Mega Man Battle Network 2

"The reason I bought a GBA"

I started watching an unlicensed anime (that means it's only out in Japan, no US company has picked it up, and is only available in English in videos subtitled by fans) called Rockman.exe, and was hooked. Then I heard about and played this game on my computer (with a rom, which isn't exactly legal and so I won't say any more about that) and liked it so much I actually bought a GBA just for it.

The graphics are awesome and everything is very detailed, much more so than the first installment of this series (also good, but not quite as good). The sounds are all done well and nothing gets too annoying, and the music is good.

But the real reason to buy this game is the battles. Wow. They are absolutely awesome. Combining the best aspects of a side scroller, a tactical combat RPG (like FF Tactics or Shining Force) and a CCG (like Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon), it is a really fun and diverse experience. You start off by selecting 30 chips to be in your folder, the rest go in your pack. Then when you're in battle, you start off with 5 random chips from your folder... As you use them up, they are replaced, and you can also spend a turn not doing anything to add chips, so your selection goes up to a total of 6-10 at a time. You can send megaman up to 5 chips at a time, but all chips must either share a letter or a name. For example, you could have a Cannon A and a Cannon B, or a Cannon B and a Minibomb B, but not a Cannon A and a Minibomb B. You're also limited to 5 copies of a chip in your folder at once, forcing you to diversify.

After that, the chips are sent to megaman, who you control. The battle area is a 6-wide by 3-deep grid, with you and your opponent each starting with a 3x3 box. You can use certain chips such as Area Grab to take over your opponent's box, but so can they, and you can only move in your own box. You avoid your enemies' attacks while attacking yourself, either using the chips you selected in the order you selected or your trusty megabuster, which may be upgraded and with a little dedication can become a viable weapon in and of itself.

Throughout the battle, the 'custom bar' builds up at a set rate. Really it's nothing more than a timer, and when it's full you can hit one of the shoulder buttons to go back to the chip selection screen and choose some more chips for Megaman to use.

Finally, after the battle you're giving a busting level, determined by how many chips you used, how much damage you took, and how quickly you defeated the virus(es). Higher busting level equals better chance of getting a good chip from them.

And that, in a nutshell, is the battle system. The actual game is comprised of running around the 'real' world as Lan and jacking into everything from computers to broken toys to even a dog house or coffee machine to find hidden powerups/chips. You can also get on the internet. Whenever you're on the internet or inside a computer, you're subject to random encounters which may or may not get annoying (I usually hate random encounters, but don't mind much in this game, maybe because of the fun battle system). If it does annoy you, you can buy a subchip (read: item) which lets you run around for a little while without encountering any minor viruses. None of the puzzles are throw-your-system-against-the-wall frustrating, that's a good thing. :) The game can be a little easy, though. I wouldn't reccomend it if you're looking for something to test your limits, but it should be a good difficulty for most everyone.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/22/02, Updated 12/22/02