The Mega Man ROMhacking scene's cooled down a lot recently, but back then there were a lot of them, putting their unique spin on one of the classics. 2 and 5 are generally the most popular targets for this, though 6 had some promising stuff at one point.
Ever since Rockman 4 Minus Infinity, nobody's really tried to make a proper custom-heavy ROMhack for Mega Man 4. And that's completely fair- that hack is an absolute juggernaut in every respect.
But, in 2019 came Mega Man 4 Voyage by DurfarC and MartsINY, a hack that can hang comfortably with the big boys like No Constancy and Install Metal. It boasts custom bosses, weapons, and an entirely original score. That last part is a huge rarity in ROMHacks, since usually most of them just port music from other sources into 8-bit formats- and it's filled with bangers. And yet, unlike a lot of heavily custom hacks, this one epitomizes restraint- it's perfectly approachable even for casual players.
(Well, outside of a couple hiccups in the endgame, but I'll get to those later.)
GAMEPLAY ALTERATIONS:
Right off the bat, there's a fair few things to note. Mega Man's Charge Shot has been upgraded to use its sprite from Mega Man 5, for one thing. But don't worry- it's nowhere near as busted as that, just a bigger hitbox. You can also quickswap between weapons by pressing the Select button, holding Down to go back through the list.
But the real important thing are the weapons. Not all of them are particularly different- Dive Missile, Rain Flush, and Flash Stopper are practically identical outside of a power boost and different ammo consumption. But the others are noticeably different enough to surprise you.
Skull Shield may look the same, but it's made so much better by the fact that it continually stays active and does damage on contact with enemies, only draining when it hits something.
Dust Spread is an entire spread shot, and honestly far more effective than Dust Crusher ever was.
Drill Blaster is a short-range explosive shot, but if you miss, it comes
right back to you and gives back some of your energy. It's great for
wiping out foes. It lacks the timing feature of Drill Bomb, but you won't really need it.
Sadly, Pharaoh Shot got the biggest nerf. Pharaoh Gust just autofires the weakest level of that weapon, and it's pretty pathetic- though still useful for chopping down some stationary midbosses.
However, that sin is more than made up for by RING ORBITER. It's my favorite weapon in the game, being a spinning ring that arcs
around you with a button press. It's great for dealing with pesky
enemies that swoop in fast, and the lax energy cost makes it incredibly spammable.
As for the utilities, Rush's three variations are the same as ever, but Balloon and Wire are replaced by Spike Guard, which protects you from spikes, and Speed Boost, which lets you go fast. They're hidden away in little mini-stages throughout, though... they're honestly not that useful, sadly.
(Granted, Wire was never that useful to begin with, but still.)
GRAPHICS:
The custom tilesets in this game look VERY good. If any of them are from somewhere else (other than Ring Man's stage using Hornet Man's tileset) I have no idea. But even more than that, it's full of great little aesthetic touches. Like the angry eyes on the Saturn enemy- look at him! He moves so slow, but he's filled with rage.
MUSIC:
This hack has an entirely original score, and I have to shoutout a few specific ones.
Dust Man's theme is a great, driving piece that still carries the melancholy from Dust Man's usual schtick, but charges it with a faster tempo and generally more upbeat vibe.
Bright Man's theme is a fast, industral piece that fits the intensity of the Force Beams bearing down on you, really giving off that "electric factory" mood.
Dive Man's theme is way too good for the generally sedate and easy stage that he has, those thick percussion hits at the start get stuck in your head and then it's off to the races.
Fake Wily Stage 1 really feels like "what if Mega Man 4 had a song like MM2 Wily 1?" It's driving and intense.
Castle Boss #1 is a great tune that lets you know things are getting serious, fitting for the spike in difficulty in the fortress bosses.
Fake Wily Stage 4 is my favorite tune in the hack- it was used for the game's trailer, and I was waiting to hear it properly ever since. It feels triumphant, like the climax of the hack- which, given where it's placed, is exactly what it should be.
The Alien's boss theme is my favorite boss theme in it- such a unique boss deserves a theme all its own, and it delivers. It's REALLY good, with whacky time signature putting you on edge for the weird experiment of fighting it.
Real Wily Stage 3 really nails the "end is approaching" vibe, spurring you on through the refights. The 4th stage's song continues that vibe, with extra finality.
Wily Capsule's theme is REALLY frantic, great for a boss with so many moving parts that you have to worry about.
I could go on more, but really, you can't go wrong with any of these songs, they're all SO good.
BOSSES, PART 1: ROBOT MASTERS REFURBISHED
The bosses are the part of the game I have the most to say about, so I'll split my blathering about them into two sections. This first one will cover the Robot Masters.
To start off with Dive Man, he traded his usual rushing maneuvers for summoning missiles inside bubbles, that hit the spiked ceiling and home in on you. Like the enemies in his stage, they can get out of hand FAST if you're not careful, so dealing with them is a must.
