Mega Man X4

"Megaman meets Ninja Gaiden"

The Megaman series hasn’t significantly changed since Megaman 2, on the NES. That said, Megaman X4 is a tightly tuned, well-designed Megaman game, one that brings some new elements into the series.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last 14 years, Megaman, or, in this case, his successor, X, goes and fights 8 different robot bosses (named in the convention “Element Animal”, as with the rest of the Megaman X series), takes their weapons, and uses them. Pretty simple, all told.

Megaman X4, however, has a number of elements setting it apart from the pack. The most obvious is the fact that you can play Zero, X’s red-armored, gender-ambiguous ally. Zero handles much like Ryu Hayabasa from Ninja Gaiden, or Strider Hiryu from Strider. If you’re not familiar, he sticks to walls and has a sword, and rather than X’s standard elemental attacks, he gets various sword techniques. Zero is an interesting change from the tried-and-true Megaman controls, and adds a bit of a new element to the game.

Zero and X are pretty well balanced, with X tearing through the bosses like nobody’s business, and Zero wasting most of the stages with ease. The game is worth playing through twice, once with each of them, because of the different challenges and twin stories. A minor gripe is that weapon energy power-up are near-useless to Zero, seeing as all but one of his sword techniques requires no power.

Megaman X4, characteristic of the X series, actually has a story, with characters developed beyond “I give X/Zero items!” or “I shoot at X/Zero!” Zero has a girlfriend, Aer-I mean, Iris, and a rival, Colonel (who sounds strangely Australian), and X has an understudy, Double, all of which have personalities and motivations, of a sort. Of course, any similarity to Final Fantasy 7’s plot is strictly coincidental.

Of course, if you don’t like Megaman, there’s nothing really here for you. The story is strangely familiar, cribbing heavily off of FF7, and the gameplay isn’t anything Capcom hasn’t done before, and the amount of innovation is near zero. It’s probably the quintessential Megaman game (and the best in the series on the PSX, superior to Megaman 8 and X5), though, for fans of Megaman and for fans of side-scrolling platformers, so it’s worth a look, there. Plus, for $20, how can you go wrong?

Final Rating: 8/10 - For better or worse, it’s Megaman at it’s best.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/25/01, Updated 11/25/01