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Mega Man 4 - Ridley X Hack 1

Levels: Good

Graphics: Okay

Music: No Change

Enemies: Bad (occasionally Eh)

Bosses: Eh (few room changes)

Weapons: No Change

Castle: Okay

Difficulty: MEDIUM (occasionally MEDIUM-HARD)

Comments: With the charge buster at your disposal, Mega Man games from 4 onwards have always struggled to make its enemy lineup threatening to the player. Ridley X remedies this with a big fat cudgel: multiplying enemy HP. It's a blunt and ugly solution, one that slows down the gameplay to an exhausting level (seriously, try Toad Man or Dust Man's levels). For a mostly vanilla hack the level design does a good job challenging the player, but you can't shake the feeling that the hack feels cheap, from making multiple enemies immune to the mega buster to minibosses that take forever to bring down. And things only get worse when you get to the Cossack/Wily stages, where the cause of death is often due to intentional trolling. Ridley X Hack 1 isn't the worst, but it's a pain in the ass to play through.

An enjoyable hack, but despite the high points, there are also some low points like an enemy from Pharaoh Man's stage being invulnerable to buster. It wasn't that way in the ye olde original.