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Four games in, Mega Man 4's weapon energy management suffers from the same flaws as its predecessors where getting killed at critical points with low weapon energy puts you at a massive disadvantage, and makes each subsequent boss attempt harder. The weapon costs and uses seem well-balanced here, but the new Charged Shot drastically changes the whole dynamic in interesting ways that are more nuanced than in past games.

Like its four previous iterations, this patch does wonders to ensure that you get a fair fighting chance each and every time, but many of the enemies and sub-bosses are designed in a way where you're expected to experiment with your fancy new Charged Shot. It doesn't reduce your dependency on your other weapons though; even with the Charged Shot, the weapons in this game are interesting enough that I still found myself wanting to see how far I could get Bright Flashing everything, or tossing fully-charged Pharoah Flames.

Things get a bit more interesting once you reach the bosses. In past games, many had unforgiving attack patterns that would crush the average player, so getting the right weapons was a big deal. Here, the bosses are still hard but the dodging window is a little wider, so with a bit of dexterity, you could beat them using your Buster. Weapon energy costs seem very reasonable as well, so the hack isn't quite as critical here as it was in the previous three games, but it's a good safety net if things go bad.

Just as before, this hack is exceptionally helpful in places where you need Rush for long stretches of perilous travel, and as always, you will inevitably encounter said stretches. Keeping Rush topped off after getting killed is a massive improvement, and gives so much more value to extra lives than before.

Overall, while the new Charged Shot and decent weapon energy costs offer more wiggle room for error than in the first three games, the patch still does wonders for this entry. Just like before, if you know the ins and outs, it won't affect you much, but it's a huge boon for newcomers that will likely get killed often and need the refills for subsequent boss attempts or Rush traversal sections. Totally worth a download.

All of this author's Mega Man hacks are incredibly useful.

I highly recommend them all, and hope he continues to make them for all the rest of the games lacking these features, including the excellent Game Boy and SNES games, as well as Wily Wars on the Genesis.

This is my nostalgic childhood Megaman game. So I want to start by saying that this hack is a good addition to this game. But let's say it's more of an optional game than a substitution per se. I would say it's an Easy Mode for a game that lacked that.

Because of you think about it, part of the fun of the original game is to use your ammo carefully, which is kind of a strategy.

So I think this hack would be for those who want to use the ammo at will knowing that it will be restored on the next try. Having said that, I will be eternally grateful if the author makes this modification not only for this game, which is my favorite by far, but to all the other five. Thanks a lot! Leo.