Mega Man Battle Network 4 Blue Moon

"Not exactly Capcom's best."

Ever since I played my first Megaman Battle Network game (Mega Man Battle Network 3 White Version) I loved it. I decided to wait until the next one before playing Battle Network 1 and 2. Then came that day when it was released. I went off to the nearest Gamestop, with my 30 bucks, all happy and such, kind of disappointed that I could not get 'Red Sun', the one that I wanted. So, I opened my box, took out the manual, and opened it. I realized some mistakes in the manual, and I just said to myself that Capcom rushed with the manual, and hoped they didn't rush with the game. Oh! Well, sorry to bore you with my useless talking, and now onto the review.

/Gameplay/ The gameplay is the same as Battle Network 3. You run around, fight viruses on the little board, beat them, and fight again. In Network 4, the 'Add' button I loved has been taken away. So has the custom styles like Aqua Guts and Thunder Guts, and has been replaced with 6 souls. The souls are in fact interesting. You gain souls by participating in tournaments. Every time you play the game over, you get a new soul. During the first gameplay (Normal) you get 3 souls, second time (Hard) around you get 2 souls, and last time (Extra Hard) around you get your final soul. The souls you get in Blue Moon are Proto Soul, Junk Soul, Number Soul, Wood Soul, Aqua Soul, and Metal Soul. So yes, you have to go through the game THREE times to get every single soul, and to finish the game. EVERY time you play the viruses get way harder, and the bosses get harder. So, it really isn't that fair. Something that I am very happy about, is that the Press system from Network 3 has been taken away, and replaced by a scooter.

The Navi Customizer has stayed with us, but our choice of programs has been limited. There aren't many chips this time around, and we have something new to our gameplay. These are called the 'Dark Chips'. And to tell you, I HATE THEM. I'm sorry, but I totally do. The Dark Chips are something you use when you are weak, and yes, they are VERY powerful, but there is a downside. Every time you use a Dark Chip, you permanently lose 1 HP. PERMANENTLY. There is NO way to regain your HP back. That's why the Dark Chips disappointed me. It's also much harder to gain Zennies this time around.

/Story/ Meh. This is where the game mostly falls. The story is good, but all you do is go around and battle in tournaments. For EVERY opponent, Lan HAS to help him. WHY does Lan have to help everyone? Anyways, the only thing you basically do is run around, do the tournaments, and help people. Then, at the end of the game, you do a 30 minute Story thing. 30 minutes? Yes, the main story is 30 minutes long. A really big disappointed.

/Sound/ Usually, when I read other peoples reviews, I go straight to the Gameplay, Story, and Graphics. And that's because I don't really care about the sound/music of a game. Yet, this game has some interesting sound. Even though I thought the sound was repetitive, and the 'crisis' song gets on my nerves, I liked some of the songs. But, there's not anything else to say about the music.

/Graphics/ The Graphics BEAT every other game on Network 4. The net has been redone, and the sprites are really better. Something I have been disappointed with is that the towns are much smaller than the other games. But, you now have more places to go to. The souls look awesome, even though some are in fact weird.

/Replay Value/ Replay value is great. Wanting to replay it is hard. Like I mentioned before you have to play and beat the games 3 times to finish everything, and then you have final quests, like getting all the chips and such. So yeah, the replay value is good if you have patients (and awesome skills).

/Buy or Rent?/ It really depends. If you LOVE the MegaMan.EXE series, buy it. If you don't really think that this is like the other games, then rent it. I recommend to rent it first, if you can find a place that lets you rent gameboy games.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/11/04