Mega Man Battle Network

The Good
Here it is. Capcom's gone and created a new Mega Man game...but MAN is it different! Yeah, there's a bad guy named Wily in it, and yes, there's a Roll in it, and we do see some familiar faces...but why is everything so...so...different?

Simple...because this isn't quite what you had in mind! MegaMan Battle Network took Capcom's classic Mega Man and truly reworked him for the 21st century! So what's it all about? Simple. The future has come, and the Internet has become a big part of life. People everywhere access the Internet through whatever...TVs, computers...hell, even your stove! And to help when you're on the road, there's the PET (Personal Exploration Terminal): a hand-held PDA, cell phone, e-mail station, and computer all wrapped up in one package. Our hero, a young boy named Netto Hikari (Lan in the U.S. version), has a PET of course, equipped with an A.I./A-Life program named MegaMan.EXE, who is a highly skilled Virus Buster and all-around good friend of Netto's. And together, these two will stop the threat of the sinister WWW (World Three), led by the evil hacker Dr. Wily.

So now that the intro's over, I'll let you know about the gameplay. Many people say that the game plays like an RPG, but they're only sort of correct. You do have dungeons and treasure boxes (here called "Mystery Data"), and you do encounter enemies in the dungeons, but that's where the similarities end. The battle system works as follows: When MegaMan encounters enemies in the Net, he'll battle them. When a battle starts, a menu appears showing your Battle Chips. Battle Chips are your weapons, and come in 175 different types (shades of Pokémon abound! ^_^), ranging from cannons to swords to special Navi summon chips which call other people's Navis in to help MegaMan in a bind. At the start of any "turn", you can choose up to 5 Chips to use in battle, as long as either: A) they are of the same type (e.g. maybe 3 Cannons), or B) they are of the same code (e.g. MCannon "C" and MiniBomb "C"). If you choose to, you can add more Chip Data, but forfeit a turn of using chips. If you add more data, however, the next turn will present you with 10 chips, and you can even add more for a total of 15. MegaMan also has a Buster cannon, which is fast but weak until you power him up. The battles range in difficulty from either complete pushovers (Metools, for instance) to hair-yanking hard (most Navi bosses). And as a final addition, only MegaMan fights battles; Netto's only problem is sending him into the Net and getting to places to help MegaMan out. Thankfully, at times Netto's friends will help him out, whether it be his childhood sweetie Meiru, class rival Dekao, the precocious genius Yaito, or shady Enzan, he's never alone!

As for graphics, sounds, and music: the graphics and animation are both quite sensational for an early GBA game, with clean, sharp colors and crisp animations abound. Even the most insignifigant things animate with such fluidity and finesse that I was shocked it all fit into a tiny cartridge! The sounds are quite fitting (except that MegaMan's buster cannon sounds just a BIT squeaky), and the music is at least adequate: nothing stands way too out at me, but there's one piece that I really thought was cool, and that's the Boss theme.

The Bad
One problem I have is that once in a while, you may be caught completely off guard in a heated battle and be summarily wiped right out without warning. Heaven knows just how many times Navis like SharkMan.EXE and MagicMan.EXE had me ticked off to no end.

Also, I was shocked that everything was so well animated except for Roll's attacks...talk about MINIMAL!! ><

The Bottom Line
Wanna try a different Mega Man game? Love card battle games? Or are you just an insane, hardcore otaku who SWEARS by every Japanese game made? Get yer cash out; you're gettin' a copy! ^^

And as Masa would say, "Ya can't win a battle without taking your calcium!" ^_^

The Good
The gameplay style crosses Adventure with RPG elements, which is fine. The weapon variety is super that you feel like you can make use of multiple weapons straight from a classic Mega Man game. Even the Netnavis and viruses do have some resemblance to the Robot Masters and common Robots respectively. It's satisfying to level your character up and utilise newer and better chips, though many of them become redundant with no further use.

The Bad
Somehow the isometric angle doesn't fully work in this game, because it leaves a lot of scenery and stuff hidden. If only it had the rotation and 3D style that you got in "Mega Man Legends", then you'd feel encouraged to explore. The constant random battles get pretty annoying. Would have preferred enemies you can choose to battle or avoid. The music is overly repetitive with absolutely no variety and the tunes sound pretty 8-bit and PC Speaker. Mega Man Zero was capable of music tracks that are heaps better, so it appears Capcom didn't invest much on the audio in this case.