The attack where he rises up from the bottom of the screen with missiles around him is a bit tricky to deal with, but once you remember that he moves far slower than his projectiles, you just stay above him and slip through the gap. It's manageable once you get it down... sometimes.
Skull Man is one of the simpler ones, but his attack had me giggling. Literally tossing his Skull Barrier at you across the room, and BOUNCING IT ON HIS HEAD is an inspired touch, very different from usual shield boss tactics.
Drill Man has some devious attacks, where he summons a drill directly underneath, and then two to either side, which you still have to jump straight up to dodge the explosions- it's a great way to punish you for excess movement. The one where he emerges and summons drills from underground, is less predictable, but patience and careful observation will win the day.
Ring Man is very elaborate boss, summoning Yellow Devil-esque patterns, scattering his rings on the ground only to draw them back in, swinging around like he's a trapeze artist...
Oh, and a desperation move where he turns the entire screen into a deathtrap of constantly moving rings for a few seconds. Definitely the most elaborate Robot Master fight, and in my opinion one of the best. Dodging and weaving around all his moves is great fun.
It's not hard to make Toad Man harder than his original form, but actively punishing you by activating Rain Flush if you shoot him while he's dancing had me burst out laughing. It even comes with a buzzer noise! Other than that, he just jumps around like usual, with an occasional high leap scattering projectiles. He's still not too tough, but he's not brainless anymore either.
Dust Man is quite a complicated fight, kind of like Search Man's in a way. He'll hide in junk blocks that drop from the ceiling, but the ones he's not in will spawn turrets, so it's a heck of a lot to deal with.
The attack where he fires a lot of destructible blocks at you looks intimidating, but just making short hops and blasting them away is enough to clear your path. This fight's hectic to be sure- but once you know what you're doing, it's a great time.
Bright Man isn't too tough, aside from his teleporting move. Turning Flash Stopper into a regular move he can do that's telegraphed takes out a lot of the difficulty of his original fight, so it's arguably easier- but much more fair in my opinion. A definite improvement over his old fight.
The real highlight, though, is the boss. Pharaoh Man has some ferocious attacks here, where he levitates off the ground and dashes around like a maniac. Or standing in place, summoning Pharaoh Shots from the side, then tossing his waves at you to dodge simultaneously.
Or the coolest part, where he summons walls of blocks that you have to shoot gaps into to dodge!
Yeah, Pharaoh Man here is probably the least recognizable from his vanilla MM4 counterpart, and it's so cool. Definitely one of the best bosses in the initial eight.
Overall, the Robot Masters have a HUGE facelift from their original incarnations, with new attacks out the wazoo. None of them are too difficult, though- they're just right and roughly equivalent to each other, exactly what you want in a Mega Man game.
GIMMICKS GALORE
For the most part, the levels aren't long or interesting enough for me to have a lot to say about them, so I'm just covering the most unique parts of each.
Ring Man has these flying rings that wrap around horizontally across the screen, moving pretty fast. I wish they appeared more often, but they're a great and unique hazard.
(Shoutouts to the secret stage entrance here- note the transition!)
The drilling fish in Dive Man's stage pop out from these sideways gaps, but only once. Which is good- if they were like Up'N'Downs, they'd be pretty infuriating.
The main feature of Skull Man's stage are fake blocks. Normally there's an obvious tell that they're fake- but damn, that tell is REALLY small here- look at the rightmost and leftmost dots on each segment.
Once you know what you're looking for, it's fine, but this is another example of MM4 Voyage promoting being slow and steady- and not exactly to its benefit, this time.
THESE fake blocks, however, have no obvious tell that I can see. There are the slinky enemies that expose them, which is neat... but still, there should have been SOMETHING visually to see that. Once you kill the slinkies, it's back to trial and error. At least there's no pits.
Toad Man somehow got himself stuck with the ice stage, with destructible blocks that you can only shoot out one at a time. I love this room in particular, it's a great little combat puzzle. Methodically breaking the ice blocks to not get hit the hockey pucks forces you to stop and think for a second. Or you could just use Ring Orbiter to break everything, but that's the nature of Mega Man, heh.
The second half of that stage, however, takes you inside where you have to deal with the holographic Mega Men from MM10. This room in particular where you outrun like five of them while blasting through Shield Attackers is great stuff.
Drill Man's stage is fairly normal, but the highlight is this chase with the giant drills. Dodging the giant rocks, and shooting away the caterpillar enemies, all while running like hell from the threat of instant death... it's great stuff.
In the first part of Dust Man's stage, you'll be pushed to the left in the air- REALLY hard. With these altered physics, even simple jumps like these one-tile-wide cliffs become life or death situations. It's very creative, and a neat twist on restricted movement.
