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YMMV / Mega Man Battle Network

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For individual games, see their dedicated pages:

  • Accidental Aesop:
    • Don't make things accessible via the internet. "Smart" devices are an incredibly bad idea.
    • Adults need to be educated in the proper use of technology, as well as its proper risks.
    • The fact that Lan, who is 11-12 years old, is able to solve most problem(s) related to malfunctioning electronics and appliances showcases that tech literacy and problem-solving skills are important for children and should be taught from a young age.
  • Accidental Innuendo: The terms for connecting a PET to a device - "jacking in" and "jacking out" - are dangerously similar to the euphemism of "jacking off", which is slang for masturbation. This is especially evident when MegaMan says it to the player's face in the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, not helped by the new pronunciation of PET as "pet" instead of "P-E-T".
    MegaMan.EXE: "Every time I jack out, I think about how relaxing it is to be inside the PET."
    • Collecting all Standard chips in the GBA ports of 4 - 6 yields an icon celebrating completion. Unfortunately, due to space limitations, the name of the icon is shortened to "STD Comp" in order to save space. The Legacy Collection would update that to the less concerning "STAND Comp".
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Is Raika a jerk who only cares about orders, or a soldier who honestly cares about his companions?
    • Is Chaud an elitist jerk who is ruthless in his orders? Or is he just putting up the act to appear tough in front of his father?
  • Awesome Music: See the franchise page for entries.
  • Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
    • The series is generally filled with these, especially the job requests, but the airplane rap-off is the most infamous moment of all◊.
    • In Network Transmission when the Professor reveals himself after Zero's defeat, the whole Cyberworld MegaMan, ProtoMan and Zero are standing in inexplicably starts shaking. This shaking is never mentioned again.
    • Battle Network 4 is filled with these. Although you could blame how the scenario system works as to why nobody ever seems to comment on most of the stuff, it doesn't change the fact that there was some seriously weird stuff going on. Explanation
    • If you look at the series as the continuous story it is supposed to be, the entirety of Battle Network 4 is a massive BLAM. The game ends with a meteor about to destroy the planet, and it's resolved by everyone on the planet cheering for Lan and MegaMan. In 5, none of this is ever mentioned, although Team Colonel offers a small nod to its predecessor, with the trophies from the three tournaments that took place are on top of Lan's bookshelves.
  • Broken Base:
    • The fanbase is decidedly split between fans who prefer the first three games and those who prefer the last three, as between 3 and 4 there were a lot of changes to the games from every direction, including gameplay mechanics, art style, narrative structure, and just the general tone and aesthetics of things.
      • The gameplay changes in particular totally alter how you play the game; instead of Style Changes, there are Soul Unisons, folder structure shifted from focusing on Program Advances and chip combos to folders focusing on Soul Unisons and their unique traits, and most V2 and V3 viruses (and their associated chips) don't appear until the postgame, so enemy variety is stagnant in the main story and the post-game has you hunting down the now-proliferated V2 and V3 viruses to farm their chips.
      • Story-wise, the first three games work as a self-contained trilogy with a suitably climactic ending that tied up the plot threads concerning MegaMan, Bass, Wily, and WWW; on the other hand, the second trio of games downplay continuity from the first three heavily and the first two work as their own story centering around Nebula, Dark Chips, and Dr. Regal, while setting up the sixth game as a Grand Finale with the return of Wily and WWW. Naturally fans disagree on which story arc was better and if 6 was an appropriate Grand Finale or not, and if the series should have stopped at 3 since it felt like a cohesive end to everything, especially with how characters and story elements from 3 were largely forgotten in the second trilogy.
    • The debate about whether version-exclusive content is fair or makes one version better than the other. While this is downplayed for 3 which had minimal differences between versions that had a light effect on gameplay, the latter three games play substantially different and even have some story changes between them, in particular which Soul Unisons and Crosses they offer, which totally changes what kind of strategies you can come up with for folder building.
  • Catharsis Factor:
    • While he gets better in later games, Chaud's an insufferable prick in the first game and so arrogant and overzealous in his Official Netbattler duties that he's easier to hate than the WWW. However, that makes his freakouts when you defeat ProtoMan that much more satisfying.
    • CircusMan is a Monster Clown of a Navi whose shenanigans have sent you on a rescue mission with a side of Unexpected Gameplay Change. But when the time comes to fight him, you've just regained control of MegaMan and unlocked Beast Out. He may be an annoying foe to fight, but he's also the perfect punching bag to unleash your newfound power.
  • Cheese Strategy: One of the more important factors for getting a max buster rank on bosses for their rewards is not taking any damage. However, the games only actually care about whether MegaMan flinches, and Super Armor prevents that. While you still need to get a good time, equipping Super Armor allows you be as reckless as possible during your attempts and makes the process way easier.
