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Early morning of August 20th, 2002, I found myself searching the internet rather aimlessly until I ran into this little bit of information: a supposedly super-rare ROM of the MegaMan 4 Beta. I figured it was a hoax, but I had loads of time on my hands. What did I have to loose? Once I downloaded this "Beta ROM", I booted it up into my NES emulator and found that it was indeed the Beta version of MegaMan 4. Intrigued, I played through the game as much as I could, finding many different things that were taken out of the final version of the game. So, I got myself some screen shots, and made this page for everyone to see. This is certainly not a beta that was worse than the final version of the game! |
And so I started my journey into the MegaMan 4 Beta. After the very non-existant intro, the very first thing I noticed was the stage select screen. It was if a nuke had struck it.
BulbMan? VaccuumMan? CLOUDMan!?! What the hell? O_o; Some of the final changes to the game seem like a good idea now. Some of them. I also found MegaMan's face present in the center of the screen, as in MM3, 5, and 6.
ToadMan's stage was overall the same, although missing a few radical elements..
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Where's my percipitation!?
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Attack of the giant radioactive frogs!!
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The rain was mysteriously not on the surface area of ToadMan's domain, and instead of a snail, there was a... giant toad!? Well, it makes sense I guess.
BrightMan had the same look and feel. Except for the fact that he wasn't named BrightMan.
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BulbMan? Pah!
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Where the hell did HE come from!?
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I always thought his prototype name would be BulbMan. Then I found these flying arcs of light at the beginning of his stage. Definitely unexpected X_x
My area looks pretty much the same, and I'm glad! Except for this pissed-off looking sun in my egyptian skies..
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Oooo.. pissy sun!
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You got new weapon!
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I'm guessing the sun had to be removed because they recieved too many death threats from Nintendo in the mail. Oh well. Once I defeated myself (Ouch!), I discovered that my treat to for MegaMan was the Pharaoh Wave, instead of the Pharaoh Shot. I think this solves the Power Fighters mystery now ^_^
I wasn't expecting too much to be different about RingMan's stage. Maybe more mini-bosses? X_x;
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Don't look at the light!
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MegaMan's sportin' those new Nikes,
yo!
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I witnessed a beautifully done eclipse sequence. Surprisingly well done considering it's an NES game. I also liked the transition better than the way they have it now. Once the sky was dark and I took on the giant hippo, I noticed that the gravity was oddly low. MegaMan could jump very high; almost dangerously high. They also stuck in some of those lousy ceiling and floor spike traps that were later used in StarMan's stage that required you to REALLY know what you're doing O_o;
DustMan, err.. "VaccuumMan" was next.
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I STILL say it should have been SuckerMan
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What an incredibly lame ass name
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Nothing big here except for his name change, and his weapon is now the "Vaccuum Crusher". Weird. O_o;
Now I decided to go into CloudMan's stage and see what the hell is going down.
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Aww! Look at the cute little 8-bitized
CloudMan!
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Not those f%@#ing birds again!!
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Is this really necessary?
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Eat!.. Chunks of Dirt? o_o;
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His stage was appropriately the cloudy, self-scrolling fortress stage, only with some different enemies and those little bird bastards from MM2. Also, the stage's music was indeed SkullMan's theme. Odd O_o; CloudMan's weapon was appropriately the Thunder Bolt, although he fought using no wind and rain tactics. I found his weakness to be the "Vaccuum" Crusher as well.
DiveMan's stage was entirely different. Luckily, they kept the kick ass music. Booyah!
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Surfin' USA!
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Thar she blows!
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Seems the jetskii idea was originally DiveMan's, but was later taken out of the game to be well perserved for WaveMan. After surfing through the level, I discovered the same whale mini-boss, only.. different. O_o; Odd, to say the least.
The other thing I noticed was an odd blue-colored block that looked like something from MM6.
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Oooo.. secrets!
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Who knew?
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After some experimenting, I couldn't find my way through; until I backtracked after killing DrillMan and destroyed the block with a Drill Bomb. ProtoMan awaited me, but he just stood there doing nothing. Only Capcom knows what this was meant for, but I wanna know, dammit! >_<
Another stage that didn't have too many new changes to it was DrillMan's.
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Alright, what's up with MM2 revisits?
