All of the cool kids are stuck decades in the
past, man. That and people with malfunctioning time machines.
So in case you were born in a barn and/or before the 70s,
which is practically the same as far as video games were concerned, you may not
be entirely familiar with the Mega Man series. More likely you know of the main
series, precision platformers on the NES onward known for non-linear level
selection, stealing powers from enemy bosses, being well-designed in general
and having a very old-school (really freaking hard) approach to difficulty.
What you may not be aware of are the games outside of the main series. Of
course, that can be easily remedied, right? I mean it’s not like there have
been, say, over 125 Mega Man games.
And by that, I of course mean there are. Mega Man is no
stranger to long series, plentiful spin-offs and long spin-off series. One of
the longest running of these was the Mega Man Battle Network series, which
spawned 6 main games (titles 3-6 had multiple versions), a secondary series
called Star Force with 3 games (all with multiple versions), and two spin-offs to the spin-off series, not to mention
some Japanese-only games that were never released on American shores. So what
kind of brilliant gameplay would support such a long running spin off game?
Well, they took the hard core precision platforming Mega Man is known for and
made a game with no platforming at all, grinding and fetch quests, and a
10-year old boy as the new protagonist.
Up next, I’ll talk
about the Super Mario Bros. spin-off where he stars in a real time
strategy/cooking simulator.
I’ve exaggerated a bit of course, the 10-year old boy was
only one of the protagonists. You see the MMBN series took place in an
alternate universe which is more or less like our own with one notable
exception: The internet and the inside of electronics all take the form of physical
spaces. People have Navi’s, digital avatars with their own appearance and
personalities, to explore these digital areas. These Navi’s physically fight viruses
and other Navi’s in cyberspace, and in case it wasn’t obvious, the hero, Lan
Hikari, has a Navi by the name of Mega Man. Every game these two seem to start
with normal net surfing and get caught up in some other manner of Saturday morning
cartoon style villains bent on taking over the world through improbable and
illogical electronics-based means.
The Saturday morning cartoon comparison is actually
rather apt for the writing style these games follow. By which I mean, you don’t
normally think too much about the writing because it’s not the point, which is
good because it’s generally a bunch of mediocre contrived nonsense. I’ve played
Mega Man Battle Network 2 and 3, and despite this one probably being slightly
stronger writing-wise it still contained some of the following, just as an
example: Unmoving mechanical bear attacks; going back and forth on a plane
multiple times with no notable time lapse; terrorism via technology that
somehow controls the weather; key quest NPCs hiding inside a phone in an 8-year
girls room; and a main villain who is revealed to have been a genius little boy
who was bullied, whom you not only defeat with the power of friendship but also
befriend afterward. I’d feel worse about spoiling that plot twist if it weren’t
so terrible. I mean come on, this boy is implied to have killed at least a
couple people (his own minions, because stereotypes), tried to bring world
nations to their knees and flooded a city with radiation.
But like I said, though the constant fuzzy logic and
flimsy justifications for events can nag at times, particularly when they
result in you having to jump through hoops, it doesn’t stop the game from being
enjoyable because it’s not really the focus. Another thing that isn’t the focus
is the out-of-combat sections, which is good because they too are kind of
mediocre. Outside of combat, the game is split into two segments: the real
world and cyberspace. Though the cyberworld can occasionally bother with
annoying frequent random battles, it’s generally the more enjoyable one. Each
chapter of the game generally has some themed version of cyberspace equipped
with puzzles like magnetic conveyor belts or spelling riddle answers on the
floor.
The real world is a bit less interesting. Without the
benefit of battles, puzzles and merchants, it’s limited to walking, talking,
and interacting with the environment. This basically translates to a whole mess
of filler and fetch quests, as you traverse the overworld performing inane
tasks to get to the better part of the game. It’s not very big either, so if
you want to complete all the games side quests you’ll probably examine every
inch of it before you’re done. Despite being a bit of a bore, it’s still at
least tolerable until you get to the good parts. So about a thousand words into
the review, I think it’s time we got on to the good parts.
Pictured above are the
less good parts, but I thought I’d show them to you before we move on.
The main point in favor of the game, and indeed what it
really revolves around, is its combat system. The Mega Man Battle Network
series has a pretty great fusion of turn-based combat and real time reflexes
that has in my opinion pretty much carried the games for a long time. The
battles begin on 6x3 grids, with you on the left half of the grid and your
enemies on the right half. Before things actually start, you’re given a
selection of five (or under some circumstances more) battle chips, out of 30
you have in your folder (similar to a deck of cards). These battle chips are
kind of like collectible cards of which there are hundreds of in any given MMBN
game. They’re things like cannons, bombs, swords and so forth. They do
different amounts of damage, have different areas of effect and are activated
in differing ways. In addition, each chip has a letter code. You can select
more than one chip if 1. All of the ones you select are the same type of chip
or 2. All of your chips have the same letter code. So you could select several
cannon chips at once, or you could select several chips that have, say, the “D”
code at once.
