Written By Shaun McCracken

Back in the NES and Super NES days, the Mega Man games were a solid, if not predictable, lineup of games. Within the PS1 era, weird things started happening to the francise, things such as giving him the voice of a woman, spinning him off in a Mario 64-like adventure where Dr. Wily was a boat salesman, and putting him in a cart racer that never saw the light of day in the U.S. . When the Game Boy Advance launched back in 2001, Capcom decided to "spice up" the franchise in the form of Mega Man Battle Network, an RPG-type game where you used "chips" of abillities to defeat enemies. Well, now the first Mega Man title to hit the Gamecube is a mix of the Battle Network concepts with the 2-D style platforming we love an knew in the 8-bit days, and is a mess of frustrating crap that any fan really shouldn't devote any time to.

Mega Man Network Transmission seems overly simplified, at least in terms of graphics and presentation, and overly annoying in terms of gameplay and design. Nothing here really works for the game. You feel like you're playing a 2-D Mega Man game, but it feels nothing like it at the same time. Anytime you start a stage, you need to select a few chips that enable you certain abillities to use against enemies. Unfortunatley, it's a crap shoot of what you're allowed to select, how well it will work in the area you're in, and how much of that abillity you get to use. It's not like the "defeat the boss and get his weapon" design that was so prevalent in past 2-D Mega Man games.

The level designs are highly uninspiring, where each area seems like the last, with maybe a change in background and use of colors. The enemy designs are also equally dull. Honsetly, this game has the look, design, and depth of a flash-based web game on the internet, just with slightly better production values. Screw that. I want the old Mega Man back, and never have to deal with this tripe again. And why is this game so needlessly difficult? It's hard to progress when you're forced to start a long ways back when you die. Even the Mega Man X games eased you into the gameplay for awhile before it started repeatedly kicking you in the balls later on.

Final Thought

Don't bother with this one. I'm not afraid to say that this is worse than Mega Man 8. The gameplay just doesn't make much sense, where the platforming elements are simplified, the weapon selection is randomized, and the difficulty is just frustrating. If you're looking for a similar, but better experience, play Viewtiful Joe instead. This game sucks. Really.

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