Mega Man IV

"I don't get what everyone else sees..."

I've always trusted the good folk on GameFAQs to provide me with accurate reviews of games, but I must say that they definitely steered my wrong when suggesting that the entire Mega Man series for the GameBoy was great. I especially think that the previous reviews written for this installment of the series are pretty off, and I definitely would not say this game deserves multiple nines for scores.

This game starts out with a short scene with Dr. Willy and Mega Man. Dr Willy is telling Mega Man that using these devices called P-Chips, he can make Mega Man super powerful weapons that can be used to fight evil. Dr. Willy suggests that Mega Man go outside and gather all of the P-Chips he possibly can and bring them back to make those ultimate weapons. After this scene, you can choose your level just like the other Mega Man games in the series. There are four levels to choose from, including Bright Man, Toad Man, Ring Man, and Pharaoh Man. In each level there is two bosses and once you defeat a boss, you will be able to use his weapon. You also, of course, have all of Mega Man's previous skills, like the slide, power shot, and rush.

Graphics
The graphics were definitely the best part of this game. They were very well done and very advanced for the time the game was made. The levels are quite brilliantly detailed even for a GameBoy game. All the animations were there and were very advanced. The fact that there was a small cut scene in the beginning was also a nice touch graphics wise. I am really impressed with the graphics for this game.

Audio
The audio in the game was also pretty nicely done. This game is mainly a port of its NES big brother, with a few exceptions, one of them being the music. The music was restored and redone completely to fit more to the times. The music is really fun to listen to and you may just find yourself humming some Mega Man tunes on your way to wherever you go.

Controls
This is where I start to say the parts of this game that I didn't like. The controls were one of them. In my opinion, platform shooter games don't really belong on the GameBoy just because of the control. The fine-tuned control that you can get on console games just isn't there in this game. I find that controlling Mega Man is a little challenging and not being able to do this easily really makes the game frustrating.

Game Play
The game play in this game is just overly frustrating. I really did try and like this game. I really did! But I just can't. The game play is extremely frustrating. I already mentioned the controls aren't that great, which takes away from the game play a lot. The levels are so seemed very compact and very squeezed in which made doing tasks to a precise level very hard to do. I also didn't like the fact that if you lured a monster away from its original position to destroy it, once you moved on, the monster was just sitting there again, and the second time, is always unfortunate for Mega Man when I play. I was also very mad when I died at the first boss I had to start from the beginning of the level and retrace all of my steps again! I hate when I have to do this in any game, and it just frustrates me. The enemies are also just ridiculous. They are far too large in comparison to Mega Man and are very hard to avoid instead of killing. And since quite a few of them are airborne enemies, you must jump in the air to shoot them, which is pretty risky, since you have no option to shoot at upward or downward angles or straight up, which should be a no brainer to add to games like this. Like I said, I really wanted to like this game, but the game play is just a little off for me.

Challenge
I consider myself to be pretty good at most video games, but this game was just ridiculously difficult. I found myself dieing over and over at the same spots and not able to form good strategies to defeat bosses. The enemies are very aggressive and on such a small play field it is really hard to avoid certain things. I already mentioned above how you must start an entire level over if you die, which just adds to the challenge, and since you can't shoot on angles or even in the air, relying on your jumping and quick turning to kill enemies just doesn't work for me.

Final Words
I think that this game is highly overrated. I was very disappointed with the game play that seemed almost impossible for me to beat and I just can't say many good things about the game besides the graphics and the sound.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 02/13/06