Mega Man Battle Network (series)

Mega Man Battle Network is a series of Action RPGs with some card game elements. In Japan, it is known as Rockman EXE. It is a much less traditional RPG than MegaMan X: Command Mission, and has been primarily on the GBA. The MMBN series retains the signature power-stealing and rapid shooting action of the original MegaMan series while adding new RPG elements.

The core of the gameplay relies less on having many different stats to level up, and more on building a folder to fight with. When you run enter a battle, the fights take place on a 3 x 6 grid, with half of that belonging to you and the other half belonging to your enemy or enemies. You can use your default buster as many times as you want as you maneuver around. While the action is in real time, when the custom gauge is full, you are given the option to select a chip from your folder. Chips enable you to do a stronger special attack, heal yourself, change the ground type, take squares, create an obstacle, or summon a quick ally to do an attack.

Chips have different abilities and uses that allow a wide variety of strategy. Some may just shoot a powerful blast straight ahead, while others may throw a bomb overhead, in an arc, to avoid any objects blocking the path. Others may be more defensive, such as enabling you to steal 3 squares from the enemy, or turn all the enemies squares into slippery ice, which in turn makes electric attacks stronger. This overview of the battle system doesn't even take into account special chip letter combos, different styles & souls, charged shots, or element bonuses & weaknesses.

Many believe Mega Man Battle Network 2 or Mega Man Battle Network 3 to be the peak of the series so far. Mega Man Battle Network 4 was a drastic change in the series, changing the graphics to show smaller sprites, as opposed to the more realistic sprites of the first 3 titles. The strategy was also changed greatly with the subtraction of several parts of the game, such as styles, and the 'add chip' function.

Mega Man Battle Network
Lan Hikari and MegaMan.EXE fight WWW lead by Dr Wily, who intends to build an ultimate virus called LifeVirus, and use it to destroy the Internet itself. The Internet (in its Cyber World form) was invented by Lan's grandfather, Doctor Tadashi Hikari and PETs (PErsonal Terminals that house NetNavis) were invented by his father, Doctor Yuuichiro Hikari. NetNavis are programs that look and act like human beings (and even have souls) that live in the Cyber World inside machines. In the MMBN world, every piece of technology (coke machines, respirators, ovens) is connected to the Internet. In the end, Lan's father reveals to him that Lan had a twin brother, Hub Hikari, who had a heart condition. Hub died as an infant, and Lan's father used an experimental process to digitize his DNA and recreate his body in Cyber World. When he did this, Hub's soul reentered the body of this Navi, and they gave him an outer "shell" so he'd look and act like any other Navi. Hub is MegaMan, and Lan wasn't aware of this (MegaMan, however, was) until the end of the game. Lan's father explains that if he knew MegaMan was his brother, Lan might hold back in battle, but now that he understands MegaMan's full potential, he knows telling him won't inhibit him in combat. Also, Bass.EXE, a Navi without an operator, who wanders the web, is introduced in an optional post-ending side quest.

He also explains that MegaMan and Lan were linked, and that when MegaMan took damage, Lan did too. So they removed 0.001% of his DNA, and locked it in a program inside him called Hub.BAT (referred to as the Heart Program in MegaMan Battle Network 2). When the Heart Program is activated, Lan and MegaMan become linked again. This gives MegaMan twice the power (well, for plot purposes anyway. It only gives a slight increase to his in-game stats), but means if he is deleted, Lan dies. They activate this program at the end of the first and second game.

Mega Man Network Transmission
Network Transmission takes place between the first and second game. It's about the Zero Virus, a virus that has been infecting Navis all over the Internet. At the end of the game, you find out that the Zero Virus is an evolving virus, that uses all the infected Navis, and every single virus on the Internet, as its eyes and ears, and uses them to learn and evolve into an ultimate life form, to be used as a weapon by WWW. It eventually evolves into a sentient being, Zero.EXE. WWW also built another Life Virus. When Lan defeats Zero and the Life Virus, the game ends. If you, the player, explored the net and found a piece of encrypted data and sent it to Lan's Dad for decryption, then Lan's dad will call and say that the file was Zero's source code, and he can now remove the part of Zero that makes him evil, and allows the WWW to control him. If not, you have to delete Zero.

Mega Man Battle Network 2
The second game is about an organization called the Net-Mafia Gospel who has been trying to take over the web. In this game, BugFrags are introduced, which is kind of an alternate currency that you think has nothing to do with the plot, until you realize that someone has been buying all the BugFrags off the black market and fusing them to create a SuperProgram, which happens to be Bass. He made a CopyBass, but it was weak and easily beaten. Then, when he tried to make another one, the BugFrags re-arranged into Gospel.EXE instead of another Bass Copy. This virus is Gospel and it threatens the Internet. The culprit is committing these acts from a hotel, and a lot happens to his hard drive because the Gospel virus is housed in it, and the whole hotel becomes engulfed in radiation and the cyber world mixes with reality. Though Lan and MegaMan never meet, MegaMan wanders around the digitized parts of the hotel in the real world. The kid turns out to be a emotionally disturbed child that Wily has been using as a puppet.

