Mega Man Network Transmission

"Yay! New Megaman! ...wait...."

Introduction

Did you like the original Megaman games? I did. Did you like the EXE games for GBA? I never played them. Will you like this game? Most likely not.

Storyline 9 / 10

Hey, Megaman games never did have big stories. In the original, you didn't even get an explanation as to why you were blasting robots and monsters and evil Dr. Wileys, but by gosh, you blasted them anyway! I give this a 9, simply because it works for the game. Don't expect to sit and ponder the philosophical issues involved with the game - just listen to the boring dialogue and then get on to the blasting.

Graphics 9 / 10

Cool. Wow. Seeing Megaman (although he may look more like a ninja than our beloved Megaman now) blast people using cannons, swords, and bombs in semi-3D cell-shaded graphics is just cool. The backgrounds are very nice, even if the foregrounds are pretty repetitive (and by repetitive, I mean they used one set of textures for pretty much all of the areas), and the little CG scenes of the bosses are neat, too. All and all, much like a nifty little cartoon, which is perfectly fine by me. You'll enjoy the graphics a lot.

Music and Sound 8 / 10

Well, they didn't translate any of the voices, which could be considered good, except that it's lucky I speak a bit of Japanese so that I can understand what they're saying when you open an email and hear ''Arigato!'' Often times, the japanese ISN'T subtitled, so, eheh, as you might guess, it's a bit hard to follow. Of course, the only parts they didn't subtitle aren't important (like Lan talking in his room), and they did translate all the story text. The sounds are very cartoonish - lots of squeaks and whistles and light bumps, and the music is okay. You most likely won't feel compelled to turn your sound down and listen to something else, but you won't feel compelled to turn your speakers all the way up to hear that cool tune at full blast (NOTE: Make sure your parental units are not at home when you do this). I guess I could say the sound is not noticeably bad, so it works fine to me. Mediocre, so I give it 8.

Gameplay 5 / 10

Bet you were expecting this, eh? In the tried-and-true tradition of many next-gen console games, the graphics and everything are wonderfull while the game aspect is very poor. MMNT is no exception. Can you say plodding? I hope so, because plodding is a good word to describe the style of this game. You plod around and shoot things. Sound fun? Actually, it would be, except for the fact that YOUR BUSTER CANNON DOES ABSOLUTELY NO DAMAGE. Yep. You literally stand there, hopping up and down, shooting a regular level enemy twenty times to kill it once. Then, you take two steps and see - another enemy! This game is plauged with enemies, and it is extremely hard to destroy them...unless you use the Battle Chips, which are mini versions of end-of-boss powers you get in the other MM games. Which sucks, since you run out of them remarkably quickly, and then you're left to your little cannon buster thing that does two damage to an enemy with 400 health, and can only shoot once per screen. Not to mention that which chips you get to use at a time is totally random. Totally. Random. Meaning you could be getting a repair terrain chip when you desperately need a restore health chip. Poop. Poop on a candlestick describes this game's enjoyablity very well. If you even think I'm exaggerating on any of this, just rent the game and see.

Speaking of your buster cannon, guess what else you'll hate. It can only shoot once per screen. I am not lying, once. You can power it up, but it costs tons of money and you can't even start to power it up until like the tenth level. It's outrageously unfun, considering that it shoots just as slow as you walk. It's pretty much useless against just about everything except the little cannon enemies that are too weak to hurt you, anyway.

On the subject of hurting you, that's exactly what the bosses do - hurt you. A lot. Some people call this game ''difficult,'' I call it frustrating. Dying because you only have seven restore health chips instead of eight, or because you accidently switched over to wrecker ball instead of sword is not difficult at all, it's just annoying. The bosses do tons of damage with every attack, most of which are unblockable, and they are all much larger than you, which means that avoiding them as the charge into you or shoot fire at you or what have you is nearly impossible. The strategy for every boss is identical: switch to your most powerful battle chip, stand in one spot, and just dish out the abuse and hope that you get to attack them more than they attack you, since otherwise you're guaranteed death. Oh, and since you use up all your chips and don't get them back until you restart, if you do happen to die that first time, you might as well just switch your Gamecube off and retry.

There are other boring things about the game, too, but boring is pretty much the best way to describe it. Boring and insanely frustrating.

Overall (certainly not an average) 6 / 10

Sorry...it looked like so much fun, and actually manages to entertain a bit at some points, but unless you enjoy constantly mashing buttons, plodding extremely slowly through countless identical levels, praying feverantly to the gods that you get the Battle Chips you want, and sitting there hopping up and down and shooting once per screen, this game will probably hold little fun for you. In fact, the only reason I gave the game a six at all is because I just love Megaman too darn much to have the heart to give it any lower. A game that, with a bit of tweaking and a few minor changes, could have really been awesome.

FINAL WORD Do not buy, please. Save yourself the agony you will put yourself through for wasting forty dollars that could have been spent on better things, like dog food or laundry detergent.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/27/03, Updated 06/27/03