Behold, ImageMan! With
the power to break up boring expositional walls of text!
After you select your chips, the battle starts and you
can move around the grid in real time, as can your enemies. The A button uses
your chips (in the order you selected them) and the B button uses your standard mega buster attack. The buster (which also has a charge attack) is pretty wimpy
until later in the game, and even then it’s usually better to use chips. The
battles are fairly fast paced, you can move across the grid in a fraction of a second and before too long will need to if you want to dodge enemies
attacks. After about 8 seconds of fighting, the custom gauge at the top of the
screen will fill up. When it does, you can press either of the shoulder buttons
to pause the fight again and select more chips, with new ones filling the spots
of previously used ones. This process repeats until the fight is over.
That covers all the basics of fighting, but as with any
good combat system there’s a ridiculous amount of nuance and customization
underneath the surface. There are 250 battle chips in MMBN2, and each can be found
with a variety of letter codes. Some even combine to form unique special moves,
called program advances, when selected in the proper order. There are chips
that do just about everything you can think of, and all sorts of different strategies
you can think up using them. Even passing by the huge amount of depth offered
in this system, there are plenty of other factors to take into account. Some
stages have terrain or obstacles that do different things, like ice that you
slide on or panels that break when you stand on them. There are a wide variety
of enemies that attack in different ways, and that’s not even getting into the
bosses (yet). After a certain amount of time there’s even a system called style changes
where you can evolve into a different type of Mega Man with a different
element, charge attack, and other benefits depending on how you evolved.
Here we see some type
of Electric Mega Man with a new charge attack that stuns enemies. You can also
see that the chips he selected are displayed in order above his head.
At the end of every fight you’re rated based on how fast
you beat the enemies, whether you got hit, and whether you beat multiple
enemies at once. The better you do, the better your ranking is, from 1 to 10
and then S rank for a near perfect victory. Better rankings get you more money
and chips based off of the enemies you defeated. This makes
fighting regular enemies over and over a much more engaging experience, because
using better combos and performing better will give you better rewards. Getting
S rank on even simple enemies is really difficult without certain chips, as you’ll
need to dispatch them in a matter of seconds or even under a second in some
cases. This segues into another point about the MMBN series: it can be pretty
damn hard at times.
The boss
battles against other Navi’s carry a lot of the same elements you’d expect from
the main Mega Man series. They all have different attack patterns and often
unique gimmicks that you need to take into account to beat them, and due to
their high health and damage, you’ll probably die if you don’t. As I said
before, combat moves very quickly as you get further in, and near the end of
the game even if you’ve bought all the health upgrades regular enemies can
still take you from full health to zero in a few seconds if you’re not careful.
You can rematch every boss in the game as many times as you want through some
means or another, and they all have harder v2 and v3 versions on repeat encounters.
Getting every bosses v3 chip requires beating their hardest version without
getting hit in under 30 seconds in order to get S rank in the fight. This is
one of the games optional side quests you can complete after beating the game,
and in case the above description didn’t make it obvious, such feats take
titanic amounts of effort even for seasoned veterans of the game.
There are also some
secret bosses which range from challenging to ohdeargodwhy
For a second there, I almost finished the review without
mentioning the music. I’m not one to ever overlook such a thing, and this game
certainly isn’t an exception. The Mega Man series is known for its excellent
chiptune-style music (he ‘aint called Rock Man in Japan for nothing). The music
from the MMBN series is a bit different but I’m happy to report still quite
good; with electronic synths melding with retro beeps and making good use of
stereo. It may be one of my favorite soundtracks on the GBA, so let’s cut to
the chase and show some examples.
The title screen music
is as good a place to start as any. Short, but seriously sweet.
AirMan is the first
boss of the game, but his music most certainly does not blow.
ACDC is the home town
of our hero, and shows that the real world, though perhaps more boring in terms of gameplay, can be just as awesome musically.
The boss theme in this
game is assuredly awesome, which is good, because you’ll probably hear it a lot
later on as you get thoroughly trounced.
There’s more I could say about this game, but beyond
getting into fine details, that pretty much sums it up. MMBN2 has a poorly
written story (partially redeemed by an interesting setting) and a huge amount
of filler and grind. The visuals are nice and stylized and the music is
fantastic, but what really keeps you playing is the excellent battle system
around which the whole game revolves. Though 2 and 3 are the games I can
specifically vouch for, from what I can tell many of them are quite similar
(though some are worse than others, when in doubt, look up a second opinion on
the other ones). GBA games may not be seen much on store shelves these days but
Amazon has them pretty cheap, about $5-25 for 2 or 3. If a game providing good
measures of tactics, reflexes, depth and challenge can let you forgive frequent
filler and other minor flaws, I highly recommend picking a copy up.
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