The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Megaman 4

But there's a catch! It's on Gameboy! Wow! Look at the colors!

The Gameboy Megaman games are a bit different from the regular NES versions, in that they're almost exactly the same, only not quite. The thing is, they use bosses from the original NES games, but they throw bosses from different games together.
This here Megaman 4 for instance, has 4 bosses from the real Megaman 4, but also 4 from Megaman 5. Makes sense? No of course not, this is Capcom we're talking about.

As such, you get the kind of stages already seen in the NES games, although the layout is completely different. So basically, if you've played the NES games, and you're likely to have if you're even playing this, you'll be familiar with most of it, since even the music is the same, only some small new things and enemies have been added, as well as a couple of new stages.
The only real enjoyment here is for Megaman fans I think, and perhaps for people who have no access to an NES, and who wonder what all this Mega-fuss is about. For the latter, this game isn't really the most representative of the quality of the series, and for the first, it's not that interesting anyway.

The only really new addition, and I think this was a first in the series, is that Chips can be collected to buy items in Dr. Light's Lab. This is a nice addition, even though the item selection isn't that great.

The most disturbing feature about this game is the level design though. Levels are pretty big, which is good, but it is painfully obvious that they just loop certain structures 2 or 3 times within one stage, with different enemy placement. Really cheap.
The game is not so hard in any case, but towards the end it gets kinda annoying and cheap, so I guess this really is one for the fans only. If you've never played any Megaman game, and only own a Gameboy (what kinda gamer are you anyway?) pass this one up anyway.

The only thing I can say is that it's really not bad graphically, lots of detail and even some moving segments in the backgrounds, which unfortunately also mean that the game is prone to SLOWDOWN.
That, and the music is pretty good. This IS Megaman after all, and it's one of the few Gameboy games that actually makes use of Stereo. I mean, the GB may only have one speaker, but put on a headphone and it should be capable of Stereo right? Right, but far too few companies have realized this.

In all, it's still a decent action game, be it rather cheap, and still fun if you're into the genre or the series. A 7.7 seems nice.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:30 AM