Mega Man Network Transmission

"Mega Man Network Transmission is tough love"

Great game. Very hard. Very, very, hard. I loved the classic Megaman games, and the Megaman.EXE and Megaman Trigger stories (but was never a fan of X). I liked the way the old Network games had their battles set up, and I loved the story. Mega Man Network Transmission takes the story setting, and a bit of the battle elements of Mega Man Battle Network and turns it into a classic Megaman side-scroller. Yes, you can slide.

Gameplay - 8/10

The gameplay is classic Megaman, if I need to explain classic Megaman to you, then you have no business playing this game, you won't enjoy it, or get too far. I give it an 8 because it is HARD, not ''whah this game isn't a pushover'' hard, like Sonic Advance 2 I mean like ''I wonder if I am physically capable of beating this...'' kind of hard. The stages aren't much of a problem, but boss battles are near impossible. Like Bright Man, who blocks almost all of your attacks, or Needle Man, who attacks you every time you get close to him with one attack, has another attack that can only be avoided by sliding close to him (which results and getting hit by the other attack), and then a third attack that cannot be avoided at all. The biggest problem is the game expects you to jump over or get around the enemy a lot, which is almost impossible, this isn't Mortal Kombat, if you touch the other Navi, you take damage, and its probably going to attack you on top of that. Plus I don't think Megaman can actually jump high enough to get over some of them. The first boss, Fireman, was kind of difficult, but then the second Boss, Guts Man, was almost impossible, I had to spend all my money on Subchips ('potions') to just barely beat him.

Story - 7/10

Story is kind of ''meh'' it takes place between MMBN 1 and 2, so you know nothing eventful is really going to happen. Basically there is a virus called the Zero Virus, and Star Man has been spreading a vaccine for it that’s really a Trojan horse that causes Navi's to be under the control of Star Man's operator. So far, I have already noticed at least two inconsistencies with the other Mega Man Battle Network game plots. This game will be rather difficult to understand had you not played the at least the first MMBN game.

Graphics - 9/10

The graphics are near perfect, while they could be 'more' in either the direction of realism or celshading; they are definite, and consistent. While the animation is consistent and flows nicely, there are some problems. Transitions from one animation to the other are not very smooth, and looks noticeably strange. Like, Megaman runs in a smoothly animated run, and then you press up near a latter and BAM, he’s on the latter, no 'getting up on the latter' transition, this isn't just one situation, it happens often. Not really anything to be extremely glaring but it can be annoying once you start to notice it. And his buster... does not look like his buster. The charge effect is also overly dramatic and gets in the way of the screen (it creates a swirly flurry of light/code around Megaman that has a diameter of about 1/3 the screen) Another minor flaw is that everything uses the same special effect of code exploding, but the code is rainbow colored and unreadable, so it basically looks like everything is exploding into ribbons and light (everything, gathered items, destroyed enemies, teleporting Megaman, exploding Megaman, Jacking-out Megaman) the slight differences in color is enough to tell which animation is which, but the 'fluff' of all the light and code can get in the way of gameplay and cause a bit of confusion in the split second action. One minor problem is the game basically takes place in Lan's room, where he walks back and forth in circles (everything else is either in a network or Menu, you never control Lan) and Lan's walking... just doesn't look right, like he’s a robot or something, but that really doesn’t effect the game any. Those few things I mentioned are really the only graphical flaws you'll find, and that’s if you look closely.

Sound - 9/10

The music is great, the sound effects are great there’s just one problem. All the voices are in Japanese. The voice acting, the battle taunts, the intro lines, even the things Megaman says to confirm he got an item or took heavy damage. I'm not sure what he says when he gets shot, but it sounds like he’s exclaiming ''Cyber crap!'' Anyway, aside from the voice acting, the sound is great. I cannot say as to whether or not the voice acting its self is good, all Japanese sounds like angry caveman talk to me.

Rent or Buy? - Buy

This game would be a huge disappointment of a rent, if your renting it, chances are you aren't too big of a Mega Man fan, and will have no idea WTF is going on, and you probably won't get past the first set of 4 Navis before the rental is due. This game makes a great buy, I can assure you that you will spend many hours pulling your hair out struggling to advance. Many fun hours of hair pulling.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/25/03, Updated 06/25/03