Mega Man 4

aka: Mega Man IV, Rockman Complete Works: Rockman 4: An Evil New Ambition!!
Moby ID: 5091
NES Specs
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Description official descriptions

In Mega Man 4, Dr. Wily is declared as having been killed by the explosion of Gamma. A year passes and Rock, Roll, and Dr. Light are living in peace. But soon, the peace is broken by a new threat.

A supposed colleague of Dr. Light's, the mysterious Dr. Cossack, has sent out eight of his own Robot Masters to find Mega Man, whom Cossack blames for the kidnapping of his daughter. Mega Man, hoping to clear his name, sets out to find Dr. Cossack, this time armed with a powerful new weapon: the Mega Buster. Mega Man must now battle with Cossack's fiendish Robot Masters and find Cossack's daughter before it's too late.

Gameplay-wise, this installment is similar to the previous game in the series. Like before, Mega Man has to complete eight stages, defeating their robotic bosses and acquiring their weapons as a reward. He retains his abilities to jump, shoot, climb, and slide. His dog can be transformed to access different area types. A new addition is the Mega Buster weapon, which can be charged to produce powerful shots.

Spellings

  • ロックマン 4 新たなる野望!! - Japanese spelling

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Credits (NES version)

55 People (24 developers, 31 thanks) · View all

Planner
Object Design
Scroll Design
  • Machako (Machako)
  • Mamimu
  • Miss 21
  • Takap
Special Designer
Sound Composer
Programmer
Bright Man Design
Pharaoh Man Design
Drill Man Design
Ring Man Design
Toad Man Design
Dust Man Design
Dive Man Design
Skull Man Design
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 79% (based on 20 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 69 ratings with 3 reviews)

Harder isn't always better

The Good
Mega Man 4 is the fourth entry in the Mega Man series. As the first 3 were all incredibly good and fun games, the expectations for Mega Man 4 were high.

What is really noticeable is that the graphics got a total overhaul. The backgrounds looks more detailed as ever, and the enemies looks more metallic than they did in the first 3 games. Mega Man himself hasn't changed at all, but he didn't really need to.

You also get a decent intro with cool graphics. I like that Capcom did put some effort in the storyline for the first time, as you don't fight Dr Wily, but another mad scientist Dr Cossak this time, and there is a major plot twist toward the end of the game.

A nice element is the addition of the mega-buster, you can hold the B button to charge an attack and release a powerful plasma shot. A good addition is that they added a few secrets, there is an alternate path at one point late in the game and two hidden weapons.

The Bad
The bad news is that Capcom just didn't make the cut to the high expectations for this game. As good as the first 3 games were, you can't go right on every try, and Capcom just screwed up this game.

Almost all robot master's stages are simply very annoying and very hard to pass, full of annoying enemies and stupid one-hit-death traps. Most enemies attack you in a very stupid and very annoying pattern. When you got hurt in the first 3 games only a few dashes went off (you get 28 dashes so that leaves you with about 7-14 hits depending on the enemies). Now enemies can kill you in 4-6 hits, AND they'll be very hard to avoid. Hopefully you can get lucky and they'll often drop energy when their dead.

Not only that, but enemies also takes a lot more hits to be defeated, probably Capcom assumed you used your Mega Buster a lot but it's slow to charge up and makes an annoying sound effect.

I forgot to mention that the games tends to slow down and flicker A LOT much more than any other Mega Man before. Okay 3 slows down and flickers a lot when two of those "track mettaurs" were around, but for Mega Man 4 it just does that a lot more frequently when there is lot of enemies on the screen which happens often.

Another annoyance is bosses. In Mega Man 1-3 you could beat them in pretty much any order if you're skilled enough you didn't need their weakness to defeat them. Okay, I admit Elec Man from MM1 and Shadow Man from MM3 are very hard to beat without their respective weakness, I couldn't do it. But overall you were free to chose the order in which you beat bosses.

For MM4, you can go in Toad Man's stage which is beatable and beat him which is really easy. But then you're pretty much screwed up : You have to go and try all other robot master's stages which are all very hard to bass by and try many times until you make it alive to a boss' room. When you enter you figure out how ridiculously fast and unpredictable they are, and some of them can removes up to 7 dashes per hit, effectively killing you in 4 hits !! It's not likely you can hit him with more than about 2 shots before they kill you, but... they take 28 shots to die. So if you are going to fight a boss, you just have to try all weapons you have (initially only Toad Man's since it's the only easy boss) and see if it takes a lot of damage to them then it's their weakness so you have a little chance to beat them. But if you're not that skilled you may fail and you won't have any mana left for the next try so you'll just have to commit suicide until you try again.

So you see the picture, you basically have to beat Toad Man, go trough the trouble of going trough all stages until you can find who is weak again the rain flush, be defeated by him a lot of times and go trough his stage a lot of times until you can eventually beat him, then repeat the story to find who is weak against your new weapon... This is very annoying after a while.

Now when it comes to the final stages they are just ridiculously hard, without abusing emulator save states you'd have to be VERY skilled to beat the bosses. The last boss is the most ridiculous one, the screen is entirely black, and you don't see it so good luck without cheating.

For the worst point of the game it's without a doubt it's music. As awesome as Mega Man 1, 2 and 3 music was it can be surprising, but Mega Man 4's music is so annoying, it almost sounds like the composer did enters any random numbers in the computers and played them as music. Okay, Skull Man's theme is decent but that's only ONE song, and the others are really horrible. The music on the password screen is so bad it makes me wants to kill myself.

