Welcome to another edition of For What it's Worth, where bargain titles are examined to see if they really are worth your bottom dollar. Tonight Mega March is drawing close to the final curtain with the final review of the month. This time we take a look at a Mega Man title that branches away from the classic timeline. That's right. This is an entry from the Battle Network series. The lonely bastard child of the Mega Man franchise.

For those who don't know, the Battle Network series is not actually part of the Mega Man timeline but rather its own unique set of games, although I guess I should say that with the addition of the Star Force series, it has generated it's own timeline. So what is the Battle Network series about? Well it's about a young kid by the name of Lan Hikari who with the help of his net navi (Mega Man) saves the world from rouge computer viruses and cyber terrorist organizations. 

Oh right. I have to explain the whole net navi thing. Don't I? Well in a nutshell, in this universe the whole world revolves around the Internet (kind of like how the Jetsons' world revolved around technology) with these computer sprites (I think they would be sprites or maybe they're programs. I don't know) called net navi's (this universes answer to the robot masters) who make sure that everything is running smoothy. Need more info? Read the review ;)

Does this Mega Man RPG (Yup. It's an RPG) stand up as its own series or was it a failed experiment? 

Story: Lan's father who is one of the world's top scientific minds is kidnapped by an evil organization known as Nebula, just before revealing his next big experiment. Shortly after the kidnapping, Nebula begins to cause chaos all throughout the Internet in an attempt to bring the World to its knees. Lan and Mega Man join a special task force dedicated to stopping Nebula from using Dr. Hikari's experiment to conquer the world. The story is ok I guess. The dialogue can be rather lame and childish at times but since this is very likely targeted towards younger gamers, I'm willing to let that slide. 

Graphics & Design: It's not too bad. The character designs are all the stereotypical anime style but they tried to make as many of the characters have their own look and identity so I got to respect the animators and designers for that. I like most of the ways in which the navis have been redesigned from their robot master counterparts and the virus characters are each uniquely designed so I like that as well. Although the backgrounds during the Internet scenes are pretty lame, with most of them just being colored squares and staircases set to a black backdrop. 

Sound: The soundtrack is ok. It's the kind of music you would expect from any typical Mega Man title but none of the tracks are very catchy or memorable, so it kind of just falls flat.

Gameplay: Describing the gameplay could be a tricky task so please bare with me if this gets a tad long or complicated. In the real world you play as Lan. Most of what he does is mainly gather information about each of the various missions and going from destination to destination but he does have a few moments when he will have to get his hands dirty but other than that he just jacks Mega Man into the Internet at start of each mission. The Interment portion of the game is where the RPG elements begin to come into play. You move from area to area coming across viruses along the way. Battling the viruses happens on the battle grid, which offers some interesting innovations in terms of RPG style combat. Instead of turn based combat, you can select a number of battle chips (power ups, special attacks and summons) and randomly blast away at the enemy virus while moving anywhere on your portion of the battle grid you please. That's right. The grid allows you to not only move around as much as you want but to also dodge enemy fire (more RPG's should have this feature). The battle grid also has a turn based element. Once you have used up all of your battle chips in one particular turn, an energy meter will appear on top of the screen and once that fills up, you will be able to equip Mega Man with some more battle chips. However, there are a few flaws within this grid. Dodging can be a real pain in the ass in later levels when viruses become stronger and increase in numbers, making it more likely to actually move directly into multiple attacks when trying to dodge. You also don't gain much experience after battling since to increase Mega Man's HP and fighting abilities, you have to buy certain upgrades. After winning a battle you get either a battle chip or a small amount of money or if you really need it a boost for your life bar. This especially sucks since these upgrades are expensive and with the constant times your trying to get from one destination to another you are constantly interrupted by viruses and good luck running away because Mega Man only does it like 50% of the time you ask him to. This is even more frustrating because you'll be forced to retrace your steps multiple times during the game. Meaning that you will have to go all the way from one to place to another at least twice for each mission. It get's old fast. Later on in the game you'll be given the chance to merge with other navi's on your team to form a double soul but it even though it will give Mega Man a new look and new abilities, it will require you to sacrifice certain battle chips in order to pull it off. One more gameplay element I have to discuss before I end this is the liberation missions. Liberation missions work the same as your regular Internet gameplay except you have series of squares which you have to clear to make your way to the boss navi at the end. To clear a square you can do a special attack or simply fight a few viruses, although you will only have three turns to do so but this time the energy fills even if you don't use all of your chosen battle chips and once it does, all of your battle chips are gone and you have to equip more. Make sure to use them fast because that bar fills quickly. Here's a tip: Don't try to clear a square while you are between two other squares. Trust me on this one. But the Liberation missions do have the strong suit of using other navi besides Mega Man which is pretty cool. Except for when you have to use Protoman. His sword has a short attack range, which makes it useless against most of these viruses.

Extra Features: None.

Replay Value: I won't likely be playing through it again anytime soon as it does get pretty boring and tedious after awhile.

Over All Value: Retail Value- $15 (Used)

                           What it's Worth- $8

I have to say that even with its faults, Battle Network 5 has some interesting gameplay mechanics and adds something new to the RPG genre, although it does come up a tad short. I wouldn't say its a bad game, just a mediocre one. I say this to both Mega Man and RPG fans, only get this if your curiosity over powers you. But who knows, you might like it. It just wasn't my cup of tea, which is too bad because a Mega Man RPG is a solid premise. It just should have been executed better.

Until next time Happy Hunting!