The Eagle Ride Armor made its first (and only) appearance in Megaman X4. It was available in 2 stages; Storm Owl's (Part 1) and the
Final Weapon (after defeating Double/Iris). It pretty much had the same basic appearance as Raiden did, with a few differences here and
there; it was blue in color (instead of pink), with two rather large wings behind it, and it also had a rather large buster on its left
arm.
True to its name, the Eagle had very advanced aerial capabilities. It was capable of both an air-dash and a hover, like X's foot part,
but the abilities here were much more advanced. The Eagle's hover was infinite, and it even lasted if you were to get hit, although you
would lose a little altitude. This was particularly useful when you simply wanted to fly over minor enemies below, or over a pit. The
air-dash was pretty nice as well; it traveled farther than X/Zero's and was surprisingly quick despite the bulk of the armor. This was a
pretty decent way to get around, and was particularly useful when you didn't want to find yourself roasted by one of Storm Owl's ships.
The Eagle wasn't without a good offense, as it had plenty of power to back itself up. The standard attack of the armor was to fire
moderately sized pink shots. These were pretty handy on their own, but the real beauty of this armor was the charged shot. It fired 3
homing plasma shots that more or less tore through any enemy. They were pretty accurate in terms of homing; if there were no enemies on
screen, the shots would simply spin around a bit before flying off, as if they were just waiting for something else to show up. You
could even charge and fire the shot while hovering, which gave you a considerable amount of power from the air.
Overall, the Eagle was a pretty solid Ride Armor, IMO one of the best in the series. A couple of the Ride Armors had given X aerial
capabilities before (Hawk and Rabbit), but the Eagle felt a lot more fleshed out overall. It's a shame you weren't able to bring this
thing into battle against a Maverick like you could with Raiden, as that would've been a blast. I'd have to give the Eagle a
perfect 10!
