After another brief explanation of the series’s setting (the year has been bumped up to 20XX) the game opens not with Lan and company, but in the observation room of NAXA, an obvious riff off of both the NASA and JAXA space agencies. The very first thing that one is going to notice is that the art style for the overworld has been overhauled. All of the sprites and set pieces have been shrunken down and given thicker, bolder outlines, giving everything a more colorful, cartoony look. In that interview I posted in the introduction the main designer explained that this was done to both give the series a fresh look and to conserve cartridge space, but it does end up looking cheaper compared to the more realistic look the first three games had. The mugshots have all been redrawn to similar mixed results. The ones for new characters are generally okay, but the ones for returning characters are all over the place. A slim few are better, most are passable, and a number look somewhat Off-Model compared to their old ones. On the plus side, at least the generic young man and boy NPCs no longer look like they’re suffering from Down Syndrome.
Anyway, there are currently two people in the observation room, a scientist and a young, freckle-faced man who’s apparently named Shilly. Shilly complains about how bored he is while the scientist explains to him that being an astronomer isn’t all about discovering new galaxies or planets. Eventually their boss wanders over to remind them to get back to work and Shilly soon finds out that he was Tempting Fate, for he does indeed discover an asteroid when he checks his monitor, and it’s apparently on a collision course with Earth. Having instantly determined that, they also instantly determine that it’ll destroy the planet. The boss orders the other two to put out a call for all of the world’s top space-related scientists so that they can work out a way to save the human race, despite the fact that said scientists should already be employed at NAXA because, y’know. They better hope that there’s a Bruce Willis, Steve Buscemi, or Keith David among the group.
You can pretty much extrapolate the overall quality of this game’s writing from that scene alone.
After that scene is concluded we drop in on what Lan, our protagonist, is doing, and that is sleeping while a voice shouts from his PET that he has to get up, but not because he’s overslept for school, but because he’s going to go shopping with his father today. Lan soon gets up, and like in the first game we have manually steer him over to his desk to pick up his PET and Megaman. The PET has changed model once again, now taking the form of the Advanced PET, which looks like a flip-cover cell phone and is wireless, meaning that all of those scenes where Lan shouts it out with villains in the real world or goes off to do other stuff while jacked in will be a whole lot less awkward. His room’s changed a little bit too, with a closet replacing his drawers and the poster (which now depicts his grandfather Tadashi Hikari) being moved to the side of his bookcase. There appears to be a baby picture of him and Hub hanging above his bed.
Okay, enough about the interior decoration. Downstairs we find that for once both of Lan’s parents are home. Yuuichiro comments that Haruka
◊ seems to be having some trouble with the oven (déjà vu…) and tasks us with checking it out. Whenever something breaks down in the Battle Network world the solution is to of course to send Megaman in, and send him in we do. Inside he finds that the Program in charge is being harassed by viruses, which means that The Tutorial is upon us once again!
Thankfully though, there are some new things to talk about this time. First of all, the ADD System no longer exists, and it seems that the most battle chips that we can make available at the Custom Screen are eight. A second thing to note is that now all chips have been given attributes to be sorted by. It is important to note that attributes do not count as elements, they are largely implemented for the sake of the new transformation system that will be coming into play later on. There are fourteen attributes each identified on the Custom Screen with the appropriate icon, and they are as follows:
- Normal – These chips have no special attributes one way or the other
- Fire – These chips deal Fire-elemental damage
- Aqua – These chips deal Aqua-elemental damage
- Elec – These chips deal Elec-elemental damage
- Wood – These chips deal Wood-elemental damage
- Sword – Used for chips such as Sword, Wide Sword, Custom Sword, etc.
- Wind – Used for chips such as Air Shot and Wind Racket. Wind chips can automatically remove auras and barriers
- Break – Used for chips that can break through guards such as Cannonball (renamed to just Ball in this game)
- Recovery – Used for chips that heal such as the Recovery series
- Shadow – Used for chips that render Megaman invisible such as Invisible
- Crack – Used for chips that are primarily used for breaking panels such as Crack Out
- Cursor – Used for chips with precision-targeting such as Circle Gun
- Obstacle – Used for chips that generate obstacles such as Rock Cube and Time Bomb
- Plus – Attack multipliers like Attack + 10 and their ilk
The first two battles of the tutorial proceed as they always have, but the third one is different as the ADD System has been retired. Instead it focuses on a newly-implemented feature, the Emotion Window. The Emotion Window is shown right below Megaman’s HP counter and depicts his current emotional state which changes depending on what happens in battle and each one has a different effect.