  • Complete Monster: The proudly and blatantly villainous Dr. Regal, the Big Bad of the fourth and fifth games, is the head of the Netcrime syndicate Nebula, and gleefully strives to prove his belief that humanity as a whole is evil. As Nebula's head, Regal oversees the development of Dark Chips: battle chips that grant the Navis who use them great power at the expense of twisting their minds and converting them into mindless servants of evil. In the fourth game, he deliberately attracts the attention of the alien superprogram Duo with the evil of his dark chips, and puts the planet in danger of destruction so he can play the hero and destroy Duo's incoming comet himself while sabotaging other, more reliable attempts at destroying it. When his deception is revealed, he tries to drop Lan Hikari to his death and attempts suicide to escape justice for his crimes. Surviving that, Regal returns in the fifth game and kidnaps Lan's father Yuichiro, who he brutally tortures in order to force him to give up the program known as Soul Net. Using Soul Net, Regal attempts to link the souls of Net Navis and humans alike to the powerful Nebula Grey program, with his endgame being to cause civilization to descend into hellish, violent, hate and rage-fueled anarchy. Vile and rotten to the core, Regal disgusts even his own terrorist father Lord Wily, who forcibly brainwashes him into becoming a better person due to the horrors he planned to inflict on humanity.
  • Crack Pairing: Serenade and Slur. Gender debates aside, these two are often paired together despite never met at all (Serenade in the manga and BN3, Slur is an anime Canon Foreigner). Although this is probably because both of them are elite-tier and feminine Navis so they are often shipped together like rivals. Some fans even slipped Bass into the pairing and make those two fighting for his affection as well, even though Bass was the one who killed Slur.
  • Demonic Spiders: Now has its own page.
  • Die for Our Ship:
    • Poor, poor Mayl is the target of the straight-pairing-hating part of the fandom usually called the "Pink Fiend" by the yaoi shippers. In fact, even on the hetero pairings she gets some heat for hogging and having a monopoly on Lan (some say at least the Yaoi has variety), partly because of the lack of female characters around his age in the games. This results in Lan being paired with other girls who he barely had any serious contact with in the series by people who are tired of the Lan/Mayl pairing. Some other alternatives are Sal/Lan, Jasmine/Lan, Princess Pride/Lan, and even some Anetta/Lan. The latter three call upon the anime mythos, since that's where Jasmine, Mayl and their respective Navis are love rivals, where Pride/Lan pairing originates and also where Anetta isn't crazy.
    • The reverse also applies with Jasmine around Mayl/Lan shippers.
    • As a rule don't mention Chaud/Mayl around the above pairing.
    • For the yaoi side, Chaud/Lan vs. Raika/Lan vs Chaud/Raika, and lets not forget about the Navi/Operator pairings (Lan/Bass, Lan/ProtoMan). This get even more complex with the dark Navis, for example, Dark MegaMan/Lan or MegaMan/Lan.
  • Difficulty Spike: In each installment, any of three things will represent a difficulty spike: Entering the UnderNet (where powerful and tricky viruses are suddenly abundant and random battles are now deadly), reaching the Final Boss (who usually packs upwards of twice the HP of previous bosses, more damage with faster attacks, and regenerating shields or temporary damage immunity), or facing a version 3 boss for the first time. Outside of those things, the main games are pretty easy if you're actually exploring, collecting powerups, updating your folder, and so forth - suddenly being at high risk of dying from any of those things even when well prepared is a pretty significant difficulty spike. And just when you get to the point where all those things become easy (And you will), there are always the ultimate Superbosses to stress you to your limits.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
    • There's a very good reason Mr. Match has been in five out of six games. HeatMan also makes an appreciated return in Battle Network 6.
    • Princess Pride (in no small part to her Adaptational Heroism self from NT Warrior). Her personality change in the fifth game helps too.
    • Dark Megaman, no pun intended. He only appears in one of the games for a brief time (two, if MegaMan DS from Battle Network 4 is counted) and a minor arc in the Stream anime. Yet the concept of The Corruption turning Mega Man into an evil version of himself is just so damn cool that Dark Megaman is one of the most popular characters in this franchise.
  • Evil Is Cool:
    • Bass.EXE, through and through. That cloak he wears is just the icing on the cake.
    • Dr. Regal and the Darkloids of Nebula. Regal and Shademan.EXE have cool enough looks to start with, but they are notably far more hardcore in the anime adaptation compared to the games. Same goes for Cosmoman in the manga.
  • Fanon:
    • There are several individual canons in three sets of media for the series: the games, the anime, and at least two manga series (though only one was published in America). Some fans mix details from all three, such as Mega Man being Lan's brother in the anime or manga timelines when neither adaptation officially adopts that plot point.
    • The infamous link between Lan and MegaMan. In canon the details are quite vague, outside "if one dies, they both die". In some fan works it can work as anything from telepathic communication to feeling each other's senses to even merging their bodies.
    • In some fan works using the Japanese names, there is the issue of attaching honorifics to an operator's name. Some people treat it as a personal pet name, such as Rockman calling Netto Netto-kun and getting jealous if any other navi used "-kun" when referring to him. Honorifics are simply a form of respect in Japanese and are used when talking to other people.
