Mega Man Battle Network

It seems every major video game character goes through a silly RPG phase. Mario's had his share of RPG's, Sonic has just started his own series of Chronicle games and Mega Man has Battle Network. A typical RPG game is just about the furthest thing from an action packed game like Mega Man and Capcom didn't want to just straight up abandon the action for stat management. Mega Man Battle Network introduces a completely unique engine that blends the action and rpg elements together and even if its not your personal cup of tea, it's hard to argue with the success of this series.

Battle Network 1 introduced the whole concept of the series and it worked well enough but when taken with the series as a whole, its design seems incredibly primitive. While this game is fun, Battle Network 2 is ahead of it by leaps and bounds by just polishing away some of the more tedious elements of this game which do start to become apparent quickly as you make your way through this one. But it is really trying something new and different, and the core gameplay doesn't really change even in the coming sequels. Many of the design problems which I will address below are fixed as soon as Battle Network 2, so I tend to give this game a break even for its more frustrating elements.

Story

RPG games have a tendency to focus on story and Battle Network is no exception. Mega Man games tend to have terrible stories and Battle Network is also no exception. Uhg...

Battle Network takes place in a world where networking technology has expanded civilization is many unique ways. Everyone is connected to the internet basically all the time through hand held devices called PErsonal Terminals or PETs. Each PET comes with a helper program that manages the functions of the PETs and acts as the security for them. These programs are called Net Navi's and are fully functional AIs in the very literal definition as opposed to the gaming definition.

Everything is hooked up to the networks, buses, traffic lights, the water works, the power plant and all of the schools just to name a few examples directly from the game. And all of these networks have programs and net navis protecting them.

5th grade student Lan Hikari is the grand son of the innovator of these new technologies and has his own personal net Navi MegaMan.exe. Lan is a big fan of netbattling, the act of having Net Navi's fight each other either for fun or security. Him and MegaMan.exe are constantly training to hone their own netbattling skills because they aim to be the best.

Not everyone likes this technology though, as a group calling themselves World Three (WWW) has taken to cyber terrorism to wreak havoc on the networks by infecting them with computer viruses. WWW is headed by the dreaded Lord Wily.

Throw away everything you know about computers now, because when I say computer viruses, I mean little monsters that literally attack the networks by like... hitting them with pick axes and shit.... right just play along ok?

Through out the game WWW causes random acts of terror that just happen to be affecting Lan who is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lan, being himself a really one dimensional hero character sends in MegaMan.exe to solve these problems. You'll have to stop fires from breaking out of hacked stoves, unfreeze the water works, restore power to the air circulation of a government building and stop an out of control bus just to name a few things.

All of these problems prove to be merely distractions however as WWW is constructing a new virus called the Life Virus, which Wily plans to launch into space to destroy the entire cyber network! Oh no! Lan, with the help of his friends and Net Official Eugine Chaud infiltrate WWW's base of operations... because... you know... that's the kind of work children should do? Lan really has the worst parents in the world...

Anyway, MegaMan.exe gets critically injured after his fight with MagicMan.exe and the only way Lan can save him is to introduce into MegaMan.exe's programing a file called Hub.bat. Are you ready for this plot twist? I don't think you are...

Ok... so apparently Lan had a twin brother named Hub who died very early after birth. Dr. Hikari, Lan's father, decided to take some of Hub's DNA and infuse it into MegaMan.exe's early programing as this would... somehow... make it so MegaMan.exe would be more advanced than any other Navi out there, being able to feel and have an emotional bond with Lan. Effectively, Hub would live on through MegaMan.exe, making MegaMan.exe Lan's brother. HOLD ON I'M NOT DONE WITH THIS NONSENSE IT GETS WORSE!

Ok... so Dr. Hikari was worried that since Lan and Hub were twins that since their DNA matched, MegaMan.exe having matching DNA would some how sync them too closely and actually harm Lan whenever MegaMan.exe got damaged. So what he did was change the DNA by .01%. However, Hub.bat would change it back so that Lan and MegaMan.exe would have the same DNA again... which would some how save MegaMan.exe from dying some how...