And the storyline it's way out of hand. Technology is pretty bad if you rely on programming to do everything for you, which also leads to ovens that catch fire caused by a virus. They leave a lot of plot gaps such as the origin of the Wood Program, which World Wide Web (WWW) somehow acquire. And then they suddenly thrust crossing DNA with binary code to resurrect a dead boy. And those names couldn't get any more unoriginal. Why would you name your child Local Area Network (LAN) and his brother Hub?

The Bottom Line
This alternate universe or timeline in which Mega Man goes from a Robot to a Software Man (Different from a Cyber Elf) is intriguing and means new possibilities. However the way Capcom went about it was pretty wrong. One should not send boys to do a man's job. What you're looking at is a game that is half-baked and half-burnt. This somehow feels like a Pokemon anime ripoff. This could've been tonnes better with more work and get a similar feel to the Mega Man Robot universe, but this title seems more like a bad reflection of it. You may get some joy to play this if you're looking for something completely (or nearly) different.

The Good
Well, what you'd except from a Megaman game. But that time it isn't a platformer any longer.... I cannot really class this in any game category, but I think qualify this of an "Action RPG" is the closest I can think off. Where to begin ? You take the control of Lan Hikari, a young boy, and his "navi", that is nothing but the great Megaman. The story is pretty odd, but still fun. By "odd", I mean that a lot of thing are a nonsense, but actually it work well in the game. Just let me explain myself. It works just as a normal RPG, but a "character" becomes a "navi", a "monster" become a "virus", a magic become a "battlechip", treasure chest becomes "mystery data", battles become "virus busting", dungeons become "internet", but it still is basically the same as an usual RPG. So yeah, you don't fight in the real world, but in the internet trough any electrical engine you found in the real world, and you "jack in" to enter to the net, and then you control Megaman, and you fight viruses. Usually, viruses from the net will cause trouble in the real world. This is confusing, but it is finely fun once in practice.

Now, let's talk about the game itself. It has graphics in isometric fashion, making it looking 2.5 dimensional. All graphics are fairly done for an early GBA game, even if people faces are sometimes hilarious. The music is very good, and you'll most certainly like it a lot.

But the real strong point of the game is the battle system. It has in fact lot of both strategy and action. You control Megaman on a 3x3 gird that faces monsters that have their own 3x3 gird, making the battlefield 6x3 in total. Then you can pick up to five battlechips randomly selected from your "folder" to fight monsters and fight directly with your mega-buster. Later in the game, you'll be able to load attacks. The number of techniques and strategies the game are really countless. You want challenge ? You won't get any game more challenging in the world. The game isn't too hard, but it is really challenging. What is the difference, may you ask ? I mean that there are a lot of very hard sidequests and optional bosses featured, but just finish the game is doable (while far from easy). A fun fact is that, at the end of the battle, you got a "hunting range" in function of how fast and how well you fought. You can get ranges 1-10 and S (1 is the worst, S the best). Beating bosses in row S seems a real challenge (you have to do it in less than 15 seconds and witout getteing hit !)

The Bad
The only two annoying things is that the game was disappointingly short (without doing the sidequests), and that is sometimes really goes suddenly very hard for some stupid reason (for example you do have unappropriated battlechips in your "folder" and you cannot fight some tough monster with the battlechip you got). Because of the number of possible strategies, your head will sometimes explode while searching how to beat a boss or even a single monster. And the sidequests and optional bosses I mentioned are a bit too hard.... her for me at least. Beat all bosses in row S seems a real challenge.

On another note, you can save anywhere, and I once managed to avoid battles or traps by saving each steps... it sometimes is the only way to avoid tedious hard monsters. This problems occurs with near-every portable game, trough, so it isn't an actual flaw.

The Bottom Line
Battle Network is a very fun and addictive game. To enjoy fully of the game, you have to not suck at reflexes as I do, and you'll probably found a lot of fun in this game.