Mega Man Battle Network 4 Red Sun

"Two words: Fix it!"

It's hard for me to give such a bad rating to a Megaman game, especially a Battle Network game. Capcom's desperation to keep the spirit up caused the game to fall short in many ways. I'd rather that the next game fixes the flaws this one had.

Story: 4/10
Crap. An asteroid is on a crash course to Earth and NAXA's (the future NASA) scientist have no idea what to do. It isn't until half-way through the game they actually have a plan, but more on that later. Lan's just living life until OMFG, A TOURNEY! Yup, a tourney. That's all he does half the game, fight in tournaments. No in depth story like the previous games.

Gameplay: 7/10
Like I said, Lan fights in tournaments against COMPLETELY random people, some don't even have a custom navi. You play through tournaments with different fixed events in between, but thats nothing. The fixed stories are very short, and they barely make any in story connection (ie: Lan and Mayl's trip to a park.) The GP gets a 3 point boost for the souls. Souls are obtained by fighting certain navis in tourneys and. To activate a SU ( Soul Unision), you must "offer" one elemental chip to trigger it and get some specials for 3 turns. Sounds cool? Good. It's the best part of the gameplay. The only problem is you have to play through 3 TIMES to get them all. Like a broken record.

Control: 10/10
Insanely easy to understand. I don't think I even think I need to explain them they're so simple. I will anyway. Control pad to move, hold B to run, A to is the action button, R jacks-in, L to talk to Megaman/Lan. Battle controls are too easy. B to shoot. Hold and release B for a charge shot, A uses chips. Easy.

Difficulty: 3-10/10
Some parts are so easy it's not even funny, while others are so friggn' annoying that you'll want to throw your SP out a window. A lot of the extra bosses (if you can even find the bastards seeing as they have like a 1% chance of being found) have impossible amounts of HP, and the prize is barley even worth the struggle. It's either too easy or too hard. For shame, Capcom.

Replay Value: 7/10
Alright, plenty of chips to get, but the replay value was forced through by forcing you to play over three times. AND every time you restart, the key items are all gone and you have to get them over again. Basically, they're forcing you to play over, and something about that just doesn't fly.

Overall: 7/10
All my love for Capcom's crown jewel aside, this is not a game that I'd like to see re-done, concept wise. I hope that BN5 will bring the old tradition back and only make you play once and actually make it all fun again, not that this wasn't fun, but once you play the game 10 times, it loses its luster.

Buy or Rent:
Depends. If you don't mind a game that repeats over and over again and you love Megaman, buy. If you prefer the old style and don't like wasting your life going on the same adventure, rent.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/09/05