Man, I'm actually wishing for Kojima's genetics right about now... Anyway... after you some how swallow all of that, MegaMan.exe heals up and defeats the Life Virus. I'm sure you have many questions after seeing all of that, and to answer all of them, I simply say, "magic." The more you think about it, the less you will enjoy the stories, and trust me, they aren't going to let this whole set of events fade off into your memory in future games.

I should note that this never comes up in the cartoon, but that has its own set of bullshit...

The story is pretty light hearted and even though a lot of the dialog is pretty horrible, you should just take everything at face value and keep in mind that this is a kids game at heart. Analyzing all the problems with this plot is actually more pathetic than swallowing all of it and enjoying it for what it is. None of the characters are particularly interesting, but none of them are horribly annoying either. Even though Lan himself doesn't have a lot of depth as a character, he is charismatic enough to carry the story along, and hell, he was the star of the anime so there is something here to be said for him.

Aesthetics
This is a pretty early game boy advanced game and about on par with everything else at the time. It should get points on just not being another fucking pokemon game as even this early that shit was out of control.

The overall environments are pretty bland looking and uninteresting. The internet areas are just downright ugly for the most part too and there aren't many different settings as it is.

I do like the character and enemy design however. MegaMan.exe has been tweaked in appearance to start off this series and he looks pretty good. Familiar but different. Lan and his friends have diverse looks and personalities to them, even if most of them serve to delivery the same horrible jokes over and over again.

The highlight here though are the Net Navi's. Your favorite Robot Masters from the classic series have all had some redesigns and all of them look great. One of the exciting things of this series is seeing how the characters have come into this one. Banking on nostalgia? You better fucking believe it!

Sound

The theme of Battle Network is one of my favorites and the game knows when to hit it just at the right moments. It pumps you up as you get ready for the climax... unless you die 40 times... then you might not be as pumped up... but it's still enjoyable.

The game remixes it's theme into the other tracks to cover the overall emotional tones of the game. It's really good and that's hard to do with the GBA's really shitty sound chip. The rest of the sound track is great too, as is the standard with Mega Man games.

The other sound effects suit the game well enough, but the Game Boy Advanced is ill equipped to deliver anything spectacular.

Design

The rules of the game stay mostly the same through out the series with a few tweaks here and there as it goes on. I'll explain the general rules in this review here though.

The battlefield is a grid, with a 3x3 section for both MegaMan and his opponents. MegaMan can dodge the attacks thrown at him within the grid, and fire back with his buster. At the start of and during the course of battle, Lan will feed in battle chips to MegaMan into his PET. Battlechips contain extra attacks and support functions for MegaMan. Each Battlechip is coded with a letter. When selecting battlechips you can select up to 5 of them for a single round providing the battlechips are identical in name or letter code. You hold 30 battlechips for combat in what's called your "Folder." You need to optimize your folder to whatever strategy you come up with. If you use certain battle chips in a certain order within one round, you can perform a Program Advance, a much more powerful attack.

You gain battle chips from combat, which ranks your performance during each battle. You receive a ranking from 1-10 to S based on your number of movements, how much damage you take, the amount of time you take to finish combat and how many enemies you take out in a single shot. The higher your rank in combat, the more likely you are to receive a new battle chip. This makes the basis of the entire engine.

In this game you can have up to 10 of the same battle chip in your folder and up to 5 of the same navi chip (a battle chip that calls upon the aid of another net navi).

Exclusive to this game, MegaMan.exe will heal up to full health after each combat, so as long as you win the fight you won't have to worry about damage. MegaMan gains more health by collecting items called HP-Memory and powers up his buster in a similar fashion. This is as close to experience as you will get with this series.

This game has a lot of problems that are addressed in other games. The first of which is comes from escaping battles. Now one of the flaws in the design of this game is that eventually you get to a point where most of the battles are a waste of time for you. There's no experience to be gained and grinding out cash through battling is a really slow way to do it. The only way to escape from a fight in this game is to use a battle chip. The problem is the chip selection in this game is random, so if you want to escape a fight, you need to get lucky and have the chip ready to be selected. Not only that, but if you want to prepare to escape fights, you'll need several escape chips and that just wastes space in your folder you could use for attack chips.

Another problem deals more with post game content. Each Battle Network game has a chunk of the game that takes place after you beat the final boss. Generally to reach the final parts of these sections you need to collect all the battle chips in the game. This means finding a specific enemy and beating them a specific way to get the chip. This can take hours since their appearance is random and can get extremely tedious when looking for certain Navi's like ShadowMan.exe. Add to the fact that running from a fight is a pain in the ass, and you'll be doing this forever if you want a chance to fight Bass.exe, the hidden final boss.

Like I said though, sequels take care of these problems so I don't hold the game as accountable as I probably should for it. What I can do is talk about the individual stages.

Each scenario comes with a network stage for MegaMan.exe to tackle, and each stage has a certain gimmick to it. In this game, a few of them are alright as the Water Works has you sliding across ice, and the Traffic Lights have you switching lights on and off to provide walkable paths. Other stages... such as the power plant can just fuck right off and die. The other thing that is really annoying about this series, but this game especially is the reliance on making mazes more than levels. The whole internet section of the game is just a gigantic fucking maze that you'll have to go through about a billion times and it is so fucking tedious. In future games they tone the maze shit down, and even in the remake they are giving you a map this time, but I hate games that make you walk alllllll the way around in a circle before reaching your destination which is actually a few inches away that are obstructed. This game has so few short cuts to help alleivate that problem to and it only just worsens the need to run from battles in this game.

I feel like an apologist with this game here, but most of the tedium you will experience in this game is reduced in the rest of the series and just about perfected in Battle Network 6. It is unavoidable to say that this game suffers from being the first in the series as by the time you get to the other much better games, this one really does feel primitive.

This game also features a multiplayer capability allowing you to trade or battle your friends... This is kind of an old game though so good luck finding anyone even capable, let alone interested in playing with you. You'll have more luck with Mega Man Star Force 3 or the up and coming Operation Shooting Star.

Playability
Battle Network isn't a hard game to pick up, but the learning and difficulty curves will hit you really hard if you don't learn some of the basic strategies and the game isn't particularly helpful about this either. When I first played this game I did okay for a few chapters and then got blind sided where it seemed every boss encounter was almost fucking impossible, and this could easily happen to anyone who just puts whatever the hell chip that comes along in their folder.

That's one of the problems with this game is that you can't really just use any chip you get and experimentation more often than not leads to failure. This problem is almost non-existent in Star Force, which is why I prefer that series over this one, but in these games, unless you are a master strategist, you'll need to have someone explain to you proper folder building.

When I went through this game after I had known how to build a folder, it was almost stupidly easy compared to the hell I had been through my first run. Comparably, this is probably the easiest game in the series once you know how to really play it, but it can take a while before you get comfortable enough to understand it. I really recommend if you are picking up this game for the first time to check out some strategies online at gamefaqs or something. I'll be listing a few in the extras section as well.

Extras

• The best strategy is to Unicode your folder. That means only taking chips of a certain letter. You should try not to have any more than 2 letters in your folder so you can flow with multiple attacks in a single round.
• If you want a cheap folder, build around a single program advance and set your folder up to do that program advance multiple times. A really easy one you can get early is called Guts Shoot. Use MetGuard G, Dash G and GutsMan G and GutsMan.exe will show up and toss MegaMan at a target for 500 damage. It's an extremely effective against Net Navi's and the Life Virus.
• Power up your charge first, then attack. Rapid is pretty useless.
• Search EVERYTHING. You never know when you'll find an HP-Memory.
• Need cash? Try fighting Dex over and over for quick cash. After you beat the game you can generally find 3000 zenny pick ups in the last section of the internet, but that's a real pain in the ass to get to.
• Some chips are just a pain in the ass to get to. You'd be surprised at how helpful the chip trader can be to get those missing chips.

Battle Network 1 is a decent game but most people put it towards the bottom on their list in the order of which games here are best. Not because it's bad, but because the other games are much better. There's nothing in this game that you'll miss to much by skipping it for even at least Battle Network 2. With the remake coming along, there's even less reason to play this one.

Playthroughs
You do not want to watch someone play this game... trust me, it would be really boring and take forever... then again people watch pokemon let's plays...