History YMMV / MegaManBattleNetwork5TeamColonelAndTeamProtoMan

** Meddy Soul is one of the weakest Double Souls. Firstly, the charge shot is a lobbed bomb attack identical to Meddy's, so it inherits the same issues. Secondly, the capsules it provides that alter chips are randomly selected each turn, and the purple one that inflicts the opponent with an HP bug doesn't even work in single-player. Finally, it's fueled by Healing chips, which are of incredibly dubious use outside of the Roll series.

* ThatOneSidequest: The final postgame liberation mission in Nebula Area 5. The field is covered in three layers of barrier panels and one of the dark holes is ringed with barrier panels tied to the third key, so you can't liberate it until you get the third key (which requires you to get the second key, which requires you to get the first). The paths between the barrier panels are only one or two tiles wide and the path to each key is linear, so there's little wiggle room to strategize, you just fight your way to the keys one panel at a time. To begin the chain to clear the area you need to get the first key which is protected by [=BlizzardMan=], who appears alongside [=CosmoMan=], and the path is laid out to ensure any Navi approaching [=BlizzardMan=] is going to eat an attack from both of them on their turn. You'll also have to content with the darkloid viruses spawned by the dark holes, which will teleport across the barriers to get to you and block your way, and normal enemies consist of V3 viruses that are extremely dangerous, making 1-turn liberations difficult and your teammates can easily be overwhelmed and killed in a few hits. Finally, the mission is very stingy with Order Points to help you, with a single item panel near the start giving a few and then two bonus panels near the second and third keys. All of this combined makes the finale to the liberation missions a long, painful slog. [=ToadMan=]'s SequenceBreaking ability in ''Team Colonel'' greatly alleviates a lot of the tedium involved, but ''Team [=ProtoMan=]'' has to do things the hard way.

* ThatOneSidequest: The final postgame liberation mission in Nebula Area 5. The field is covered in three layers of barrier panels and one of the dark holes is ringed with barrier panels tied to the third key, so you can't liberate it until you get the third key (which requires you to get the second key, which requires you to get the first). The paths between the barrier panels are only one or two tiles wide and the path to each key is linear, so there's little wiggle room to strategize, you just fight your way to the keys one panel at a time. To begin the chain to clear the area you need to get the first key which is protected by [=BlizzardMan=], who appears alongside [=CosmoMan=], and the path is laid out to ensure any Navi approaching [=BlizzardMan=] is going to each an attack from both of them on their turn. You'll also have to content with the darkloid viruses spawned by the dark holes, which will teleport across the barriers to get to you and block your way, and normal enemies consist of V3 viruses that are extremely dangerous, making 1-turn liberations difficult and your teammates can easily be overwhelmed and killed in a few hits. Finally, the mission is very stingy with Order Points to help you, with a single item panel near the start giving a few and then two bonus panels near the second and third keys. All of this combined makes the finale to the liberation missions a long, painful slog. [=ToadMan=]'s SequenceBreaking ability in ''Team Colonel'' greatly alleviates a lot of the tedium involved, but ''Team [=ProtoMan=]'' has to do things the hard way.

* ThatOneSidequest: The final postgame liberation mission in Nebula Area 5. While the previous two Nebula missions were difficult, they were at least fair. The last one, however, has the entire field sectioned off by three stages of barrier panels, creating an almost entirely linear path that leaves you little opportunity to strategize or explore, reducing progress to crawling your way towards the barrier keys one tile at a time. While you have [=GyroMan=]/[=ShadowMan=] to scout ahead, the key paths are all blocked by viruses and dark holes they can't cross, so they can't use their main strength effectively. The first key to begin the chain is hidden behind [=BlizzardMan=], who appears alongside [=CosmoMan=] but both are in their V3 forms. Thus not only do you need to fight two bosses, but the map is laid out in such a way that the path to [=BlizzardMan=] crosses both their zones of attack. Speaking of which, the viruses in the map will teleport over the barriers to get you as you pass them, and include Bladias who will probably teleport right in front of you, blocking the path and making you waste a turn killing them. And since you're in the depths of the BonusDungeon, the V3 viruses will make 1-turn liberations very difficult. All of this combined makes the finale to the liberation missions a slog to grind through. [=ToadMan=]'s SequenceBreaking ability in ''Team Colonel'' greatly alleviates a lot of the tedium involved, but ''Team [=ProtoMan=]'' has to do things the hard way.