  • Fan Nickname: The term "alphabet soup" is used to describe folders that are put together with little sense of strategy or synergy — they're usually a collection of powerful chips from many different codes. These folder configurations are often seen as the mark of a beginner player.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Tying into Fanon above, NT Warrior informs a lot of Battle Network shipping (like, say, Chaud/Yai). But since that's NT Warrior material, the details are on that YMMV page.
  • Fanon Discontinuity:
    • Some people cut off the entire second half of the series in their minds, though most people only behave as though the fourth game never happened (the fifth game certainly behaves as though Red Sun never happened, as Lan and Raika treat each other as new faces, to say nothing of Dr. Regal's Unexplained Recovery from having plummeted to his certain death).
    • Battle Network 4 suffered extensively from this from the very start, particularly compared to the (especially nowadays) much better praised follow up to it years later due to its Random Events Plot, the very obvious grammar errorsnote , the heavy difficulty spike, and the most controversial act of all, forcing players to replay everything after you beat it the first and second time, with even more being required if you miss something. This applies to Red Sun in-universe as well, with Raika punching Lan when they first met in that game, despite Raika and SearchMan ending up as one of the main characters of the anime and be buddies with the rest of the cast, and how Team ProtoMan acted as if that game were the first where they met.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception: This series has absolutely nothing to do with a certain Sonic creepypasta.
  • Fandom Rivalry: While most of the time the Mega Man fanbase is on friendly terms with the Sonic the Hedgehog fanbase, the Battle Network fans loathe the Sonic.exe creepypasta, due to the Big Bad's "Sonic.EXE" alias and the fact he uses a corrupted game to steal other's souls smears the name of the NetNavis.
  • Fandom-Specific Plot:
    • Many fanfics will mix details from one version of the series and put it in others.
    • There are plenty of MegaMan-becomes-human-again stories where once he comes alive, Lan is completely forgotten and replaced with Hub.
    • True love stories where Mega Man and Roll try to set up Lan and Mayl together.
    • On the other side there are plenty of Mayl/Chaud stories where Mayl is tired of waiting for Lan to notice her and all she wants is a relationship. This also usually happens with crossover characters as well.
    • Betrayal fics where the government decides Lan and MegaMan are too powerful and try to separate them, imprison them, or delete MegaMan. That this was the basis of an arc in the MegaMan NT Warrior (2001) manga helps.
    • There are plenty of alternatives where MegaMan tells Lan that he is his brother.
    • AU stories where Hub is still alive.
    • Or if Lan died and Hub was still alive.
    • There are a few divorce stories that feature Lan's parents splitting up and Lan trying to cope with it.
    • Some stories will have KnightMan a girl underneath the armor for Lan/Pride fics. (WoodMan has been declared female in at least one fanfic, though not tied in to any Lan x Sal shipping)
    • Bass and Serenade shipping fics aren't unheard of, most of which treat Serenade as a female.
    • There are a few fics where a villain will brainwash most of humanity but Lan will be unaffected due to his bond with Megaman, which comes as a result of using the Hub.BAT file.
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • It's very common for fans to speculate on what the Navi counterparts for Robot Masters that never made it into Battle Network (especially those from Mega Man 9 and onwards) might look like and who their operators would be. And vice-versa, how Battle Network Original Generation bosses like ColorMan and LaserMan might work as Robot Masters, and what their weapons would be.
    • Given his age relative to Wily, it's possible that Regal exists in the classic universe, which has also been the source of much fanart and speculation.
  • Faux Symbolism:
    • Serenade has a vaguely divine motif of holiness and light that is never really made use of (Serenade is officially a perfect, genderless being and has a Special Attack named "Saint's Light"), reducing it to a mere design flourish.
    • Bass, in turn, picks up a vaguely devilish motif of his own in the second trilogy (he uses dark power—which is literally Made of Evil—and a new Special Attack called "Hells Rolling"), which is equally gratuitous.
  • Franchise Original Sin: A lot of the problems 4 has are evident in Battle Chip Challenge. There's lots of padding with needless tournaments with occasional references to the A plot, questionable writingnote  and bad characterization, emphasis on unlocks and repeated playthroughs, among other things. The difference is that while 4 was made by Capcom, BCC was made by Inti Creates and was very obviously a spinoff. As such, despite being plenty worse, it never really did much damage, let alone end up killing the franchise.
  • Friendly Fandoms:
    • Battle Network fans overlap heavily with the Boktai fans, no doubt thanks to the surplus of Crossover content between both series.
    • With One Step From Eden, since that game took inspiration this series. The grid-based battle system even uses blue for your side and red for the enemy. Naturally, Battle Network fans taking to One Step From Eden is far from unheard of, especially since the former series has been finished for over a decade.
  • Game-Breaker: Detailed here.
  • Goddamned Bats: Viruses in the later areas of the game (especially the more maze-like ones) will constantly distract you from any task you happen to currently engaged in (e.g. running from the monsters in Netopia Castle network) and will take up far more of your time than they deserve to. The viruses in the later portions of the Undernet and any post-game Bonus Dungeon are so nasty they ascend right to Demonic Spiders.
    • Hard Heads are almost constantly shielded viruses that un-shield only temporarily to launch a cannonball that will punch a hole in your field. At higher levels, they can box you in if you aren't careful.
