Mega Man 4

Name: Mega Man 4
Year: 1991
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Platformer
Hours Played: Countless
Beaten: Yes, without cheats

Mega Man 4 is often regarded as one of the "bad" Mega Man games - generally placing just after 6 and 1 in terms of people's general dislike for it.  Yet it doesn't have the unforgiving difficulty of the first game, or the poor level design of the sixth game, or even the odd control quirks of the third.  So why the poor reputation?

The answer is because, for better or worse, Mega Man 4 marks the point that the series became paint by numbers.  After the careful fine tuning of 2 and the unique storytelling chops of 3, the rest of the series from here on out would follow a careful formula: an opening cut scene introduces a new villain, Mega Man beats all 8 robot masters, tackles the new villain's castle and beats him, Dr. Wiley is revealed to be behind it, Mega Man tackles an all new Skull Castle and beats Dr. Wily. Again. Rinse and repeat.

You may be tempted to give Mega Man 4 a pass for this - after all, it's the first game to use this formula, right? (Assuming you don't count Dr. Wily's "surprise" betrayal in 3) But even here, it feels like the developers were more interested in trying to remake Mega Man 2 then they were in innovating.  Once again we have a water-theme villain (which until this point was only seen in MM2), a villain who shoots fire (1 and 2), an earth-theme villain (okay to be fair I think they all have one of those)... heck, with Bright Man they literally reused Flash Man's weapon and didn't even bother renaming it.  The last stage of the game also seems extremely familiar to those who've beaten Mega Man 2, right down to entering a dark room for the final boss, and having the lights come on in a lab when the fight's over.

The most controversial addition, however, is the Mega Buster, Mega Man's new default weapon. By holding the fire button for a few seconds, Mega Man can release a larger, more powerful shot.  This addition appeared in all the subsequent Mega Man games, and even other series, such as Mega Man X. Many fans feel this made the game "too easy" or took the emphasis off acquiring the bosses' weapons.  Is this true?  Well, yes and no.  Your standard weapon IS more powerful, not because of the charge shot (which only does x3 the damage of a normal bullet) but because the game no longer restricts you to only shooting three shots at a time.  Why even bother with the charge shot when you can pump an endless barrage of bullets into your enemy?  As for using the boss weapons, the issue is that Capcom greatly reduced the amount of damage that Robot Masters take from the the weapon their "weak" to, meaning their's less point in figuring out the correct weapon to use.  The result of all this is the easiest levels but hardest robot masters (and hardest boss rush) in the series up to this point.

All that being said, I would by no means call Mega Man 4 a bad game.  The music, while not as memorable as 2 or 3, is still leaps and bounds over most music on the NES, and the graphics are actually better then ever.  Mega Man 4 boasts the best opening cutscene (the only time we see Mega Man's origin recounted), the best "weapon get" screen, and the most colorful minibosses of the entire series.  There's even a couple moments of innovation: hearkening back  to the original Mega Man, there's two "adapter" items (one is a grappling hook, the other is Item 1 from MM2), and they're hidden in the robot master stages; finding them actually takes a little creative thinking, which I really enjoyed.

Graphics & Animation: 4 (Excellent)
Capcom was clearly trying to outdo themselves in the graphics department, and they succeeded: the over-sized cartoony enemies from three are even bigger and cartoonier here, there's more giant mini-bosses then ever, and the cutscenes (including the "get weapon" scenes) are the best in the series.  You'd be hard pressed to find a better looking game on the NES.

Music & Sounds: 3 (Good)
There's not as many "get stuck in your head and stay there forever" songs in this game as their are in the previous entries, but there's still some good ones (even years later, I can hum you Skull Man's music), and once again the sheer amount of different tunes in a single NES cartridge is impressive all on it's own.

Controls & Level Design: 3 (Good)
The controls here are tight, and for the first time ever, Mega Man doesn't fall off ladders if you pause and unpause the game.  In older games, Mega Man couldn't have more then three bullets on the screen at once, due to technical limitations of the NES; here, they resolved that problem, but didn't tweak the difficulty to account for it, meaning you can spam the fire button in a way not possible before.  The levels are a little lackluster as well, relying too heavily on minibosses then before - Ring Man's level stands out as an especially egregious example, with four minibosses and only a handful of obstacles otherwise.

Story & Presentation: 4 (Excellent)
Regardless of what everyone else at Capcom were doing, the art department was clearly under the impression they were working on the greatest Mega Man game ever, because everything in the presentation and cutscenes shines here.  While the opening cutscenes in the next two games would focus on setting up plot and red herring villians, the intro here is all about Mega Man himself, and gives us the more characterization about him then the other five games combined.

Length & Replayabilitiy: 3 (Good)
Technically the longest Mega Man game to date, but definitely not as replayable as some of the others.  The hidden items do add a little replayability to the game, though.

Total: 17 (Good)