* ScrappyWeapon: The Evil status has been heavily {{nerf}}ed due to the changes to Dark Chips when it was already questionable in the previous entry, so it's of very dubious use. The marginal benefits Evil provides do not outweigh the huge downsides, especially when it locks [=MegaMan=] out of Double Soul and Full Synchro. Additionally, Chaos Unison allows for near-indiscriminate Dark Chip abuse and the potential to spam them multiple times, making Evil more irrelevant.

* NightmareRetardant: It is impossible to take [=BlizzardMan.exe=] seriously as one of the four Nebula Darkloids. The other three look appropriately evil and imposing... and then you have this silly, orange-blue skier guy who is just completely out of place among them.

* NightmareRetardant: It is impossible to take [=BlizzardMan.exe=] seriously as one of the four Nebula Darkloids. The other three look appropriately evil and imposing... and then you have this silly, orange-blue skier guy who is just completely out of place.

** It is impossible to take [=BlizzardMan.exe=] seriously as one of the four Nebula Darkloids. The other three look appropriately evil and imposing... and then you have this silly, orange-blue skier guy who is just completely out of place.

** It is impossible to take [=BlizzardMan.exe=] seriously as one of the four Darkloids. The other three look appropriately evil and imposing... and then you have this silly, orange-blue skier guy who is just completely out of place.

** It is impossible to take BlizzardMan.exe seriously as one of the four Darkloids. The other three look appropriately evil and imposing... and then you have this silly, orange-blue skier guy who is just completely out of place.

** It is impossible to take BlizzardMan.exe seriously as one of the four Darkloids, especially when the other three look much more evil and intimidating than he is.

** The changes to Dark Chips means the Worried status is almost exclusively a debuff since it can no longer produce chips from thin air, so if you're struggling in a fight you're locked out of Double Soul for no good reason.
* ScrappyWeapon: The Evil status has been heavily {{nerf}}ed due to the changes to Dark Chips, so it's of very dubious use. The marginal benefits it provides do not outweigh the huge downsides, especially when it locks [=MegaMan=] out of Double Soul and Full Synchro. Additionally, Chaos Unison allows for near-indiscriminate Dark Chip abuse and the potential to spam them multiple times, making Evil more irrelevant.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: [=GutsMan=], Roll, and Glyde are dismissed from the story within the first hour of the game when Nebula steals the trio's [=PETs=], and Lan's friends spend the rest of the game moping about it unable to do anything (though Mayl at least gives you the Roll series again). This is particularly glaring when you get to the Undernet scenario of ''Team [=ProtoMan=]'' and meet Meddy, a medic Navi whose healing powers can help negate dark power, and her Double Soul is performed with healing chips. Considering the ''Battle Network 4: Red Sun'' had made Roll an opponent and she gave the Double Soul for healing chips, why write her out of the story for this game and then introduce a new character with the same abilities to fill the same role?
* TierInducedScrappy:
** Meddy is almost helpless. She has the second-lowest HP of all the Navis on Team [=ProtoMan=], her Twin Liberation ability is AwesomeButImpractical because of how circumstantial and difficult it is to pull off, her charged attack is a lobbed capsule bomb that makes her incredibly reliant on chips (especially problematic in her debut mission due to the presence of Dominerd viruses, which practically have to be hit in melee range), and her unique Battle Chip is nearly identical to her charged attack. The only good thing about her is [[GoodBadBugs a useful bug with Twin Liberation in the Japanese release]], and said bug makes her skip a turn of combat anyway.
** [=NumberMan=] is seen as the weakest member of the Team Colonel cast. His Charge Shot, like Meddy's, is a lobbed bomb, but it also has variable damage with a long windup time and can even whiff if it makes direct contact with an enemy, and his unique chip is not as useful as the others when it is dependent on enemy movement. His Number Check ability can collect items and break traps without putting him into combat, but it doesn't liberate them either. It's generally recommended to switch him out with [=SearchMan=] in ''Double Team DS'', as [=SearchMan=] can liberate entire lines of item and trap panels and is a bit more competent in combat.
** Meddy Soul is one of the weakest Double Souls. Firstly, the charge shot is a lobbed bomb attack identical to Meddy's, so it inherits the same issues. Secondly, the capsules it provides that alter chips are randomly selected each turn, and the purple one that inflicts the opponent with an HP bug doesn't even work in single-player. Finally, it's fueled by Healing chips, which are of incredibly dubious use outside of the Roll series.
** Colonel Soul is surprisingly underwhelming considering it's the final Double Soul obtained in ''Team Colonel''. The first problem is that it's fueled by Obstacle chips, and there aren't a lot that are both good on their own merits and simultaneously available in decent codes. The second problem is that the Colonel Army ability is incredibly gimmicky and basically turns off said Obstacle chips, which are probably more powerful if you are indeed using the good ones. Finally, Arms Change allowing you to replace your charge shot with a Battle Chip sounds really cool and potentially useful, but in practice it's too restrictive (has to be a non-dimming, non-elemental Standard Chip) to bother with. Arms Change also kills the Buster's charge speed on top of that and cannot be reverted back to Screen Divide.

