Mega Man: Battle Network: A Flawed, Yet Solid Start (LONG READ AND SPOLIERS FOR MMBN1 AHEAD)
So, I recently finished Mega Man Battle Network for the very first time, I've played this game a bit before, but this is my very first time actually playing the game from start to finish, and I want to become a Game Journalist or something like that one day, so what better way to practice than with my favorite Video game franchise of all time, Mega Man! Here's my history with the Blue Bomber:
One day, as a kid, I was scrolling through my Game Emulator looking for something to play. I saw Mega Man X6 and thought, "Hey, I've heard of Mega Man before! Let's try it out!" I clicked on the game, and I only remember getting through the intro level and Commander Yammark level, but I quite enjoyed myself! So I dug through the Mega Man rabbit hole and fell in love with X and Classic in particular, but I did play the games BN a bit, but didn't really get far in them, but I did enjoy them. Then, other interests kinda took over for a few years until I got back into X. Then, out of curiosity, I read the Mega Man NT Warrior manga and watched the anime, and really enjoyed them! So I decided to snag the Battle Network Legacy Collection for $19.78. (What a steal!) And now, I'm writing this, let's get into the actual game, shall we?
GRAPHICS AND ART STYLE: (100/100)
I find the art style of this game quite appealing. I'll be honest, I didn't really care about MegaMan.EXE's design, but now I love it, the colors, the hair poking out the back. It's a great modernization of the OG Mega Man design in my opinion. It changes enough to have its own identity, but you can still tell it's Mega Man. The other redesigns are good, too; some other highlights are: FireMan, BombMan, and GutsMan. They modernize the design while still respecting the OG. I also loved the environments and locale and how expressive and full of life the are. Overall, very beautiful graphics for a 2001 GBA Game.
(Side Note: The art style for the promo art in BN1 is quite different from the later games. Take a look:)
BN1:
BNNOSS:
GAMEPLAY: (78/100)
This'll be split into 3 sections: the Combat, the Exploration, and the Puzzles.
Combat: (11/10)
This combat system is genuinely such a smart breakdown of the OG Mega Man Gameplay. In the Mega Man platformers, the challenge lies in lining up your shots to the enemies to hit them. BN takes this concept and retools it into a grid based combat system. Fights take place on a 6x3, 18 square grid, MegaMan has 9 squares to himself, as do the enemies, MegaMan obviously has his trusty Mega Buster, but the ol' Lemon Shooter ain't so strong here, MegaMan's real arsenal is Lan's collection of "Battle Chips," a data storage device that an Lan can insert in the PET to transfer its data to MegaMan, giving him special abilites, like summoning a Cannon, a Sword or healing himself. Some chips even give MegaMan the ability to alter the grid. I found it really fun to buy chips, experiment with them, and see how I liked them. And the bosses are built to really maximize this combat system some stand outs are FireMan, ElecMan, ProtoMan and the LifeVirus. It was really fun changing folder to prepare for the battle ahead.. There are also elemental armors MegaMan can equip, there's Aqua, Heat, Wood, and Elec, equipping these armors lets MegaMan do double damage to one element, but get double damage if he gets hit by the element the armor is weak to.
Here's the chart if you're curious
They don't change MegaMan's appearance, which, I mean, would a color swap have been nice, but they do their job well. Overall, an amazing combat system
Exploration: (9/10)
I found exploring the Internet kinda fun, but sometimes it became really confusing on where to go and what to do to progress the story, so much so that I had to use a guide, also fuck DenTown, it's feels like a maze at times
Puzzles: (5/10)
These puzzles were genuinely so ass, the only fun one was the puzzles leading up to the ColorMan fight, and even that is bogged down by DenTown being a fucking maze. NumberMan is...how do you design a puzzle like this, you have to insert a random number and PRAY it's the right one and if you fail enough times it FUCKING CHANGES, IceMan's was mediocre, you have the navigate around Ice to turn on the water, but it gives you NO hints on where to go, but the WORST puzzle in the ENTIRE game is ElecMan's puzzle, it's sooooooo ass, there are these dumbass invisible floors that I hate so much, it's SO confusing and irritating to navigate.
Overall, the gameplay gets a rough 70 because I still did really enjoy the combat system and not ALL the puzzles are shit, but the ones that are shit, are really SHIT
STORY: (80/100)
I wasn't expecting an amazing story out of this game and as a MASSIVE Dragon Ball fan (Goku will always be the GOAT). I felt a lot of Shonen influence in the story. A cheerful but braindead MC (Lan) who is oblivious to the affections of his Love Interest (Mayl), a partner who acts as a straight man to the MC (MegaMan), and an edgy rival (Chaud and ProtoMan), etc. The NPC's were also really funny and full of life, I actually cared for them during the final boss. (One of the funniest is during the ElecMan chapter where a scientist thinks Lan's mom is hot and Lan that she's his mom and he just freezes lol) But the biggest twist is the reveal that>!MegaMan is Lan's twin brother.!<Which was just such a shocking and Tragic twist that was really well done. I don't really play games for their story, so that's all I had to say here and is probably why I rated it so high
MUSIC: (110/100)
It's a Mega Man game, they always have fire OSTs and this one is no different, Highlights include the title screen theme because it's iconic, catchy and feels, well, techy, the boss theme is good too, it genuinely hypes me up when I hear it in the background, and the music that plays when >!Lan's dad reveals that MegaMan is Hub, Lan's twin fits the tragic moment beautifully!<
CONCLUSION
Overall, despite frustrating puzzles and poor navigation, Mega Man: Battle Network still remains a fun and solid start to one of the most popular Mega Man sub-series, with brilliant combat and fun characters, I'll be interested to see how the series builds from this impressive first impression (huehuehue)
FINAL SCORE: (798/1,000)
Onto Battle Network 2!