Last but not least, unlike Mega Man 1&2, but like Mega Man 3, the weapons that the Robot masters drops aren't very useful and doesn't help you much except for bosses.

The Bottom Line
The first 3 Mega Man are absolutely incredible with amazing upbeat music, fantastic gameplay, cool weapons and perfect difficulty (okay MM2 is a bit easy but there is a hard more available).

Too bad Mega Man 4 completely breaks this trend. Yes it has better graphics, and added the Mega Buster and some secrets. But its bad music, annoying enemies and instant death traps, long stages and ridiculously high difficulty will turn down even the fans.

Without a doubt it's the worst MM game of the original "classic" series, probably the hardest too. Now it's not that bad compared to any random NES platformer out there, it's just really lame compared to other Mega Mans. Thanks god Capcom learns from errors and will correct the shot for future Mega Man games.

NES · by Bregalad (937) · 2009

Fairly good, but could have been better.

The Good
I liked the storyline of this game, very in depth and to the point. I also liked the whole attention to the storyline, how the attention to the story was added to this game,nice touch by the makers of this game. Also the revival of the original robot selected theme from mega man 2 I always did love that theme.

The Bad
I didn't like the fact that alot of the music tunes in this game, seemed rushed or flat in tone. however some of the tunes were a bit catchy, it just didn't do it for me as mega man 3 and 2's tunes did. also, the colors were much darker in this installment, not as bright and beautiful detailed as they were in part 3's.

The Bottom Line
I would describe this game, as a game that's is fairly decent. But does not live up to the mega man games that came before it. It almost seemed as though the producers of this game just didn't put the kinda thought into the music and gameplay as they did in mega man 2 and 3.

NES · by David Bryan (21) · 2007

A solid follow-up

The Good
This game added...

-Fliptop (who would give you a random item and warp out)

-Megabuster (hold down your fire for a really strong blast)

-Better graphics than ever (Amazingly cartoonish and crisp)

-Can return to a beaten stage and leave when you want to (good for maximizing certain items)

Instead of the four sinister Mega Man 2 boss stages as in Mega Man 3, this game has you go to Dr. Cossack's castle and then to Dr. Wily's castle.

Everything that worked well in Megaman 3 is back again. The game returns to its more upbeat tone. The stages are much more colorful than in Megaman 3. In Toadman's stage, you fight in rain (which pushes you back when you jump) and the sewers (which the water pushes you the way it flows). In Bright Man's stage, you ride mechanical grasshoppers and shoot out the lights. In Pharoah Man's stage, you fight quicksand and robotic mummies inside a pyramid. The game stages work very well and are very nicely artistically done. Ring Man's stage 'light bridges' make it unique.

People say Mega Man 3 is the last 'real' NES Mega Man title but that isn't true. This game is a lot of fun, although it added very little to the design/gameplay. Graphically, this game is head and shoulders over Mega Man 3.

The Bad
While the stages are unique, the boss weapons are not. Many of the weapons are very similiar to Mega Man 2. The Skull shield is like Wood Man's leaves. Pharoah Man's weapon is almost identical to Heat Man's.

The Mega-Buster, while a nice idea, made the game a bit more annoying. Before you moved to new enemies, you would always wait to recharge your mega-buster. This addition only served to slow gameplay down.

Fliptop is nice but he is unnecessary. If he appears in a room where you are on a ladder, just wait until he drops an item, then climb down (or up) to the last room you were in and go back. Fliptop will be back and gives you another item. He stops coming only once you pick up an item. With this, you could assure he would drop an energy pellet.

While the game returned to its happy upbeatness, it got annoying. The gameplay, while very good, seemed to start taking second place to the art.

The controls for this game were not as tight as Mega Man 3's but still good.

The Bottom Line
If you're a fan of Mega Man, play this game. This is a solid title. It doesn't improve on what Mega Man 2 and 3 brought to the table, but it doesn't take away. This is a very fun title but started the trend when Mega Man games would start to tilt 'cartoonish'.

NES · by Jonathan Hollas (24) · 2005

Trivia

Cameo

The "antagonist" of Rockman 4, Dr. Cossack, makes a guest appearance in Rockman 8. But wait! Before you go screaming about "I already beat that game! Where is he!?", he doesn't appear in the game, but in a manga series BASED on Rockman 8 that was released in Japan! Cossack's daughter, Kallinka, also makes a quick appearance in the manga.

Golden cartridges

During production Capcom held a competition to design a boss monster for Rockman 4. From 70.000 entries, eight winners were selected. Those winners were not only rewarded with their bosses in-game, but also sent a golden cartridge of the game. This cartridge colour was not reproduced, so most likely only eight modules in that colour exist.

Manga adaption

In Japan, a doujinshi manga (fan-created manga) of Rockman 4 is available. It follows the game's plot more or less straight through, but it's missing two boss encounters from the game: one from Cossack's citadel (the Wall Walkers), and one from Wily's castle. The manga was published by the manga label BomBom, and it's a rather rare find.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Satoshi Kunsai.

PSP, PS Vita, PlayStation 3 added by Charly2.0. Wii U added by ResidentHazard. Wii added by Lain Crowley. Nintendo 3DS added by Michael Cassidy. iPhone, Android, iPad added by Sciere. DoJa added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Alaka, Zaibatsu, Lain Crowley, Jo ST.

Game added October 5, 2001. Last modified March 1, 2024.