Still playing my anniversary collection we come down to Mega Man 4, while we see Mega Man dip a bit from the previous 3, 4 is still a solid action shooter. The problem with 4 is that it was done in 1992 after the release of the SNES. It would still be a couple of years before the 16-bit Mega Man X came out on the SNES, in the mean time Capcom knew it could make a quick buck out of these simple to make but fun games on the NES. And the NES was by no means dead at this time, it would last another 3 years before being retired.

Story.
In 200X Dr. Light made two robots named Rock and Roll and they lived peacefully in till Dr. Wily came and try to take over the world. When robots started to go berserk because of his reprogramming of them, Rock decided to be alter in to a fighting robot named Mega Man. Mega Man has defeated Dr. Wily 3 times before and now a new threat has emerged. It seems Wily isn’t the only whack job mental case making robots these days, now a man named Dr. Cossack has challenge Mega Man to defeat his 8 robots in a fight.

Graphics.
Like the Mega Man before it we see a lot better graphics has far has enemy sprites and backgrounds go. In one of the final stages we see a shadow of Dr. Cossacks base, kind of reminds me of the shadows seen on the battlement stage of the original Castlevania. The enemy are again bigger and more colorful then the last one, but the main characters, especially Mega Man still look the same.

Sound.
Same sound effects from before, with a few new ones thrown in for Mega Man’s new chargeable buster, but nothing incredibly good to listen to even in NES standards. The music is still good and fun to listen to has it is in all Mega Man games.

Gameplay.
Ok I have written 3 other Mega Man reviews recently and the same drill hear for the most part. Defeat 8 robot masters, go on to the final stage, this time though I guess it’s going to be Dr. Cossacks turn to kiss the floor. Every time you defeat a robot master you pick up there power. The powers aren’t has creative and has fun to play around with (what no move where I can spin around like a top come on), but there far from dull. You got toad man’s power to make it rain, you have Pharoaman’s power to charge up a giant fire ball which Mega Man carries around on top of his head, and you got dive man’s power to fire missiles.

You also get the 3 Rush adapters from number 3 are back. The coil that gives Mega Man an extra boost when needed, you got the Marine to travel around under water. And then you get the Rush jet and which you can fly. But the jet has been scaled back a bit, now being just like the item number 2 from Mega Man 2. The jet fly’s only forward and now can’t be stopped, you can still control it up and down but it’s not easy to do. This was probably done because people like me went and beat Needle man first just so we could fly over some of the more challenging area’s in number 3.

A few other new adapters are the balloon adapter and the wire adapter. The balloon creates platforms for Mega Man to jump on, while the wire actually let’s Mega Man look up and fire a wire at the ceiling, this let’ him pull himself up over obstacles. These are incredibly handy but you have to find where there hidden in the dive man and pharaoh man’s stage. (hint if your in Navi mode in the collection then following Beat’s orders will lead you away from these adapters).

Then of course I shouldn’t miss pointing out the biggest changes to the Mega Man series. This is the first game in which he can charge his buster and fire a powerful shot. This of course to balance this Capcom has made the enemy bosses a little bit more harder to handle, no more bosses that can take 3 whole bars of damage from a shot, they all require a fully charged buster in order to do any real damage to them without a special weapon.

Final Recommendation.
While who knows how good Mega Man 4 would have been if Capcom would have stepped up and did on a 16-bit console however the fact they didn’t gave us NES owners another solid shooter game. Mega Man 4 does lack a little bit of the fun and creativity that the original 3 had but it’s still a solid and fun shooter. Defiantly recommend trying it out if you have the Mega Man anniversary collection.

Recommended: Yes