Mega Man 4 was my favorite when I originally played all the games on the AV collection back on Gamecube, so it's gonna be interesting to see if my opinion from back then holds up or if my current one does (I like 6 the most for now).
In this game we get a charged shot to help with taking down the Robot Masters without their weaknesses, unfortunately maybe it does it a bit too well (YMMV). Hilariously, despite its reputation it isn't even the most OP charge weapon in this game. Pharaoh Shot is so ridiculously glitchy, has insane hidden utility due to hitting stuff above it while charging and is a weakness for at least three castle bosses, it's insane. You can even fire it in multiple directions! Ridiculous! Gotta push Pharaoh Man. Despite that though other weapons manage to see use, which honestly is really impressive. The obvious exception to this is Skull Barrier, the worst shield ever in a category of weapons that are already considered boring by many within the fanbase.
The stages themselves for the most part are pretty good again like in 3. I'll say I'm not too much of a fan of the mini-boss spam in Ring Man's stage, the hoop throwing guys (Called "Whopper" just so you know) are a pain in the ass to not take damage from and it's made worse by the fact that the projectiles are still active even when it dies. Bright Man's stage is also supposedly really hard compared to the other stages, but I didn't die at all somehow in my run so maybe I'm just godlike. I absolutely love the Cossack stages and their snowy atmosphere, I think if the music in the autoscroller stage wasn't so fucking good I'd probably dislike it, but even then they're not long enough to be annoying or anything.
Which speaking of Bright Man, some of the fights in this game aren't super great. I'm not a fan of needing to keep my eyes bleeding with attention toward Bright Man's HP to know when he's gonna throw an unavoidable attack. It just reeks of garbage to have to figure that whole shit out to save yourself a massive headache. I know it's one peashooter shot and then only full charged shots afterwards, but you're not gonna know that on your first several playthroughs or even know that it works that way. Drill Man also sometimes just loves to make himself invincible from anywhere between 5 seconds to nine million centuries depending on how many times he wants to burrow. Wily Machine's hitbox is also needlessly tiny for no reason, he's just awful to fight without knowing how to detonate the Drill Bomb. Nothing Boobeam Trap-esque at least, thank fucking god.
Meanwhile Toad Man just wants to dance.
Overall I enjoyed it a lot, it's better than the first two games for sure and I think I'm a bit iffy on it being better than 3. I dunno if it's better than 6 for me yet, we can only find that out once I actually get to that game. So far I'm gonna say 4 >= 3 > 2 => 1
Favorite Enemy Name: Tom Boy! It's a slinky! Maybe it's related to Fly Boy from MM2. Special Shoutout to Totem Polen. Why is he randomly in Bright Man's stage? Were they designing Tomahawk Man enemies this far in advance and just loved the design for some reason?
Favorite Music: Cossack Stage 3-4! No idea why some people don't like this game's ost, it's down a notch from MM3 for sure, but still. Different strokes for different folks I guess. Go listen to Mega Man 2 GB's ost and get back to me.
In this game we get a charged shot to help with taking down the Robot Masters without their weaknesses, unfortunately maybe it does it a bit too well (YMMV). Hilariously, despite its reputation it isn't even the most OP charge weapon in this game. Pharaoh Shot is so ridiculously glitchy, has insane hidden utility due to hitting stuff above it while charging and is a weakness for at least three castle bosses, it's insane. You can even fire it in multiple directions! Ridiculous! Gotta push Pharaoh Man. Despite that though other weapons manage to see use, which honestly is really impressive. The obvious exception to this is Skull Barrier, the worst shield ever in a category of weapons that are already considered boring by many within the fanbase.
The stages themselves for the most part are pretty good again like in 3. I'll say I'm not too much of a fan of the mini-boss spam in Ring Man's stage, the hoop throwing guys (Called "Whopper" just so you know) are a pain in the ass to not take damage from and it's made worse by the fact that the projectiles are still active even when it dies. Bright Man's stage is also supposedly really hard compared to the other stages, but I didn't die at all somehow in my run so maybe I'm just godlike. I absolutely love the Cossack stages and their snowy atmosphere, I think if the music in the autoscroller stage wasn't so fucking good I'd probably dislike it, but even then they're not long enough to be annoying or anything.
Which speaking of Bright Man, some of the fights in this game aren't super great. I'm not a fan of needing to keep my eyes bleeding with attention toward Bright Man's HP to know when he's gonna throw an unavoidable attack. It just reeks of garbage to have to figure that whole shit out to save yourself a massive headache. I know it's one peashooter shot and then only full charged shots afterwards, but you're not gonna know that on your first several playthroughs or even know that it works that way. Drill Man also sometimes just loves to make himself invincible from anywhere between 5 seconds to nine million centuries depending on how many times he wants to burrow. Wily Machine's hitbox is also needlessly tiny for no reason, he's just awful to fight without knowing how to detonate the Drill Bomb. Nothing Boobeam Trap-esque at least, thank fucking god.
Meanwhile Toad Man just wants to dance.
Overall I enjoyed it a lot, it's better than the first two games for sure and I think I'm a bit iffy on it being better than 3. I dunno if it's better than 6 for me yet, we can only find that out once I actually get to that game. So far I'm gonna say 4 >= 3 > 2 => 1
Favorite Enemy Name: Tom Boy! It's a slinky! Maybe it's related to Fly Boy from MM2. Special Shoutout to Totem Polen. Why is he randomly in Bright Man's stage? Were they designing Tomahawk Man enemies this far in advance and just loved the design for some reason?
Favorite Music: Cossack Stage 3-4! No idea why some people don't like this game's ost, it's down a notch from MM3 for sure, but still. Different strokes for different folks I guess. Go listen to Mega Man 2 GB's ost and get back to me.