This elevator segment is pretty cool, having to dodge the lasers that move to your vertical axis while enemies spawn in. (Please excuse the lack of Mega Man being present, sprite flicker is a thing.)
In Pharaoh Man's stage, the quicksand is a LOT more powerful than before, able to suck you down quick. Probably the hardest room is this one, with all the bats and Shield Attackers, especially with you having to fight against the quicksand.
Bright Man, though... he has my favorite of the Robot Master stages, with a neat twist on the usual darkness gimmick. The Off/On bars turn the lights on and off when you touch them. Such a gimmick COULD be incredibly annoying, but there's few pits to worry about, so there's little trial and error to be found here. Just quick bursts of darkness that force you to remember where you're jumping, and think on your feet.
But that's not it, either. There are Force Beam segments, but thankfully they don't instakill, instead simply draining your HP. Though, even if they did, I've seen far worse beam rooms in mega man before.
The last gimmick for this level is the Bunby Catchers, which can drag you right into pits or spikes if you're not careful. These guys get a lot of use throughout the game and... they can get pretty infuriating. At least you can bait them out if you're careful enough.
The Wily Stages for the most part use these gimmicks in new ways and don't have much new stuff to offer, so I'll skip those. Just know that they're just as good as the Robot Master stages (if more difficult, but that's to be expected.)
I will shoutout the intangible block-creating guys from MM10 though, they are QUITE devious in the fortress.
BOSSES, PART 2: FORTRESS FURY
Now it's time for the Wily Fortresses, and these are a step up both in challenge and creativity. Not ONE of the vanilla fortress bosses in MM4 is present here, it's all new stuff. (Well, except for the Wily Machine and Capsule, but even those have significant alterations.)
First up, in an opening stage that feels like MM2 Wily 1 but in Mega Man 4, Mecha Dragon makes a comeback, with a less random attack pattern and a couple new tricks up his sleeve.
Mainly, this move where Rush shows up for you to jump on, before he wrecks the platforms! And yet, somehow, it's still easier than most Mecha Dragon fights due to less projectile density.
Still a great opening to the fortress, though.
In the next stage, both the midboss and boss are unique. Remember that Mega Clone midboss from MM3? Yeah, that's back, and far more fair to deal with. It just runs back and forth, and doesn't have i-frames either.
Unfortunately, the actual boss in this stage is pretty frustrating- there's four Mega Man around, and only one of them is real. Problem is, though, you don't have time to figure that out before they teleport away again. The lack of room to maneuver in this cramped room is not helping, especially when the clones start firing all your weapons at you.
At least it has a crippling weakness to Dive Missile- and it still has no i-frames, so if you're lucky you can blitz it if you figure out where it is quickly enough. Still, not a great boss- and yet, still better than the one from MM3. (Not that that's hard.) Don't worry, though- there'll be a redemption for this concept a bit later.
Wily Stage 3 is an underwater level, featuring the only required use of Rush Marine, and bosses to match. That's right, DOC ROBOT is back, emulating Bubble Man. Though, this version has a couple extra moves like summoning a bunch of bouncing bubbles around the arena, so it's actually harder than the original. Doc Robot was a concept I always thought Mega Man 3 didn't do enough justice, so it's cool to see it get another shot here.
Doc Splash, meanwhile, is actually a lot easier than vanilla Splash Woman was, mostly due to its much slower movement speed. Still a good companion piece to Doc Bubble- they both fit the underwater theming. Neither is tough enough on their own, but both in one stage, they elevate it just a bit further.
Then there's the final boss of the first fortress... hoo boy. This is my favorite boss in the game, right here.
The Alien Hologram's back, and it's gotten a SERIOUS upgrade, mostly due to the fact that you're in a small pit where you can only jump and slide- no left or right movement for you. (You can't see it in this screenshot, but take my word for it.)
This makes simple attacks like it slowly moving towards you a lot more tense to dodge, since it's all about proper timing, and that timing is very strict. Or the move where it splits into four, and you have to shoot the real one before you get blasted.
But that's not even it- once you defeat the Alien, two hologram cores appear on either side, firing all sorts of nonsense at you, reflecting shots between each other, all while you're still heavily restricted. And, you can only hit the one that's blue, while it's switching sides during half the fight.
Not to mention the music- this boss gets a unique fight theme, and it's one of my favorites. A pulse-pounding, menacing track with an undercurrent of hope and excitement to it.
It's a great, wonderfully creative boss fight that had me losing my mind the first time I saw it, and I still think it's one of the hack's biggest highlights.
As for the second Wily Fortress, it kicks things up a notch difficulty wise. First up is your friend and mine, the Copy Robot!
