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TRANSMISSION
TERMINATED
MEGA
MAN NETWORK TRANSMISSION
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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Published
By :
CAPCOM
Developed
By:
AKIRA
Year Published :
2003
Players :
1
ESRB Rating:
EVERYONE
OVERALL
SCORE
4.0
VISUALS |
5.2 |
AUDIO |
5.0 |
GAMEPLAY |
4.1 |
REPLAY
VALUE |
3.5 |
INNOVATION |
4.0 |
Capcom, why? Really, WHY?
A
Disc Read Error
Every
Other 2-D Mega Man Game Before This One
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