A brand new colourization hack has just been released for the Mega Man Game Boy title, Mega Man IV, allowing players to experience the classic Nintendo Game Boy title with a fresh lick of paint.
The hack is the work of Marc Robledo, who previously created similar patches for the Game Boy titles Mega Man III and Mega Man V, and is playable on real Game Boy Color hardware and emulators.
It represents the final hack produced as part of the "Mega Man Mania Fan Project" — a collaboration between members of the Mega Man community that set out to colourize all five Mega Man Game Boy games similar to what Capcom had originally planned to do for its cancelled Mega Man Mania, Anniversary Collection for Game Boy Advance.
Another hacker named SpecialAgentApe created the hacks for Mega Man - Dr Wily's Revenge, and Mega Man II.
In addition to acting as a full-color conversion of the original monochrome Game Boy game, Mega Man World 4 DX (as the hack is called) also adds some additional tweaks to the performance and gameplay, removing slowdowns and introducing an NES-style pause screen and an option to toggle the recoil from Mega Man's megabuster-charged attacks. This makes it potentially the best way to experience the Game Boy classic.
Originally launched back in 1993, Mega Man IV, we should probably note, is not a straightforward port of the NES game as you might expect, but follows in the tradition of the previous Mega Man Game Boy titles, borrowing elements from two of the NES games — in this case Mega Man IV and Mega Man V. It is considered to be one of the stronger entries in the series, and is well worth checking out if you haven't already.
You can download the patch here.