My first playing session with Mega Man X4

I had so much fun! It feels good to be able to play a Mega Man X game again. What I definitely noticed was the difference in the graphics, the music, and the pause menu. Of course like I said last post, the graphics are 32-bit instead of 16-bit, and the colors are livelier. Mega Man X looks more 3-D, in fact. He also has vocalization when he jumps and gets hurt, and when I have him charge his X-Buster and fire, he says, “Take this!” When he gets low on life energy, he says, “Time to get serious!” And the interesting part of it? I can sort of believe it now when other people who’ve played this game had said he sounded like a girl. I am not bothered by it at all. I know he sounds different from the voice he has in Mega Man: Maverick Hunter X. But I am not offended by it at all. It actually makes him more adorable to sound like that.  :3  As you play the game, X’s life energy gauge is one green unit, not little yellow notches like from X1-3. When he’s a third low, it turns yellow, and less than a fifth, it turns red.

The music is GREAT! I love every track that is used in the game so far. I love the music from the Snow Base and Volcano stages, but all of the music in this game is a big step from the music that is from MMX 2, even MMX 3. Since this game was made for the PlayStaion, there was more room to work with bigger levels and music that makes a Mega Man fan want to go to the pause menu to listen to it for a while.

Okay, so this time unlike MMX 3, there is a specific mission for each of the eight stages. It is not the usual “get to the end of the stage and defeat the Maverick Boss” stage. But the game play is pretty straight forward, so that X won’t get lost. I took note of the names of the stages: Jungle, Cyber Space, Air Force, Volcano, Marine Base, Bio Lab, Military Train, and Snow Base.

The menu screen has a very different feel to it. No more of that green everywhere and the little X standing next to the Mega Head that represents extra lives. Now X’s picture is on the bottom left side, in anime style (It will be interesting to see Zero’s pic for the menu). The weapons are on top and the energy gauge is green, and on the bottom there are slots for other items that X needs to pick up. One of them is a Sub-Tank, and I guess the other ones are...I don't know what they are for yet.  They are empty slots that have the letter "E" on it, and I guess the E stands for Energy.  I don't have an instruction manual for this game (it didn't come with it, just the disc of the collection did).  I am sure the purpose will reveal itself when it is time...

I tried the Jungle stage first. What is new is that each stage is going to have two halves to it, two parts if you will. At the end of the first part is a door, and when you go through it, it takes you to the next part of the stage. The Jungle stage was not so complicated, so I was glad I started with that one. But the boss for that stage, the Spider, was very difficult. After another batch of extra lives, I had to move on to another stage, so I tried the Snow Base. I was blown away by the mysterious-sounding music for this area. Like in MMX 3, the icy level makes X slide and slip on the ground, so I had to be cautious and guide him carefully so he doesn’t fall into an endless pit or a spiky pit. I ended up defeating the Walrus Maverick , and X got his Frost Tower attack. This will come in handy when I go to the Volcano stage.

Next I tried the Air Force stage, and there’s a ride armor that shoots and has a hovering ability. I reached the boss on my second batch of lives, but Storm Owl is too difficult to beat without the correct weapon. The last stage I visited was Volcano, where the Frost Tower did prove to be useful for protecting X from the rolling fireballs. This happens in the second half of the stage. I didn’t reach Magma Dragoon yet. But hey, I got a Sub-Tank from the Snow Base and the Frost Tower from Walrus.

[Sigh] That’s a whole lot of Mega Man X stuff there. Since I am the one playing MMX 4, it may be easier for me to post about my individual sessions with the game, but if I need to, I can combine two or three sessions into one post if not much happen between the few sessions.

Yay for Mega Man X!!! Yay for Zero!!!  ^,^ 

Extra: I also tried out the unlocked game Mega Man: Battle and Chase, just to see how it was like. It’s pretty entertaining. I think it’s less frustrating than Sonic [racing]. I love the music for this game too. It is a nice reward for completing half of the Mega Man X Collection. To get used to the gameplay I played as the little Mega Man in a Time Attack race. It got frustrating because I was in a mountainous area. Well, I learned my lesson. I chose Bass and raced against Quickman in a track called the Sky Circuit Chase 1. I lost, and Bass was frowning. Nyawwww. Then I chose little Mega Man to race against Bass. I learned how to shoot from the race car to slow Base down. That really helped me out toward the end. There were five laps to race, and we were neck and neck. Near the end, Bass was ahead of Mega Man, but at the last few seconds, I slowed Bass down with the shooting ability, and made it in first place just in time. Yay for Mega Man!  ^w^