Sunday, August 2, 2009

10 Worst Games I Own - #5 Megaman Battle Network 4 Red Sun/Blue Moon

2009 Yes, I have both versions. Yes, they’re both pretty lousy.

If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know how much I love the Megaman Battle Network series. The games were great, up until this one, which is absolutely terrible.

First off, they decided to pull a Pokemon with this game, and release two versions which are exactly identical story-wise, but have slightly different content as far as bosses, items, and so on. This 1555 - Megaman Battle Network 4 Blue Moon (U)_24 worked well for Pokemon because the game was popular and it encouraged trading and multiplayer aspects of the game. All it accomplishes here is making the game impossible to complete 100% without buying both versions.

This isn’t the first time that Capcom did this with the Battle Network series. Megaman Battle Network 3 had two versions, Blue and White, but it was possible to finish the game completely, with 1555 - Megaman Battle Network 4 Blue Moon (U)_19 the exception of a couple special bosses and a small amount of high level items, without both versions. Also, Battle Network 3 had a good story that wasn’t a pain to play through.

The story on this game is… Lousy. In addition to being written poorly, it overdoses on talk about the power of friendship and love. Hardly an interesting reason why you win against opponents that are clearly more powerful than you.

In a nutshell, here’s the story. See if you can spot any recurring themes…

Cut scene about an asteroid that is going to hit Earth.

Lan (the main character) is going to school, when there is a tournament announced. He fights in the tournament, and wins against all odds. Cut scene about an asteroid that is going to hit Earth.

Lan travels to the next round of the tournament. He fights in the tournament, and wins against all odds. Cut scene about an asteroid that is going to hit Earth.

Lan travels abroad for the tournament. He fights in the tournament, and wins against all odds. Cut scene about an asteroid that is going to hit Earth.

Lan travels to the final round of the tournament. He fights in the tournament, and wins against all odds. By winning the tournament, Lan is selected to stop the asteroid. Lan sends his cyber-pal Megaman.exe into space and stop the asteroid that was going to hit the Earth.

World saved, everyone is happy. The end.

That’s some high-quality writing, there.

The fact that the story is so inane wouldn’t be quite so irritating if, in order to get all the power-ups, you didn’t have to play through it 1555 - Megaman Battle Network 4 Blue Moon (U)_01 five times. FIVE TIMES! That’s five times through the tutorial, five times through the annoying “chase the cyber-bat” mini-game, five times through the “stop ShadeMan.exe in the amusement park” scenario, and five times of fighting LaserMan.exe.

And if you bought both versions so you could 100% your carts, like I did tried to, it’s ten times through.

1555 - Megaman Battle Network 4 Blue Moon (U)_05Now, this game isn’t all bad. The battles are pretty fun, even if they did tweak the mechanics a bit too much. You can now fight normal  Navis (Navis are cyber-residents), which is a huge improvement over the previous games. And, there is a side quest involving Solar Boy Django from the Boktai games, which by itself is almost enough to merit playing this game.

Sadly, Capcom has a habit of overdoing games, and straying too far from a formula that was popular. In conclusion, if anyone out there has any of the Battle Network games, please tell me. I’ve always wanted to try the multiplayer. Just not so much on this one.

4 comments:

  1. You didn't like this game? Really, I thought it was pretty good. Then again, I am a ten year old.

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  2. It's really a matter of perceived quality from one game to the next. If this had been the only MMBN game I had played, I probably would have been of the opinion that it was good except that you had to play through the game four or five times to 100% it.

    MMBN3, which is my favorite of the series, was a refinement of the system used in prior games, and was very good. It also continued the story arc from the previous games, which made it easy to connect to the characters and sympathize with them.

    Speaking of characters, there is significantly less character development in this game than in previous games. Prior games had Lan and Megaman dealing with personal issues, and discovering themselves as they helped others, all while blasting the baddies and saving the day. This game... Welcome to the tournament, fight!

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  3. This game wasn't all that bad....I loved it and had a lot of fun playing it, and I still feel nostalgic about it.

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