Mega Man X4

"The last good X game"

Mega Man X has now reached 6 systems since his first game on the SNES. Unlike Capcom's Mega Man series, Mega Man X was set in a far distant and depressing future of conflict between two factions of androids, the Repliods and the Mavericks. Throughout the series, Mega Man X was tormented by his dead foes. He was a robot that was made to fight for peace, but he hated having to use his power. He was also tormented by a fiendish foe named Sigma, leader of the Mavericks. Now, in X's fourth game, the game takes a sudden turn: Mega Man has to not only fight against the Mavericks, but the Repliforce who want to secede from Earth due to discrimination from other factions (and because X labeled them as Mavericks). X is forced to fight off the Repliforce and figure out why the Mavericks are involved with this.

The most interesting thing about this game is that there are two sides to this games story. When you start up the game, you can either choose to be X or Zero, a Reploid Bishou Swordsman who has been an important character throughout the X series. As you probably can expect, both playable characters play very differently and the bosses they face are also different.

X is more of a projectile character, he uses his trust X buster to vanquish enemies that attack. If you've never played an X game (or a Mega Man game for that matter): Whenever you kill a Boss, X receives an attack from the defeated boss. Also, this gives X a better chance at fighting other Bosses.

For Example: Let's say you kill Magma Dragoon, a fiery reploid. Once you kill him, you receive his "Rising Fire" attack which is extremely effective against the Boss Frost Walrus.

It's like playing a advanced Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Zero, on the other had is a master swordsman. Whenever he kills certain bosses, he receives Sword Techniques. These sword Techniques are a bit different from X's Attacks he learns from enemies. When X wants to use a Certain attack, he has to equip that weapon he learned and then he has to use it. When you're using Zero, you have to press certain buttons to execute the attack you wanted. It's a lot like playing a fighting game. The only real annoying thing about this is the fact that they only tell you how to use the Attack once. After that, you have to figure out how to execute the attacks by yourself. Capcom should've let you see how to execute these techniques in a menu or something.

Also, whichever character you choose, the Bosses have different weaknesses and each character has one different boss than the other character. This gives the game a bit more replayability than the X games before this since there are two different players and stories in one game.

This is also one of the first Mega Man games to actually have anime-like cutscenes in it. Although the cutscenes are very short (and sometimes vague), they work perfectly with the story. My only gripe is that there should have been a few more (Like after you kill each boss, you should be able to see how X or Zero kills him).

X4's levels are very straight forward and include extremely different settings, in one level, you may be riding a Hover Bike while in the next level, you're in Cyberspace. Like most other Mega Man/X games, there are deadly obstacles in each level, this includes Bottomless pits and the ever-so-famous Spikes.

The coolest thing about X4 is the fact that certain levels hold interesting secrets within them. Like the rest of the X games, Mega Man X receives a special Armor crafted by Dr. Light. Of course, the Armor isn't in one piece. Yes, you have to find hidden capsules to get parts of the Armor, and once you get all four parts, you're finally rewarded with the powerful Ultimate Armor.

Closing

It's a pity that the X series is driving itself into an abyss of disappointment nowadays. If you've never played an X game before, I highly suggest you try to find this game. It should be around 20 bucks, and that's a good price for a game that allows you to play as two different characters (Hell, that's like 10 bucks a character!).

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/15/04