Blue Bombin': Mega Man 4 - Part 04

Congratulations on posting the most ridiculous comment I have seen in my 4 or so years on Giantbomb. That is an achievement.

Did I miss the statement of some hard rules for this series or is Dan just being his usual self and clinging to some rules he made up in his head?

As others have said, Alex, you gotta dodge! I recommend re-watching parts of this and seeing how you engage the bosses. It's clear you're wanting to stick with the "get in close and spam the attack to overwhelm the boss" trick from the previous two games, but when it became clear that wasn't gonna work, I had hoped you'd focus more on dedicating a few runs to just letting the bosses attack you and learning how to dodge them properly. You can't dodge everything, but you took a hugely excessive amount of damage that I think with just a bit of practice you could've totally avoided.

Here's hoping to an easier time and a more determined Alex in Mega Man 5!

They're just going by Honolulu rules thats all.

Hey guys welcome to the club. I enjoyed the first Watch Dogs quite a bit to the point of actually doing a whole lot of the side content because I simply found the mechanics really entertaining. So it's always a joy to hear people absolutely shit on it in every way imaginable - from complaints about the character, the driving, the world, the missions, absolutely everything was complete garbage apparently.

So buckle up and welcome to the wonderful world of liking a game that wronged the world in some way.

The first Mass Effect was the best Mass Effect. There I said it.

@humanity said:

I'm with you guys. Final Fantasy XV is possibly my favourite in the series, which apparently means I'm some kind of scrub satanist or something. I don't even go on forums for that game anymore, so tired of being bombarded from all angles for not thinking it's a trashfire.

i would argue the majority of mass effect fans share that viewpoint.

I dunno about that. I would probably call it my favorite, but ME2 is a much more accessible game (and was the entry point for a lot of people) with much stronger characterization and much more dynamic presentation of its storytelling. I'd bet it'd top more lists.

About Film and 40s, please use what is available for streaming. Like Alex said.

Really? It's true that I've played MM 2 to death, but it's still hard to imagine that out of all of them its Wily castle could be considered so hard. Maybe a little the last real level (before the boss rush), and its boss can be tough to do in one go without going for the 'blow the walls up first, then die' trick, but that's about it.

The charge shot was a real double-edged sword. It took away from the whole gimmick of the MM series, the idea of using the different weapons you get and how it affects the order you play the levels in, etc. It wasn't so bad in 4, where the other weapons were still useful in many situations, but I think in 5 and 6 the charge shot was too far superior, to the point that you barely had occasion to use anything else even on a lot of the bosses.

@pax_mower: Oh no, I didn't feel that to be the case at all. I definitely had to use boss weapons against the bosses. That's why I like 4 and 5 so much more. In 1-3, the boss weakness makes them a joke. It's more a puzzle game of finding the right weapon. While in 4 and 5, the boss weakness only makes them easier while still being very tough, especially Ring Man and Dive Man as shown by this video.

I also used the weapons frequently and in different ways, even from Alex. Alex never did find the way to kill the metal blade enemies that rotate around platforms. He also opted to use many different strategies I hadn't considered or were flat-out less than ideal.

On that note, I hated the weapons in Mega Man 3 so much that I never used them outside the bosses so I don't think the charge shot is the culprit. It just is one more fun thing to the game and it gets better with each entry (charge-up time).

If Alex hates this game then he is going to absolutely despise 5. You just can't run at bosses with their weakness without knowing their attack patters after 3. This might be a good time to drop this series, and pick up something new.

Love the Mr. Show reference near the end there, @alex. Pallies is definitely one of my favorite skits from that show and it always reminds me of the wonderful tv edits of the Die Hard films. "Yippie Ki Yay, Mr. Falcon."

I saw you save scum. This is more of a mega man tour, not a Breaking Alex.

The extended cut means more film and 40s, I vote for that. I'm fine with either.

@shinofkod: Many of your criticisms are not inherently wrong but they are completely misplaced. Blue Bombin' is a series about simply playing through the games. Were this some kind of self-imposed challenge with set rules by someone who is determined to become a really good Mega Man player then there would be merit to them. It's unfair to project your personal expectations of what this series should be on it and then complain it doesn't fulfill those expectations. If for any reason you find it frustrating to watch then, like you already figured, it's best to quit watching.

It's true Alex tends to kind of plow through areas/bosses making him lose more health than he needs to so I do at least understand where you are coming from but he simply is not quite as good at playing/learning Mega Man as you want him to be and complaining about that sort of thing feels pretty harsh. Nobody deliberately plays in a manner that makes them lose. If someone plays roughly it's because he hasn't thought of how to play better or has thought of it but is unable to execute it due to lack of practice.

The one point I will agree with is him complaining about unfairness. It's a hard game. High difficulty doesn't translate to unfair. Unfair is something where even a highly seasoned player can and often will fail due to no fault of his/her own because of poor design.

Cleanse the pallette of Mega Man with...MEGA MAN BATTLE NETWORK YEAAAAAAH.

the save scum was disappointing, but he's not really learning from his mistakes during the gauntlet so I guess it's fine.

"Wii be fuckin'"

I can't get over how diplomatic Alex is about wanting Dan to stfu

I think you're right about this. He tends to get on tilt after he loses a few times and then he struggles to internalize the patterns. The thing is, assuming you're using the right weapon, damage racing bosses works incredibly well in Mega Man 2, which is probably the NES Mega Man that people have the most experience with. All the other Mega Man games are pretty difficult and you need to be on your A game with pattern recognition and attack avoidance even if you are using the right weapon.

