Part 17: Wily 4
Stage Comments:
Not much to it, obviously. As said in the video, it's good that they have those enemies there, normal, killable ones, to allow for weapon energy farming; it's bad that the game forces you to do so in the first place. And the surprise guys are such a stupid choice. This would have been a great place for the spike fliers that respawn on their own; they're among the best enemies to farm from. Or the skull robots, you can farm those with Pharaoh Shot, even. But no, instead they use a surprise enemy that will hit you exactly once, afterwards it just forces you to proceed with caution when you really just want to get to the fucking final boss. It's not that big of a deal, because it's still a short section, but the whole stage kind of pisses me off so there.
Boss Strategy:
Not much to add; for being the last boss, Wily's capsule is disgustingly simple, both in concept and in challenge. It will create a converging spark ring at a random place which will fire off a single shot when they merge, and in a flash reveal Wily's position at a different random spot. For a little bit of time, Wily will persist there and you can hit him. That's it. Strategy is dodging the shot first (it hurts) while trying not to run into Wily during the process, which can happen anyway because random, and after having done so shooting Wily quickly. Having the best weapon in the game as his weakness helps tremendously in making this not a complete pain in the ass. Him being vulnerable only to it or the worst weapon with which you could take him on, however, multiplies the butthurtitude of the process. But I think I rant enough on that in the video.
Also fucking Ring Boomerang is a weakness again, that makes it the weakness of all Wily fortress main bosses except his second form in the penultimate fight. The fuck is going on there.
Game over, then!
Even more closing thoughts:
The ending, which I didn't touch upon in the video all that much, is a giant fuck you to the player. After like three seconds of cowering, Wily makes his great escape...by opening a fucking door he's been lying next to. We've spent the whole game first defeating a scapegoat and his minions, found then out who the real culprit was, hunted him down, had him escape at first, hunted him down again, and then his walks out waggling his trembleworthy eyebrows of doom (that's the translation of what I was saying in Cossack 4, fyi) while Mega stands there watching like a dumbass.
And then the fortress explodes because.
Fuck this story.
The credits, however, are nicely done, have great music and in a nice attention to detail, as a railway was leading off from the castle in the explosion shot, Mega is on a train while he rides home. Still...while I won't bring up that he could have just teleported there (he didn't do this for the last three games either, it actually gives him character without saying anything that he always walks or rides somberly after having saved the world again), but...
THERE WAS A FUCKING TRAIN COMMUTING NEXT TO WILY'S CASTLE? So he built it there, great place, infrastructure's already fine, and everyone driving through the area was just "oh hey a giant fuck-off skull castle on that mountain over there...completely Wily's style. But haha, Wily's dead, that CAN'T be him. Must be one of those eccentric new money guys, oh those crazy rich people"?
Yeah yeah story in a Mega Man game, but I love pointing out the many ways in which it's just so mindbogglingly stupid. It gives me far more enjoyment that way than if it made more sense but was boring.
Music:
- Last Boss - Pretty much rocks, a great boss theme.
All Stage Clear - Wee fanfare you did well great job NO WAIT SORRY YOU DONE FUCKED UP HE GOT AWAY AGAIN SUCKA
Ending - Beautiful. As said before, those contemplative tunes for the epilogue give Mega lots of character. He's never celebrating too much when having done the deed; I get a definite "it's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it" vibe from this.
Staff Roll - Contrary to Mega, the Player may celebrate. And yeah, that's Mega Man 2's title theme (or MM1's ending). Because two was clearly the best game ever yada yada. Actually though, I think I've seen this titled as "Mega Man's theme" somewhere, so that might make more sense. Still overused imho - MM3 had its own ending (and own boss intro!), did they just not want to compose their own credit song for MM4 or what?
And with that, I'm done for the fourth time! Big thank you to everybody very much for watching, for fanart and other work done for me (especially the Buster video guests!), for participating in the races, and for your continued praise. It means a lot to me, even though I don't thank everyone personally for it.
Special shout-out to Phiggle and Signal Interrupt for organizing the races. And to everyone I forgot who also deserves special mention, I'm sorry. Write me an angry letter!