 When people talk about Mega Man on NES, it's usually only about the first three games. The first game set the stage, but it's comically difficult. The second game is one of, if not THE best action platformer ever made, and the third game is a perfectly worthy follow-up of the second game, introducing stuff like Rush, Mega Man's helpful dog. By the time we get to Mega Man 4 and the games after that, a formula had been well established. And maybe I'm wrong, but it sure seems like people were ready and willing to just move on to Mega Man X after the third NES game. Mega Man 4 came out in December 1991 while the Super Nintendo was in full swing, and by that time we had already seen three NES franchises make the leap from 8 to 16 bit, with Gradius 3, Super Castlevania 4, and Super Mario World making huge improvements all across the board, building on the strengths of their predecessors, and that's with stuff like Contra 3 and Legend of Zelda linked to the past right around the corner. So maybe I'm wrong, but I think the reason Mega Man 4, 5 and 6 tend to be overlooked a bit is because people felt like they were familiar with the NES Mega Man formula at the time, so we were all just waiting to see what kind of Mega Man game the SNES would get. A good example of this same effect is Donkey Kong Country 3, a really good game, but it's the third in the series and it came out really late in the SNES lifespan, and for the most part people were just ready to move on to bigger and better things. Well, turns out Donkey Kong Country 3 is a damn good game, and Mega Man 4 is as well, bringing some new ideas to the franchise as well as a new villain, Dr. Kosak. Well he's Russian, so of course he's evil. The big change here though is the debut of the Charged Shot, which is a big point of contention amongst the Mega Man fan base. Just hold the B button down and you get a powered up arm cannon blast, just like we later got in the X series. There's two sides to this change, one is that it makes the game a little easier, and yeah this game is pretty damn tough even by Mega Man standards, I think it's more difficult than the second and third games, but on the other hand it completely de-emphasizes the value and importance of the weapons you earn from defeating a robot master. I get both sides of the argument, but I mean you can always, you know, not use the Charged Shot if you didn't like it. But on the other hand, the robot master weapons here really aren't all that great in Mega Man 4. That's probably the biggest flaw in this game, the villains are just kind of lame. I mean, Dust Man? Ring Man? Plus look at this Toad Man battle. Come on, that's it? Are you serious? And that's just with the arm cannon. I will say I do like Farrow Man and his weapon, and the Bright Man weapon can be abused like crazy since it's like Flash Man's weapon but you can still fire your arm cannon, but overall the bosses are not the greatest, but at least the level design is still up to par. It's exactly as clever and as fun as you'd hope. Toad Man's stage has you contending with water flows and wind. Bright Man's stage has you playing with the lights and robotic grasshoppers. The Dust Man stage in particular is well done, I know I mocked him earlier, but hey, he keeps a nice level, what can I tell ya? I like carving out your own path while trying to avoid being crushed to death, that's pretty cool. Or this part in Drill Man's stage where you have to activate the floor in front of you by flipping these switches. To help you contend with all these obstacles you get back to three forms of Rush, Marine, Coil, and Jet. Although the Rush Jet isn't as overpowered here, you also get this little flip top dude that occasionally stops by to give you a random item. And you can pick up a special balloon weapon that's very similar to the propelling platforms in Mega Man 2, as well as a grappling arm that allows you to cling to the ceiling. That's all well and good, but like I said earlier there's not that much incentive to use most of the Robot Master weapons because most of them aren't all that good. Feral Man, Drill Man, and definitely Bright Man's weapons are useful, especially Bright Man's which is up there with Metal Man's weapon from Mega Man 2 in terms of how much you can abuse it, but most of the fun in the Mega Man NES games is using these weapons throughout each level, and there's just not that much of a use for them most of the time, and that's not even bringing the chart shot into consideration. Now that's definitely not to say that Mega Man 4 is a bad game, it's way better than your average action platformer, I'm just trying to explain why it falls a bit short of the second and third games since those games make great use of the Robot Master weapons. Anyway, throughout the game it's clear one point of emphasis Capcom wanted to get across was the improved visual presentation of the game, everything from the cutscene intro, the huge mini boss fights like this snail or this whale guy, the weapon get screens, it's interesting how they changed very little about the gameplay visual and the Mega Man sprite itself, but they went balls to the wall with all the other visuals, it's pretty telling how they felt about the gameplay, like they deliberately said do not fix what's not broken, it's too bad they didn't stick with that reasoning over the next few years after this. Anyway yeah, Mega Man 4 is a perfectly good entry in the NES Mega Man series, I mean all the stuff you'd expect from a Mega Man game is here, the visuals, the great music and the challenge, this is definitely a really tough game. The Doctor Kosek stages are so damn hard, the second stage boss here is a really strange room that slides apart, you have to time it right so you can get inside to destroy it, it's one of the more strange bosses I've ever seen, but I mean yeah you can't really go wrong with any of the NES Mega Man games, this is just kind of a reminder of that and I wanted to call some attention to the fourth game since it doesn't get as much love as the others and in the coming weeks I'll be looking at five and six as well, so yeah I may not think the bosses or the boss weapons of Mega Man 4 are as good as the second and third game, that's still kind of nitpicking, this is still a great game and an excellent action platformer.