Mega Man Battle Network 3
In the third game (and considered by many to be where the series peaked) a lot happens, including Lan getting tricked into almost murdering his own father, MegaMan and Lan fighting for a kid who has the same heart condition that Hub died from, who is being operated on when the Hospital computers running the equipment comes under attack from a WWW Navi. The equipment shuts down, so MegaMan "overloads" his system to give it a jump start, almost killing himself. Lan's best friend also moves away, and some other character development stuff happens. In the end, MegaMan and Lan discover that the first Internet that his grandfather made, Alpha, became so overrun by viruses that the whole network became one huge super virus. They couldn't destroy it, so they hid it in a server on an island somewhere. They also made a file galled GigaFreeze, that could be used to freeze the entire Internet in an unthawable state, just in case Alpha ever got loose again.

Lan and MegaMan find Alpha.EXE, which doesn't have a jack into point. Instead it's accessed by chairs that take the operator's personality and digitizes it, meaning both operator and Navi enter the network together. Just like the Matrix. So, Lan and MegaMan meet for the first time, and Lan can't operate him that way, so they kind of, like, "fuse" into one being, and he operates him from within. They then find Dr Wily, and Bass, and Alpha, and manage to defeat them. For some reason, they also enter a VisionBurst where they meet their grandfather Dr Hikari Sr (aka Dr Light) who, before he died, digitized himself through the Matrix chair, and kept his program inside the VisionBurst as the guardian of the virus Alpha. After Alpha is destroyed, the network eventually collapses on itself before anyone can escape and basically reformats. MegaMan, in an effort to save Lan, overloads his system again, this time concentrating all his power onto his "jackout" teleporter, to oust Lan from Alpha before it falls apart, leaves himself behind. Lan was the only one to escape, Wily, Alpha and Bass were stuck inside.

So, MegaMan dies, and Lan grieves during the ending, which is really sad. Lan's dad says that they found a text file in the junk data, which had a heavily encrypted code on it from Lan's grandfather. It's the coordinates to a spot of data held on the server. It's the VisionBurst. Dr Hikari Sr had saved MegaMan and drew him inside the vision burst, which was not part of Alpha, and thus, immune to the format.

Bass, who was absorbed by Alpha, but not destroyed, is found by the remains of Gospel. Bass fuses with Gospel and survives, but loses his memory while he regains power. Wily too is absorbed by Alpha, apparently along with 5 other members of the WWW. However, their data is retrieved along with Megaman, and they too are fully restored.

Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge
In this mini-sequel to MegaMan Battle Network 3, you have the choice of 6 different characters. Lan, Mayl, Dex, Chaud, and two new characters, Mary and Kai and their respective Net Navis, Megaman, Roll, GutsMan, ProtoMan, Ring, and TurboMan. But this game has a twist. Both Operator and Net Navi are restricted from movement, the only way to save the game is to move the D-Pad to PET, open up a screen, (much like the start menu in the Battle Networks) and save from there. You can't save during tournaments, and you netbattle with a system called the program deck. The number of BattleChips you can put depends on the MB in your PET. You cannot exeed this number. To increase the number of MB, you must make it through tournament classes. Als this game has a mix of BattleChips that can be found in Battle Networks 1, 2, and 3 and chips don't come in letter codes in this game. The HP of the navi you chose is set and the color of your PET depends on the character you chose. The attack power of your navi's main attack is also set. You fight navis that were in Battle Networks 1, 2, and 3. When you beat the master tournament, youl will get and E-Mail from the BattleChip GP Staff saying congrats on winning the tourney, you will recieve a weird chip dat with a a number code chosen at random. Its probably a lotto code for one of the Battle Networks. Anyway, the mail will also say that you got a rare chip. So check you pack. It should be at the very bottom. It is completely chosen at random. Some of the possible chips could be FreezeBomb, FighterSword, or KnightSword, and many more... If you wanted to earn extra chips, you could create a tournament and choose charactes from a list. Their names, are number-letter codes and their navis could be some of the six characters you can play as. They sometimes have tough and possibly rare chips. Or you could pick from ulocked areas to nettbattle navis outside of the tourney but still with the Program Deck. There is also a option on your deck when you have enough MB in your PET. Its called "Slotting In". You get two spaces to put in BattleChips. During battles you activate the BattleChip with the L or R button depending on which slot you put the chip in when you put BattleChips into your Program Deck. But there's another twist.