Rather than save scum, I kinda wish Alex would have just farmed E-tanks. Write down the password when you have 8, and then grab the ninth on your way down. Blow all the E-Tanks as you get through the bosses, and if you lose, you use the password and it's still within the spirit of the series. It's just disheartening watching him get so frustrated, and I cringed a little whenever he used E tanks despite only having two or three of them.

@spacebacon@shinofkod:

Few things i'd like to reply to the both of you with, and just address generally here.

The assertion that this is meant to be more of a tour of Mega Man than a hardcore challenge type thing is absolutely correct. I'm a longtime fan of Mega Man, but outside of my primary familiarity with 2 and 3, I am by no means an expert player of these games, as should be plainly obvious by what's been recorded here. I never intended to give the impression that I was going to combat these with expert play. Not even close. As I've said numerous times, 4 is a game I've played a couple of times before but never beaten, and 5 and 6 I'm not sure I've played at all. This is as much about discovery for me as it is celebration of the series.

To the point about my playing, look, I know I'm not that good at these games. I know I make dumb mistakes and repeat them. This is the kind of player I am. I'm thickheaded sometimes, and so I tend to fixate on certain ways of playing, and I have trouble with pattern recognition in games like this. I realize this may be frustrating to watch, but it's also how I learn. I have to fuck up the same way a lot before I start to grasp what I'm doing wrong. And in a series like this, where I'm not practicing these games before going at them, I'm going to do that a lot.

If that's too infuriating for you to watch, I'll understand. But I'd also caution against getting too angry about this stuff. I'm playing these games because I want to play them. I'm not doing this for any other reason than I want to try out all of these games, and eventually beat them. If I'm bad, them I'm bad. If I were all that worried about being GREAT at these games, I wouldn't be playing them live--and in the cases of the later games, largely sight unseen. I get frustrated sometimes on-air, and I wish I could just mask that shit from view, but that's not really an option in the moment. Live internet, ladies and gentlemen.

If you don't truck with my criticisms of 4 (that the bosses aren't that great, that the checkpointing is trash, that Ring Man is super annoying), that's fine. I think there's some really fucky design in that game, and maybe that's because it isn't designed in a way that I personally enjoy. I am not telling you that you can't like Mega Man 4 because I found it frustrating. It doesn't mean people can't be good at Mega Man 4 and succeed at it, but I think it's making some choices that make it less enjoyable for someone like me.

Lastly, on the savescum thing, keep in mind we're doing these shows on a schedule. We had other stuff we needed to do that day, and on top of watching me farm e-tanks just kind of being a boring thing to watch on a stream, anything that was going to drag that stream out longer at that point just wasn't going to work. I made a command decision to just be done with that game and on no level do I regret that. If the thing that comes from that is that nobody says I REALLY beat Mega Man 4, I am fully at peace with that. I saw what I wanted to see, and I feel just fine moving on.

So, again, if after this point you're just not into what this series is, no harm, no foul. Just wanted to say my piece before we move forward into sequels that, by all accounts, will probably be difficult and frustrating for me as well. We can discover that beautiful, blue frustration together, or not. I'll understand either way.

Don't let the hate get ya down Alex. People don't understand how hard it is to play a game on a stream, much less well, much less sight unseen ahead of time. You are handling this series well and some of us are really enjoying watching the shit out of it!

I for one am glad that Alex save scummed. He's been doing these bosses for 2 episodes now and at what point is repeating the same shit over and over again enjoyable for him or us? This is Giant Bomb, this is a entertaining website that doesn't take itself seriously. If you want top tier Mega Man play, go look elsewhere because you're not going to find it here. The series is also not called Breakin' Alex. I'm pretty sure he can decide for himself how he wants to complete these games. It's not even like save scumming even gave him an advantage, it just allowed him to skip over the tedious bs of fighting the robots.

@alex: At least on my account you didn't have to go through the trouble of explaining yourself at length. I've got no problem with this series and your gameplay, I've been really enjoying all of it; both the games and the crazy, fun, ridiculous, sometimes even insightful conversations all three of you have. I frequently watch video games I'm familiar with being played by someone who is not as familiar with them and I honestly can't say it ever bothered me that they aren't as good as they could be; that would make no sense to me. In fact sometimes it rekindles memories of what it was like when I first played a particular game which feels very pleasantly nostalgic.

My previous post's intent was to examine and explain, not to criticize, except for the last paragraph, but you are right: everyone has their own opinion of what is fair/good design and what is not. Also whoever says they never blamed the game when there was a really annoying segment blocking them from progressing is lying. As for save scumming it was your call and I think it was the right call. I doubt the majority would have gotten much enjoyment out of seeing the boss rush yet again, least of all you.

So to summarize: Didn't mean to insult or belittle, I'm sorry if it seemed like I did, really looking forward to more of this series! Absolutely loving both Blue Bombin' and Beast in the East right now.

@spacebacon: I didn't take your comment as insulting or belittling, but you made some points I wanted to address. Don't sweat it.

@alex: I figured I was probably sweating over nothing (as I often do) but I just wanted to be sure you knew I'm having a good time with the show. Keep up the good work.

I still like Mega Man 4 :(

When they mentioned this QL, I checked the site and didn't see it. Here's the YouTube link for anyone curious. I'm feeling pretty sexy now, after having watched it.