Did Mega Man Battle Network ever get bad?

Or did it just get overdone, since they seemed to release them constantly, and they started doing the Pokemon thing where they made two different versions of the same game?

I played the first game shortly after release, when I borrowed a friend's GBA for a while. I had a pretty fantastic time with it, and my only real complaint was how easy it was to get lost in some dungeons since there was no map. I never owned a GBA so I didn't play subsequent games, and despite owning a DS I kinda passed on by all the DS versions which had some weird name change.

Anyway, what are people's overall thoughts on that series, and where it went?

I played through 3-6 of the series and personally felt that it ended on quite a fantastic note. They consistently evolved the core gameplay by adding new and different features each game(style changes, soul unisons, dark chips) and the constantly expanding chip library really gave it the feeling of endless exploration of different play styles.

I have no sales figures to back this up but I believe the series was still doing quite well all the way till the end and the series was ended simply with the end of the lifespan of the GBA, migrating to the DS in the form of Megaman Star Force(which introduces larger changes and I feel remains strong entries in the franchise that got unfortunately got weaker)

Getting lost in the dungeons was definitely a thing, and even more so as the puzzle design of the dungeons evolved in 5 and 6, definitely still fairly simple with some effort though. Overall I think the series finished strong and narratively wrapped up quite nicely as well. I highly recommend you go back and revisit the later games in the series(5 has a weird turn based strategy element while 6 probably presents the strongest example of the dev team's vision) and possibly even the DS series if you have even a passing interest in the series. The action gameplay style definitely still holds up.

@imhungry: Yeah, it's weird. Like, this series I easily feel like I could've played 2+ more entries of, but never got around to it. Now they've killed it because sales must've dwindled.

On the other hand, I played Pokemon Red, liked it, but couldn't even bring myself to finish Silver. But that series continues going strong. It still baffles me that people feel the need to play more than one Pokemon game in their life. Like, even the changes you mention to Battle Network sound like bigger changes than all the beauty pageant side bullshit that they occasionally tweak with Pokemon.

I got kind of tired of it halfway through the first one I seem to recall. I do remember being really impressed with the graphics on a handheld.

The first three games was where it was at with 3 being the pinnacle. 4 was hot garbage with 5 and 6 being OK but felt overplayed due to sticking too close the Battle Network framework. I did play them all and enjoyed them (4 is still shit) but looking back now, I can easily say that 3 was the peak, but at least the last game in the series had a good ending to the franchise.

Four was poorly translated, too. A lot of the dialogue in that game just makes zero sense. 2 was definitely its peak--those style changes were fantastic! The whole soul business felt a bit hokey.

I just don't understand why they haven't remastered the first three into something for the 3DS. I absolutely loved that gameplay.

Those were all incredible games. They tried to make a new series with similar gameplay and characters on DS but it was HORRIBLE.

4 was bad, but I thought 5 and 6 were both pretty good.

edit; they are worth going back to and 4 isn't really important (there's a tournament, there's a vampire, there's a giant satellite thing that almost crashes?)

I would much rather they focus on remaking the latter ones or make a new game in the series. The first few ones, especially the first one, just lacked mechanical complexity and variety of latter entries. They also looked pretty bad by comparison.

I don't really know how you'd make a new one considering how final the ending was. I mean I guess you could just say "ANOTHER CRAZY HAPPENING IN THE INTERNET" or whatever they called it but it would feel weird after 6.

Maybe a game playing as Chaud and Protoman being net police would be pretty cool

Make a reboot. That's what they did on DS but they made the gameplay garbage and turned the combat visuals into N64 3D trash. Just do that but good this time.

I feel like if they remade it now everyone's name would be like twitter or something

4 is an abomination and possibly my most disappointing game of all time (note I still played each version at least 4-5 times), I could spend all day complaining about everything wrong in that game

5 is better but some people don't care for the liberation missions. Also, play the DS version if you can.

6 is a good solid entry on par with 2/3 and ends the series on a high note.

So I've never played one of these games, but I saw the first one is out on the Wii U VC. Is it worth playing then?

The game kinda aged terribly, it'll give you a good taste of the basic combat and exploration but I would suggest starting with 2 which was when the series really took off.

I only discount the latter games because they relied way too heavily on the former games and were being shot out one after the other in such a short period of time. If was going back now to play them I would probably have more fun with the later entries such as 6.

2 is definitely the best starting point, 1 is very clunky; 2 and beyond has so much more customizing. Customizing your folder was the best part of the games imho.

Of course 1 is fine for what it is, just know that if you aren't completely sold 1 is definitely probably the second worst of the series besides 4.

I stopped with 4 and reading this thread makes me want to play 5 and 6. I wish they release a collection like Mega Man Zero but fucking capcom....

4 is worse than a non interactive heap of garbage. Other than that the entire series is great.

The Starforce series that was a pseudo sequel wasn't half bad either (most of the criticism for it was that it was too similar to BN).

Played 1 and 2 and they were awesome! Reading about 6 now I want to go ahead and just play that.

I actually got into this series more than I ever got into traditional Mega Man games, which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise, since it's pretty much the closest the franchise ever got to a Mega Man RPG. (I'm sure it also brought out my latent TCG obsession.)

I think the first game is by far the weakest, even far behind 4. It lacks practically all the combat complexity of later games and everything about it is very rudimentary by comparison. I thought 4 was alright. It had issues, but it was kind of a transition period for the franchise and I still had fun with it. (It was also the first game that both my brother and I bought a copy, so it was the first time I got to try the competitive multiplayer.)

I think 3 was the pinnacle of the series though. It really honed the gameplay from the first two games and really brought out the whole "deck-building" concept. It was the first time that it felt like you needed a really cohesive "deck" to succeed. The story was even pretty decent. If I were to recommend one game in the series to play it would be 3.

5 and 6 were also pretty good. 5 had some interesting strategy elements, and 6 was kind of like 3 to the second half of the series. It honed many of the elements that 4 introduced. Not quite on the same level as 3, but still a lot of fun.

Of yeah, there's also that GameCube game that tried to turn the series into a more traditional Mega Man game. I didn't get very far with it because it's hard as freakin' balls. I may be totally off-base, but I thought it was harder than any traditional Mega Man game I've played.

I never got that into Starforce. I played the first one and thought it was alright, but didn't bother with the rest. It basically felt like a stripped-down BN game with all the Mega Man references altered to be almost unrecognizable. (Mega Man is basically some kind of alien wolf ghost thing.)

2 is one of my favorite games of all time, It's really hard for me to go back to one knowing what two is.

I enjoyed the whole series (4 being the weakest), and I am really bummed no other game has tried to ape the combat system

That's the title I was looking for. The Megaman Starforce series is hot trash. I would play BN 4 anytime instead of any of those games. The gameplay is so dumbed down that they're a boring slog and the combat visuals are the most horrible N64 3D graphics you never wanted to see.

Was 4 the one that had those weird SRPG-like missions where you're cleaning up the Undernet or whatever? I think I stopped playing around there, but of the games I did play 3 was definitely the best.

That was 5. As I recall, 4 was basically just a bunch of tournaments.