Megaman Battle Network

Megaman's first rpg is......a complete success

The blue bomber is back in a whole new adventure on the game boy advance but this time he has broken out of his signuture side scrolling action platformer format and has taken on the card battling rpg format???? Well before you megaman fans start yelling listen and read this review to find that this is one of the blue bombers greatest adventures yet.

THE GAMEPLAY: Alright the gameplay is quite strange for Megaman so listin up you switch between Lan (a human kid in the real world) and Megaman EXE (Megaman's newest form a netnavi who goes through cyber space kicking butt) now in the real world you as Lan go through a normal life in his futuristic world where everything is run by computers but this means viruses are much more in number and can be deadly so it's up to Lan to take Megaman to the electronic device that needs viruses cleared out of it or hostile netnavis as Megaman you use battle chips (microchips that give him weapons and abilities) you can get these through a turn based system a meter fills up and when it does you pick which chip out of five that you randomly pulled (kinda like your hand in a card game) but you are not limited to pulling just one chip per turn you can also make combos by pulling more than one of the same kind of chip of by pulling two chips of the same code. A code is put on the bottom of each chip two chips that have a H code can be played in the same turn even if they aren't the same kind of chip and chips that are the same can be played together even if they are not of identical code by the way new chips (which there are 175) can be obtain from detroying viruses for example if you detroy a dash virus you may get his chip depending on what kind of busting level you get busting level is a rank system which goes from 1-10 and S and you have a better chance of getting a chip if you get a 10 rank rather than a 5 now after you have selected your chips you can fight the viruses in a 3D battle arena which is split up into 18 panels 9 blue panels and 9 red panels you stand on the blue and cannot cross on to the red and and the same applies for you foes on the red you move about dogding attacks while launching your own its strange for Megaman but it works very well aside from battling in cyberspace you will also explore and solve puzzles many of which require you to be both Lan and Megaman to solve them example in cyberspace there is alocked door but it has a passnumber it is based on how many chairs are in Lans classroom in the real world therefore you must become Lan to solve the puzzle. A way this is a rpg is that Megaman can level up but not through exp points he levels up by finding upgrade items such as HPmemories which raises your overall HP (you start with 100) and Powerups which raise your power rapid and charge up powers of your buster these upgrades can be found in various areas of cyberspace or the real world or by buying them from merchants speaking of exploring that is another great thing about this game you can explore areas of cyberspace in just about anything electronic such as vending machines, game systems, tvs, and the most expansive area the internet but you can still explore the real world and interact with the people in the various towns particapate in netbattles where Megaman fights their netnavi and trade battle chips noy to mention while exploring you can try to get all the battle chips in the game. Also old fans will reconize old bosses reborn in this game such as Bombman Iceman Elecman and Protoman. 

THE STORY: The story begins as you are put into the role of Lan a 5th grader kid who is off to school in his futuristic world that is run completly by computers because of this viruses are larger in numbers and more deadly so much so that destroying them with your netnavi example Megaman is a big course in school on the way to school Lan walks with his freind Mayl who begins to tell him of a hacking net crime organization the world 3 or WWW that is becoming more know throughout the story Lan and Megaman Battle the WWW to stop their evil plans but unlike old Megaman games you don't just pick a boss stage and go there you fight WWW as events unfold in the game.

OVERALL: It will take you at long time to master this game trying to find all the battle chips reaching level 100 and battling WWW will keep you busy for quite awhile. 

NAME: MEGAMAN BATTLE NETWORK
SYSTEM: Game Boy Advance