    • Pengi viruses in the third game fire snowflake shots that wave across two rows, but their most irritating trait comes from turning Nigh-Invulnerable when on an ice panel, taking no damage from attacks that aren't Navi chips. Later versions even come with IceStage for a massive Homefield Advantage.
    • Mole viruses in the third game have low HP, but they are immune to everything except from ground-affecting attacks. When they emerge to attack, they always appear behind you, giving you a short window to circle around and attack them.
    • The Lark series of viruses - those that drop the Wide Shot chips - fire shots that cover a wide area in battle. Mercifully, they never attack when they're in the middle row, else their attack is unavoidable. Not so mercifully, the wide coverage of these attacks make them notorious for breaking in-battle Mystery Data, sometimes within the very first second of the fight.
    • Moloko series viruses in the 4th game. They're sheep with a rather basic ability to charge at you. What makes them irritating is that their wool will protect them from any damage (enough damage will shear it off and make them vulnerable) meaning that you have to hit them with buster shots or weaker attacks first. You then need to hit them quickly when they're vulnerable because their wool will regenerate once they move offscreen and Wrap Around. Later versions are even worse, needing more hits to shear their wool.
    • Appley viruses in the 5th game pretty much serve to ruin a player's attempt at S-ranks or 1-turn Liberations. Most of the time they reside in their shell, only being vulnerable when emerging to attack. The shell makes them immune to everything but Fire attacks. Not even Breaking attacks work on them. Also, if somehow they are killed first, they heal the other viruses.
    • In the 5th game, the predictable CanoDumb enemies are replaced with CanGuards, which are similar except they have a shield that blocks non-breaking attacks when not attacking. While their first versions can't use it, their later versions do, which means you have to force them into sending out their crosshair or into attacking if you want to hurt them.
  • Goddamned Boss: We had too many examples, so they got moved to the trope page. In summary:
    • Most of the bosses from Battle Network 2 have gimmicky and obnoxious attack patterns that are less interested in being challenging and more interested in being completely unfair, usually through some combination of Spam Attack, Super-Speed and being only vulnerable when they're about to attack*.
    • ShadeMan, who no-sells anything other than GunDelSol if attacked in his Navi form. If hit, he splits into a swarm of bats and retreats off-screen, giving players only a few seconds to guess which bat is the real ShadeMan in order to inflict damage. And don't bother trying to end the battle with that Mystery Data intact on the field, just grab that Giga Chip from Laserman instead, as the bats WILL destroy it eventually.
  • Good Bad Bugs: The games have numerous glitches of varying severity; given that the English versions clean up many of them (while, naturally, including some of their own), the bugs are likely consequences of the grueling development cycle that was required to release these games each year. Examples that are present worldwide include two methods of skipping the final boss of the first Battle Network, a duplication trick in Battle Network 2 performed by collecting Mystery Data then beating the final boss without saving, a glitch to permanently have access to a chip of your choosing in Battle Network 3, and being able to add chip-exclusive attack boosts to Tomahawk Cross's charge shot in Battle Network 6. One consequence of Legacy Collection being based on the Japanese versions is that some of the fixes that were implemented into the international games do not make it into the collection, introducing "new" glitches to players outside of Japan.
  • Good Bad Translation: For some reason, the three-Spreader Program Advance in Network Transmission was translated into English as "GigaDeth", which Roahm Mythril noted just begs to be said with a heavy metal growl.
  • Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: While the difficulty of the bosses depends on the game you're playing, you're far more likely to be deleted by the random viruses you come across (especially since later games make some absolutely devious combinations of enemies and terrain) than the Navis, which you can adequately prepare for. Navis can be dealt with in a strategic manner, while viruses often boil down to "Delete them as fast as humanly possible before they delete you".
  • It's Hard, So It Sucks!:
    • Team ProtoMan gets this sometimes, especially from speedrunners, as it's perceived to be the harder version of Battle Network 5. This is because Team Colonel offers more viable teammates during Liberation Missions and the game-breaking Knight and Number Soul Unisons early on. Fittingly, it's also faster, due to ProtoMan being stronger than Colonel once you master him, GyroMan being able to skip fights to liberate panels, and NapalmMan being better at quick kills.
    • While not to the same extent as the above example, Cybeast Gregar is considered to be tougher to beat than its counterpart. This is partly because the earlier areas of the game are filled with Aqua viruses, who provide useful chips for Falzar version's Spout Cross, but are deadly to Gregar's Heat Cross. This also extends to the final bosses, as Gregar has much more HP and an erratic attack pattern, making Falzar look like a pushover in comparison. That said, Gregar does have the superior crosses (Heat and Slash are far and away the strongest, to the point where Gregar's speedrun world record is eight minutes faster than Falzar's because of Heat Cross) and doesn't need to trade for greater access to the EraseMan chips.
  • It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
    • Critics weren't happy with Battle Network's largely iterative nature, Battle Network 5 and Battle Network 6 in particular having lower scores almost entirely because reviewers were tired of the series.