- Normal – This is Megaman’s default state.
- Worried – Occurs if Megaman repeatedly takes damage. It doesn't do anything at the moment, but it gains a new attribute further in to the game.
- Angry – If Megaman either takes a lot of damage at once or gets hit repeatedly by a multi-hitting attack he will become angry. In this state he will glow red, not recoil from attacks, and his next chip attack (and only that attack) will deal double damage.
- Full Synchro – Full Synchro is now a gameplay element. If Megaman counters an enemy with a chip attack they will be temporarily stunned while Megaman will begin glowing light blue. His next attack and only that attack will deal double damage while enemies will flash red when their counter frames come up. The Full Synchro state can be chained and be carried between battles, but it will be instantly lost should Megaman get hit by an attack or jack out.
All in all, Full Synchro is pretty handy in battle, and well worth mastering and exploiting. There’s one other emotion in the roster, but it won’t come up until later.
After that round of viruses, I’m sorry, virus busting (the most common typo in this game is that viruses plural is almost always used whenever the singular should, like they just did a “find + replace” on the script) is finished the Program mentions that its ignition system is broken, so Yuuichiro tasks Lan with sending Megaman out on the Net to purchase something called a Recovery Patch so that he can fix it. Yuuichiro gives us 500 zenny and tells us that we should visit ACDC Area 3. If we jack back in to the oven real quick we can snag another 500z in the Blue Mystery Data within.
As it always has been, Lan’s homepage is located at the very beginning of the main Net. The Internet areas in this game continue to use the Battle Network 3 layout mold of having one main pathway with numerous side paths. Traveling through ACDC Area we see many of the usual sights: Green, Purple, and Blue Mystery Data, skull doors, homepages blocked off by security cubes, and in ACDC Area 2 there’s a branching pathway that leads to another part of the Net that we’re not allowed through by a Navi that’s blocking the way.
Another new feature that crops up in battles on the general Net is that now Mystery Data can sometimes appear in battle. If the battle ends with neither Megaman nor the viruses destroying it, Megaman will get whatever was inside it as a bonus. The contents are determined by which area the battle takes place in, and they can contain either a hefty amount of zenny, some Bug Frags, or chips. These are the best sources of cash in the game since it’s very miserly about handing out zenny in any significant amount and the game constantly makes you pony up whenever it can get away with it.
As Yuuichiro said, ACDC Area 3 is where we can buy the Recovery Patch from a Navi on a side path. We can’t go further at the moment, the Broken Bridge this time being a bad connection with the next area, Town Area. Once we jack out and have Yuuichiro fix the oven, he and Lan depart on their shopping excursion.
As the two walk to the Metroline station Yuuichiro tells Lan that they’re going to go to a place downtown called Elec Town, what I assume to be a riff off of Akihabara’s Electric Town, so that he can scope out a massive new electronics store that just opened. He then asks Lan how sixth grade is going for him so far and we learn that Lan’s been keeping his promise from the end of Battle Network 3. So far he hasn’t been late or missed any assignments. Once they get to the station Yuuichiro realizes that he forgot to send a work email and he briefly hurries back home to take care of that, instead of just using say, his PET. Since that’s the kind of thing that they’re supposed to be used for.
Well, whatever, this gives us a chance to explore ACDC Town, and we need it, because the layout has been changed completely. It too has been shrunk down considerably, with only the homes of Lan and his friends, Higsby’s, and the Metroline station remaining. The Metroline is now located perpendicular to Lan’s house, Higsby’s and the park are now at the west end, Dex’s house is behind Lan’s, and the entrance to Yai’s mansion is where the school used to be. Pretty much the only aspect of the original geography that’s preserved is that Lan and Mayl are next door neighbors. This new layout is used in Battle Networks 5 and 6 as well.
After talking to the townsfolk for the usual early-game tutorial information and jacking in to Lan’s doghouse for a Barrier A we can talk to Lan’s friend Dex
◊ who happens to be standing right outside his house. He wants to get everyone together for a meet-up on the Net later (I’m sensing a trend here with the early-game) and Lan agrees. When he goes back to the station Yuuichiro returns, and the two head out.
Elec Town is indeed a bustling commercial district. Despite the plethora of electronic shops there aren’t really any places to jack in like you’d expect, though. There is a Sub Chip dealer however.
