Mega Man Battle Network 2

"Improved over the original, but not improved enough."

Graphics: 7

The graphics are hit and miss compared to the original. The character sprites and animation are all identical to the original, which may or may not be a good thing depending on if you liked the original. Also aside from a few more frames of animation in battles they're almost identical as well. The biggest upgrade comes to the recesses of the Internet, which looks much more like wandering through a computer system than the straight green pathways of the original, and there's variety there too. The Den area has a blue electronic look to it, while Yumland has an almost wilderness feel to it complete with flat electronic trees. The Undernet is suitably dark (almost too much so on the GBA's dim screen) and Kotobuki has a strange golden color to it. The biggest improvement here is the internet worlds, aside from that, most everything else is almost identical to the original, if not ripped straight from it.

Sound: 6

Good for a portable game I suppose, but kind of forgettable considering I can barely remember any music. That's the mark of an at least decent score though. If you don't notice it, it does its job.

Gameplay: 8

In the original game, I was able to basically ignore the ''element'' part of the battles and just use the strongest chips without any trouble. The terrain never came into account and I got through just fine. In this one though, elements play a slightly more crucial role. Some chips have an elemental attribute, fire, water, elec, and wood. Some enemies have similar attributes, so to kill enemies faster, use chips of the element that kill them. Also, the terrain comes into play more as well. Grass panels can heal wood element enemies (and they can heal you too if you happen to use the wood style) fire panels damage, ice panels slide you across the field uncontrollably, and cracked panels break when you step off of them. Also in consideration are the different ''styles'' that Megaman will transform into depending on how you play. If you go through the game using your buster to deliver the killing blow, you'll take the ''guts'' style which will double your buster strength. Your element seems to vary depending on which element you use the least, so to get the wood style, don't use wood chips (it doesn't make sense to me either don't worry). The number of chips to find has increased quite a bit, as has the variety. Most of what you got in the original were attack and healing. In this one there are offensive, defensive, healing, and modification which can increase the power of certain other kinds of chips. As for the adventure aspect of RPG's, it's again about the same as the original, but there tend to be fewer instances of Lan rushing to get some information for Megaman. Mostly it's Lan rushing Megaman from terminal to terminal for one reason or another. Nothing has been really changed here.

Controls: 9

No complaints here except that your thumb can get sore holding down the diagonals to move the characters along their sideways world. I've never understood why developers feel the need to make the diagonals the actual directions instead of just letting left be West and so forth. Anyway, for the battles everything works like magic, which is good because the battles in this game can be fast-paced and are vastly increased in difficulty from the original Battle Network. They work well enough to let you survive, as long as your thumbs are capable of moving that fast.

Features: 7

A two-player battle mode and he ability to link up to the original Battle Network to use the retro-chip trader are definitely nice additions to the game itself. Also, collecting all the chips in the game is a challenge only the most astute and determined gamer will bother undertaking. One nice touch though, is the ability to glean useful information from the Message Boards in the Den area. They can tell you how to activate more powerful chip attacks, defeat some pesky viruses, or just give you a chuckle every now and then when you have nothing better to do. Another nice addition is the ability to take jobs as an official City NetBattler. They range from spying to locating a missing person to simply giving someone a certain chip in exchange for another one. Pretty nice stuff if you ask me, not bad at all.

Story: 5

As much as I would love to give this game a higher score here, because I have enjoyed it, it's way too similar to the original to be more than average. The plot is almost identical. Here's the original. The WWW is plotting to use the ultimate virus to control the world (basically). Now, replace WWW with Gospel and you have Battle Network 2. Throw in a few lines about how the WWW failed and make another reference or two to them and you have this game tied into the original instead of being a simple remake. The ''levels'' are different enough to be interesting for those who played the original, and the characters are as loveable as ever, but it's just too much like the original to me. Perhaps the biggest disappointment for me was the fact that they barely mention the final events of the original game. That revelation about Megaman and Lan could have led them into a great storyline for this one and they still could have kept the lighthearted feel of the series, but in this game it's all-but ignored, getting only a passing mention at a few points just so newcomers know. It's really sad that they chose to create just another Battle Network instead of continuing what the first game started, but I guess in the end, copying itself is what Megaman has always done.

Overall: 7

Slightly better than the original, and good in and of itself, but it doesn’t improve on the original enough to be a truly worthy sequel.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/28/02, Updated 06/28/02