This boss can be a bit of a mess. He uses four of your weapons, and two of them are pretty aggravating to deal with. Unlike Bright Man, his Flash Stopper doesn't have a pattern or signal to it. He uses it after he jumps, but you have to be in the air to dodge his shot- difficult, if you slid under him. It CAN be dodged reliably, but it's quite difficult.
Ring Orbiter is an actual pain to dodge when he uses it, since you HAVE to get over him before he reaches the center of the arena. The Drill and Skull attacks are perfectly fine. The attacks aren't BAD, per se, but they're a bit clunkier than they need to be.
At least the second phase is much easier- he uses Block Dropper (that's how you know this came out in 2019, when MM11 was still fresh) and jumps around like a maniac. It's tough, but perfectly manageable when you get the pattern down.
Overall, this boss is really cool in concept and execution... but I wish the method to dodging its attacks was just a bit clearer. I had to figure out how to dodge the Flash Stopper from a YouTube comment, for example. This isn't even remotely the hardest boss, though...
No, that would be the boss of the 2nd stage of the second fortress.
It's an old favorite from MM10, the Weapons Archive! The first midboss round has Centaur Man and Shade Man, where the second midboss has Aqua Man and Drill Man
I do have to question why Drill Man is here... given that Drill Man is in the regular boss roster. Oh well. Neither of these are that tough, really- but the boss version at the end is a different story.
The version at the end, though... hoo boy. That's a tough one, given it has Shadow Man, Hornet Man, Solar Man and QUICK MAN in there, all back to back. Yeesh. And Unfortunately, Quick Man doesn't STOP from the Flash Stopper, merely slowed down. Solar Man is a pretty big pain in the rear, too, since you can't tell when he's gonna drop projectiles without his actual boss sprite. Hornet Man's bees last just a LITTLE too long for my liking, and Shadow Man can really catch you off guard with his quick sliding move.
If you didn't save an E-Tank for this boss... good luck. It's perfectly fair... but holy cow is it a spike in difficulty from a generally mild-mannered hack so far.
The Wily Machine, now this an interesting one. It doesn't function anything like the standard Wily Machine 4, instead sending out Gabyoalls to rush at you while bubbles of bullet burst above your head. It's much more frantic, and a definite improvement.
I love how he baits you under him with an extra life, only to drop down on top of you, that's such a Wily thing to do. But it's also a way to teach you how the second phase works- you have to lure him down by getting under him, then blast him in the face. It even comes with a convenient sound effect to let you know to get out of the way.
As far as Wily Machines go, this is a really good one, and the frantic music really helps elevate it.
Thankfully, the Wily Capsule here is quite good, and definitely more of a final challenge than vanilla MM4's. I do appreciate how there's actually significant opportunities to hit it with the Buster- most Capsules are up too high most of the time for that.
The second phase, though, kicks things up a notch with the addition of BASS, of all people, as an assist. Just another feather in the surprises this hack contains- and he's actually a huge pain to deal with since you can't kill him.
And yet, some of his attacks still result in significant stretches where he's lower to the ground, so it still feels quite fair to duel buster only, which is a welcome change of pace. But if you want to, you can still use Pharaoh Gust to aim upwards. It only does 1 damage, though, so you're still gonna have to work for your win.
I do love the ending- instead of Wily blowing up the fortress behind him, BEAT of all people drops a block of freaking TNT in there to explode it for you. What a scamp, that bird.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
So! Mega Man 4 Voyage is an anomaly in the field of Mega Man Romhacks.
The soundtrack is wholly excellent. You could tell me this was an official Mega Man soundtrack, and I would believe you. It's that good.
The weapons, while I do wish they were a bit more elaborate/different, I would rather have useful if samey weapons than wild experiments that don't work.
The levels are good, full of just enough custom flair to be memorable, yet not difficult enough to be rage-inducing. Even if a fair amount of it is from other Mega Man games, there's more than enough original stuff here to justify itself. Especially seeing assets from 9 and 10 in a bona fide NES game. And I respect the restraint shown- a lot of other hacks lean on their technical wizardry but forget to be fair or fun.
But the highlight, of course, is the bosses. Every single boss in here is creative, whacky, and tries SOMETHING different. Even if there's a couple aggravation spots (The Holographic Mega Men and the final Weapon Archive come to mind) It's still a great time to fight them.
Overall, I would HIGHLY recommend this hack to anyone looking for a new Mega Man experience, with the added bonus that it's generally around the same level of difficulty as vanilla MM4- so it won't be too big of a jump compared to, say, Minus Infinity. Play it!
GAME LINK: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4268/
SOUNDTRACK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnzFwJk9lCs&list=PL8y0kJX7Ft5Fyc01xtdX1pmimgQcEoi1I (for some reason, two songs aren't in the soundtrack playlist, so I've included uploads of the other two here.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThLK83OsiMM (Robot Master Boss)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuVjJexrFo8 (Fake Wily Fortress Final Boss)