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Oooo!! K Adaptor!... WTF?
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The annoying MetalMan drills seemed to have initially made a return in the stage, and it makes enough sense. At the end of the stage I found an odd K Adaptor capsule that I couldn't reach.. I tried jumping from a runaway mine cart that I found, but wound up hitting the spikes every single time. Rush Coil would send me the same way. I guess I'll figure it out eventually.
The next thing was even more surprising than CloudMan...
Doc Robot? O_o; So he DID make a reappearance after MM3...
I started off into the stages. DiveMan's stage played much like his stage does now; there was no jet skii in the Doc Robot remake.
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Prepare for trouble!
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Not that annoying eskimo again! O_o
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GeminiMan was more difficult purely because of Doc Robot's crappy size, although the Dive Missiles took him out fairly fast. When IceMan hit the arena, I wasn't sure what was going on O_o; I certainly didn't expect any MM1 Masters.. the Thunder Bolt took him out just as fast as the Thunder Beam did though.
ToadMan's stage was entirely in the sewers, with more underwater parts as well.
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I HATE snakes! X_x
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Doc Robot the uni bomber!
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Snakey feel extremely fast to the Drill Bombs, and BombMan was yet another surprise. He seemed to be a bit slower, although his bombs were more lethal. Pharaoh Wave took care of him.
RingMan's stage was more space oriented than his original, and most of the mini-bosses were gone, of course to make room for Doc Robot.
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Stop.. following me!
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Shocking!
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MagnetMan's missiles seemed to be a little TOO homing for my tastes.. they were more effective than they were in MM3. Vaccuum Crusher could knock him out of his attraction stance, however. ElecMan's Thunder Beam now shot in 3 directions much like when MegaMan had it, and it also seemed to do more damage. The Ring Boomerang was effective in that if you got close enough you could hit him twice with the same shot.
My level was played during the night now, much like the final version of it. I was sad to see the pissed off sun go though ~_~;
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Legend of the Ninja Two!
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Fire! Fire! Yeah! O_o;
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The Flash Stopper worked on ShadowMan, although getting him on the ground for easy destruction was rather difficult. He seemed to throw more blades, and never slid. FireMan was easily destroyed with 2 doses of Rain Flush.
Wily's fortress was a whole nother deal. Wily used what's now known as Cossack's Citadel as his hideout, and one of the stages was missing, because that same stage was used for CloudMan earlier in the game.
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Same fortress, same layout.. different
skull X_x;
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Where's the prize..!!? ::whines::
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The missing stage was replaced with more or less, a breather stage that was later used in Wily's Fortress in the final version of the game. Also noticable was that there was no teleporting hatches, and only one fortress. Oh well. I'm sad to see Cossack go though T_T;
Only one thing left to cover: the Mysterious K Adaptor!
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After getting the K Adaptor, I noticed
it wasn't in my inventory...
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The mysterious K Adaptor at work..
o_o;
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After much fiddling around, I managed to snatch the K Adaptor from atop the ledge in DrillMan's stage. I looked in my inventory only to find that it wasn't there X_x; All that work for nothing? Once I reached Wily, much to my surprise, the move seemed to execute inself when I let a charged shot rip in Wily's direction. It was nearly a one-hit wonder, leaving Wily with one HP! ^_^ I'm not yet sure if this move is executable in any other parts of the game.. but I'm still looking!
Finishing Notes
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So ends my experience through the mysterious MM4 Beta ROM. Very, very odd. I'm just glad I was lucky enough to stumble upon such a rare gem! ^_^ I'm working on getting the ROM uploaded for everybody to witness for their own eyes, but unfortunately I am out of space on my Angelfire account X_x; I'll get the ROM uploaded as soon as possible (Don't count on it) ^_~ |
Credits
Thanks to Dusty for starting up CC again and letting me be a part of it ^_^. HUGE thanks to DiveMan for putting up with my random requests for screen shots. I never could've done it without ya! ^_~. Thanks to IceMan and DrillMa'am for helping me with ideas. Special thanks to Drizl for completely falling for the prank, and helping me with a better sprite of MM pullin' off the Kamehameha ^_~. Also, I can't forget Gauntlet/ShadowMan for inspiring me to do this in the first place. Thanks everyone! ^_^
