He's A Fighting Robot! Or Is He An It?

I think Mega Man might be the single largest game franchise out there. I mean, there have to be over fifty games with his name on them, not counting anniversary collections and the like. When you figure in the multiple versions of those games, as they are released simultaneously across multiple consoles, well my God, the very idea of it staggers my mind. Why, I believe you could kill a man by dropping a single copy of each of those on him all at once.

Of course, I've only owned one Mega Man game, so I've mostly observed the phenomenon from afar. Lucky me. I've heard Mega Man games are characterized by the incredible difficulty, so knowing myself, I'd probably wind up having a coronary playing them, or getting fed up and breaking the game. Yeah, I haz angr izshoos (is that how you type that stuff?).

The game in question? Mega Man 4. If the cast of X-Play is to be believed, that was two games after the franchise hit its peak, which seems a tad harsh. I guess they don't mean every game since was bad, just that they didn't improve on the formula, or add anything new. Obviously, I'm not the person to judge that assertion, I leave it to Mega-philes (or phobes, since they often know more, in an effort to better deal with their enemy).

As to what Mega Man 4 involved, well you run and jump and shoot through the levels, until you reach a robot boss, whose name usually describes his power (Frog Man? Maybe he jumps? Though that doesn't explain the "shake his belly, make it rain" attack). Every boss you beat, you get a new power, then you take on the final boss, in this case Dr. Cossack. Hey, are they saying Cossacks dream of world domination through robot armies? Goldeneye (the movie) taught me they only dreamed of revenge on the British, who sent thousands of them back to the USSR to be killed, because well, because some of them fought against the Soviets, I guess. The British are assholes. Americans, too, I guess, since we did the same thing. History is depressing.

Because this is an NES game, and I was bad at NES games, I never made it to Dr. Cossack. Of the eight robot bosses you had to beat before him, I never got through more than 6 in a single run. I suppose I should have kept track of the passwords, so I wouldn't have to start all over each time, but I was young, and didn't have time to be writing down passwords that looked like a connect-the-dots! I had things to do man, like running in circles outside, or chasing my dog as she gets out under the fence - again.

On a good day, I could deal with Pharaoh Man, Dive Man, Frog Man without breaking a sweat. Especially Dive Man, what a loser. Oooh, I shoot homing torpedoes, how frightening. Skull Man (that's him over there) was a little harder, what with his power to conjure skulls that act as a shield. I wonder where the skulls came from? Ring Man, somewhat irritating. Drill Man? I hate that guy. Never actually beat Dust Man, who given his power to, well, suck, he really should have been Dustbuster Man, but I guess maybe that's too many syllables. Well, anyway, a friend of mine beat him, so that was nice. What's really sad is no one, not me or my friends, ever beat Bright Man. We couldn't beat a guy with a light bulb on his head? Weak.

The funny thing is, I can't recall getting driven insane by this game, though I'm sure my flagrant inability to do beat it must have done that. Is that senility setting in, or rose-colored glasses? I choose the latter, in defiance of the former. I do remember liking Mega Man's primary weapon, the ol' Mega-Buster, complete with charge ability. Nothing quite like charging it up, making Mega Man look about twice as wide, and furry, letting fly with the blast, only to watch it bounce harmlessly off your enemy because you missed your opportunity. I think I thought it was funny to see the blast look like a bluish comet when you fired it, but suddenly it turns into a bland, beige circle as it ricochets off, and out of the picture. Looking back on it, I think it was sending some sort of message about impotence.