Just finished a playthrough of this hack. I’m not one of those people who believe the charge shot ruined the series, and in fact quite like it in the X series and later, when taking a hit didn’t cause you to drop your charge. It’s amazing how much less useful 5 and 6 made the charge shot after introducing it in 4 by comparison. But out of curiosity, I gave this a try.

I appreciate that this hack went to the trouble of rebalancing the game with an eye towards how things would work without the charge shot, rather than just disabling the charge shot altogether. It made for a very different experience playing the game, one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I don’t think I’d say it makes MM4 better in my opinion, and I think vanilla is still my preferred way to play, but this is absolutely worth a try!

A couple of comments:

• It feels like the game has been made a little too easy in some parts thanks to reduced enemy health. Particularly fighting the minibosses in Ring Man stage, and especially if you have a turbo controller. Those parts are balanced out by it being more difficult in other parts. It’s a wild experience to fight Toad Man, and actually have him get a few hits in for once.
• Ring Man’s stage feels a little empty without the repeat minibosses. It was a little excessive with 4 minibosses in the stage, but their absence leaves a couple of stretches of just empty space with nothing going on.
• I played this hack combined with the Boss Health Fill Speedup patch, and the Graphics Fixes patch. All three hacks work together.

While it won’t replace vanilla for me, I’m glad this hack exists, and I highly recommend giving it a try. If the author makes similar hacks for 5 and 6, I’ll be first in line to try those too.