonymous with the genre. It doesn't have playable bosses, alternate colors, mirror matches, alongside the fact that some characters lack important attacks or proprieties. Also, while its graphics are generally great, especially for the fighters and the stages, their selection portraits look pretty bad.

Honestly, it's amazing that this game holds up as well as it does. Getting together with friends and playing it is still a good time, because it's so fundamentally solid that its strengths still shine today. I wouldn't recommend trying this version of SF2 specifically, but if you're curious, avoid the singleplayer arcade mode and grab some buds- it's still loads of fun.