Mega Man Battle Network 4
The majority of the game is about a net battling tournament, and Lan working his way through it. The game had an overall theme about the soul, and how souls are connected, and how every soul has a dark side. Ultimately, SciLab decides to build a laser to fire at the asteroid, but when they do, it misses, due to sabotage by Doctor Regal, who turns out to be the son of Dr Wily. They then realize that the asteroid is, in fact, a computer, not only that, but they can jack into it. They convert the laser into an infrared beam, and it turns out that the contest was mearly a method of finding the best net battler in the world to send their Navi to the asteroid and gain control over it. MegaMan and Lan win, and they jack in to the Asteroid. It's being controlled by Duo.EXE, a Navi on a mission to destroy all planets that harbor evil and hatred. MegaMan manages to defeat Duo as well as his own DarkSide that Duo conjures, and convinces Duo to spare Earth.

Mega Man Battle Network 5
The Internet has been hijacked by Nebula (lead by Dr Regal) and MegaMan joins a team of net-crime-fighting Navis (the Navis in your team depends entirely on your version, the circumstances will be the same in each version, but the way the characters react depends on the version). Most of the game revolves around chasing down data that could bring about the ultimate destruction of every human soul on the planet: A puppy. Regal gets hold of Dr Hikari Sr's digitized pooch, Gow, who has the program SoulNet embedded in his system. SoulNet links everyone's souls together to a server. It was originally created so that their souls could be filled with love and kindness, creating a utopia, but the government realized that was totally stupid and canceled the project, even though it was completed. So, Regal activates it, and, of course, uses it for evil. He created a "soul virus" called NebulaGray, which is basically a dark galaxy of evil that, at its core, is a human soul. He digitized a human, and stripped its soul away down to the fundamental evil parts, and then amplified it to unthinkable size. He intended to make NebulaGray spread DarkPower to everyone's soul, making the entire world evil. MegaMan manages to destroy NebulaGray, and much to Dr. Regal's surprise, his father, Dr. Wily, appears, wanting to make amends for how bad of a father he had been. He takes control of SoulNet and overloads it, sending an impulse into Dr. Regal's brain and erasing the last ten years of memories. As it turns out, the leader of one of the teams was hired by Dr. Wily to destroy SoulNet. Dr. Regal and Lan's father are both saved and, without his memories, Dr. Regal returns to being a law-abiding citizen once more.

Mega Man Battle Network 6
Lan and his family have moved to Cyber City. However, WWW has returned and is causing trouble that not even the Official NetBattlers can control, so MegaMan decides to investigate. Here, MegaMan discovers that the Cybeasts Falzar and Gregar have something to do with a mysterious conspiracy. When a WWW Navi, Circusman, captures one of the Cybeasts, MegaMan captures the other Cybeast into his body. Lan and MegaMan must fight WWW and stop whatever they're up to. At first it seems that Baryl and Colonel were the culprits of the conspiracy, but later in the end he admits that he was working for Dr. Wily himself. Dr. Wily raised Baryl when his own father was off fighting in a war, and in his kindness for Baryl, he was distracted from his plans for revenge of the Net society. He also created Colonel, the "perfect navi" who had the ability to feel kindness and had powers of machine manipulation. However, once Baryl's father, his only true friend was killed in battle, Wily began to feel the past thoughts of revenge and modified Colonel to become a military grade Navi. The other programs were modified into a separate Navi named Iris. She was to be a military control Navi, until she met Lan, who showed her that humans were not bloodthirsty killers.

As a precaution, Wily planted a program forbidding these Navis to merge by having them explode if they were ever to do so. To hatch his latest scheme to destroy the Net and the world, he built 2 enormous Copybots and installed the Falzar and Gregar Cybeasts in it, until Baryl decided what was truly right and began to battle one of the Cybeasts. MegaMan also began to battle the other Cybeast, until in a twist, the Cybeast took over MegaMan's body once again. Colonel and Iris began the risky merging, and with their heightened powers they destroyed the Cybeast from MegaMan's body. However, instead of separating, they planned to sacrifice themselves to destroy the Cybeasts once and for all. The future of the main characters are revealed: Chaud leads a group of worldwide officials, Mick became a teacher, Tab made his store a huge success, Dex became mayor of ACDC town, and Yai became president of her father's company. Also, Lan, now a scientist, is revealed to have married Mayl. They have a son named Patch. Finally, Megaman is revealed to be spending a lot of time in the real world via his copybot.Megaman used Iris's never-ending battery copy-bot, henceforth he was able to stay in the real world all he wanted.

Games

 * Mega Man Battle Network
 * Mega Man Battle Network 2
 * Mega Man Network Transmission
 * Mega Man Battle Network 3 Blue and White
 * Mega Man Battle Network 4 Red Sun and Blue Moon
 * Rockman EXE 4.5 Real Operation
 * Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team Colonel and Team Protoman
 * Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team
 * Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge