In recent years, Capcom has been making compilations with remastered versions of their Mega Man franchise classics. The latest to hit consoles and PCs is the mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection.
The developer’s new product brings the 10 games of the series, originally released for Game Boy Advance, with graphic improvements and some news, divided into two volumes. TudoCelular had early access and tells the details in this full review.
history
The context of the game takes place in the year 200X. The game world is experiencing a considerable growth of technology and the internet. This rise led to the creation of the Network Society, a network where programs called NetNavis are run.
To access them, people carry portable devices called PETs. With them, you can get a series of benefits through the network. However, this rise has resulted in the presence of cybercrime.
Thus, with the need to fight the viruses that appear, the protagonist, Lan Hikari, and his NetNavi, MegaMan.EXE, will work together to solve all the incidents that appear.
The game does not have localization in Portuguese (PT-BR) at this time of release. At this first moment, there is only English and other oriental options. At this point, it’s a step backwards from the original, as there were menus and subtitles in Portuguese in the original titles.
gameplay
The collection does not bring major changes to the already known experience of the game. As it is a compilation of the original games, only menus and animations are new, to give the game selection a fresh look.
Volume 1 contains the first four – Battle Network, BN 2, BN 3 Blue e BN 3 White. Volume 2 provides the other six titles – Battle Network 4 Red Sun, BN 4 Blue Moon, BN 5 Team ProtoMan, BN 5 Team Colonel, BN 6 Cybeast Gregar e BN 6 Cybeast Falzar.
The mechanics remain the same. You must switch control of the character between the real world and the digital one. With Mega Man inside the net, you go through the paths and defeat the monsters.
The battle takes place in an area of 3 x 3 for each side. The player can choose, in each turn, a number of cards of the same class that vary between attacking from a distance with a stronger Buster, or using the sword to defeat the closest opponents, in addition to other support ones, both to recover life and to “steal” part of the rival’s area.
In case you want to prioritize the story and simplify the battles, Capcom has inserted a new mode called Buster Max Mode. With it, the common shot starts to take 100 life from the monsters, and not 1 anymore. Thus, the combats are finished faster. As the one you are typing prefers the moments of battle, the most used option here was the standard one.
For the collection, a collection of 499 “Patch Cards” was added, until then restricted to the Japanese market only. This also gives the player more variety in fights. They are unlockable through the menu.
Overall, the main change in experience is being able to play with the joystick compatible with the platform you purchased the game on. As we tested on PC, we used an Xbox Series controller for the experiments and enjoyed the experience. It makes the game more comfortable than the original on the Game Boy Advance, and the commands are not difficult to get used to.
We only miss a breakthrough for an online multiplayer mode. It would match the purpose of the story, while allowing interaction between players, something new in the franchise.
Graphics and soundtrack
As we are dealing with a remastered game – it is important to emphasize that it is not a remake – the graphic part is of great importance here. Textures have been improved for the platforms it arrived on, but without adapting to the widescreen resolution of consoles and PCs.
This means that, like the other collections in the franchise, there will be borders with illustrations, while the game runs on a more “square” screen. The new visual part is present in the menus and animations, in addition to an art gallery with over a thousand illustrations.
Even so, we saw that the remastering work was well done. There has been no loss of the essence of the game series, but the visual style is built with high quality, without any noticeable bugs.
On the other hand, one point needs to be highlighted: it is not a demanding game. All titles in the collection can be played even on a low-powered machine. We ran it on a machine with 8 GB of RAM, an Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor and an integrated Intel Iris Xe GPU, without any hiccups or crashes.
Already in the soundtrack, we notice news. The developer put 188 original songs in the game, with a contemporary feel and that allow you to give the experience of a recent game, not an old one.
releases
10 Fev
rumors
05 Dez
Final considerations
Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection it maintains the line of the other collections of the Capcom franchise. That is, it maintains the original experience, with occasional updates to the graphics and one or another resource that does not profoundly change the gameplay – no online mode was placed, for example.
The highlight of this particular collection is bringing an experience released for Game Boy Advance to recent consoles, even if there are no last-gen optimizations on them. Giving access to items restricted to the Japanese market is another differential previously inaccessible. Not to mention the original music and the new art gallery.
In practice, what we saw was satisfactory and shows Capcom’s success in reviving a successful franchise with updates for the contemporary world of games. Missed inserting the location in Portuguese, something that might be done in the future in an eventual update.
No location in PT-BRGameplay has not advanced to online modeVisual sem widescreenNot available for Xbox
The original story was kept, which is a positive point, but there is no longer a Portuguese localization.
Gameplay follows the same as the original, with a new mode that prioritizes the story and more items previously restricted to the Japanese market. There would be an online multiplayer.
Graphics were good without exaggeration, which allows running on less powerful machines. But a widescreen view has not been inserted.
Soundtrack is now in high definition and features original music.
The games allow you to play for hours, in addition to having content to enjoy for a long time, since the collection includes 10 games.
The balance is positive and shows how a classic successful franchise can still be revisited on the most recent platforms, with the proper adaptation.
It is worth it?
The game is scheduled to be released on April 14, 2023, for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and PC platforms. On consoles, it will be sold for R$ 259; while on computers, through the Steam platform, the suggested price is R$ 199.90. In all cases, the commercialization already comes with the two volumes.
Mega Man franchise collections are a must for fans of the classic games. In this case, there is still the differential of enjoying games originally from a portable console, now on larger screens and with graphic quality compatible with them.
So, what is your assessment of Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection? Tell us in the space provided for comments.
*We are grateful to Capcom for providing a copy of each volume to TudoCelular for this analysis!