(Played on PC via the X Legacy Collection... but as of my birthday I now actually own a physical copy of this games PC release)

X1
X2
X3
X5
X6
X7
X8
Xtreme
Xtreme 2

With a new generation of consoles comes brand new hardware to take advantage of, and Capcom absolutely went guns blazing with the new hardware as seen in Mega Man X4, the first proper Mega Man X game to not be developed for the SNES. This game marked a few notable shifts in the X series: this is was the first X game in which Keiji Inafune did not have a role in the promotional artwork, instead being primarily handled by Haruki Suetsugu from this point till Mega Man X6. This was also when the writers started trying harder to create a more ambitious plot that would interlink across multiple games, a practice first tried in X2. Lastly, some gameplay mechanics would undergo changes here that would become staples in later games. Also this doesn't link into any points in my review but I thought I'd share another random bit of history like in my X3 review: in that same review I mentioned that Sony had an extremely stingy attitude towards 2D games being on the PS1 as they were looking for more 3D games on that system, therefore leading to the PS1 version of Mega Man X3 never releasing in North America until the PS2/GameCube X Collection in 2006. Sonys stances also led to Mega Man X4 never getting released like X3, but Capcom fired back by threatening to not release future games for the PS1, most notably Resident Evil 2, quickly leading to Sony breaking out of that attitude as losing a game like RE2 would be WAY too detrimental for the PS1s overall library, so they noped out and both western territories would fortunately get X4. Also goes to show the faith and respect that Capcom had for Mega Man in the 90s, whatever happened to that attitude?

Speaking of gameplay, Zero's back to kick ass alongside X, and his attacks have underwent a MASSIVE re-imagining from X3, where he just felt like X but with a larger hitbox and occasionally swung with his saber. Once you get past the main menu you have to pick between playing as X or Zero, and you're locked with whoever you pick here for the rest of your playthrough (all that changes is a couple of bosses, and that Zero has no armor capsules to find). However I usually just stick with X due to a certain boss later on in the game that's a complete pain in the ass with Zero, but more on that whenever I get around to the bosses. So what does Zero bring to the table compared to X? Well, unlike in X3, his combat revolves ENTIRELY around his saber, while there he only really uses it for one attack while mostly sticking to his Buster in that game, which ironically enough is completely absent in X4. His saber swings all pack a punch and his moves can all be seamlessly interlinked into longer combos that also pack a punch against enemies and can be used to tear through bosses HP. Furthermore, like how X can acquire new special weapons when defeating bosses, Zero will acquire new techniques which are naturally integrated into his moveset when he gets them, rather than something you have to manually equip (it is worth noting that Zeros techniques are tied to a separate button from his regular attacks, what button it is varies on the version you're playing on). His techniques range from standard utility like a double jump or an air dash, gap-closers or even a screen nuke. However this power comes at a price, and like in X3 Zero naturally has lower defenses than X, but fortunately it isn't to the extremes at it was in that game. Furthermore outside of the aforementioned screen nuke, Zero does not have any sort of ranged attacks, you MUST get up close and personal with enemies to do any damage to them. This accumulates in a specific boss in the fortress levels that's just a complete pain in the ass to fight as Zero. I'll wait till I discuss the bosses before really going into detail on it, but for that sole reason I stick to X more often when I play X4 despite Zero himself being a fun and unique twist on the standard Mega Man X format, but I still really do enjoy the odd playthrough here and there where I use Zero outside of that boss. Anyway, the core gameplay is identical to X2 and X3, but as this game has more detailed sprites than the SNES games then that does lead to some actions feeling significantly different to use, most notably the dash, where you can really see the extra frames of windup and endlag involved with that action here than in X1-3, but to combat that you can make more use of dash jumps to help maintain the smoother movement that the SNES X games had. Another minor change introduced in X4 is that X can still use regular Buster attacks WHILE having a special weapon ready, allowing you to approach bosses in a MUCH more strategic/flexible fashion IMO as it allows you to get some quick hits in with your X-Buster while using their weakness to reset their pattern out of a bothersome attack. Now that I think about it's moreso of a gamechanger for Xs combat if anything rather than just a minor addition.

