Mega Man 4 / YMMV - TV Tropes

Awesome Music: Plenty. This is a Capcom game, after all.
- The regular boss battle theme is very fast phased compared to previous games.
- Pharaoh Man's Stage. Egyptian 8-bit Disco at its finest.
- Skull Man's Stage.
- The final boss theme is very intense and catchy for a ten-second loop.
Anti-Climax Boss: Dr. Cossack's Cossack Catcher, even without knowing how sliding affects him, is very simple for a Disc-One Final Boss. Exemplified by the fact that you don't need to empty his energy bar all the way before the fight suddenly ends.
Breather Boss:
- While Toad Man's stage can be very tricky, his boss fight is often considered a good contender for the easiest Robot Master fight in the series; he can be looped into an infinite pattern where he does nothing but jump. Alternatively, one can wait and shoot him once his invincibility frames wear off. He'll be locked into a vicious cycle where he just stands perfectly still and futilely tries activating Rain Flush, only to be interrupted each time.
- Dust Man is also relatively easy, so long as you know to jump straight up or slide away to avoid the imminent impact of his Dust Crusher and slide away or run away from his vacuum move that draws you towards him. Dust Man's hopping around the room does mean that you'll need to adjust your timing to compensate but it's not a huge deal.
- Pharaoh Man becomes a Zero-Effort Boss if you use the Flash Stopper against him, as he is the only boss in the game who is vulnerable to getting frozen by it.
- Aside from the unavoidable attack, Bright Man is not all that hard provided you are careful with his health points. He only uses Flash Stopper when his health reaches specific intervals. He'll be completely locked out of using it if a player first hits him with a regular buster shot, then finishes him off with nothing but fully-charged shots for the rest of the fight.
Breather Level: Pharaoh Man is by far the easiest level since there are no mini-bosses and the enemies are relatively easy to defeat. Additionally, If you know where to go to find the Balloon adapter, you can skip an entire portion of the stage.
Contested Sequel: While few call 4 a bad game, it can't help but fall into this territory when its predecessors are considered the best games in the series (and often the best games on the NES). Some consider this game the last great NES classic rather than 3 because this game introduced the charged Mega Buster shots and had the best weapon-balancing (in 2 and 3, half of the weapons could impact each Robot Master, but this game polishes the mechanic to give more focus to the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors, and lacks a Game-Breaker on the level of the Metal Blade), as well as being a pretty strong execution of the overall formula (good bosses, stages, and music). However, it was also the third game in a row to pretty much borrow 2's formula lock-stock-and-barrel, with the only real change being a Hijacked by Ganon incident.
Disappointing Last Level: While not quite as easy as the one from 3, this game's fortress stages usually contain at least one E-Tank each, and are quite barren of enemies later on. This game also marked the start of having shorter Wily Castles to fit in the mid-game stages, with this one only having two full stages, a short level leading up to the boss refights and Wily Machine, and a Boss-Only Level with the Wily Capsule.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Skull Man and Pharaoh Man have quite a few fans, thanks to their character designs and excellent stage music. Pharaoh Man got a massive boost thanks to his Ruby-Spears counterpart's badass voice, design, and him not taking Mega Man's shit. The Pharaoh Shot is also one of the best robot master weapons in the game.
- Toad Man because, despite his exploitable pattern, he possesses one of the most dangerous attacks in the game, and an intimidating design similar to Air Man. In-universe, he's perhaps one of the most dangerous robots due to his Rain Flush alone. The Rain Flush Mega Man gains from him is also a powerful screen-clearing attack. It's also possible that someone can find his design so amusing (a toad-based robot!) as to be memorable.
- Dust Man gained quite a few fans who see him as a Robot Master of the mechanical dead who looks deceptively innocent with his facial expression. It helps that his stage is relatively edgy with metal debris everywhere and frequent incinerators.
- Bright Man gets props for building on Flash Man's concept and granting a very effective improvement over the old Time Stopper with his Flash Stopper.
- Dr. Cossack and Kalinka have also gained quite a fanbase despite their limited appearances in the series.
Fanon:
- Fans love taking Dr. Cossack's Glorious Mother Russia aspects and cranking them up to eleven. The fact that his Supervillain Lair resembles features of the Saint Basil's Cathedral doesn't help.
- Skull Man's skull motif leads fans to believe that, unlike most of the other Cossack robots, Dr. Wily played some part in building him. How that plays into his relationship with the other Cossack numbers is then explored in further detail by fans.
- Because his stage is a giant junkyard full of discarded machines and broken parts, Dust Man's "modified robot sanitation worker" backstory for 4 is typically discarded and replaced with a variation of "robot grim reaper". He can even be teamed up with Junk Man due to both sharing a similar concept.
Fanon Discontinuity: Some hardcore fans like to consider Mega Man 3 the true final game of the classic Mega Man series, preferring to assume Dr. Wily died at the end of 3 and ignoring everything from 4 onwards. Some less hardcore fans like to consider the same of Mega Man 6, and ignore everything from Mega Man 7 onwards, while still others ignore only 7, 8, & Bass, and 11, considering only the classic NES style games (1-6, 9, and 10) to be canon.
Game-Breaker: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
Good Bad Bugs:
- When one uses the Flash Stopper, certain enemies that would normally be shielded from the Mega Buster lose that invulnerability. This means one can shoot Shield Attackers in their shielded side and destroy Skeleton Joes that are otherwise impervious to anything other than a charged Mega Buster/Pharaoh Shot attack.
- If you fight Pharaoh Man, there's a chance he may become stupid at a certain distance, and repeatedly stand in place charging-and-firing his Pharaoh Shot without end. If you are positioned to stand still and jump over his attacks, he can be destroyed in no time, even without the Flash Stopper available. It's a nice way to obtain the powerful and versatile Pharaoh Shot early.
