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Continuing in the vibe of each previous title, Mega Man IV puts Dr. Wily back in the hotseat as he reinvents Robot Masters from both Mega Man 4 and Mega Man 5 for the NES while plotting for world conquest in the meanwhile. And he has backup as well: thanks to a renegade radio signal, all the robots at the annual Robot Master Exposition have gone berserk! (Having them all in one place... what could possibly go wrong?) Mega Man also meets Ballade, the last of the "Mega Man Killers" band of troublemakers. But is he really entirely evil? Mega Man IV adds new features to the Game Boy series, particularly Dr. Light's shop, in which he produces useful items in exchange for P-Chips scattered throughout the stages or dropped by enemies. Mega Man can also charge up his Mega Buster for the first time on the small screen. This is also Beat's first appearance in monochrome!
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Though all of the previous Game Boy titles took their primary source material from NES counterparts, Mega Man V took a left turn. Instead of simply having Dr. Wily rehash old ideas, Mega Man is confronted by Terra, a wavy-maned robot who claims to be a member of the Stardroids, robots from outer space. After giving Mega Man a mild concussion in a field, the Stardroids begin to take over the Earth. When he awakens in Dr. Light's lab, he finds he is equipped with a new Mega Arm instead of his usual buster (suitable for grabbing things at a distance, a great skill to have) and is now ready to fight! Each Stardroid is named after a planet, so it's a bit more difficult to figure out which boss is weak to which weapon, but I'm sure Mega Man can give it the ol' college try. He also has déjà vu encounters with all three Mega Man Killers (plus Quint, the wannabe). Mega Man V also introduced Tango, a cute robotic cat whose attack isn't very useful but boasts an impeccable 8-bit meow. This concluded the Mega Man series on the Game Boy and was the only one with support for the Super Game Boy accessory.
Spoiler Alert: Yeah, Dr. Wily was the mastermind behind the Stardroid attack. Figures. But he's still not the final boss: a first in the series!
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The bottom line, as somewhat well-proven here, is that if Capcom is not developing its own Mega Man games, they really shouldn't be released to the public. Unfortunately, Capcom handed the ropes for a Game Gear edition of Mega Man over to U.S. Gold, known for nothing in particular, and gave them free reign. The result? A well-intentioned game that just falls flat on its face. Although the game looks pretty, my primary concern is that the game is just too big for the screen it's on. You end up jumping around and not seeing where you will land or bump into, and that's EXACTLY where the spikes are: just off-screen, waiting for you to make a poorly-calculated move. It's a shame, because that game could've had potential. Mega Man also has an unusual sheen here. Did Dr. Light polish him up for his first Game Gear outing?
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