** Meddy is almost helpless. She has the second-lowest HP of all the Navis on Team [=ProtoMan=], her Twin Liberation ability is AwesomeButImpractical because of how circumstantial and difficult it is to pull off, her charged attack is a lobbed capsule bomb that makes her incredibly reliant on chips (especially problematic in her debut mission due to the presence of Dominerd viruses, which practically have to be hit in melee range), and her unique Battle Chip is nearly identical to her charged attack. The only good thing about her is [[GoodBadBug a useful bug with Twin Liberation in the Japanese release]], and said bug makes her skip a turn of combat anyway.

* IdiotPlot:
** The game opens with Lan and his friends visiting his father's office, and when Dr. Hikari sends Lan to get something from his desk, Regal gasses the room and abducts Dr. Hikari, and also takes the [=PETs=] of Mayl, Dex, and Yai. Lan is overlooked because he was at the desk and Nebula's agents don't see him. The problem is that the desk is segmented off from the rest of the room by a cubicle wall, and the way the scene is set up with where Nebula agents stand and how Lan has collapsed, you can't even say he's in their peripheral vision, he's pretty much right in front of them a few feet away and to the side. If Dr. Regal just looked around the room for a few seconds, or if his agents could see more than six inches in front of them, Lan would have had his PET taken and the game's events would have played out very differently. Even more bizarrely, Regal makes no attempt to attack Lan's house as he did in the previous game.
** The clue that eventually leads to the {{Macguffin}} Regal is searching for is found on Dr. Hikari's computer when Lan and [=MegaMan=] check it late in the game. This immediately invites the FridgeLogic that ''no one checked his computer themselves''; neither Nebula, who kidnapped him for information they believe he knows, nor the officials, who are investigating why Nebula would kidnap him. If either group had the thought to just check his personal files earlier in the game, they could have found the {{Macguffin}} within a few hours.
** The last teammate scenario involves Lan meeting Jasmine/Ribitta, who are intending to enter the Undernet for personal reasons. Lan discourages them from going there due to it being dangerous, though both ignore him and try to enter anyway. In the process of doing so, they are attacked by [=CloudMan=] and wind up being saved by [=ProtoMan=]/Colonel, though the latter is seemingly deleted in the process. Everyone then makes the deletion of the leader's Navi into drama...despite the fact that Navis can be backed up and Chaud has recreated [=ProtoMan=] from scratch in ''Battle Network 2'', the game this one makes heavy reference to from start to finish. Following this, Chaud/Baryl state that they cannot be the leader without their Navi for some reason and promote Lan to the role, with him being unwilling to take the job. Rather than ask Tesla/Princess Pride, who are both in positions of authority that would make them potential backups, everyone continues to heap pressure onto Lan to take the position. Jasmine/Ribitta in particular tell Lan off for being a coward and not adding them to the team, [[InformedWrongness even though they have been nothing short of a liability the entire time.]] The one thing they bring to the table is their ability to remove the dark doors that Nebula has erected, but this is only revealed after their boss fight, as the previous door that was seen was destroyed by [=CloudMan=].