- When fighting Tako Trash in Wily Castle 2, one can use the Drill Bomb to destroy the boss's hitboxes, allowing Mega Man to walk behind it without taking Collision Damage, shoot it from behind, and be completely safe from its fireballs and bombs.
- If the player leaves the room Eddie appears in before he teleports away, and without picking up the power-up he gives out, then Eddie will respawn when the player returns and revert back to walking towards them and giving them a power-up. Since the power-up given is always random, it gives the player an unlimited number of do-overs if they get an undesirable power-up (the only exception being rooms where Mega Man enters from the ceiling and can't leave and re-enter the room quickly.) This bug also works in Mega Man 5 and Mega Man 6.
- The Cossack Catcher has an unusual quirk in the AI, where it freezes in place for a second if you do certain things, such as sliding. Using the Wire Adaptor against it also seems to cause it to freeze the same way.
- When Rush Coil is used and Rush is called, Rush will teleport to Mega Man's place when he is harmed and will make him jump. This is useful in Pharaoh Man's stage.
- If you fire a Rain Flush shortly before defeating Wily Machine 4, the rain will destroy Dr. Wily as he flies off. The game softlocks, but the idea of Mega Man actu ally killing Dr. Wily makes it all worth it.
It Was His Sled: It's almost common knowledge by now that Dr. Cossack isn't the real villain.
Like You Would Really Do It: While a lot of players genuinely did believe on their first play-through that Dr. Cossack had replaced Dr. Wily as the Big Bad, a lot of them worked out when they got to the battle with Cossack without any Robot Master refights that he wasn't really the main villain.
Memetic Loser: Toad Man somehow manages to be both this and an Ensemble Dark Horse at the same time. Despite having a cool (or amusing) design and a great weapon, his actual boss fight is laughably easy. Much like Spark Mandrill in X1, one can very easily get him into a stun-lock pattern for the whole fight, and unlike Mandrill, you don't even need his weakness to do it.^* Even the minibosses in Toad Man's stage are more threatening than he is.
Retroactive Recognition: Dust Man was designed by Yusuke Murata, who would later be known for the art of Eyeshield 21 and the manga version of One-Punch Man.
Scrappy Weapon: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
Sequel Difficulty Drop: Is considerably easier than the first three games, while still having some difficult moments notheless.
That One Boss:
- Bright Man, unless you know his HP pattern where he won't use his That One Attack. If not, he will stun you with his Signature Attack and jump on you with massive collision damage.
- Dive Man is notable as a boss that is extremely easy if you know how he works, but a nightmare if you don't. As long as you stay on the other side of the room from him, simply spamming the Mega Buster will destroy his missiles and damage him in the process with little risk, and it's fairly easy to jump to the opposite side when he does his charge. Try to fight him at close range, or fail to escape him? Then he's an absolute nightmare who will try to ram you to death with surprisingly high damage, both incredibly aggressive and rather hard to get a bead on. What puts him here, though, is that his weakness, Skull Barrier, requires you to try to get close to him, meaning people trying to use his weakness on him will have a much tougher time.
- Pharaoh Man if you don't have his weakness (if you do, he's a pushover), as he's really fast, throws many fast projectiles while he jumps, and can fire a high-damage wave that crosses the whole screen.
- Then there's the erratic Ring Man, who can cause huge collision damage and counterattack if you shoot him on the ground. Even with his weakness, you can still die easily if you don't know how to handle his movements. However, if you know how his pattern work, he's much easier to defeat even without the Pharaoh Shot.
- Wily Machine 4, if you don't know that you can detonate the Drill Bomb in mid-flight. This can lead to having to resort to Outside The Box Tactics such as trying the Wire, Rush Jet, or Rush Coil in an attempt to hit that just-out-of-reach weak spot. (You actually can hit it with a normal jump and a Mega Buster shot, but the hitbox is kind of a narrow window. It's also normal for players to think the weak spot is Dr. Wily's cockpit— which it normally is in these games— when it’s actually that blue bulb immediately below his cockpit.
That One Level:
- The end of Bright Man's stage is very difficult and frustrating. You have to jump on moving platforms while dodging the projectiles of the 100 Watton lightbulb enemies. Oh, and don't shoot said bots, as doing so will black out the screen.
- Ring Man's stage can be very difficult due to having numerous instant-death hazards, troubling enemy placement, and four Mini Bosses. It's even worse if you're trying to clear it without taking damage and limiting yourself to just the Mega Buster, as Roahm Mythril has done (with an effect on his sanity). Ring Man himself is no pushover either if you don't know how to deal with his attack patterns. (If you do, he's conversely very easy.)
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: A rather controversial opinion of some fans who grew a little tired of Dr. Wily and thought having a different villain would actually make sense for the series— though granted, this, later on, became somewhat of a joke with how Wily is always the villain.
Toy Ship: Mega Man x Kalinka seems to be pretty popular. It helps that Complete Works includes artwork of Kalinka giving Mega Man a kiss.
Underused Game Mechanic: The secret Wire and Balloon adapters make some areas easier but aren't required for much beyond accessing a secret path in Cossack's Citadel and some otherwise inaccessible power ups; the Wire is also usable against Wily Machine 4. The idea of secret adapters that open optional hidden areas is a concept that could have been explored to boost replay value to the game by allowing alternate routes through more stages.
Vindicated by History: Nowadays, this game has earned more appreciation rather than being seen as an unnecessary sequel.

YMMV / Mega Man 4

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