Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe's guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo's download service. Written by Sam C Gittins.

Fans of a certain well-known Capcom character should be pleased with this minor but notable update. Anyway enough from me and on with the erm... game!

Available for download this week we have...

• Megaman 4

Points: 500
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Released: 1991
System: NES

After the well founded reputation of the Megaman series followng both the second and third entries, expectations could not be higher for the imminent fourth installment; sadly it didn't quite turn out to be the superior sequel many had hoped for due to several changes that were made but nonetheless still turned out to be an enjoyable addition indeed.

The game takes place a year after the events of the third installment, this time around the villain you're up against is Russian scientist Dr. Cossack who - yes you've guesed it - has created eight robot masters to help him take over the world and it's of course up to you as Megaman to stop him. These robots are some of the most peculiar ever seen in the series including Bright Man, Dust Man, Phoraoh Man and Toad Man.

From the start you are presented with a stage select screen where you can opt to tackle any of the Robot Masters in whichever order you desire but beware because upon defeating each stage you will be awarded with the weapon of that boss which one of the other bosses is weak to; you need to work out which ones are vunerable to which weapons and the only way to do that is through trial and error, this is the basic blueprint of all Megaman games.

You have the slide from the third title at your disposal not to mention the Mega Buster which was first introduced in this very game and has been a staple inclusion since; another addition introduced here was the extra castle at the end of the game which was put in a further two sequels and then dropped thereafter presumably due to difficulty concerns as these games are notorious for being rather challenging and here is no exception to the rule so expect a challenge.

Visually everything is as you will have come to expect with a decent amount of detail applied considering the hardware, the music however isn't on par with previous efforts though it's still listenable. Overall this fourth installment of Megaman is still a decent offering which introduces elements which were then new to the series even if it doesn't quite match up to its prequels this is still well worth playing if you're a fan of the series though newcomers may wish to pick up one of the previous games instead.

Verdict : Megaman 4 manages to maintain most of its platform mastery despite its minor faults.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!

Sam Gittins
[email protected]

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