X4s level design also underwent a major revision. Stages are now split into two separate halves that are split up by a loading screen. Getting a game over now only sends you back to the start of whatever section of the stage you're in rather than back to the stage select, therefore kinda reducing the impact of lives as the penalty for getting a game over is drastically reduced compared to the SNES games. That's not to say the levels themselves aren't fun however, far from it. These are some of the most masterfully-crafted levels in the entire series, with not a single one feeling overall intrusive to the broader experience. You have stages like the Volcano (Magma Dragoon) or Cyberspace (Cyber Peacock) that have an emphasis on platforming, with the latter also having an emphasis on speed alongside that as you must get through sections within a certain time limit to get items. You also have stages like Air Force (Storm Owl) or Military Train (Slash Beast) where the platforming is more laid back in place of blasting your way through enemy hordes with some of the coolest setpieces in the game visually. Furthermore, even the fortress stages in this game are designed in such a way to take full advantage of the special weapons/techniques that X/Zero have acquired throughout the game down to the enemy placements and specific platforming sections, something that I wish other fortress stages in the X series did as well. Unfortunately I do have a few gripes with X4s level design, in particular the second part of Cyber Peacocks stage, which introduces this anti-gravity gimmick and... doesn't really do anything with it. No puzzles that gradually become more complex, no items that are placed in a way to take advantage of this... just an extremely linear section with the anti-gravity feature just making it look like a puzzle rather than actually being one. Furthermore, the last fortress stage features both the signature boss rush AND the final boss, so if you leave to fill up your E-Tanks for the final boss then you have to do the boss rush again.

That brings me into X4s item game. The 4 armor capsules and 8 Life Ups are back, but the E-Tanks in particular have been tweaked significantly: in the SNES games you could get up to 4 E-Tanks which were all dedicated to restoring HP, but here there's just 3 E-Tanks, and only 2 of them are dedicated to restoring HP while the 3rd is dedicated to restoring special weapon energy. This is a cool idea on paper to help give the E-Tanks more function than just health recovery, but because of the abilities that X gains from his armor in this game then it ends up becoming one of the most worthless items in the entire game, but at least it actually becomes useful in the later X games. Anyway speaking of armor, X4 also kicked off another new trend for the series: multiple armor sets in the same game starting on the Fourth Armor. The Head piece enables X to use his special weapons without expending ANY energy (as long as he doesn't charge them up), and that's why the special weapon E-Tank comes off as being worthless. The Chest piece gives X the usual 50% damage reduction alongside being able to convert damage taken into energy for the Nova Strike: a special attack where X is propelled forward while doing a shit tonne of damage to enemies and bosses. There's 2 Buster pieces this time around, one of which enabling X to use the Stock Charge Shot, where he stores up to 4 charge shots and fire them back to back, and the other enabling X to use the Plasma Shot, where he fires this HUGE ball of plasma that leaves behind plasma orbs as it travels that absolutely shreds stage enemies (both of them enable charged special weapons too). And the Leg piece gives X the air dash alongside the ability to hover for a few seconds. Very solid set of armor overall, with the leg pieces hover kind of getting in the way outside of the final boss where it's an extremely nice tool to have. I also usually stick with the Plasma Shot as it's simply a more powerful charge attack that's in line with almost every other buster upgrade, but from time to time (such as in my last playthrough of X4) I'll mix it up by taking the Stock Charge Shot and it's actually a pretty underrated ability as you can quickly get through bosses health bars with it, and it's surprisingly fun despite the time it takes to get used to it. But that's not the end of Xs armors in this game, as this game also sees the introduction of the Ultimate Armor. Mechanically-wise it's identical to the Fourth Armor with the Plasma Shot, but you can use the Nova Strike an unlimited amount of times rather than having to build up the energy to use it first. As this is an absolutely game-breaking set of armor, the only way to get it is via a secret chain of button inputs on the main menu, and there isn't a single point in X4 that I think is hard enough to warrant using the Ultimate Armor. Zero also his own secret button input chain that turns him into Black Zero, that in this game is nothing more than a palette swap of Zero that strangely still keeps the red afterimages of Zero during his dash. Anyway X4 also has an entirely new item called the EX Tank which increases your default amount of extra lives from 2 to 4. This also just feels worthless as it was introduced in the first X game to not seriously penalize you for getting a game over, and unlike the first 3 X games there is no secret capsule that only appears after getting all the other items, giving less incentive to get this outside of a pure 100% save file. Additionally, X4s items just don't feel as rewarding to get imo as only a few of them are placed in actually clever spots, but there are still a few that I enjoy getting such as the Buster capsule or the items in the Marine Base.

Mega Man X4 as I alluded to earlier also puts a lot more effort into the plot. I don't feel like describing it all so I'll just discuss my general opinions on it here. Anyway, the higher-ups of Repliforce are some of the BIGGEST fucking morons I've ever seen in any form of fictional media. The entire plot of this game could've been EASILY avoided if they didn't have the mindset of "DERRRRR MUH PRIDE" and actually followed the advice of the Maverick Hunters, allowing them to clear their image while avoiding this whole war in the first place. The Maverick Hunters themselves are also at fault as well, primarily due to how fucking direct with their statement to the Colonel that Repliforce will be considered as Mavericks rather than slowly explaining the whole situation to them while also allowing them to give their side of the situation too. I will say however that Double is one of the greatest and most hammy villains in the whole X series (partly due to the voice acting he has, more on that in a later paragraph), with the plot very carefully teasing the twist that he's a bad guy throughout. Furthermore, each of the boss intros features a short sentence outlining just exactly why you're even fighting these guys, which while small, amounts to giving the stage bosses more character than what the bosses across the first 3 games had, so that's neat.

