Hello everyone. Welcome back to my blog. Today I am reviewing Mega Man X4. This is a rather old side-scroller game that was released in 1997. It is one of my favorite games from my childhood. The game is now available on computer via Steam. In this game, you get the option to play as either Mega Man X or Zero. Though most of the levels and enemies are the same for the two, the two have very different gameplay mechanics. X mainly relies on ranged attacks and weaponry. Zero on the other hand relies mainly on melee attacks. As you play through the game, you are able to gain upgrades and new abilities for both of them, though some of these new abilities differ for each individual. The fact that their gameplay is different helps add to the games length and makes it worth it to play both campaigns. Overall, I felt that Zero’s campaign is slightly more difficult than X’s campaign.
Looking at the game’s specifics, the upgrades you get do add to the game value and make things more interesting by helping to change up the gameplay. The side-scroller game mechanics generally work well, but do feel somewhat slow. When I say slow, I mean your character movement speed feels slow. In fact, when I first started playing the game, I wondered if there was something wrong with my computer because the speed my character was moving and playing at felt sluggish. Despite feeling sluggish, you do get a surprisingly strong amount of control over your characters for an older game. For instance, you get lots of control over what your character does while jumping and being airborne, which adds to the game’s sense of control. This is necessary, as many parts of the game rely heavily on you being quick and precise with your character movements and actions—a small mistake here can you get killed very quickly. This definitely pushes your direct playing ability quite nicely. Though most of the game follows a similar control pattern, there are some levels where sections of it follow a different pattern. For instance, there are two power suit upgrades you can obtain in some levels. There is also one portion of the game where you use an Adion bike. These levels do add to the gameplay by mixing up the gameplay mechanics and making things less predictable and boring.
The boss fights in this game are generally quite difficult and often take you multiple tries to defeat, especially in the early game when you are weak and do not have many upgrades. Like in other Megaman games, you have the option to refight many of the boss battles over again toward the end of the game, which is quite nice.
As for the game’s visuals and music, these are quite well done. Despite being an older game, the visuals and graphics are still impressive. They have held up and aged quite well over the years. The imagery is quite vivid and different levels include some nice background scenery to help set the mood. The music to the game is quite catchy and enjoyable.
As for the storyline, this may be the game’s biggest failure. I will say this bluntly: the storyline is awful. The game tries to pass itself off as having a serious and emotional storyline, but it fails miserably. The plot is very disjointed, confusing, and often makes little sense. The game does not effectively explain many details of the story leaving the viewer left confused as to why things are occurring. In some media, leaving out storyline details can be beneficial as it makes the storyline open to multiple interpretations and can make the viewer think, but that does not apply here as the things left out are not that interesting for one. Secondly, the events that happen are clear in what occurred, but not in why they occurred. The why is not only not explained, but even if it had been explained, is unlikely to be logical. There really seems to be no logical explanation for characters acting in the ways that they do. In addition, the dialogue scenes and cutscenes are very cheesy and make it hard to get emotionally invested in them and take them seriously. The dialogue scenes mostly do not have voiceovers, though there are a few exceptions. The cutscenes all do have voiceovers. The voice acting for both the cutscenes and dialogue involving voiceovers is very poorly done. Overall, the storyline could have been way better.
For my rating, I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Overall, Mega Man X4 is a very enjoyable game that has held up quite well over the years. If you like action games that require very precise controls, timing, and careful gameplay mechanics, this may be the game for you. Still, the game does have its fair share of flaws. The storyline is the main example. Also, the sluggish feel of some of the gameplay is a bit concerning as well. Still, despite these drawbacks, the game’s positives definitely outweigh its negatives. The negatives do not break the game; they just drag it down some.
Capcom. Megaman X4. Capcom, 1997. Computer Software.
“Ride Chaser.” Megaman.fandom.com. Fandom, n.d. Web. 5 Nov. 2019. <https://megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Ride_Chaser#Mega_Man_X4_and_Mega_Man_X5>.