Way back when (2001), I picked up Mega Man Battle Network on the GameBoy Advance. I don’t even remember what it was that caught my interest, maybe because I kinda liked Mega Man games at the time. What I didn’t expect was a fun way to experience a Mega Man game without the platforming and a different kind of combat, I was a big fan. Over the years as more games in the series came out, I seemed to have missed them when I was spending more money on GameCube games. Thankfully Capcom is giving the game a new lease on life by bringing the world the Mega Man Battle Network games across two volumes (or one collection). Join me as I finally get to make up for lost time and play the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection.

Across two volumes, Capcom has brought all of the GBA Battle Network games together. This includes both versions for 3 through to 6, where the series decided to go with 2 versions per game. I still don’t get Capcom’s splitting the series across 2 volumes besides knowing fans will pay a premium to have access to all of the GBA versions of these games. I’m reviewing the collection as a whole. If you get the first volume you miss out on seeing the game grow into something more, and if you only get the second volume you miss the build-up to that point. Just also be mindful that this collection doesn’t include any of the spin-off games 

Mega Man Battle Network takes place in the town of ACDC Town and its surrounding areas, where Lan and his friends attend school and help fight viruses on the Internet. Instead of running anti-virus programs on their desktops, the Internet is a digital world where the characters Internet Navigators (NetNavi) act as avatars within the net. Lan’s NetNavi is MegaMan.EXE, a new take on the familiar Mega Man with appearances from other familiar MegaMan foes and allies. 

Across the series Lan and Mega Man take on Net Terrorists WWW and other criminal organisations when WWW isn’t available. The stakes are high from the first game onwards, where later in the series an asteroid is hurtling towards Earth. The stories across the games are pretty good, striking a nice balance between the world is under threat and a goofy kids adventure where every time something goes wrong there happens to be a handy ‘jack-in’ port in the least likely of places. 

When outside of the Internet the game is an isometric adventure game, where Lan will inevitably have to find a jack-in port so Mega Man can access different areas of the net. Within the Internet, it is also an isometric adventure game until you hit a random encounter, where the game changes to a grid-based deck builder battler. Lan collects chips through the game, allowing Mega Man to perform those attacks. They can be found, bought and won by deleting enemies. The battle starts by choosing from these chips to take into the active battle grid, which is on a 3x9 grid from each side to launch attacks from. It’s much easier to pick up than to explain, the game will gladly reintroduce you to the basics of Battle Network battle no matter how far into the series you are. 

What makes the combat so enjoyable is being able to customise your chipset to give you a good range of elemental, up close or ranged attacks. There are also support chips for healing, to repair damaged parts of the grid or stealing a row of the enemies side to give them less room to move for those devastating attacks up your sleeve. Because you can collect chips from defeated enemies, this makes it worth taking on bigger boss-style enemies to add those attacks to your own collection.

For the sake of the review, I subjected myself to every Battle Network game - not a bad thing in itself, but it’s not a series’ best marathoning. When I was a teenager I only knew the original game, it was neat to see how the series evolved and much more obvious where it stayed the same. In a way, it’s a fun time capsule to see how the internet was portrayed back in 2001, while also being a fresh take on Mega Man with a fun combat system. 

One thing you have to keep in mind going back to a collection dating back as far as 2001 is that there are some rough edges to the series. Be prepared to pull up a guide for some of the earlier games, especially around interpreting what the game is telling you to do. At any time you can hit a button to get advice from Mega Man on what to do next, but too frequently it is obtuse in a way that old RPGs could grind to a halt with. Usually, it is just finding the right way to trigger the next story sequence, but sometimes the information provided is misleading. Without a guide some of the back and forth to locations can get tedious fast, but it never hurts the game as a whole. 

With going through so many Battle Network games my biggest frustration would be more around how much of a pain it can be to navigate the Internet side of the game. The net works as an interconnected network where the main areas provide access to other characters' servers. As the games progress, the further you often need to go into the main sections of the net, and the more random battles you have to endure to get there as shortcuts do little to help. Eventually, the new layout for each game's version of the Internet gets burnt into your memory, but it’s through a lot of trudging to do it.

One feature that I can’t recommend enough for those who want to get a break from the somewhat aggressive amount of random battles, you can speed up the process with Buster MAX. With this toggle accessible at any time, the Megabuster is given a boost by making Mega Man’s arm cannon way more powerful, bringing most battles to an end in seconds. If you want to just enjoy the story then BusterMAX will be a big help, although I recommend switching back and forth so you don’t miss out on the fun battle systems. 

The collection gives access to rare chips and promo chips previously unavailable outside of Japan, which is a great opportunity for long-time fans to get to use them. There’s a lot of Battle Network across these collections, especially if you want to experience every little thing the different versions have to offer. 

There’s also access to artwork and music from the series, which is nice enough to look at and listen to. There is also the option to smooth the old sprite work of the originals - under no circumstances use this setting, it is just awful and companies need to stop offering it. The original GBA era graphics still have charm and in each game, you get to see how the visuals change as the games get harder to cram into the GBA cartridges. The music is still there, and as you’d expect with a Mega Man game it sounds good. As with the visuals, they had to make do with the limited hardware and the game looks and sounds good for its time. 

Battle Network has kept the link features which used to involve a cable between GBAs, only now it’s online for battling and trading chips. It’s nice to know they’re there, but the main six titles were enough to keep me from jumping online, let alone finding someone else with the game. 

For all my gripes it’s hard not to like the Mega Man Battle Network series. For everything that changes for better or worse across the games the core remains, the combat gets its hooks into you early and the story is charming enough in all its goofy moments and super dramatic ones too.

Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection is a great way to experience this unique Mega Man series. It's easy to get hooked on the grid combat and finding out what the game is going to make you connect to the net through next. It’s a shame Capcom are still splitting up collections like this, at least you wouldn’t have to jump between game apps then. If you want to experience this entertaining piece of Mega Man history you’ll have plenty to enjoy.