A Black Falcon
Member
I haven't played any of the Battle Network RPGs, so I don't care about those. Judging Network Transmission as a Platformer, it's so badly flawed! I mean, basic enemies take like 20-30 shots (or something, I forget the exact number) with the normal gun. That is just unacceptable, when special weapons are extremely limited in quantity and you can't just use them all the time or you will quickly run out. It's ridiculously unfun to actually play because of the horrible enemy health level balance. It's also quite difficult early on; there are some parts early one with long stretches with very limited numbers of chips. It supposedly gets much easier once you get more chips, but that kind of difficulty "balance" is, as I said, completely backwards, and anyway, I stopped playing instead.I never found it disappointing at the time, or a few years ago on replay. Still my memory's hazy, I might be a little off base here. But I'm thinking: you get plenty of chips to rotate through, and those should be your primary attacks against enemies with significant health (just like in the Battle Network games). As you go on you get stronger chips (like you mention), and I think you also get to upgrade your buster. As far as early difficulty... I find most MM games to be that way (due to boss weaknesses) and many action RPGs too (due to character starting off weak). I don't find it to be a problem, but rather it just makes you feel that much better once you get past it.
As for action-RPGs being like that, I don't think so... I mean, there are some maybe, but difficulty where the game is hard at first and then later gets easy isn't normal in any genre. Other Mega Man games definitely are nothing like it, except maybe for the MM Zero games, which are just stupidly difficult all around. And no other Mega Man games, even the hardest ones (Zero 1, X6, MM&B GBA...), have basic enemies that take anywhere near as many shots to kill as NT. What were they thinking?
Sure, Network Transmission isn't a terrible game, but it's disappointing and below average.
It's one of the least fun 2d/2.5d Mega Man games I've played. I've heard that the Wonderswan game is pretty awful, and the WS Color game mediocre, but I haven't played those... of what I have, the worst are probably Mega Man Network Transmission, Mega Man II (Game Boy), and Mega Man X6. And that last one isn't nearly as bad as the other two.It's not as great as classic Mega Man or X. But I found it to be enjoyable, and definitely an interesting take on blending different sub-series.