Mega Man Battle Network 3 White

"Its a two way street. Either you'll love it, or you'll hate it."

The Mega Man battle network titles haven't done a great deal of changing since the first game debuted on GBA (directing a fond exception to the regretable GC title). These installements of the franchise (MMBN 3: White and blue versions) are virtually no different. As things go, the story has never been very intensive to these games, as a great deal of entertainment relies on the gameplay. Both fortunately and unfortunately though, this coveted gameplay is either a hit or a miss with RPG fans like myself.

STORY ((4/10)) - Again.....the games draw is suppose to be its playability options. The story is every bit as cliche as you may expect from a pokemon game but not as open as, perhaps a monster rancher title. If story is your draw for RPG's than this isn't the place to look.

SOUND ((5/10)) - The sounds are nothing special in the game, though many of them seem to be pulled from the MEGA MAN LEGENDS pallette. The music of the game, on the other hand is very much improved from the previous games in the series, all be them simple and slightly muffled compared to games with the BIG BOOMING STEREO effect (I.E. Golden Sun and Castelvania). While listening to the music, I kept getting the impression that this game would've made a simply smashing GBC game, as some of the games music reminded me distinctly of Super Mario Land 2.

GRAPHICS ((6/10)) - Well.....theres the good, theres the bad, and then theres the ugly. The good part of this game's graphics seems to be the character sprites. This is definately what the sprites of new Pokemon games SHOULD'VE looked like in my humble opinion. They're detail, and size give them all a very distinctive look, while retaining the common anime feel of the series. The bad part is the envoirnments. Some may argue that the Geometric design of the maps are an art form, but the uniformly simplistic design of the maps in this game are as boring to look at, as they are to navigate. The different background effects in different computers help matters a bit, but not enough to hide the lack of innovation and over all effort put into mapping (and the fact that nearly all of them are done without on going edges, giving the illusion that their floating in mid-air doesn't help things at all). The ugly is the fact that the darkness (characteristic to games viewed on a normal GBA screen) seems to be alive and well in this game. Without a pretty good light source, your likely to reck your eyes seeing this game. Due to the reasonably bright enviornements, its not ''CIRCLE OF THE MOON'' bad, but its still a noticable misfigure.

PLAYABILITY ((5/10)) - This is what I meant by the title of this review. Either you love this game, or you hate it, due to the ambitious nature of its battle system. After going through the game, I can honestly say, that people who protest the traditional battle system as being boring and archaec, will most likely eat this ''fast-fingered-firing-frenzy'' of a battle system up. When a battle begins, you find yourself standing on a 6 by 3 square grid battle floor (6 squares across, and 3 down, if I remember correctly. Another way of looking at it would be 6 vertical rows of three) At the begining of most normal battles, half or less of those boxes are open to your character to move between, in order to avoid the recurring attacks of your opponent, and to get closer in order to score more damage or use close-range weaponary. While using your buster gun is fast but reletively ineffective, you are allowed to use a certain amount of chips each turn, which are organized in a number of ways. This battle system is NOT for everybody, and raises a number of questions in the minds of most. Questions like: ''If I can destroy them all with my buster gun, than why would I need to use the chips?'' There are a decent amount of chips to collect between the two games (I don't remember the exact number), alot of which amount to the same thing (taking more energy from your opponent). If your one that is a perfectionist, than you could perhaps work towards getting all the attack chips in the two games, but if your like me.......your likely to only go after the ones that you need. Unfortunately, that skews the numbers down quite a bit. If your attention span doens't allow you to sit through a game of Golden Sun, and you crave more hands on action in your random battles, than this may be just what you need. However, if you are a fan of the (reasonably) traditional battle systems that games like GS market, than this game will just seem like a great deal of useless means to achieve the same end. Strategy RPG hardcores needn't even apply.

REPLAY ((7/10)) - If you've already caught em all, then this game may just tickle your collecting fancy. With so many chips to collect and multiple navi's to beat, your not likely to catch everything the first time around. Pair with that, the fact that all of the net dungeons (so to speak) are random and change every time you enter, and this game will keep you pretty busy (assuming it manages to captivate you in the first place)

INFORMERS TILT ((4/10)) - I'm a fan of TWO (count em, 2) types of RPGs. Traditional and Strategy. Give me Suikoden 3 and ANYTHING with SHINING FORCE written across it, and you could pretty much declare me legally dead for the following two weeks. I am however open minded to different types of RPGs such as Zelda, Ring of Red (oh I LOVED that game) and the newly evolved castlevania series. Theres just a certain feeling of control over the character(s) of the game, that traditional and strategy RPGs give, that doesn't seem as constant in action RPGs. On the same note, nothing feels better than a good plan coming together, which is easier when you are given so many options to make a plan with (who will use magic, who will attack, who will defend and when. That sort of thing). Throw that in with a great presentation of everything else, and a series of oringal elements, and you've got a winner on your hands as far as the Informer is concerned. MMBN 3 just seems to pawn off that feeling of superiority over strategy, for a elevated since of action and attack customization, that really just wasn't nessesary. Games that try to do everything are seldom the best at anything. MMBN attempts the RPG thing, thrown in with the POKEMON thing, along with the megaman ACTION thing, which makes it all look very genaric in the eyes of a seasoned RPG gamer, regaurdless of how intriquite the design may appear. And with such an udderly MEDIOCRE presentation, the game leaves little else as a draw if the gameplay doesn't serve as enough of a hook.

OVERALL ((5/10)) - I'd advise anyone who is curious to give it a try, to see if its your thing. If it hooks you, you'll be hooked till the end. If it doesn't you'll be ready to trade it in before the weeks up. To that credit, you should probably give the game a rent (from whom ever even RENTS out GBA games these days), or borrow it from a close friend. With such a hit or miss formula, your likely to know your feelings on the title by the time the first battle is over.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 07/17/03, Updated 07/17/03