* AuthorsSavingThrow: The GBA versions prevent opening the menu during Liberation Missions, not only making it impossible to edit the chip folder, but also restricting the ability to save the game to a once-per-turn command that can only be used by the team leaders and [=ToadMan=]/Meddy. The DS version doesn't feature this restriction, greatly alleviating the Liberation Missions' difficulty.

* AccidentalInnuendo: "[[ItMakesSenseInContext I'll jack in to your squirrel if that's what it takes]]." [[note]]In ''Battle Network 5'', Lan accepts Charlie's challenge to find his Navi [=GyroMan=] inside the computer of the squirrel in ACDC's park. [[DoubleEntendre It sounds rather wrong out of context]].[[/note]]

* ScrappyWeapon: The Evil status has been heavily {{nerf}}ed due to the changes to Dark Chips, so it's of very dubious use. The marginal benefits it provides do not outweigh the huge downsides, especially when it locks [=MegaMan=] out of Double Soul and Full Synchro. Additionally, Chaos Unison allows for near-indiscriminate Dark Chip abuse and the potential to spam them multiple times, making Evil more irrelevant.

* ThatOneSidequest: The final postgame liberation mission in Nebula Area 5. While the previous two Nebula missions were difficult, they were at least fair. The last one, however, has the entire field sectioned off by three stages of barrier panels, creating an almost entirely linear path that leaves you little opportunity to strategize or explore, reducing progress to crawling your way towards the barrier keys one tile at a time. While you have [=GyroMan=]/[=ShadowMan=] to scout ahead, the key paths are all blocked by viruses and dark holes they can't cross, so they can't use their main strength effectively. The first key to begin the chain is hidden behind [=BlizzardMan=], who appears alongside [=CosmoMan=] but both are in their V3 forms. Thus not only do you need to fight two bosses, but the map is laid out in such a way that the path to [=BlizzardMan=] crosses both their zones of attack. Speaking of which, the viruses in the map will teleport over the barriers to get you as you pass them, and include Swordies who will probably teleport right in front of you, blocking the path and making you waste a turn killing them. And since you're in the depths of the BonusDungeon, the V3 viruses will make 1-turn liberations very difficult. All of this combined makes the finale to the liberation missions a slog to grind through. [=ToadMan=]'s SequenceBreaking ability in ''Team Colonel'' greatly alleviates a lot of the tedium involved, but ''Team [=ProtoMan=]'' has to do things the hard way.

* ContestedSequel: This game is the most polarizing in the series. While it has better reception than ''Battle Network 4'' -- near-universally agreed to be the weakest entry -- ''Battle Network 5'' still holds onto many of the gameplay changes that occurred going from ''3'' to ''4'', namely the nerfing Program Advances and gameplay balance focusing on Double Souls and their unique abilities. The story is also better regarded than ''4's'' ExcusePlot TournamentArc, but still not all that great compared to the stories of earlier games.

** Search Soul returns from ''Red Sun'' and is just as busted as before. Its power is to "shuffle" your currently available battle chips, up to three times a turn. You can do this even while selecting a chip to use and then shuffling the rest to keep that chip on standby. This makes it ''ridiculously'' easy to dig through your folder for whatever you need and set up Program Advances, and adding in Custom+ programs to boost the number of chips you get each turn just makes it easier. The Soul's only downside is that the Cursor chips required to enter it are either situational or downright terrible on their own.