Rant on the plot over, so that brings me onto X4s bosses, which are some of the most well-designed bosses in the series. Their patterns are a LOT more varied than X3s bosses but none of them reach the point where you'll be at them for ages without using weaknesses on your first time around. Storm Owl, Magma Dragoon and Double in particular stood out as being my favorite bosses from X4, the former two having a fair and varied pattern but they can absolutely fuck you up if you aren't careful, and Double in particular feeling like an X3 boss as his pattern his very basic that actually becomes more challenging if you try and use his weakness. Anyway that brings me onto my next point regarding the bosses. Remember how I stated that I usually stick with X in my X4 runs because of a specific boss that's a complete fucking pain in the ass to beat as Zero? That boss is the General of the Repliforce who's fought in the fortress stage. FUCK THIS GUY, he's very reminiscent of Kaiser Sigma from X3 (both are fat fucks that have a weakpoint that's the size of a peanut), but General takes more of a beating WHILE doing comparable damage to Kaiser Sigma, and the General isn't even the final boss of X4! He's simple enough as X, but as Zero it's a LOT more painful due to Zero having no ranged attacks at all that work against him (you can try his screen nuke but that'll just pelt off his armor), and due to Zeros lack of armor upgrades, Generals attacks hit him way harder than they do to X. This is a fight that boils down to pixel-perfect positioning, and hell even the final Sigma battle felt like a joke as Zero compared to this fat fuck with the difference in difficulty. (22/10/2023 post-review note: so I decided to do another playthrough of X4 as Zero this evening and when I got to the General fight I kicked his ass without even using an E-Tank, and I haven't even played X4 in a few weeks. Was I wrong after all?)

Well fuck I followed up one rant with another rant, but fortunately I have a lot of good things to say about X4s presentation. At the start of the review I alluded to the fact that the devs made full use of the 5th generation hardware when making this game, and believe me, they fucking did, with it showing as early as the FUCKING CAPCOM TITLE CARD at the beginning of the game. This game opts to use sprite-based graphics as Mega Man games traditionally did as opposed to going in the 3D direction like many other games in this time, and that resulted in this game having absolutely TIMELESS visuals in an era where like 80% of the games have visually held up like hot fucking garbage. I'd even go as far as to admit that it's the best looking game on the PS1 IMO, as even compared to other sprite-based titles on that system, X4 is on a league of its own. Additionally like with X3s PS1 port and Mega Man 8, X4 features FMV cutscenes to help present the story. The animation in them is decent... but the English voice acting is not at all decent. X4s voice acting is something that's been the topic of jokes and memes for years so I won't dwell on it too much but I will just share some of the more notable instances of this games shitty voice acting so anyone who reads this can see for themselves. This flashback cutscene of Sigmas encounter with Zero that would lead to Sigma becoming a Maverick stands out due to the surprisingly good choreography in that fight alongside the serviceable voice acting, making it easily my favorite of this games cutscenes and one that I usually don't skip. Additionally, the original Japanese voice acting is actually really fucking good for the games entire duration and I'd recommend checking out those versions of the cutscenes whenever you get the chance to. The OST is also jam-packed with really good tracks too fortunately, but that's to be expected from a Mega Man X game. I said in my review on X3 that that games OST was my favorite X OST but I think I said that pre-maturely as I can't decide between that, this and a certain other X game on which is my actual favorite (shout outs in X4s ost go to both Intro Stage themes, Cyber Peacocks theme, Jet Stingrays theme, Storm Owls theme and Slash Beasts theme). Definitely give it a listen whenever you feel like it as it consistently stays great throughout it.

In conclusion, Mega Man X4 is an absolutely amazing Mega Man X experience in both gameplay and visuals that is also a good starting point into the series now that I think about it due to the generous level design and how you aren't as punished for getting a game over. Both X and Zero have extremely fun and rewarding gameplay styles and the new tools that they acquire are also very fun to mess around with. The visuals are absolutely amazing for 5th gen standards and the soundtrack is great, although the plot isn't so hot and the voice acting has certainly showed its age, but with the core gameplay and levels being so fun then does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? Anyway that's it for the first half of the X series, one that's regarded to contain games of very consistent quality, as after this point come the games that make up the VERY divisive second half of the X series, starting with Mega Man X5, again for the PS1/PC. That's one that people either love or hate with no inbetween, so that should be interesting to review.