It's Critter Time!

aka
"Capcom predicted the Internet of Things and AI assistants like Siri and Alexa in the early 2000s, but their interpretation is way cooler and more fun than what we have going on, tbh"

so unlike many of the other Mega Man games, the Battle Network games aren't action-platformers, they're more like action RPGs, but with a real-time battle system that handles your attacks and special moves in a collectible trading card game/deckbuilding kinda way. It sounds really strange, and to be honest, it absolutely is, but the games do go over the mechanics step by step, so it's still relatively easy to learn. imo it's one of those "easy to pick up, hard to master" kinda deals, because you can do some wild shit in some of these games if you know what you're doing!

in these games, you generally play as either MegaMan in the Cyberworld or his human operator Lan Hikari in the real world, where you explore, talk with NPCs, buy new battle chips and power-ups for MegaMan.
Almost all of the action also happens in the Cyberworld, where you get into random encounters against computer viruses, and the typical themed stages of the platformer Mega Man games are also basically here, but more like in the vain of classic RPG dungeons with puzzles and bossfights.








the first game in the series definitely suffers under some serious First Installment Jank, but it's still a fun time. I do recommend using a map for that game's Cyberworld, though, because it's very non-descript and confusing to navigate. the sequels take the foundation that BN1 introduced and build upon it, like with better world design, better folder building rules, different forms for MegaMan that give him different abilities and such!

the stories of these games, as should be expected for handheld games where the target demographic was mainly kids and teenagers, are generally very lighthearted and cheesy, but they have the fun kind of cheese, imo! but there are definitely some moments where things are getting pretty dark if you think about it. but I dunno, I loved the stories that (most of) these games told as a kid (BN4 doesn't have much of a story, tbh, because that game was very clearly rushed, unfortunately), and even as an adult I find myself enjoying the fun, cheesy and generally optimistic vibes of these games.

These games shaped a whole lot of who I am and what I do. I'd been a fan of the NES/SNES titles as a kid, so when I got myself a GBA (coming out of college) I decided to try this new Megaman thing out and I was hooked from the first game. Enough so that when I went applying to grad schools in 2003 or so, I wanted to see if anyone was doing research into virtual worlds of the kind the games depicted, and someone was. Not only that, I got accepted when I applied there... only to find out that that professor had left that research behind as not very interesting, which I'm still somewhat disappointed by. The ideals never really left my head, either. I still think that characters who live inside computers are fascinating, and I spent a lot of time using that kind of model to understand how other processes inside computers work (which is where the idea of Bitkin came from and I might start a whole new thread in Art about them).

But, yeah. Battle Network was extremely formative.

Ahh one of my favorite series! It definitely has its highs and lows with varying quality here and there, but I have a ton of nostalgia playing this on car rides.

My favorites were 3 and 6. I spent a lot of time trying to 100% both of these and they were easily the most fun for me. Oddly I really haven't streamed much of this series outside of 2 and 3. The thought of trying to stream 4 3 times probably intimidated me a lot because of how messy that was.

I loved this series so much I would doodle a ton as a kid and make the robot masters who didn't make it into the series have something that I felt was faithful to the new style of designs.

TheJewker wrote: Sun Jul 13, 2025 2:47 pm Ahh one of my favorite series! It definitely has its highs and lows with varying quality here and there, but I have a ton of nostalgia playing this on car rides.

My favorites were 3 and 6. I spent a lot of time trying to 100% both of these and they were easily the most fun for me. Oddly I really haven't streamed much of this series outside of 2 and 3. The thought of trying to stream 4 3 times probably intimidated me a lot because of how messy that was.

I loved this series so much I would doodle a ton as a kid and make the robot masters who didn't make it into the series have something that I felt was faithful to the new style of designs.

Definitely feel like 3 and 6 are the Universal Favorites of the Battle Network Series, for good reason.

TBF 3 was my entry into the series so trying to compare 1 and 2 to 3 was already going to be messy, and 6 just had all the polish of the new mechanics they introduced in 4 and 5, so as the final game of that series, they had to make it a banger or bust. Glad it was a banger to the very end.

I'm also glad the Battle Network community is still keeping the series alive and kicking through the Open Net Battle Engine.

My favorite of the series is 2, not because it's the best from a gameplay standpoint but because it's one of the few games ever that I liked enough to 100%.

That engine looks fascinating - I wonder why development stopped two years ago.

I recently replayed these games! I remember when they were coming out, 3 was widely considered the best, but I agree that 2 is one of my favorites revisiting it. There’s a lot of fun chips available to work with. I loooove 6, but the library feels so small…

(I also replayed 4 with a retranslation patch, and… man, when you clear up the translation errors, that game has some pretty ugly recurring themes underneath, even leaving aside building the C-Slider three times. Ew.)

I love the idea of the style system, and a game actively looking at how you play and giving you cool bonuses to that playstyle. …But tying you to a fixed element is rough, so I’m glad they moved towards multiple transformations in a fight in 5 and 6. That’s way more interesting.

I was a super big PvP head back in the day—I even have a trophy from a convention tournament! And I love how much people have added to the series—the elaborate romhacks are next level, and I really want to try the mod-cards-allowed BN6 PvP formats that seem popular these days…

If you want more, Shanghai.EXE Genso Network is a great Touhou-themed fangame with a rock-solid engine! I really love it. (I wish the Undersquare crew had gotten anywhere with EXE7, pffahahaha…)

so Battle Network 3 is commonly agreed to be the best game in the series, and I do agree when it comes to the story (which is probably the strongest in the series), but gameplay-wise, they did some decisions with how the NaviCustomizer is used that I disagree with and which drag down the entire experience for me. shout-outs to the Press program, which you either need to have active the entire time and thus waste space on your NaviCust that you could've used for other programs that are more useful for battles, or you have to keep shuffling it in for when you actually need it, which is a time-consuming process.

I honest to god cheered when a kind soul on The Rockman EXE Zone forums made a mod for the Steam-version of the BN Legacy Collection that makes the Press program active all the time.

other than that, I think my personal favorite game in the series is Battle Network 2. that game just feels wild with all the stuff that kinda happens in it. like, the first scenario is saving one of your friends from getting gassed to death in her own home (y'know... for kids!), and then there's that part where Lan and MegaMan go abroad, and almost everything that could go wrong does go wrong, and it's... it's just wild. I dunno. BN2 is crazy and I love it.

Aaaaaaah these games own. One of my first GBA games. And yeah I do agree that story wise 3 was probably the best, though when it comes to gameplay 6 is where its at for me. I used to be a part of 6s online netbattle scene a lot when I was younger and that scene never really went away and is still going strong.

so I've been kinda hacking away towards unlocking Hard Mode in Battle Network 2 on the Steam version of the Collection (because I could use a save editor there for the complete Library), and I did it! And the way to unlock Hard Mode in BN2 is an elaborate process, because games during the early 2000s were weird like that.

So basically, in order to unlock it, you need to beat the final boss, you need to get all Battle Chips and Program Advances logged into your Library (which also includes 10 Secret Chips that you can only get via Network Duels against other players), and you need to beat the real Bass after clearing out the post-game area.

the library stuff sounded the most tedious to me, so I used a save editor someone on the Rockman EXE Zone forums made so I had all the Library stuff done and dusted. And then I just generally played through BN2 again with Buster Max active, because I've already beaten the game multiple times before without it, I just wanted to speed up that part of the progress (which is I guess what Buster Max is for xD).

Nowadays Capcom would've probably just put a difficulty selector after clicking on New Game, but like I said, games during the early 2000s had some... interesting decisions when it comes to unlocking modes like that.