** The [=TinHawks=] in Liberation Missions have a huge out-of-combat attack range and will slowly whittle you down each turn. While they're fragile thanks to relatively low HP, they also like to spend most of the time flying above the playing field. This means you can't hit them outside of the specific windows when they dive-bomb you to attack, and the timing gets tighter the higher the level they are.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: [=GutsMan=], Roll, and Glyde are dismissed from the story within the first hour of the game when Nebula steals the trio's [=PETs=], and Lan's friends spend the rest of the game moping about it unable to do anything (though Mayl at least gives you the Roll series again). This is particularly glaring when you get to the Undernet scenario of ''Team [=ProtoMan=]'' and meet Meddy, a medic Navi whose healing powers can help negate dark power, and her Soul Union is performed with healing chips. Considering the ''Battle Network 4: Red Sun'' had made Roll an opponent and she gave the Soul Union for healing chips, why write her out of the story for this game and then introduce a new character with the same abilities to fill the same role?

** Meddy is almost helpless. She has the second-lowest HP of all the Navis on Team [=ProtoMan=], her Twin Liberation ability is AwesomeButImpractical because of how circumstantial and difficult it is to pull off, her charged attack is a lobbed capsule bomb that makes her incredibly reliant on chips (especially problematic in her debut mission due to the presence of Dominerd viruses, which have to be hit in melee range), and her unique Battle Chip is nearly identical to her charged attack. The only good thing about her is [[GoodBadBug a useful bug with Twin Liberation in the Japanese release]], and said bug makes her skip a turn of combat anyway.
** [=NumberMan=] is seen as the weakest member of the Team Colonel cast. His Charge Shot, like Meddy's, is a lobbed bomb, but it also has variable damage that can whiff if it makes direct contact with an enemy, and his unique chip is not as useful as the others when it is dependent on enemy movement. His Number Check ability can collect items and break traps without putting him into combat, but it doesn't liberate them either. It's generally recommended to switch him out with [=SearchMan=] in ''Double Team DS'', as [=SearchMan=] can liberate entire lines of item and trap panels and is a bit more competent in combat.

* {{Padding}}:
** The "Gow is missing" subplot seems purposefully designed to waste your time. The game has you backtrack through several areas to follow a trail leading to his possible location, and you're eventually made to go the depths of Oran Island's mines for a third time to enter a [=VisionBurst=] located in the final [=DrillComp=]. After all this running around, you proceed to watch Gow get captured by Nebula agents. The kidnapping might as well have happened offscreen considering how you learn almost nothing of importance from the whole ordeal that required a visit to the [=VisionBurst=].
** The midgame and late-game ask you to traverse the expansive End Area and the Undernet multiple times, which involves traversing a number of maps filled with powerful viruses and labyrinthine layouts sprinkled with one-way conveyors and teleport pads to screw you over. To add insult to injury, a shortcut to the deepest parts of the Undernet exists, but it's in the endgame Nebula HQ area and only really useful for accessing postgame content.
** While the postgame is fairly meaty, with three HarderThanHard Liberation Missions and a bunch of extra boss fights, it's artificially lengthened by the fact that each section is locked behind Library completion requirements. Accessing the initial postgame area requires 100 Standard Chips, the second section requires 140, and the final section requires 40 Mega Chips and all 180 Standard Chips. The 100 Standard Chips requirement isn't so bad (you'll likely have more than enough by the endgame if you've been playing decently), but the later ones force you to go scrounge the entire Net to farm viruses for their drops, which is time consuming and also somewhat difficult due to all the viruses getting upgraded by entering the postgame area.

** The "Gow is missing" subplot seems designed purposefully to waste your time. The game gives you the runaround by making you backtrack through several previous areas to follow a trail leading to his possible location, and you're eventually made to go the depths of Oran Island's mines for a third time to enter a [=VisionBurst=] located in the final [=DrillComp=]. After all this running around, you proceed to watch Gow get captured by Nebula agents. The kidnapping might as well have happened offscreen considering how you learn almost nothing of importance from the whole ordeal that required a visit to the [=VisionBurst=].

