Categories
PSX Sony

Mega Man X4

Since Zero playthrough went so well, I decided to give X a try, although I always found him more difficult. Maybe I was wrong. What you do need, though, is to remap your controls: I put dash on left bumper, regular attack on right trigge and special attack on right bumper. Because you need them all at the same time. How people play with default mapping is beyond me.

X’s regular attack is basically a peashooter, but his fully charged attack is quite good. And since his attacks are ranged, the bosses I struggled with as Zero, such as Spider and Stringray, are much more manageable. You still need to master the evade for the Spider, though.
The playthrough this time was Dragon, because always start with Dragon, then Walrus, as he’s still vulnerable to fire, unlike Peacock, then Spider, then Stingray, which is easy with Walrus’ weapon.
Colonel is still vulnerable to Ice, for some reason, just like with Zero.
Then both Mushroom is vulnerable to Spider’s web, and Lion to Stingrays. And Owl fight with Peacock’s weapon is laughable.
Overall, I feel like X gameplay is much easier than Zero, because his weapons realy exploit their weaknesses. During the General fight, which I found to be thoughtest with Zero, I literally took no damage with X.

First two phases of Sigma are also easy. Third one is just… long. Unlike the first two phases, this one doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses. So you just go through the annoying phases over and over until it dies.
It is more than 5 minutes of real time. I know, because I recorded only last 5 minutes of it.

I had to pause the game to give my fingers a rest at one point.
But now, I can say I’ve done it. Finished Mega Man X4, 28 years later 😆

Categories
PSX Sony

Mega Man X4

Completed Mega Man X4 with Zero, fulfilling my childhood dream, one might say.
While Colonel is manageable, Zero against the General is another story. His only vulnerable part is the head, but touching it, or any other part of the body hurts Zero. I had to backtrack to get the second energy tank, and refill it in the Walrus stage, and beat Iris again just to be ready for this fight.

Then you need to beat the 8 animal bosses again. This sounds terrifying, but there are a few caveats to that challenge. You do get to replenish some life between the fights, and if you die, you don’t need to repeat the gauntlet all over, the killed bosses stay dead.

The final boss is all-in-all not that hard. First phase is extremely predictable. Second phase requires some well timed wall jumps, but still doable. The only challenge is to have enough life for the third phase. And the third phase is total random. I got lucky with the “alien” shooting above Zero’s head over and over.

Categories
Emulation Nintendo PSX Sony Switch

Mega Man X4

I always had a special relationship with Mega Man X4. It was the first Mega Man game I’ve seen, because for a strange reason, it was ported to PC. But also, many years later, while trying Mega Man X3 and Mega Man X5 I understood that it hit the sweet spot of looking amazing, unlike X3 which still had SNES era visuals, but still having solid core gameplay, unlike X5.

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What I didn’t understand as a kid is that Dragoon literally screams “hadouken” and “shouryuken”, because his moveset is basically Ryu/Ken from Street Fighter.

Retro-Arch-Screenshot-2024-10-14-21-20-17-54

For some strange reason, Mega Man X Legacy Collection on Switch doesn’t have save states. I rarely use them nowadays, but Mega Man without them is still brutal.
My path is Dragon, which can be beaten with exosuit, and I think that’s the easy choice. Then Peacock, turned out to be easy as well with the fire sword. Then Walrus, for obvious reasons.

Then Lion, you just need to dodge the stomps. And Stingray, despite being weak to the Walrus weapon, can also be taked out with a saber, you can jump safely underneath.

The most trouble, I had with the spider. You need to dash-jump to avoid the homing webs, and even then, I feel that sometimes it’s very hard to do, as his position is quite random.

With Spider weapon, Mushroom is easy. And I left Owl for the last, although with Peacock’s weapon, I could have done it much sooner.