Review: Mega Man X 4

Title: Mega Man X 4
Release Date: December 1995 (Japan), January 1996 (US)
Original Platform: Sega Saturn/Sony Playstation
Other Platforms: PC, and a whole bunch of other platforms via compilations

Capcom in the 90’s was a very … particular company, and in some ways Mega Man X 4 is an example of “Peak 90’s Capcom”. After three games on the Super Nintendo, the Mega Man X subseries managed to tell a complete story arc. The creative folks at Capcom had seemingly gotten bored (having outsourced development after only two games). Critics were finding the formula to be getting stale. By all appearances, this would have been the perfect time to wrap it up and focus on new projects.

But Capcom in the 90’s didn’t quit, possibly because they didn’t know when to quit. The company was notorious for cranking out sequel after sequel, even when it looked like an IP was dead as a doornail. So while the Mega Man X games could have, and maybe should have ended, they did anything but.

Enter Mega Man X4, a game that arrived when the series was already out of gas, yet which somehow became the midpoint of the franchise. So what, if anything does it to in order to stay relevant? It arguably does a fine job of changing with the times, specifically by becoming the kind of game that would appeal to the new demographics of the Playstation Generation. Unfortunately, that means an experience that misguidedly places an emphasis on being “cool” and “mature” over the careful design and craftsmanship that defines the very best Mega Man games. It looks, sounds, plays, and plays out like a complete mess. An edgy mess, but a mess nonetheless.

X4 introduces two notable firsts. It was the first Mega Man X game developed for 32-bit console hardware. It was also the first game in which the character of Zero is a full deuteragonist. Rather than the single, non-replenishable life he had in X3, Zero is now on equal footing with his pal X, complete with his own special cutscenes, dialogue, and boss fights. Of these two additions, that latter is worth far more than the former.

Mega Man - Your Plastic Pal that’s Fun to be With(?)

I always thought that X4 looked pretty good, but having finally played it, I can now confirm that it only looks good in still screenshots, and even then, only in certain parts of the game. Aside from some particularly large sprites, I honestly don’t think X4 looks tremendously better, or animates any smoother, than its SNES predecessors. A lot of this has to do with the stylistic choices of the era. In the late 90’s there were a lot of games, including X4, that substituted hand drawn sprites for pre-rendered, compupter generated artwork. I’ve never been sure if this was the result of developers getting carried away playing around with new hardware, or if it was an attempt to fight back against the waning popularity of 2D games by making them look “3D”. What I do know is that it resulted in an entire console generation in which a ton of games were marred by blurry, plastic-looking CGI: This was novel enough back in the days of Donkey Kong Country, but it was already tacky by 1997, and has aged quite poorly decades later.

Considering that both the Playstation and the Saturn were capable of producing gorgeous 2d visuals, X4’s choice in art direction feels that much more disappointing. Imagine if the game was instead rendered like, um, Mega Man 8.

Adding a Zero

In X3, Zero was little more than a bone tossed to dedicated fans, but in X4 the developers had to figure out how to make him play differently enough from X to make him worth replaying the whole game with. Their answer was to take away his Buster gun so that he can only fight with his laser sword. Defeating bosses grants Zero new sword attacks (some of them elemental-based attacks) and techniques (such as a double jump). He gets heart containers and sub tanks, but no armor upgrades (and no equivalent upgrade to make for this loss).

So that explains how they cram in two characters, but this brings us to another challenge - how do you design a single game to accommodate two different kinds of characters? X4’s answer is to essentially split the difference. Some parts of the game feel tailored towards X, and others feel tailored towards Zero. If I had to choose, I guess I would say that the game is easier to get through as X, though at a high enough level it feels like a wash. Zero has ways of breaking the game wide open that evens up the score a bit.

Having said all that, I found it more enjoyable to play as Zero. While I may not like him much as a character, as a fighter his moveset is very unorthodox for a Mega Man game. I found myself having to rewire my brain and come up with new strategies. It wasn’t always fun, but it was at least novel. Still, I’d prefer a game with one excellent experience than two that are only so-so. And yet, as a distinguished veteran of the Console Wars, I knew plenty of people back in the day who would have made up their mind at “two playable characters”, without giving a shred of thought as to whether they were any good. That’s the way things were back then.

