Mega Man Network Transmission

"A nicely done change from the traditional MegaMan formula"

It has been nearly a month since MegaMan and Lan put a stop to the WWW organization, but now the Zero Virus, a virus which negatively affects NET NAVI's abilities (A NET NAVI is a robot that you can control through cyberspace to look around the Internet, and do many tasks online.)is running loose and causing problems on the Internet. If the Zero virus gets out of control, who knows what will happen, and it's up to MegaMan and Lan put a stop to it!

Graphics 9/10

For a sidescroller, it isn't going to get much better. The sprites are very colourful, and it's also cel-shaded, which is hit or miss depending on the type of graphics you like.

The only thing that hurts the graphics is that the enemies can be kind of boring looking at times, but still look good for a sidescroller. One touch that I liked is when certain weapon are shot or hit a wall, it'll light up the area slightly. Just an example of a small thing to add to the game.

Sound Effects/Music 10/10

The Sound effects are nice and what you'd probably expect from a MegaMan game, all sorts of robotic sounds and electric noises and stuff, none of which got annoying, so that's a plus.

The Music was also good. I've always been a big fan of MegaMan music, and this music doesn't disappoint. It's the same techno music that is present in every MegaMan game I have played, with suits the futuristic robot action quite well.

Control 9/10

The controls are fairly tight and responsive, but my problem is that I'd usually press the wrong buttons to attack since you have a button for special attacks, and normal attacks.

I also found cycling through the chip selection in the heat of an intense battle difficult, because if you are desperately trying to get to an item you need, you'll likely be hurrying to get to it, and overshoot it. The game does have a button to pause it and select your chips, which is it's only saving grace, but I like to keep the battle going rather than slowing it down each time I want to change the chip.

These problem may be my own fault I'm aware of that, but I found it annoying at times. Other than that, I have no complains about control.

Gameplay 9/10

It's like the traditional MegaMan formula, but improved. It is basically the same game engine, but now you have chips which you can find from certain diamonds, enemies, and some of them may be bought. That brings me to the next thing. You can actually buy things in this MegaMan game, such as chips, subchips, and power ups which are important in your success.

One thing I'd like to point out right now is the difficulty of this game. In my opinion, despite popular belief, this game is not that hard. Sure it's challenging, but I have had much more trouble beating other MegaMan games. Maybe I just got lucky, or maybe I'm used to the MegaMan formula, either way don't let what others say to drive you away from playing this game.

My only gripe about this game, which I have about other MegaMan game, is that it isn't very long. Back in the NES, and SNES days I wouldn't of minded, but in this day and age, there is no excuse for a game to be this short. It's not like the Gamecube couldn't of handled much more data on there discs.

Despite the length of the game, it's a solid sidescroller and it's amazing they still exist in this era of new age consoles, which is a breath of fresh air for me.

Overall Score:

Graphics 9/10
Sound Effects/Music 10/10
Control 9/10
Gameplay 9/10

Average 9.25 (Rounded down to 9)

Rent or Buy?

Despite the good rating, to the average person I would only say rent this, because you could probably beat it in a rental or so.

To Hardcore MegaMan fans, or people who don't play video games for very long periods of time, I would say buy it. Since I'll want to add this to my collection, and I guarantee other MegaMan fans like me would want to as well.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/03, Updated 06/25/03