    • Go ahead. Say you're glad they're keeping the old graphics and Internet in the 1 remake around fans. Although this is because the original Internet was very ugly looking and difficult to navigate, which may be mitigated by the map function revealed in the preview.
  • It Was His Sled: MegaMan is actually Hub, Lan's twin brother who died when they were babies and was made into a Net Navi. It was a huge twist in the first game, but later games bring it up often and make little effort to hide it, and given that it factors into the plot a couple of times, it's inevitable that it'll be brought up.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Terry Jomon from Battle Network 4. Locking Lan's chip folder and then blaming his loss on SparkMan were definitely wrong, but it might be hard to say he deserved getting disowned by his grandfather. His grandfather would only give him money for his robot projects if he won a tournament which is questionable as what does robot building have to do with netbattles? His grandfather also claims to have spoiled him, but if that's the case that's on him, not Terry and aside from apologizing to Lan, this comes off as a Never My Fault moment. Terry is also one of the few tournament opponents (or their acquaintances) who isn't a Karma Houdini making Mega Man's "You reap what you sow." line a little b.s. especially when other characters in the same game did worse things for less reason and didn't face many consequences even if Lan asked for them to be forgiven.
  • Low-Tier Letdown:
    • Between the Styles, Guts Style suffered because, while it buffed the Buster, it didn't provide enough to justify using it much when you're at the point you rely on Battle Chips more. Custom was pretty unanimously the best, outside of Hub Style in the second game.
    • Aqua Soul was one of the least popular of the Souls in the 4th game because of its lack of special abilities; mostly it just made Water chips more powerful, and its Charge Shot was uninteresting and very weak.
    • Dark chips in the fourth and fifth game, as well as dark-aligned chips. Dark chips generally lack the power required to make them worth the permanent HP reduction in battle, and 5 had the far better useful Chaos Unisons to use the chips anyway. Dark-aligned MegaMan also had a second Last Chance Hit Point that also had Dark Mega take the wheel for about ten seconds that is completely random in its usefulness, which is a neat gimmick but nowhere near as good as Full Synchro, Soul Unisons or SP Navi chips, abilities that you lose by going dark. Similarly, dark-exclusive chips are clearly strong (Static is strictly stronger than Tornado, and Muramasa has proved itself time and again) but are not worth the tradeoff. Amusingly, they aren't this in the Japanese meta, where you're just as likely to see a dark player as a light player. The reasons for this are the previously listed dark-aligned chips, the emergency Darksoul, and either for emergency utility (four) or being able to use offensive dark chips that would suffer from Poor, Predictable Rock if used with Chaos Unison like Drill and Sword instead of utility chips like Thunder or requiring setup like Search (five).
  • Memetic Loser:
    • The Life Virus. Not only is it by far the easiest final boss because of MegaMan getting his buster upgraded to busted levels immediately before the fight, but via a glitch it's skippable.
    • Glyde. He's the only one of the recurring custom Navis to never have a Navi chip OR a boss fight, is frequently chumped in cutscenes to build up hype for other characters, and typically tends to do very little outside of showing up for the end of the game friendship sequence.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "You want summa DIS whiskey?"
    • Duo's Anger Impact (an Angst Nuke made of Unstoppable Rage) has become the symbol for how much everyone hates Battle Network 4.
    • Also from Battle Network 4: "We have become Masters of Science." note 
    • Thanks to various screenshot Let's Plays of the series, the fanbase has grown a habit of trying to take screencaps of various mugshots in the middle of their blink animation. If successful on a happy mugshot, the character is suddenly transformed into a Smug Smiler.
    • Due to MegaMan.exe's name, people have joked that he was named that way to make sure people wouldn't make crappy Sonic.exe clone based on Mega Man.
  • Mis-blamed:
    • A Let's Play of 1 criticized some players for not knowing what is a Program Advance (P.A.) because they didn't talk to NPCs who mention it all the time. The problem is that it's not that they didn't know about what it is, they actually didn't know which Battle Chip combinations form what kind of P.A. in the first place.note  Making things even more confusing is that some P.A.s might get carried over to the next game but require different chips such as PoisonPharaoh, 2XHero note  and MasterStyle. It's like the Harvest Moon recipes, except that you cannot do things like bribing NPCs with gifts if you want them.
    • The series' localization changes, which were largely seen as "watering down" the games during their heyday, are now seen in a slightly more forgiving light after it became known that the original developers left almost no ROM space for their international counterparts to work with. It invites criticism of the decision to stick with the same cartridge size for the English versions, but it is unlikely that this decision was up to the actual translation team.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: Various PA noises, but Lifesword's is the most iconic due to how early you get it, how easy it is to use, and how immensely powerful it is.
  • Narm:
    • Duo's Anger Impact move, which has him projecting a giant, angry, pink face as a laser beam of some sorts. It might be a sign of Hidden Depths, but it looks silly, especially in contrast to his default super-stoic expression.
    • For the most part, each character has only one mugshot they use for speaking, which can look jarring when someone with a happy, smiling mugshot (like Lan) is talking while angry or in danger. Double Team DS alleviates this somewhat, giving certain major characters a few more mugshots with different expressions.