** Colonel Soul is surprisingly underwhelming considering it's the final Double Soul obtained in ''Team Colonel''. The first problem is that it's fueled by Obstacle chips, and there aren't a lot that are both good on their own merits and simultaneously available in decent codes. The second problem is that Colonel Army is incredibly gimmicky and basically turns off said Obstacle chips, which are probably more powerful if you are indeed using the good ones. Finally, Arms Change allowing you to replace your charge shot with a Battle Chip sounds really cool and potentially useful, but in practice it's too restrictive (has to be a non-dimming, non-elemental Standard Chip) to bother with. Arms Change also kills the Buster's charge speed on top of that and cannot be reverted back to Screen Divide.

** Colonel Soul is surprisingly underwhelming considering it's the final Double Soul obtained in ''Team Colonel''. The first problem is that it's fueled by Obstacle chips, and there aren't a lot that are both good on their own merits and simultaneously available in decent codes. The second problem is that Colonel Army is incredibly gimmicky and basically turns off said Obstacle chips, which are probably more powerful if you are indeed using the good ones. Finally, Arms Change allowing you to replace your charge shot with a Battle Chip sounds really cool and potentially useful, but in practice it's too restrictive (has to be a non-dimming, non-elemental Standard Chip) to bother with. Arms Change also kills the Buster's charge speed on top of that and cannot be reverted back to Screen Divide.
* UnintentionallySympathetic: In ''Team Colonel'', Dingo's reason for stealing the booster system is probably a bit too sympathetic for what the game is going for, especially considering it portrays him as unambiguously wrong for doing so. He says that [[CapitalismIsBad Ubercorp destroyed his village to make a resort]], and letting them keep the booster system will continue enabling the status quo. There really isn't any reason to stop him other than the game saying you should.

* UnintentionallySympathetic: In ''Team Colonel'', Dingo's reason for stealing the booster system is probably a bit too sympathetic for what the games is going for, especially considering it portrays him as unambiguously wrong for doing so. He says that [[CapitalismIsBad Ubercorp destroyed his village to make a resort]], and letting them keep the booster system will continue enabling the status quo. There really isn't any reason to stop him other than the game saying you should.

** Colonel Soul is surprisingly underwhelming considering it's the final Double Soul obtained in ''Team Colonel''. The first problem is that it's fueled by Obstacle chips, and there aren't a lot that are both good on their own merits and simultaneously available in decent codes. The second problem is that Colonel Army is incredibly gimmicky and basically turns off said Obstacle chips, which are probably more powerful if you are indeed using the good ones. Finally, Arms Change allowing you to replace your charge shot with a Battle Chip sounds really cool and potentially useful, but in practice it's too restrictive (has to be a non-dimming, non-elemental Standard Chip) to bother with. Arms Change also kills the Buster's charge speed on top of that and cannot be reverted back to Screen Divide.

** End Area has a whopping ''five'' sections, and it's got a labyrinthine layout filled with one-way conveyors to screw you over. It also is the setting for two Liberation Missions, so a lot of the midgame is spent backtracking through this Area. Not helping matters is that it opens to the Undernet so until you reach the postgame (where you get an easy overworld access point to there) you'll go through End Area until you're sick of it.

** The "Gow is missing" subplot seems designed purposefully to waste your time. The game gives you the runaround by making you backtrack through several previous areas to find clues to his possible location, and you're eventually made to go the depths of Oran Island's mines for a third time to enter a [=VisionBurst=] located in the final [=DrillComp=]. After all this running around, you proceed to watch Gow get captured by Nebula agents. The kidnapping might as well have happened offscreen considering how you learn almost nothing of importance from the visit to the Oran Island [=VisionBurst=].

** The "Gow is missing" subplot seems designed purposefully to waste your time. Nothing of import is learned after Lan and [=MegaMan=] realize Gow is gone, and the game gives you the runaround before making go down to the depths of Oran Island for a third time just to watch him get kidnapped by Nebula.