Mega Man X4

Mega Man X4 marks X's second! first entry on the PlayStation and Saturn as the Maverick Hunter has to team up with his buddy Zero and fight off an entire Reploid army that decides to go rogue because everyone is bad at basic communication.

The game has many similarities to its sibling Mega Man 8, and marks the cut-off point where many fans think the series jumped the shark.

Plus the infamous "WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOR!"

Sub-Pages#

Prototype Info Prerelease Info

Unused Enemies#

Present in the data for the second section of Storm Owl's stage are two unused enemies. Both graphics and programming are fully intact.

The first unused enemy is Rollin' Gear, an enemy that wouldn't debut until X5. In this game, it constantly tries to chase the player down.

The second enemy is a flying green robot. It will try to aim at the player's general X position before dropping a turret and flying away. Said turret drills itself into the ground before it starts shooting. Both the robot and the turret can be destroyed.

Unused Sprites#

Unused frames of Double. While the only unused part about the three on the right is his facial expression, the first sprite to the left is entirely unused.

Used in a demo version of the game. A placeholder graphic for boss portraits, particularly for unavailable stages.

Used in a demo version of the game. A placeholder graphic for boss portraits, specifically for selectable stages that have unimplemented bosses.

Used on the title screen in the demo version of the game.

Used in the demo version after getting a game over. The "FOR PLAYING" part of the message appears to have been overwritten.

Unused throughout all known versions of the game, and untouched in the international versions. Palette data for these images still exists, however.

Unused Gameplay Demo#

Watch on YouTubeLocated on the US PlayStation disc is a file called PLDEMO.ARC containing data for an unused demo. This file is not present on the Japanese release. The demo starts X at the final boss, which for spoiler reasons is probably why it was cut (that and the atrocious playing).

This footage was captured by copying the data from PLDEMO.ARC over one of the four demo files that are used.

ABS Text#

An ABS text file, written in Japanese, can be found and accessed in the directory containing a blurb about the game. This can only be found in the Japanese Saturn version. Text as follows:

Regional Differences#

This page or section needs more audio. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough audio. Please fix this. Specifically: Upload voice clips of the Mavericks from the Japanese version.

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this. Specifically: A picture comparing Zero's weapon menu might be useful.

Title Screen#

The images of X and Zero from the player select screen slide across the title screen's opening animation. This was simplified in the international builds.

Japan	International

Additionally, the menu selection on the title screen was also repositioned in the International versions.

Intro Music#

The Japanese opening song, Yukie Nakama's "Makenai Ai ga Kitto Aru", was replaced with a different track for the international releases.

Credits Music#

The Japanese ending song, Yukie Nakama's "One More Chance", was replaced with a different track for the international releases.

Name Changes#

As with the previous X games, the Mavericks go under new names overseas, though in this case one (Split Mushroom) is spared.

Weapon Select Screen#

The Japanese pause menu gives instructions on how to perform Zero's techniques. In order to fit their romanized names, international releases omit this.

Voices#

Some voices, such as the pre-battle voices from the eight selectable bosses, were disabled in the international releases. While these bosses do still retain their voices during battle, Cyber Peacock is the only one who's been muted entirely.

• Despite being disabled, the Japanese pre-battle voices of Maverick bosses are still present in the game's voice data set. The English PC version removed all Japanese voices and battle cries properly but only replaced them with dummy data files, and all of them are interchangeable with voice files used in the Japanese PC version.

Here is a complete list of Japanese voice clips that were disabled in the international versions

Revisional Differences#

PlayStation vs. Saturn#

• Certain music tracks have additional intros in the Saturn version not present in other releases, alongside proper looping tracks.
• A ripple effect was added in Sky Lagoon 2 and Magma Dragoon's stage in the Saturn version.
• Due to limitations with the Saturn hardware, many transparency effects are missing or replaced with a dithering effect. This is most noticeable with afterimages, which are completely opaque in the Saturn version.
• Most of the voice clips and sound effects are compressed in the Saturn version, again due to limitations with the Saturn hardware.

Windows version#

• Like the Windows port of Mega Man X3, an easy mode that halves damage from enemies is added.
• The Secret Commands to activate Ultimate Armor or Black Zero are greatly simplified comparing to other console releases, as well as Mega Man X Legacy Collection 1.
• A music player/test option is added to the Options menu.
• In Japanese PC Release, both opening song and ending song introduced in console releases were removed in favor of International opening and ending theme BGMs.
• In Japanese PC Release, Zero's voices completely went bananas. For example, doing first slash would play the voice of using Raijingeki.
• The music tracks "Sigma 1st" (when fighting the cloaked and uncloaked forms of Sigma) and "Sigma 2nd" (when fighting his final form) is played the other way around, as the files for it are stored the other way around (BGM01.SE contains "Sigma 2nd" and BGM02.SE contains "Sigma 1st"). This can be easily fixed by swapping the names of both files.

Mega Man X Collection#

Many enemies behave differently in the demos, causing all but the Military Train demo to desync.

Mega Man X Legacy Collection#

Has a few differences from the original PS1 release:

• The scene in the intro where the General does a salute was removed, possibly due to it resembling a Nazi salute.
• Cutscenes where the screen flashes rapidly were changed to have the screen be dim.
• The amount of save slots was increased from three to six, likely to compensate for the lack of a second memory card slot.
• The Japanese opening and ending use the tracks from the international builds (but only in the non-Japanese versions of the collection) due to licensing.