It's a Mega Man X game, alright. There are some prominent new additions to the formula, of course; the voice acting is hilarious, and finally getting to play as Zero feels fantastic, even if a few of his unlockable moves feel clunky in practice. It's a pretty cool prototype for the Mega Man Zero games, if nothing else.
Like basically any retro platformer, the game would be more fun with save states at checkpoints than with the lives system it actually uses. (I played this on the Mega Man X Legacy Collection. Naturally, Capcom didn't bother including save states in this latest release of the game. This wasn't an issue for a while; I just played the game as designed. But at the final boss, I had to close the game. Luckily, I saved. Except saving there doesn't actually record your progress through the preceding 8-boss gauntles, even though you get a checkpoint right before Sigma if you just bother to leave the game running. God forbid you be momentarily unable to reschedule your life around Mega Man X4. That's the kind of silly time-wasting I can almost forgive in an older game, but which I would expect a port to at least offer an optional fix for. Any emulator on earth could solve that problem.) Yes, I will die on this hill.
While most of the levels and bosses are a reasonable difficulty--some surprisingly easy with the right tools--there are a few spikes that made this game feel less refined than X1. X4 is Mega Man X at its most, but not necessarily its best.
Like basically any retro platformer, the game would be more fun with save states at checkpoints than with the lives system it actually uses. (I played this on the Mega Man X Legacy Collection. Naturally, Capcom didn't bother including save states in this latest release of the game. This wasn't an issue for a while; I just played the game as designed. But at the final boss, I had to close the game. Luckily, I saved. Except saving there doesn't actually record your progress through the preceding 8-boss gauntles, even though you get a checkpoint right before Sigma if you just bother to leave the game running. God forbid you be momentarily unable to reschedule your life around Mega Man X4. That's the kind of silly time-wasting I can almost forgive in an older game, but which I would expect a port to at least offer an optional fix for. Any emulator on earth could solve that problem.) Yes, I will die on this hill.
While most of the levels and bosses are a reasonable difficulty--some surprisingly easy with the right tools--there are a few spikes that made this game feel less refined than X1. X4 is Mega Man X at its most, but not necessarily its best.