- Full Energy – 1000z
- Sneak Run – 200z
- Untrap – 100z
Lan and his father’s destination is the biggest store of them all: Jomon Electric. Being guys, they spend a whole hour browsing the place and afterwards Yuuichiro goes off to buy some household supplies and leaves Lan to his own devices for a bit. Around the corner he runs into Yai
◊ and Mayl
◊ standing in front of a stereo system display. It seems that there’s some sort of promotion going on inside, so we jack in. There are a couple Navis inside, including Roll
◊, Glyde
◊, and a silent vampire-looking one. According to one Navi, the promotion involves a sparring battle with the store’s representative Navi for a free pair of earphones, but they’re taking a break at the moment. There are also two BM Ds to be looted, containing a Regular UP 1 and a chip for Panel Grab *.
After jacking out Yuuichiro returns to say that he’s finished shopping, but unfortunately he’s been called away by his work. Lan takes this in stride, no doubt used to this sort of thing happening by now. Yuuichiro departs, and Mayl and Yai follow, mentioning that they’ll see Lan later on the Net. Left alone, Lan and Megaman decide to check out the area beyond Jomon Electric.
Beyond is a small plaza where a crowd has gathered in front of a PA tower featuring a monstrous set of stereo speakers (seriously, they’re big enough to shatter glass for miles). A spokesman at the center of the group is explaining that he’s from the Den City Net Battle Committee, and that he’s here to announce that, in celebration of the government lifting the ban on civilian Net Battles (remember how we had to take the license exams in Battle Network 2?) the city is throwing the Den Battle Tournament, tomorrow in fact. The crowd gets pissed that they’re being told this only the day before, but the man placates them with the promise of being on TV before beating a hasty retreat. Lan and Megaman are all for participating, to no surprise. This is nigh identical to the initial setup from Battle Network 3, but uh…don’t go expecting another N1 out of this, not even close.
The two decide to go home, but on the way see that a commotion has broken out in front of Jomon Electric’s stereo display. Jacking in they find that all of the Navis inside have been completely drained of energy, and the culprit is the vampire Navi that was hanging around earlier. The Navi, Shademan, calls them his lunch when confronted and decides that he’s going to go find someone for dessert rather than fight Megaman. He also has “WHEEEEE!!” as a Verbal Tic that’s probably supposed to represent echolocation but looks utterly ridiculous in text. He says that he’s going to look around the Net for a tasty female Navi and vanishes in a cloud of bats. Given that there seems to be only one female Navi on the entire Net (not counting the pink Normal Navis), it’s easy to see where this is going…
Virus Listing
- Mettaur
- The classic Mascot Mook of the Megaman franchise appears in this series as the most basic enemy virus. Mettaurs will move up and down one column, and upon aligning with Megaman will swing a pickax, unleashing a shockwave that will travel down one row. If there are more than one Mettaur on the enemy field they will only attack one at a time, and stronger versions of the virus are able to hide under their helmets to block attacks when not attacking themselves.
- Billy
- These returning viruses behave exactly as they did in Battle Network 1, generating a slow-moving ball of electricity that tracks Megaman's movements. The only difference is that the ball lightning paralyzes instead of electrifying him.
- Spikey
- These canine viruses are essentially Fire-element Shrimpys, only they're not limited to a single column for movement. Like Shrimpys, the fireballs they spew will damage additional panels from the point of impact. Spikeys' affect the panel behind the point of impact, Spikey 2s' explode in a > shape, and Spikey 3s' hit an area three panels wide.
Soundtrack
- Theme of Megaman Battle Network 4
- Sadly the main theme was retired after Battle Network 3. Each following game has its own, unique theme, and this one is rather weak compared to them.
- NAXA
- It fits I guess, but Star Force did these kinds of themes better.
- Incident Occurrence! (Battle Network 4 ver.)
- This repetitive and annoying theme will be seared into your eardrums by the time this game is over.
- In the Room (Battle Network 4 ver.)
- Another case of an old recurring theme being replaced by a new one.
- Global Network
- This one actually isn't bad. Let it never be said that Battle Network 4 didn't at the very least have a few good tunes.
- Cyber Battle
- Case in point. The virus battle theme in this game is quite fast and catchy.
- Enemy Deleted!
- The new victory fanfare.
- Game Over (Battle Network 4 ver.)
- Unlike the track above, this one sticks for the rest of the series.
- Hometown (Battle Network 4 ver.)
- This is the odd one out of all the Hometown themes, since all of the others are rearrangements of the original one.
- Elec Town
- Catchy enough.
- The Quiet Darkness
- This track generally plays when something creepy is happening.
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