Trivia / Mega Man Battle Network

• Bad Export for You: The main Battle Network games made for Game Boy Advance were produced with low-capacity 8MB cartridges^note This was to make the games less expensive at Japanese retail and thus more accessible to children; unlike North America and similar markets, Japan scaled their GBA game prices relative to the cartridge cost. and most entries use every bit of that ROM space, to the extent that one of the reasons that Battle Network 4 changed the art style was to use less data on overworld sprites. This caused problems in localization since the English scripts needed to be injected on top of everything else, forcing cuts and modifications to at least four of the six mainline games. Battle Network 2 and Battle Network 3 merely had aesthetic changes, with the former featuring a simplified jack-in animation and the latter losing the jack-in animation altogether. While the steps taken to free up space worked for Battle Network 4, Capcom's international branches were forced to remove or simplify actual gameplay elements of Battle Network 5 and Battle Network 6.
• B-Team Sequel: Or rather B-Team port since the team that usually worked on the Battle Network games did not develop Battle Network 5: Double Team DS since development of the port was handed over to another team.
• Contest Winner Cameo: With the exception of Punk, all of Mr. Famous's Navis are based on original designs by fans.
• Cross-Regional Voice Acting: An interesting variant of this happens with the new English dialogue for MegaMan.exe in Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection. While the dub was produced at New Generation Pictures in Los Angeles, Andrew Francis recorded all of his lines at Blue Light Studio in Vancouver.
• Defictionalization:
  • Several real-life PET toys have been produced, complete with Battle Chips which can be sent to the games.
  • The chocolate nut-wafer bars in Battle Network 3 Lan can buy to get Lotto numbers were also sold in real-life (only in Japan) which also came with a sticker and a Lotto number to use ingame for either items or was a dud.
• Demand Overload: When the Legacy Collection released, it managed to sell over 65,000 copies in Japan in a week and later 1 Million copies globally in less than two weeks, making it the fastest selling title in both the Battle Network series and the entire Mega Man franchise. It just shows how much people love the Battle Network series.
• Follow the Leader: The series took a lot of inspiration from Pokémon and the rising popularity of Collectible Card Games from its very inception. Player Versus Player mechanics, battle chips functioning as something akin to cards you use and collect, several adaptations in different media, lots of physical merch in the form of toys, and even the use of multiple game versions.
• Franchise Zombie: Much like X5 was for the X series, 3 was supposed to be the final installment of the Battle Network series (hence MegaMan's Heroic Sacrifice at the end). However, once again, Capcom decided to make another installment without Keiji Inafune's input; thus, 4 came along and quickly became the most loathed game in the series, and its reputation for being a shoddy cash-in carried over to 5 despite being vastly superior. 6 was hit with this as well, though opinion changed sometime after its release and people actually got to playing the game.
• Life Imitates Art:
  • Multi-purpose electronic devices like tablets and smartphones are very similar to PETs, albeit without sentient AI. Remember, this game first came out in 2001.
  • Capcom also correctly predicted smart classrooms. In the games, Navis and Programs treat blackboard analogues as display screens, and computer desks are all hooked into a local network.
  • It is also now possible to hack any Internet-connected Smart Device through their embedded systems. Smartphone-controlled toilets, computer-controlled lighting systems, network-connected vital systems in hospitals, IP Cameras, wirelessly-piloted UAV drones, the list grows with every new smart device added to the Web. Appliance manufacturers are also pushing for more "smart" devices, which means some scenarios from this game series will soon become reality.
    • A character in ACDC Town in Battle Network 3 mentions during the FlameMan scenario that his NetWatch has heated up - Smartwatches didn't exist until 2013, 10 years after that game was released. And sure enough, at least one person has lost their arm thanks to one exploding on him, and people have reported Fitbits burning their skin.
  • The Battle Network series features a location known as the Undernet, beyond the realm of most civilian use and the reach of the Officials. In Real Life, the Deep Web is basically the same concept (some people even call it the Undernet), existing beyond the Surface Web (everything indexed by search engines).
• Newbie Boom: Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection being available on PC resulted in a surge of new fans for the Battle Network fandom, who were getting by on Cult Classic status due to the consoles where the original games were played on being long outdated and relying on emulators.
• No Export for You:
  • Rockman.EXE 4.5 never saw a release outside of Japan. As its title Real Operation indicates, it is a spin-off that simulates an actual Operator-Navi relationship. It ended up getting a translation patch, plus a patch is being worked on^note It's complete for a few Navis, including MegaMan and Roll, but most of them are still unplayable that lets you play the game with traditional gameplay.
  • Once the latter half of the series kicked off, Capcom went into overdrive with its bad Merchandise-Driven habits, releasing all sorts of toys and other accoutrement like the Battle Chip Gate series of toys and a variety of modification cards usable with the e-reader. Most of this functionality was stripped out of the localizations, though in Battle Network 5 it was merely Dummied Out, and there exist FAQs to use them (but only with a hacking device). Almost all of the content removed from the original english localization was later re-implemented in the Legacy Collection with the exception of the crossover battles that could be fought when connecting with Boktai.
  • Battle Network 6 had perhaps the most surgery in localization, including the famous removal of almost all Boktai content as well as the secret Falzar, Gregar, and Double-Beast chips. For years, fans were miffed about losing out on all that extra content, but the localization team had no choice. The original Japanese games were stuffed so full of data that huge quantities of content would have to be excised in order to localize them (i.e. including the English script). On the other hand, the developers did westerners a solid by integrating some of the Japanese E-reader content into the game, specifically ten or so specific job board sidequests that were necessary to unlock a secret fight with ProtoMan FZ. Just like the above example, almost all of the content removed from the english localization was restored in the Legacy Collection with the exception of the Boktai crossover battles.
  • Phantom of Network and Legend of Network were Japan-only cell-phone games.
  • The first game's remake, Battle Network: Operate Shooting Star, wasn't localized either.
  • In the Japanese version of Double Team, the opening is accompanied by the song "Be Somewhere", by J-pop band Buzy. The Western release replaces it with a generic tune that is not nearly as catchy.
  • Since Bandai's handheld Wonderswan system was never released in America, neither was the handheld game made for it, Battle Network WS.
• Official Fan-Submitted Content: Some of the Custom Navis featured in the games are fan submissions for the "create your own Navi" contests held throughout the series. Many are extra bosses (especially ones owned by Mr. Famous), but several, like LaserMan.exe, CosmoMan.exe, and CircusMan.exe are canon bosses.
• Post-Script Season: 3 was meant to be finale of the series. But 4 was made in response to the series' popularity. The results speak for themselves.
• Role Reprise: Andrew Francis, who played MegaMan.exe in MegaMan NT Warrior (2002), returned to voice the character as part of several bonus features included in 2023's Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The series was originally going to have a different battle system. You would fill a gauge by dealing damage and lose gauge by taking damage, and winning required either filling the gauge completely or having it at a certain point when time ran out.
  • In an interview for Legacy Collection, Masakazu Eguchi mentions there were plans to have MegaMan.EXE change his voice in the menu depending on what skin he was wearing. However, due to what Eguchi stated were "adult reasons," the concept was unable to be implemented and the idea was scrapped.

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