Pros: a great game that I got for 5 dollers
Cons: sometimes it's confusing what to do has Lan
The bottom line: Mega Man game for 5 dollers, the only thing I have to worry about is that they stuck an NFL blitz game in this package.
OK Mega Man battle network was released on the GBA 2 years ago at a sale price of 40 dollars. Did I got out and buy it then nope, I was saving up for a PS1 to play all its Mega Man games at a cheaper price. I was surprised my Wal-Mart kept the price at 40 dollars even after the sequel came out with a 30 dollars retail price. Well last February I noticed on clearance for 30 dollars, wow they decreased it to the average GBA price still not interested. 25 dollars next week still not really interested, week after 20 dollars I’ll think about it, 10 dollars I’ll come back next week if there’s any left. Well when I came back the next week there was only one left mark down to 5 dollars. Not being stupid enough to pass a deal like that I quickly picked it up and bought. This is probably the best 5 dollars I spent on a GBA game.

This game isn’t like your typical Mega Man game; it isn’t a shooter but is more of an RPG. Also you only spend half the game has Mega Man, the other half has a boy named Lan. You see unlike other Mega Man games Mega Man isn’t a killer robot, or a boy that may or may not be a killer robot. This time Mega Man is a killer virus program called a net navi.

Story.
The year is 20XX and it is the network age. Everything being linked together through the Internet. To help surf the web and interact with the computer people use Personal Terminals, or PETs. Inside the PET is a program called a Net Navi, programs that help there user interact with the net. Of course it isn’t trendy to use the default options on the net navi’s people use upgrade software to give there AI’s custom personality’s. Lan Hikari’s customize navi is named Mega Man.EXE. With a terrorist group named WWW is out trying to destroy everything Lan and Mega Man make it there personal mission to stop them.

The story in this one isn’t bad it’s episodic though with each mission following a day in the life of Lan and Mega Man’s life. Anybody who’s taken a computer networking class will notice all the silly little networking jokes. Lan stands for Local Area Network, his friend Mayl is pronounced Mail, another kid’s name is Dex stands for index, and Mega Man’s real name is Hub (haven’t figured that one out yet).

While the gameplay is pretty far from the classic Mega Man series, Mega Man battle network actually gets pretty close to it’s roots has far has characters go. Each of the characters in this game where probably robots that where blown up in the classic Mega Man games. Some of the Navi’s are Roll, Gutsman, Fireman, Ice Man and Protoman. Has far has humans go Dr. Wily is the leader of WWW and has to be beaten in the end. And land’s dad Dr. Hikari (Hikari means light in Japanese) created Mega Man.exe. So the only classic character to have been left out is Rush.

Graphics.
The graphics aren’t going to pushing the GBA limit, but they are better then that of Pokemon sapphire. The game is done in a 2/3 above perspective so everything has a bit of depth in them. The character sprites are good size but not big. The colors are nice but they can look a bit matted sometimes when I blow the picture up to full screen on my GBA player.

Sound.
You get a few nice tunes that stick in your head but nothing really classic or notable here. The music it self is ok for GBA standards and won’t drive anybody around listening to it crazy.

Gameplay.
Ok the gameplay style basically goes like this you usually start off has Lan in the real world where he does the typical 10 year old boy thing, eats, goes to school, comes home, eats a snack, saves city metroline from evil computer virus (don’t ask). In the real world Lan can communicate with Mega Man about what to do next when a problem arises.

Whenever Lan jacks into a computer he uses Mega Man and this is where you become the blue bomber. The net it self is like a dungeon maze with puzzles to solve and doors to open to gain access into new areas. Now Mega Man and Lan must act like a team to solve many of the puzzles, for instance in the schools network Mega Man will come across doors with puzzles like how many desks are in one room and Lan will have to run around in the real world counting desks so Mega Man can open the door. There are many puzzles like this and the places where I got more stuck was playing has Lan figuring out what to do next. The game only big problem is there sometimes not enough clues to figure out what Lan has to do next to continue, I sometimes had to look up in a guide to do next.

Now has far has battles go there random battles that Mega Man enoucnters while on the net. To describe the battles imagine a Pokemon catch them all combine with Yugio’s card game combo, add in a blue bomber and you got the battle. At the beginig of every battle you select a chip or chips that Mega Man will use. The chips will help power up Mega Man. Either healing him, giving him defense, or letting him attack in a special way. After he uses the chip he is down to a mega buster which does little damage compared to the chips in till a time bar expires and Lan can give him more chips. If the 5 chips that he get’s can’t help him Lan can use the add option which leaves Mega Man with just a buster gun for a turn but let’s Lan choose up to 10 chips the next turn. What’s more though is that Lan isn’t stuck with one chip per turn he can match them either by chip type (example two sword types) or if the letters match (firesword F, with an escape F can be put together) he can use them. Making some interesting combo’s appear that Lan can use. To make things better Lan and Mega Man can get Navi chips which helps him summon Navi’s that he has beaten to help. The navi’s are more accurate and often have a side affect like healing mega man or damaging the enemies’ side of the board.

Which brings to another unique feature of Mega Man is that he is actually is allowed to move while the timer is going up allowing him to dodge enemies attack. Is movements are limited though to the left side of the board with the tiles of his colors, tiles can be changed colors and damage to where they can’t be used and limiting his mobility. Of course there are chips that let Mega Man do the same thing to the enemy side of the board.

Like an RPG Mega Man will be able to pick up and buy programs that make him stronger like HP up’s, and things to improve his weak buster. But the main meat and potatoes though are the battle chip programs.

Final Recommendation.
If you can get this for 5 dollars it’s a steal but if not I say this is definitely a good game to play.

For my classic Mega Man games that this game is based on here are the links.

Mega Man 6 for NES
http://www.epinions.com/content_79784939140

Mega Man 2 for the black and white Gameboy
http://www.epinions.com/content_105467776644

Mega Man 8 for PS1
http://www.epinions.com/content_52169969284