Mega Man Battle Network 3 Blue

"One of THE best games I've ever played"

Megaman Battle Network deserves a big 10/10! This game has all you need, an amazing story, fast action and strategy gameplay and great audio and visual componants. MMBN even surpasses games on consoles with it's depth and no game comes close to its strategy componants. The game continues the adventures of Lan and his Navi, Megaman as an old evil arises. I don't want to spoil any of the light-hearted story, but it's really good.

Gameplay 10/10
Lan, the protagonist of the real world moves about an interesting array of locales, from zoo's to good ole' ACDC town. Walking around in an overhead perspective, both Lan and his Navi Megaman run errands, battle rogue viruses and Navis and quite a bit else.
The bread and butter of any game is it's battle system, and this system is flawless. Fighting is done on a adequately sized grid of 3x3 on your side and 3x3 on the ''viruses'' side. This games battles are without a doubt one of the best mixed and frantic ones available, with Kingdom Hearts in second. Chips are distruibuted 5 at a time. Once at the beginning of the battle, then when the custom bar at the top of the screen fills, you pick another five with the ones you didn't pick last time. The idea of the battles is action, since both Megaman and the enemies move in real time. You use the chips in battle and they do anything from shooting a cannon to summoning Flameman to roast your enemies, and with over 250 chipto choose from, there's bound to be 30 chips you can choose from for your folder.

Audio Visual 9/10
Beautifully crafted graphics and fairly catchy tunes continue the quality of MMBN and they don't fail to surprise me. What impresses me about these graphics is not the pseudo-3D view or the smooth animation, but the great detail in the locations. T.V's, jars, posters, signs, tables, beds, dolls. They have so many different little details that you wonder what they don't have. The audio area is not quite as good as the visual area, but it's better than most. Each area has its own music, and the quality isn't as good as Golden Sun's, but it was okay. Sound effects are what you would expect and are above average.

Life Span 10/10
Now this is where the game excells in. The game itself would last someone over two dozen hours, but the real fun is to complete the side quests, beat all the boss Navi's advanced forms, collect all of the chips and more. All of these would maybe push the game to +40 hours.

Conclusion
This game is obviously one of my favorites, and for good reason. Spectacular gameplay, flawless graphics and captivating story all rolled into one.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/23/03, Updated 07/23/03