If Zero is positive, is X negative?

I feel like I need to talk a bit more about X. I’ll save the details for the Deep Dive, but I get impression that by the time they got to X4, the folks at Capcom had either given up on figuring out how to make X interesting, or they just stopped caring about him. His X-Buster has never been as powerful as it is here, while at the same time, his subweapons are so puny that some of them literally cannot do damage against certain base enemies.

Never before have I beaten a Mega Man game using subweapons as little as I did in X4. On top of that, this is the first Mega Man X game in which I beat all eight Robot Masters while having only one armor upgrade. This was in part due to the fact that I couldn’t find the others¹, and part due to the fact that I didn’t really seek them out. If not for the fact that you literally walk up to one of the upgrades, I could have run through the entire game without any of them. That’s how unnecessary they are.

This is a huge letdown for anyone who remembers the feeling of mastering the weapons in X1 and using all of them to power your way through the game’s final stages. In fact, playing X4 made me appreciate X1 on yet another level. X1’s weapons help convey storytelling through game mechanics. How does this tiny little Reploid manage to take down a group of bigger, tougher foes and their armies of minions? By being clever, scrappy, and resourceful, using his mind and every tool in his arsenal. X1 sets the right tone for its protagonist through the way in which he plays.

On the other hand, in X4, a fully upgraded X is a killing machine even without a single subweapon. It feels not like playing as a plucky underdog but rather playing through a power fantasy. It fits the tone of the games coming out in that era, but it is a poor fit for this particular series.

Seriously, what ARE we Fighting Forrrrr??!!?

For those who haven’t played the game - or aren’t familiar with the meme - Context for where the subheading comes from.

When I finished X4, I had a pretty good idea about what I thought the writers were trying to convey. After doing some followup research, I found some quotes about the games development that confirmed that my hunch was right.

Do not take this as any sort of claim that the storytelling was effective or clear. All this means is that I have played so many video games and watched so much Japanese animation that I am able to parse through the incomprehensible storylines, gibberish dialogue, and half baked themes that are part and parcel for these mediums. This game has ideas, to be sure, but it has absolutely no clue how to convey them to the player. Despite the fact that the previous three games told a complete story, X4 convinced me that there is a way to followup on that story. If only the game actually succeeded at doing so.

What makes such bad storytelling go from “unfortunate” to “infuriating” is that it feels like a waste. If you think your story is so important that you have to frequently take me out of the action so that I can scroll through dialogue boxes or watch a video, you better make sure it is worth my time. Or to put it another way - why waste so much time and money on writing scripts, paying for animation, doing voiceovers, etc if you don’t have talent for (or interest in) telling a good story?

Don’t answer that question, because I already did. X4 is a game that relies on the fact that as long as it’s edgy and “mature” enough, its audience won’t care if any of it makes sense.

This game has music?

I absolutely cannot for the life of me remember any of the music in this game, and I just finished it the day before writing this review. X4 trades in the heavy metal tone of of the previous games for a synth-based sound, and the result is a soundtrack that feels like a mushy pile of electronic tones. Everything blends together, everything sounds as loud as everything else, and as a result, nothing stands out. The soundtrack to Mega Man VII is proof positive that this kind of synthy sound can work in the series. It just needs decent composition. This one tune from MM7 is more interesting than the entire MMX4 soundtrack combined.

Beginning of the End

I feel like X4 is the beginning of the end for this franchise. I already know that after this, Zero is going to become even more important and prominent, X is going to become even less prominent, and the games are allegedly going to get even lazier. I went into this thinking and hoping I’d get to experience at least one more high point before things start rolling downhill, but it turns out that this is actually where it all starts. This is a game that is worried about keeping up a certain image, a certain tone, and a certain style, rather than being, you know, a good Mega Man game. And if it is true that this is what sets the tone for everything else going forward, then perhaps this whole thing should have died with the Super Nintendo.

Other Thoughts

• I’m going to let Mega Man VII dunk on this game one more time. This track - from the game’s opening stage - sounds more like a Mega Man X song than anything in X4.
• My “favorite” thing in this game might be the fact that there is a cutscene in which Zero defends himself against Sigma’s laser sword by using a rusty pipe. Keiji Inafune and pals officially gave up on portraying Zero as anything other than a Mary Sue.