Mega Man Battle Network 4
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| MegaMan Battle Network 4 Red Sun / Blue Moon | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Capcom Production Studio 2 |
| Publisher(s) | Capcom |
| Designer(s) | Keiji Inafune |
| Release date(s) | June 17, 2004 (NA), October 18, 2004 (EU), December 14, 2003 (JP) |
| Genre(s) | Data action RPG |
| Mode(s) | Single player, Multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone |
| Platform(s) | Game Boy Advance |
| Media | Cartridge |
MegaMan Battle Network 4 is the fourth game in the MegaMan Battle Network series. Like Battle Network 3 before it, Battle Network 4 has two different versions, Red Sun and Blue Moon, that differ only in minor story and gameplay details. Battle Network 4 is compatible with the e-Reader (although no English cards have been released to that effect), and can be linked up with Real Operation and the Battle Chip Gate for NetBattles (although to date no English version of Real Operation has been released).
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[edit] Story
It has been five months since Lan Hikari (Netto Hikari [1] in the Japanese version) had thought to have lost his NetNavi and twin brother, MegaMan, only to have him miraculously revived a day before Grade 6 was to start. (This was from MegaMan Battle Network 3 after facing Alpha. Lan and MegaMan were sucked in and Megaman overloaded to save Lan. Lan's father goes to the island and finds MegaMan's data and installs it into Lan's PET) Life is as normal in ACDC town, and Lan is leading a normal life once more during the lack of action.
Things, however, will not stay that way for long: At NAXA (ANSA in the Japanese version) —the story's equivalent of the USA's space agency, NASA, and Japan's space agency, JAXA—scientists have suddenly discovered a massive asteroid hurtling towards the Earth, it just having passed Neptune. The scientists scramble to alert their superiors against this new threat.
Meanwhile, things are as normal in the Hikari household, much like the last five months have been. However, soon, the lack of action is shattered when a malicious Navi, ShadeMan, kidnaps Roll in a classic vampire and damsel in distress plot. MegaMan gives chase and confronts ShadeMan, only to find that his weapons are completely ineffective against ShadeMan's defenses. Fortunately, ShadeMan has somehow lost his offensive power, and retreats just before ProtoMan.EXE (Blues) and Chaud Blaze (Enzan Ijuin) arrive. Roll is unharmed. MegaMan, however, notices something on the ground, and comes into possession of a strange new chip that neither he nor Lan had seen before. Lan takes the chip to Higsby, where he tells Lan the horrifying properties of the chip: This chip, known as a DarkChip, has, although powerful, the side effect of slowly destroying the bond between operator and Navi and tainting the Navi that uses it's soul with evil, ultimately drawing it into a place known as MurkLand, where it will forever be a servant of evil. The Navi will become twisted and never able to be reclaimed from the dark energy. Keeping vigilant on what the DarkChips can do and vowing to Higsby never to use one of them, Lan and MegaMan head to several NetBattle tournaments in order to quench their thirst for NetBattling.
As for the asteroid, the top scientists in the world, including Yuichiro Hikari and the mysterious Dr. Regal, have a plan to divert it: Much like Mega Man X5, they plan to fire a massive high-intensity laser that will divert the asteroid away. The plans begin, but Dr. Regal does not work long before chuckling and walking out.
After the first tournament, Lan is at Mayl's house when he hears the doghouse-alarm activate: he immediately rushes home to find his mother slumped against his shelf in his room. She wakes up and tells Lan that she was sprayed, and that she heard typing before she blacked out. She then falls under the effects of the sleeping gas once more and faints. When she is finally seen to, Lan checks his PC to discover a message written on the screen: "This was a warning. You know what we can do now. Unless you want more of the ones you care about to be harmed, bring the DarkChip to Park Area 2." MegaMan enters the Park area and defeats a Navi that attempts to delete him: the Navi reveals that he is a part of Nebula, a Net syndicate dealing in illegal dark chips. He then warns that he will be back before jacking out.
On the weekend, Lan goes to an amusement part with Mayl with free passes he won just prior to the events of the Nebula Navi. (Lan insists it's not a date - his mother insists otherwise.) After a time, the robotic figures start to go out of control, attacking children and adults that were visiting the park. MegaMan deactivates several robots from the inside before coming across ShadeMan, who was the orchestrator of the chaos. ShadeMan demands that MegaMan return the DarkChip: MegaMan confers with Lan. "Lan..." MegaMan trails off uncertainly, an instant before Lan says that he thinks the same way. MegaMan gives an affirmative and moves back to ShadeMan. He tosses the DarkChip in a slow arc towards ShadeMan, but inches from him, MegaMan destroys the DarkChip with a precise MegaBuster shot.
