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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, with a port scheduled for the Nintendo DS. 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 deck building. When you run into random battles, 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 weak default buster as many times as you want as you maneuver around what room you have. While the action is in real time, every few seconds you are given a pause to select a special "chip", which is basically a card from your deck ("folder", as the game calls it). This chip enables 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.
However, outside of battle, the games feature many fetch quests and largely boring dungeons that contain mostly "find the key to the door" variations. 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, downgrading the graphics to show smaller, game-like sprites, as opposed to the anime-quality sprites of the first 3 titles. The strategy was also changed greatly with the subtraction of several key parts of the game, such as styles, the 'add chip' button and chip letters.
The stories also never make sense.
Inconsistent spacing in the name 'Mega Man'
In all official sources, the game titles are spelled with a space, and the main character, is always referred to as 'Mega Man', with a space. However, the box art and logo show no space between the words 'Mega' and 'Man', and he is always referenced as 'MegaMan' in-game. MegaMan is often referred to under the following variations:
- Mega Man
- MegaMan
- Mega Man.EXE
- MegaMan.EXE
Most of the other Navis in the game have a name similar to MegaMan's, but replacing 'Mega' with a different word (ProtoMan, GutsMan, etc). They too are refered to with no space. However, this may have been adopted simply as a measure of shortening characters names. Names often get butchered in MMBN games for the sake of screen reality. For example, the "Search Man.EXE Special" chip is shortened to "SerchMnSP". Sometimes names of characters and locations are shortened in phrases where there is plenty of room to spell them out fully, most likely for the sake of continuity, because these names would be used later in context where they'd need to be shortened. An example of this would be the old mine, that characters refer to as "OldMine". This may also be the case with 'MegaMan' as opposed to 'Mega Man'.
Since the titles (which are never referenced in-game) are referred to with a space by official sources, they will be referred to as such in this article. However since, Mega Man is referred to as 'MegaMan' in-game that's how they'll be referred to in this article. All articles for NetNavis will be referred to with their .EXE extension, to distinguish them from their non-Battle Network counterparts in the Mega Man series.
Series story summary
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 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 and err, 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 being a badass, 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 this really out-of-the-way area and got 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, then you have to kill Zero and he dies.
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 (which is the Japanese name for Bass's Treble, which is what he is) and threatens the Internet. The kid doing all this is doing it from a hotel, and all kinds of crazy stuff 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. For some reason, this game has a lot more swearing than any other game in the series. It's also pretty racist.
Mega Man Battle Network 3
In the third game (and considered by many to be where the series peaked) all kinds of crazy stuff 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 (for some reason), 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 way to jack into it, but 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 kick all of their asses. 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 they kill Alpha, 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 Network 4
It sucks. There is no over arcing storyline at all, really. Just a consistent threat of an asteroid in a collision course with Earth, that Lan's father (and other scientists) are working to prevent. The majority (99%) of the game is about a net battling tournament, and Lan working his way through it. Opponents are randomly selected, which kind of mixes it up a little, giving some replay value, but again, the storyline is extremely segmented. It's only saving grace was that it 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, they can jack into this totally alien yet entirely compatible technology! So they convert the laser into an infrared beam, and it turns out that the contest was just a method of finding the best net battler in the world to send their Navi to the asteroid and gain control over it. So, MegaMan and Lan win, and they jack in to the Asteroid. It's being controlled by Duo.EXE, an alien life form on a mission to destroy all planets that harbor evil and hatred. So MegaMan defeats Duo, and his own DarkSide that Duo conjures and convinces to spare Earth. Duo gives us like 1000 years to repent or something.
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 it's 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 kicks his ass. Then, 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 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 turnaments, and you netbattle with this 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 wanna earn extra chips, you can 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. There's a gauge at the bottom of the screen during battle that fills up slowly.(Much like the custom gauge on the battle Networks) If you press L or R bfore the gauge reaches 50% or more it may fail. There's a BattleChip to increase you custom gauge by 50% called FastGauge. Its the same chip that speeds up your Custom Gauge in the Battle Networks. To obtain this chip, you must defeat QuickMan EXE. in an S rank. There is also a chip that decreases your enemy's Custom gauge by 50%. To obtain this chip, you must defeat FreezeMan EXE. in an S rank.
Battle System
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The Animated Series
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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