Transmissions. Before I start this review, I want to remind you that I paid $2.50 for this game from gamestop online. The shipping cost more than the game. Was I happy with my purchase? Sure... why not? Would I have been for a full $50 price tag? Ha ha ha, no.This game is sort of like the console version of the wonderswan game I just reviewed, and it's MegaMan.exe's first console appearance as well. Good for him! It's another 2D platformer, surely Capcom can't screw this up? Actually Arika made this one, you may know them for the Street Fighter EX series and the recent Endless Ocean. How did they do? Eh... okay I guess?
Story
The game takes place in between Battle Network 1 and 2. A virus is circulating around called the Zero Virus via PET e-mail and Lan and MegaMan discover that a vaccine being circulated is actually the virus. Several incidents get stirred up with Navi's going out of control, such as Yai's gardener's Navi Needleman causing havoc in her garden, the bank getting robbed by Quickman, and the water works getting frozen... again...Over the course of the game it is revealed that the Zero Virus is the work of a remaining member of WWW, named the Professor and his own virus Zero.Exe is one of Dr. Wily's last creations. Remember we think he died in Battle Network 1.
The course of the game here can change depending on if you collect a certain item or not, but eventually you run into Zero.exe. During the fight you discover that he's not evil... he's just programmed that way? If you don't get the item, you kill him. If you do get the item, Lan's dad will turn Zero.exe into a navi instead of a virus.
No matter what happens, the Zero virus was just a diversion to revive the Life Virus from Battle Network 1... wait what? Why did he spread havoc with Zero to distract people when he could have just hidden his work all along and then unleashed it to an unsuspecting public? Huh?
Anyway beat the life virus again, Shadowman.exe says something leading into Battle Network 2, ice cream for everyone!
This story would go on to serve the base plot for Rockman.exe Beast+ in Japan.
Post Game Content
After you collect all the Navi cards (you don't need the standard cards), Mayl tells you that a weird Navi has been seen running around parts of the net. That Navi is Bass.exe and he wants to fight you for the hell of it. You can't beat him, only take him down about 1/8th of his life and then he laughs and runs off. Well... that was pointless.
Aesthetics
Cel shaded 3D models on a 2D plane. The little scenes showing the bosses entrances are pretty
cool to look at and we see a few new bosses we haven't seen yet. Brightman by far has got the biggest overhaul to his design, and I think he looks awesome. It is nice to see the enemies in higher resolution graphics. The game cube is more powerful than what this game makes use of though.The stages are alright, though the main internet hubs are pretty bland looking. It is a bit disappointing that there isn't any real world locations to explore for Lan and the way you access the internet hubs in this game is from a map screen. I know it saves a lot of time in not only development, but just in moving the player around, but it is a bit boring this way.
Sound
Decent tunes play through out the sound track, but there aren't many songs. I doubt you'll be humming any of these tunes to yourself though.Fans of the anime will be pleased to find out that the actual voices from the show will reprise their roles here. Scratch that, fans of the Japanese version of the show will be pleased. This game never received any dubbing work here in the West, despite there actually being voice actors available to do it. The whole game is subtitled. I'm not really sure why other than extra development costs. I mean, it's not like any of the characters' mouths move.
If you get annoyed with high pitched little kids speaking Japanese, this could quickly annoy you. If you're like me and have suffered enough through Mega Man voice acting, you'll just ignore it and play on.
Design
This game is weird. It starts out a gigantic pain in the ass being really annoying, gets more tolerable as the game goes on, then ends on a decent note. The difficulty curve for this game is backwards, as the difficulty in the stages and bosses start out real tough but don't keep up the pace with the player as you gain extra health, buster power ups and better chips.
A lot of people complain about the final boss, but he's really a joke. Just throw in all of your 100+ damage chips into your folder and presto, game over. The toughest boss in this game for me was FireMan at the start because I didn't have much room for error against him.
Trying to draw closer to the original series than the wonderswan title, this game has you searching for power ups and HP-Memories. Your buster is completely worthless at the start of the game, but once you power up charge and attack you'll prefer to use it on bosses. Get yourself invisible chips and you'll mostly be unstoppable. It just takes a while to get to this point.
The stages themselves also tend to get easier as the game goes along. For example one of the earlyest missions in the game is a QuickMan laser tribute, and we all know how lovely those sections are... Later on there's a GravityMan stage, which, while fun, isn't necessarily
challenging.The crux of this game is exploration, something the Mega Man games have become somewhat familiar with since the X series, but not to the extent this game takes it. There are even a few chips specifically made for the purpose of it and the more exploring you do, the easier the game will be.
One complaint about this game though is that, unlike the Wonderswan version, you can't just switch out chips whenever you want. The game plays like Battle Network with a custom gauge that takes forever to fill up and it draws randomly from your folder. A bit annoying, but if you have the patience, you can usually wait outside the boss doors for a program advance to show up.
Playability
Unlike Battle Network, there's nothing much to need to learn here. Jump, shoot and slide, the staples of a Mega Man platformer. The Battle Chips for the most part just aid you rather than replace your buster, and if you're good enough you won't need them for the majority of the game anyway.
Extras
- Use your power ups on Charge Shot first, then Attack. Rapid fire is mostly useless against everything.
- Invis chips and health restoring chips are your friends.
- You need to S-rank bosses to get their Navi chips. The game doesn't really grade you visually like it does in the regular games but it does grade you. Hit the enemy fast without taking much damage to S-Rank them.
- Get all the Navi chips to unlock Bass. He'll drop a Battle Chip that takes out the whole screen... useless since you'll be done with the game by then.
- This game has a few hidden codes for Battle Network 3, further cementing the promotional value of the series.
You can get this game for about two bucks now on Gamestop.com. It's better than X7 to tell you that much, but don't expect to be blown away.
Playthroughs
N/A
No comments:
Post a Comment