ShadeMan engages MegaMan, and once again is not harmed by anything MegaMan uses. Suddenly, two incredibly powerful chips (2 Darkswords) appear in MegaMan's folder. Using one of these chips, he destroys ShadeMan in one hit. ShadeMan in his final moments says that MegaMan has finally given into the darkness and used one of the DarkChips. Even though the DarkChip is destroyed, he says MegaMan now has a DarkSoul within him, and eventually it shall rear its head again. He then tells MegaMan to remember him when MegaMan sees his own dark side before being deleted. Evil has it's claws in MegaMan, and it is doubtful it will let go easily.
Meanwhile, NAXA's operation comes to a halt as sabotage nearly destroys the project.
At the end of the Hawk Tournament, Laserman appeared in the NetBattle machine and revealed himself as the leader of Nebula. He senses MegaMan's Dark Soul and offers MegaMan to join Nebula. A few moments later, Aquaman/Gutsman (depending on the version) comes into the netbattle machine to aid Megaman. MegaMan refuses Laserman's invitation, and Laserman tears out MegaMan's Dark Soul, forcing it into Aquaman/Gutsman. After defeating the Dark Soul Navi, Laserman leaves, reminding MegaMan about the darkness in his heart.
When Lan wins the Red Sun/Blue Moon Tournament, he is whisked away to NAXA to assist in their final resort to save the planet. Nebula sets up barriers to block off various areas of access on the Net, but MegaMan deletes the barriers. As Dr. Regal prepares to send Laserman into the man-made asteroid, he is revealed as the leader of Nebula. Lan also jacks in and sends MegaMan into the asteroid, and after overcoming numerous obstacles, he confronts and deletes Laserman.
Upon entering the asteroid's control room, the controls are separated from the walkway by a gap. MegaMan and Lan are disappointed when Duo, the OS of the asteroid, appears. He has found Earth full of evil and plans to destroy it in order to eliminate this evil, similar to the story of Noah in the Bible. MegaMan is forced into a fight with his own Dark Soul and defeats it. Duo tells him that he has just defeated his own evil and the evil will resurface again. Assuming his battle form, Duo battles MegaMan. After his defeat, Duo tells MegaMan that it is too late to stop the asteroid. MegaMan still believes that he can divert its course, and Duo allows him to the controls. However, the controls are too heavy for MegaMan to handle.
On Earth, many civilians (including some of the possible opponent operators that can be battled in the tournaments) cheer MegaMan on. Duo senses this and also finds that it is beginning to awaken a hidden power in MegaMan. Lan and MegaMan then enter Full Synchro, and MegaMan successfully diverts the asteroid's course. Duo decides to delay the punishment, and says that decades or centuries later, he will be back, and Earth will be judged again.
Afterwards Lan and Megaman find a mysterious gate in the Undernet. It lead into a previously unaccessable area. Deep in this new area of the Undernet, Megaman stumbles across Bass. After battling and defeating Bass.
After the battle, Megaman and Lan come across a mysterious Black Hole. They are unable to enter or even approach it. They learn that this is because they do not have the 5 evil chips. After obtaining these 5 chips, Megaman journeys into the Black Earth.
Megaman fights his way through a series of mirrors containing the dark souls of previous navis that he has fought. Finally at the end of it all. He comes across his own dark soul and must defeat himself.
After Megaman defeats his dark soul, Bass reveals himself one last time in Black Earth. That is where Megaman and Bass fight it out one final time.
[edit] Gameplay
Battle Network 4 greatly differs from Battle Network 3 in many ways, the most notable of which is the concept of DoubleSoul (Soul Unison in the original). DoubleSoul is similar to how the classic-style Mega Man could acquire the weapons of the Robot Masters that he has defeated: by using DoubleSoul, MegaMan.EXE could use the powers of other NetNavis in the same manner as how classic Mega Man could use the powers of the Robot Masters through their weapons. To perform a DoubleSoul, which lasts for a temporary amount of time (three turns), however, a chip must be sacrificed for the battle.
Another key feature is that it takes several playthroughs of the game in order to uncover all of its secrets - although many criticize the game for the same reason. After each playthrough, a player is permitted to either continue with their existing game or to start a new game at a higher level of difficulty (although any save at a higher level of difficulty will overwrite a save of the lower level).
Finally, DarkChips, which are powerful chips that give many negative side-effects, make their debut in this game: a mood indicator in the corner of the screen shows the mood of MegaMan, and should the mood change to a negative one, random DarkChips will appear in MegaMan's Custom Screen. Each DarkChip will have many negative (and a notable permanent) side-effects, and will taint MegaMan's own soul with darkness. Should the darkness overwhelm MegaMan, he will find that a different selection of chips are made available to use, with a different selection of Program Advances therein. Also, when you use a DarkChip (aside from the battle with ShadeMan in the ToyRobo), MegaMan permanently loses 1 HP for each and cannot regain all HP lost, even if you were to purify yourself.
