Even after the SNES is released, Mega Man still breathes 8Bit air.
And now, time to get onto the review.
Graphics:
The graphics are pretty much the same graphics of Mega Man 1, 2 and 3. However, like most Mega Man games, it uses its own special effects. What are examples of this? The rain effects in the first parts of Toad Man's stage, the flashes of the Flash Stopper, and the 3D effects on the Weapon Get screen (yes, you read right, 3D effects on an 8Bit machine).
However, the buster charge animation is different from the Mega Man NES games released after this: instead of flashing in black and blue, Mega Man flashes in green and blue while charging up in this game.
Gameplay:
Like most other Mega Man games, you have 8 Robot Masters, and 4 or 8 fortress stages (this game has 8 fortress stages, 4 Cossack, 4 Wily). The robot masters of this game are:
Bright Man: a robot master who can stop time, and has a large light bulb on his head. He can also shoot and jump. His weakness is the Rain Flush, and his weapon is the Flash Stopper, a weapon like MM2's Time Stopper, but you can shoot while it is in effect, and works in bursts instead of uses all 28 units in one go.
Toad Man: a robot master, who, as his name suggests, is modeled after a toad. He launches acid rain that can be stopped very easily. His weakness is the Drill Bomb, and his weapon is the Rain Flush, a weapon that launches a sphere filled with acid rain, and has a 1.5 second delay after leaving the screen before acid rain fills the screen. You get the Rush Marine after beating him.
Drill Man: a robot master who has three drills on his body (one on his head, two for hands), and attacks by going underground and jumping. His weakness is the Dive Missile, and his weapon is the Drill Bomb, a weapon that fires drills that explode either after hitting an object or being stopped early. You get the Rush Jet after beating him.
Pharaoh Man: a robot master modeled after an Egyptian Pharaoh and jumps very quickly around the screen firing miniature suns and waves. His weakness is the Flash Stopper, and his weapon is the Pharaoh Shot, a weapon that can be fired in seven directions and is chargeable. The Balloon Adapter can be found in his stage.
Ring Man: a robot master that attacks using rings and runs and jumps very quickly around the screen. His weakness is the Pharaoh Shot, and his weapon is the Ring Boomerang, a weapon that is pretty useful against fortress bosses and acts like a boomerang.
Dust Man: a robot master that has a large vacuum cleaner on his head, and attacks using junk balls and sucking you towards him. His weakness is the Ring Boomerang, and his weapon is the Dust Crusher, a weapon that fires junk balls and splits in four when it hits an enemy.
Dive Man: a robot master who is part human, part submarine, and attacks by charging at you and firing homing missiles. His weaknesses are the Dust Crusher and Skull Barrier, and his weapon is the Dive Missiles, a homing weapon that moves very quickly. The Wire Adapter can be found in his stage.
And lastly, Skull Man, a robot master who is modeled after a skeleton, and attacks using his barrier, his buster and runs rather quickly. His weakness is the Dust Crusher, and his weapon is the Skull Barrier, a weapon that puts a barrier of skulls around you, and loses effect once it hits an enemy.
After defeating these robot masters, you then must beat the fortress stages, which is harder than the rest of the game itself because you don't get passwords after beating the stages like the robot master stages. You must complete all of them in one sitting. And like every other Mega Man game released, you will fight all 8 robot masters AGAIN in Wily's Castle. And, for the first time since MM1, in this game, you get to play the robot master stages even after beating them, and best of all, the adapters are still there if you haven't collected them. But unlike MM1's stage revisiting, the robot master is not there. Sorry!
Also, remember the regular P-Shooter from Mega Man 1, 2 and 3? Well, starting with this game, and ending with MMX8, all original and Mega Man X games used both regular shots where 3 could be on the screen at one time and a more powerful shot where only one of them could be on a screen at one time. It kills enemies that regularly take 3 shots in 1 shot.
And how difficult is this game? Well, let's put it this way: it's not normal difficulty, but it's not hard either, despite the fact I put the game under "Hard", however, I'd only say "hard" because of some of the bosses, and the fact that the Rush Jet has been butchered: unlike the MM3/ MM2 GB version Rush Jet, which you can move with the D-Pad and can actually be stopped, starting with this game, it only goes in the direction you faced while calling it down, and, you CAN still control it with the D-Pad, but now, you mainly use Up and Down to control it, and the direction Rush faces to speed up a little, and the opposite direction to slightly slow down.
Music:
Don't get me wrong, the music in this game is pretty good. However, in some of the songs, there's some strange washy sound. I don't know if you guys hear it, but I do. Examples of this are the robot master select theme, the first part of Pharaoh Man's theme, the Wily Stage 3 and 4 theme and the end credits theme (the one Mega Man fans like to call "Mega Man's Theme"). But the song that uses this strange sound more than ANY song in this game is the password theme. Other than that, the music is pretty good. My favorite songs in the game are: Bright Man's theme, Pharaoh Man's theme, Skull Man's theme, Dive Man's theme, Cossack stage 3-4, Wily Stage 1-2 and the Wily Capsule theme.
But Dive Man's theme is my absolute favorite in the game.
Replay Value:
You might not like the game at first, but once you get used to playing it, it might become one of your favorite NES games. One thing's for sure: that's how it became my third favorite Mega Man NES game (5 being my favorite, 2 being my second favorite). The graphics are colorful, the story has lots of originality (like most Mega Man games) packed into it, the boss battles are excellent and the gameplay keeps its shape.
Bottom Line:
Mega Man 4 is an excellent, must-have game even though it is an NES game released after the SNES hit the shelves. Like I said on an MM5 review I wrote for a forum, "Even late into a console's life, a game can still be good. This is the case with MM5."
It is also the case with MM4, another sign of Mega Man keeping his cool. You should really try out this game if you haven't already.