  • Narm Charm:
    • Duo's Anger Impact face, silly as it may be, is one of the most memorable attacks in the series thanks to this Let's Play.
    • In Battle Network 3, at one point you must fight a custom Navi as a boss to advance in the ranks. This actually changes depending on your version. In White, you get MistMan who has a rather unique appearance. Blue, on the other hand features BowlMan◊, who throws bowling balls and bowling pins at you. It is unintentionally hilarious, yet also charming and awesome at the same time. Especially since they are ranked Undernet navis, and they are both decent people.
    • DrillMan.EXE from the same game. His design and Dumb Muscle attitude is unintentionally hilarious, yet his status as That One Boss forces players to adjust their folder and their playstyle.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Now has its own page.
  • Older Than They Think:
    • Battle Network inherited a lot of tropes from its immediate predecessor, Mega Man Legends.
      • The Karma system, complete with morally relevant Palette Swaps, was actually used in Legends before it was brought back for the Dark Chip duology.
      • Legends also implemented a digger license system that predates the Net Battler licenses of Battle Network.
      • In Legends, Diggers are often supported by Spotters, which in the original Japanese are known as "Operators".
      • Rush's iconic Battle Network design wasn't originally meant for this series at all, instead being intended to debut as a support character◊ in Legends 2. When that incarnation ended up scrapped due to the devs being unable to work him into the game, the design was eventually reused wholesale when the Battle Network series went into development.
    • The map function seen in Double Team DS and Operate Shooting Star is actually introduced in the Japanese versions of 6, although it is located on a signboard in the respective areas instead of being accessible to the player via the lower screen.
  • Old Guard Versus New Blood: Battle Network was rather divisive back in the day. While not quite to the Mega Man Legends extreme, the series usually had a few camps, those who liked Battle Network, and those who wished Capcom would have put more resources in developing the Mega Man X series instead. (Not helping was MegaMan's falling reputation at the time).
  • Padding:
    • The Castle stage in the second game could be bad, but a lot of it can be avoidable if you just run out of the way of the zombies.
    • The fourth game absolutely loves sending you to the end of Park Area 3. Even with the best possible luck, you'll still need to go there multiple times for arbitrary reasons. The game is full of needless padding, and while this isn't the worst (that would go to the Protoman scenario), it's the most prominent.
    • Battle Chip Challenge requires you to complete all the tournament variations before proceeding to the next rank. Even characters that by all means should be seeded (Chaud and ProtoMan, Lan and MegaMan) have to start at the very bottom. While there's a fast forward option for the completely automated battles, it still drags on and on.
  • Player Punch:
    • The FlameMan story arc in 3. Not only did Lan fall into a Heroic BSoD after being tricked by Mr. Match to burn SciLab, almost killing his father in the process, Lan and Mega's reactions to Mr. Match giving the shady data showed that this could have been avoided at the first place, but the plot cannot progress unless you did what Match wanted you to do. And this is right after Lan is honored as a hero for saving the Beach Hospital from Anetta and PlantMan in the previous arc. This in turn nets the WWW the final Tetracode which allows them to steal Alpha and use it to wreak havoc, and a series of events that leads to one of if not the most emotional MegaMan deaths in the series.
    • In Falzar Version, Cybeast MegaMan goes on a rampage and Lan is forced to send a friendly Navi to stop him. Problem is, as soon as the mission is complete, said ally will be ambushed and nearly killed by Colonel, and depending on who you pick this outcome will seem even crueller: Some of your choices are SpoutMan, who is by all accounts a child; TenguMan, who feels extra pain from Sword-based attacks; or TomahawkMan, who is a former member of Team Colonel.
  • Polished Port: The Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection ports are, besides personal opinions about the new HD fonts and upscaled assets, considered to be the definitive ways to play the series. Not only do they provide all the GBA versions of the games in one convenient package (albeit lacking the DS versions of Operate Shooting Star or 5: Double Team plus their game improvements), but they pack a number of features that were formerly Japan-only, such as many Battle Chips tied to peripherals and events. The games even have online trading and net battling, for friends, ranked and random people you want to go up against.
  • Replacement Scrappy:
    • The Double Soul mechanic for those who thought Style Changes were more rewarding and adaptive to the player's preferred playstyle. The Cross Unison system in the sixth game was an attempt to rectify this, mixing characteristics from both previous mechanics, and was for the most part well-received.
    • In the sixth game, Mick and Tab for replacing long-standing characters Dex and Higsby, respectively. Made worse by the fact that, in spite of being Lan's new friends, you never get to have a match with them, and they are given generic Navis to boot.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: When he debuted in the fourth game, Dr. Regal was very easy to despise not for his villainy but for being such a cartoonishly one-dimensional Card-Carrying Villain with nonsensical circular logic, obnoxious rants about how Humans Are Bastards, flimsy motivations that amount to nothing more than him doing things just For the Evulz, and acting very Stupid Evil to the point of bordering on Generic Doomsday Villain. His notably more characterized, more threatening, and smarter portrayal in the immediate follow-up, Battle Network 5, was easier to tolerate and won over more fans. The anime and manga incarnations of Regal are also considerably less ridiculously cookie-cutter evil Mad Scientist and much more efficient in villainous plans and deeds as well.
