Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team Protoman

aka: MMBN5 Team Protoman, Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team:Protoman, Rockman EXE 5: Team of Blues
Moby ID: 20868

Game Boy Advance version

Just like its predecessors, with new strengths and new weaknesses

The Good
Oh for those who haven't figured it out yet, this is a review for the fifth game of the Mega Man Battle Network (from now on MMBN) six-logy (or is it hexalogy ?). It's really similar to its predecessor in many ways so I won't make a big introduction for what this game is about. There is two versions of it, Team Colonel and Team Protoman. As far I know, the big difference between them is that in one you join a team leaded by the navi Colonel (who is first introduced in MMBN5), and the other the team is leaded by Protoman and his operator Chaud. The difference seems major as opposed to the differences in both versions of MMBN3 & MMBN4 (they also come in 2 versions). The storyline probably differ a lot, so does the gameplay as you'll take control of many different navis, and those navis will be different, so if you're gonna to buy the game chose well. The copy I bought and played trough was Team Protoman, so it's the one this review applies for. Also, I only played even games in the series yet (1, 3, 5) so I can only compare this game with MMBN3 and the original MMBN, as I haven't played the others (yet).

The first real major difference between this game and its predecessor is that the bad guy isn't Dr.Wily any longer, but Dr.Regal his son, and the Nebula gang (which is rather analogous to what the WWW was). It's a good excuse to make the story similar without having to found a crap reason why the WWW wasn't really destroyed in MMBN3, and that's good because it changes a bit (if you remember how the story sounded stupid in NES Mega Man games where Wily was always safe when you were thinking him defeated, you should know they remedied to this here). Not only that, but the story is also much more mature and less predictable than the story found in MMBN1&3. I honestly was bored by the story of those 2 previous games in the series, as it was ridiculously simple and predictable, and I am happy to note that they improved in this area for MMBN5. The story isn't epic either, but it does its job while being less childish and more serious.

The second major difference is that you don't play only as Lan and his navi Mega Man, but you actually join a anti-Nebula team, named team Protoman (or, obviously team Colonel if you chose the other version), and you will meat with a bunch of other people, who has other navis, at least two of them are directly from Mega Man 5 on the NES (Gyro Man & Napalm Man), and the others are either from other NES Mega Man games (Magnet Man, Proto Man) or original navis (Search Man, Meddy). And yes, you can take control of all navis mentioned above during some special missions, and all of them play differently, have differnt strengths and weaknesses, but usually you'll still stay with the regular Lan/Mega Man pair. There is a few "liberation missions", which are kind of like a strategy mini-game, where you take control of all navis of the team to delete one enemy navi (but with other enemies on the field), those missions start fun, but can end up really annoying because other navis are really bad compared to Mega Man. That make me like him even more ! Only Proto Man is close to match him.

The third major difference is that all graphics are completely redone (MMBN1&3 had almost the same graphics). All characters are slightly smaller and looks brighter, backgrounds are more detailed, and the portraits of all people when they're talking are a lot better than the old ones (although the mouth of some people (mostly Dex) are really large). Lan and his friends looks less childish (and that's normal as they're actually supposed to have grown up). The graphics definitely improved over the first 3 games of the series, which is good. Battle graphics didn't change, but honestly they didn't need to. The only beef I have is that they layered out the hometown differently and that's weird at first but you get used to it in no time.

Now much of the gameplay is really similar to MMBN3, that's all I can say. It's still as good and fun to fight viruses as quickly as possible (getting S-rank is harder here than before it seems), trying to make you the best folders, etc... Higsby, the infamous chip seller returns here again, but now his shop has grown so big that he has an employee that does everything for him so you don't see him as much as before. There is also some enigmas/minigames in most instances, like in MMBN3. So if you liked the previous MMBN games, you are guaranteed to not be disappointed here.

Also, the music is still done in that traditional old-gameboy squarewave remix style like previous MMBN titles, and it's just as good as it has always be. The internet music absolutely rocks, just like the internet music of both MMBN and MMBN3, and the battle music is cool, and that's a good thing because you'll hear it a lot. Other music, while not absolutely outstanding, is good enough. The only real annoyance here is that "panic" music that sucks real bad and you hear a lot unfortunately, but well nothing is perfect...

The Bad
One disappointment is that the game is definitely shorter than MMBN3, I was kinda shocked how short this game can be. MMBN1 was really short too, but it was insanely hard. MMBN5 is both short and relatively easy (see below for more details) I guess that's a compensation for the liberation missions add-ons and the fact you can control so many different navis.

In MMBN3, you had a ton of side quests to do, and I liked it very much. There is only a couple of them in MMBN5, and they're very simple, this side-quest thing really is lacking. After how great MMBN3 was in this department, it's almost frustrating seeing how linear MMBN5 is.

Another small problem I had is that the last boss is really TOO hard. As a plus, the game is really too easy for the first half of it, and becomes more balanced for the second half. But when I did most later boss powered-up-refights on the first try without any problem, have over 800 HP and get deleted by the last boss in two turns (about 15 seconds), I really got disgusted. I also had this problem with MMBN3, but only here it's amplified. I hate easy games with impossible last bosses. Fortunately youtube exists for the ending, but still...

A small complaint is that you cannot skip cutscenes with the start button like you could in MMBN3. The advantage is that you don't risk to miss a story scene by accidentally pushing the start button, the disadvantage is that when you loss to a boss you have to watch the story scene again, and again until you win. This also strongly demotivated me to insist on beating the last boss, as the story scene before the fight is REALLY long and I don't want to watch it 100 times even if it's good.

Another annoyance is that most enemies, and bosses, just have that "teleport" ability. They can teleport from anywhere on the battle field whenever they want, but Mega Man cannot, it only can warp to adjacent panels. If I remember right there were a couple of teleporting enemies in MMBN3, but most of them were normal (only moving one panel at time). In MMBN5 it's the other way around, so when you attack there is about 50% chances the enemy will teleport right away and avoid your attack, so whenever you win or loose is a lot about luck, especially for bosses who have unpredictable AI. MMBN3 needed more reflexes than luck, and that was good.

The Bottom Line
MMBN5 is a fun game overall, and there is few to dislike about it, but as mentioned above a couple of things bothers me a little. You'll like this game if you liked other MMBN games, that's for sure. However, if you were to only play one single MMBN game in the whole series, I'd recommend MMBN3 over this one, as it has significantly better gameplay, even if the story and graphics are better here, after all a game is about gameplay. To be honest while I enjoyed MMBN5, in my deepest memory I love MMBN3 much more for a subconscious reason that is hard to explain.

by Bregalad (937) on April 13, 2008

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