[edit] Emotion Window
The Emotion Window is a mood indicator that lets the operator know MegaMan's current state based on fighting performance. The window also changes whenever DoubleSoul is used, to a mugshot of the corresponding Soul used.
Full Synchro is a heightened state of focus gained by performing a counter-attack against a virus (I.e. attacking the virus just before it attacks). In this state, Battlechip attacks are doubled in strength. It is possible to consecutively achieve Full Synchro by continuously counter-attacking and thus doubling effectiveness in battle. Full Synchro expires when the player fails to counter-attack a virus, or when MegaMan suffers damage.
Conversely, when a fight is not playing in MegaMan's favor, he gains an anxious expression and following this, Darkchips begin to display themselves in the Custom Screen. Also during this emotional state, DoubleSoul transformations are disabled. The player can return to a normal, calm state by successfully counter-attacking a virus, or winning the battle.
If, during battle, MegaMan suffers repeated hits at a rapid rate, he goes into a state of rage which is similar to Full Synchro in the way that it doubles Battlechip attack power, but instead of a focused expression in the emotion window, MegaMan has an angry expression and in the battle screen he glows orange. As such, it can be considered a desperation state which gives the player a chance to turn the battle towards their favor. Rage will expire when the player attacks and damages a virus, or if the player successfully counter-attacks, at which point the player will instead go into Full Synchro. It also expires after a while if no chip is used.
The Emotion Window is a feature that has lived on in the Battle Network 5 and 6 games. The basic functions of the Emotion Window stated above (Full Synchro, Anxiety, and Rage) have not changed since, though the anxiety emotion has been removed in Battle Network 6, replaced with Tired and Very Tired status.
[edit] Battle Chips
"Battle Network 4" brings out many new chips, with standard chips weighing in with 150 unique attacks. Mega Chips fell in number from the previous game, only having 60 different chips. Instead of V1, V2, V3, V4, and V5 chips (previously found in Battle Network 1 and 2 with V4 and V5 chips found only in 3) are now (Navi), (Navi)SP, (Navi)DS. 10 GigaChips appear in this game. There are 56 of a new kind of chip, SecretChips. Most of these are obtained by winning Higsby's "Free Tournaments", though there are a few exceptions. For example, the player may obtain the "Z-Saver" chip by linking their game with a copy of Mega Man Zero 3. There are 8 DarkChips in this game with bad effects to your Navi's soul and emotions. (See above section for information on DarkChips.)
[edit] Criticism
"Battle Network 4" received much criticism from fans of the first three games. The graphics outside of battle are now smaller and outlined, and now ACDC town and similar maps are much smaller. The Style system was removed from this game and replaced with the Soul Unison system which some fans argue was not as useful. The game progresses through three tournaments with a crisis in between each tournament which felt repetitive to some. The biggest and most common complaint was that players must play through the game's story mode at least three times to unlock all the secrets (and all the chips) hidden within; this displeased many fans, who thought that the games were better off the way they were before, and consider MMBN4 to be when the series jumped the shark. This problem was fixed in subsequent Battle Network titles.
[edit] Trivia
- The graphics in this game get a significant facelift from the previous games, and would keep a similar graphical style for the final two games also.
- Hidden throughout the game are seven passwords for use in Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge. Six will let you play special fights against any of the game's playable characters, and the last will give you a secret battle chip.
- Red Sun is the first and only game in the series in which Roll.EXE may be fought.
- This game is capable of linking with Mega Man Zero 3. Doing so will give you the 'Z-Saber' chip. It is mistranslated as "Z-Saver" and is described as a Reploid sword that could strike three consecutive times. You can only get one copy of the Z Saber chip per copy of Mega Man Zero 3, however, so in order to get a copy in both versions, you must link the two versions together, compare libraries, and buy another copy from Higsby's.
- As a loan-out from Konami, Django and Otenko from Boktai make appearances in this game, first in a Django theme park robot and later in the Undernet. Django's weapon, Gun Del Sol, and the Piledriver as a Program Advance with three Gun Del Sols is also available in the form of a battle chip.
- This game features a new PET (PErsonal Terminal).
- The "RedSun" and "BlueMoon" Giga Chips has reappeared in MegaMan Battle Network 6 as the "SunMoon" Program Advance.
- Some of the released Blue Moon versions were bugged so that the players game was completely frozen when MegaMan went into the WoodMan story quest and left a virus battle. This made it impossible to finish the game, but if the battle was skipped, the player could keep playing through and Continue and Continue 3 caused no problems during the WoodMan story.
- Near the end of the game, there is a man at the end of VampireManor wearing a bandana (who looks similar in appearence to Hideo Kojima the creator of the Boktai games) and claims in the game to be the creator of the comic book character Django. He provides clues to a lotto number that can be used to obtain the secret chip, GunDelSolEX. The clues are made to be solved by someone who has played Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django.
- Megaman Battle Network 4 Red Sun is the last game in which mainstay Gutsman.EXE can be fought.
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