  • Ron the Death Eater:
    • In the anime, Roll has an increasingly blatant crush on Mega, who is Oblivious to Love (much like his operator). However, some fanworks portray him as being so lovestruck that he is willing to do anything for her, sometimes at the cost of Lan. She's also depicted using the evil chip from the anime on herself intentionally and shamelessly flirting with the other Navis to make MegaMan jealous for not responding to her affections. This occasionally overlaps with Roll joining a villainous group, presumably because Harp Note, her Suspiciously Similar Substitute from Mega Man Star Force, did the same thing, albeit for different reasons.
    • There are plenty of fanfics that portray Mayl as desperately wanting any form of love from Lan to the point of tricking him into giving her affection or leaving him for another man. They also love to portray Mayl as being overtly possessive of Lan to the point of her getting upset at him even interacting with other females. This is turned up to eleven in yaoi-centered fics, as she is depicted as homophobic as a result of Lan being attracted to guys.
    • Some fan works portray Raika and Chaud as being much tougher on Lan than in the canon to the point of bullying him. Mind you, Raika introduced himself in Red Sun by punching Lan in the stomach while Chaud showed very little respect towards Lan in the first game.
  • The Scrappy: In Battle Network 4, Chisao gets kidnapped, and his kidnapper says he'll let him go provided Lan can find him and complete his challenges. Lan manages to find him shortly before his tournament match with Dex and GutsMan.EXE. After the tournament battle, Chisao admits he wasn't really kidnapped. Being the older sibling and having to be responsible for Chisao's behavior, Dex is angry and tells Chisao to apologize to Lan. Except Lan says there's no need for Chisao to apologize since he was just trying to help Dex and GutsMan. It doesn't help that in the anime, he eventually displaced his brother while contributing very little to Lan's friend group dynamic.
  • Scrappy Mechanic:
    • Any point where you need a certain chip of a certain code to progress the plot, especially if it's acquired from a rare encounter virus. Battle Network 3 players will be reminded of "Iceball M". Battle Network 4 players will recall the entire ColdMan scenario.
    • The Press program which allows MegaMan to walk on the tiny paths. The problem is that while on the tiny paths, Mega Man moves much slower and random encounter viruses still show up, which may cause you to forget which direction you were moving in since MegaMan's smaller size makes it difficult to tell which direction he's facing. Another factor is that it's a program and not a key item, so be prepared either to open up your NaviCust and fiddle around for about thirty seconds every time you need to use the near-omnipresent tiny paths, or have to deal with wasted space in the NaviCust for a program that has no combat applications.
    • There was also the Energy Change program which is required during the PlantMan and FlameMan scenarios. Like with Press, the game forces you to use this non-combat program to continue, but unlike Press you have to use a fire (PlantMan) or aqua (FlameMan) element battle chip so you can burn a plant/extinguish a fire which permanently gets rid of your battle chip. PlantMan's scenario is more forgiving, as the hospital network is populated with fire viruses that grant you an alternative supply of fire chips, and you only needed to burn down just enough plants to proceed. The FlameMan scenario offers you neither consideration, demanding that you extinguish all fires across the Net while either struggling to replenish aqua chips from unmodified spawns, or necessitating you find the Fish program for the NaviCust and deal with even more NaviCust bloat.
    • While Style Changes are not hated, the element is determined randomly, which is incredibly annoying to keep track of, considering how the main game requires you to run through multiple environments while still leveling up the same Style Change. Elec Styles, which have very little raw power, get hated the most.
    • In 4, Double Souls/Soul Unisons were considered this for replacing Style Changes and the Add function.
    • Regarding Navi fights, BubbleMan and DarkMan's beta forms will only show up if MegaMan's health is low and if there is a bug in the Navicust respectively.
    • A minor one, but Dex moves to Netopia late in the third game. As such, you can't jack into his computer or use his shortcut to ACDC Square for some time.
    • Every game has forced tutorials, with the ones in the beginning probably being the most aggravating. Even if you know everything about the series, you will start the game by being put through three tutorials about the bare basics of the combat (Battle Chips, their codes, etc.).
    • In 5 and 6, the inability to use the same P.A. more than once in a single battle hampered folder building, forcing players to rely almost entirely on a few select multi-hitting chips in order to make a competitively viable folder.
    • After defeating plot-related Navis, you can encounter their stronger V2 forms in fixed, untelegraphed places on the Net. Defeating them causes their even stronger V3 versions to start spawning as a random encounter in the same area. While this isn't that big of an issue in the first game since upgraded Navis pack more health and damage but generally remain the same fight otherwise, in 2 onwards upgraded Navis also tend to speed up considerably, change up their attack patterns, or even add new attacks entirely, thus practically guaranteeing that new players will be caught off-guard. If you encounter and defeat a V2 Navi the moment they become available in order to obtain their basic-level summon chip as quickly as possible, chances are you'll be grossly underprepared to handle the V3 version, which tends to be significantly more difficult. As many a Battle Network player can attest, there's nothing more frustrating than getting curb-stomped completely at random by a foe you stand little chance of defeating at your current power level, thus losing tons of progress unless you have the foresight to save after literally every battle in those areas. Thus, most players tend to avoid V2 fights until they're ready to handle the V3 version. Of course, this assumes that you know exactly where the V2 encounters are; otherwise, you could easily end up running into them completely by accident.
    • The flag layouts present through multiple of the games's PvP, thanks to the wildly different gameplay they cause by their presence. Destroying the enemy's flag instantly wins you the round, regardless of how much HP the enemy has. Also, since they're stationary objects, folder setups have insanely varied efficacy against them: for example, the flags No-Sell attempts to poison stall with Anubis and Geddon3, but is the perfect target for Dark Lance since it deals very high damage and the flags always spawn in the back row. And, perhaps worst of all, because round layouts are randomized, flags won't always appear, but when they do they'll Random Number God you out of a victory because your folder isn't optimized to deal with them.
  • Scrappy Weapon: Lobbing chips — where MegaMan throws something into the air to hit three panels ahead of him — tend to be among the worst chips in each game. The travel time before being active combined with the highly specific attack range make them impractical for hitting anything that isn't stationary or moving predictably. They're only really useful in Navi fights that seem specifically designed for them, where the opponent is sticking to the back row and hiding behind obstacles that block most other attacks. Only a select few escape this by hitting more than one panel, such as BigBomb hitting a 3x3 area and becoming nearly unavoidable if thrown from your center square.
  • Sequel Difficulty Spike: The first game was quite the cakewalk due to balancing issues (including how both the Final Boss and Superboss had 1000 HP, an amount even MegaMan.EXE could reach) and most bosses being rather pathetic, including numerous Stationary Bosses. The following games would introduce new gameplay elements, better chip balancing, and make Navi bosses far more challenging with tactics beyond "Stand there and hope you don't get deleted". One of the chief changes after the first game was the removal of After-Combat Recovery, adding health management to the game.
  • Sequelitis:
    • As you could probably tell from many other entries on this page, fans did not like the fourth game. Thankfully, the fifth one is contested at worst, while the sixth is a Surprisingly Improved Sequel.
    • The two spin-offs that made it to the West, Network Transmission and Battle Chip Challenge, were released to lukewarm reviews. The former is criticized for its poor implementation of the Custom gauge mechanic and absurd Early Game Hell, while the latter is derided for being pretty much the ultimate example of Game Plays Itself. Their status as canon is hotly debated as well.
    • The Japan-only Operate Shooting Star was a critical and commercial failure. Despite being promoted as a crossover with the Star Force series, it was instead a direct remake of 1 with the addition of a single extra event through which Geo Stellar could be unlocked as a playable character. Many would agree that 1 has not aged well in comparison to the other games, and even more people concur it was a disappointing way to send off both franchises.
  • Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The first game was rather oddly balanced, with clear Broad Strokes showing as the programmers were still figuring things out. The second game refined the battle system and had better writing, such that it is regarded by fans as one of the best in the series, only matched by the third. The fifth game served as this to the fourth by actually having a plot.
  • That One Attack:
    • Several electric attacks in the first game, most infamously thunderballs, cause MegaMan to take Damage Over Time. When that happens, the duration of the ailment resets itself, so the player either has to wait it out while staying perfectly still, which leaves them open to other attacks, or be forced to tank the damage and watch their Busting level plummet.
    • When ShadowMan V3 in 2 falls to low HP, he begins to use Muramasa, a Desperation Attack chip that deals damage equal to the difference between his current and maximum HP. Since he's got a max of 1600 HP, this attack can hit for over 1000 damage, creating an instant game-over with very little warning. Oh, and since Muramasa is an additional possible reward from this fight, you're going to be fighting him a fair bit, each time carrying the same risk of sudden death.
    • In the final chapters of 3, GutsMan hits his Beta form, and he demonstrates how he Took a Level in Badass by using his own Program Advance. The moment "Z-Punch" appears on-screen, he turns invincible for several seconds and throws out a series of punches which also don't trigger Mercy Invincibility. While it may be a Desperation Attack used when he's close to being defeated, be prepared to kiss your S-rank goodbye the moment you see it.
    • The final bosses of 4 and 5 have an attack that can crack or destroy most of the battlefield, leaving you with very little space to maneuver and boxing you in unless you've equipped AirShoes.
    • In the second trilogy, Bass' rapid-fire attack changes from a series of shots that dash across rows to a machinegun that hits the panels of your field very, very quickly in a random pattern. In 6, this attack doesn't trigger Mercy Invincibility and is well able to take two thirds of your health in an instant. Beating Bass becomes a matter of never allowing him to perform this move.
    • In 5 and 6, Colonel gains one of the most impressive-looking attacks in the entire series: once you're under a certain amount of HP he'll start throwing his cloak with no warning. If it connects, the screen goes black and a slash shreds across it, instantly deleting your character unless it is MegaMan with Undershirt on. His RV version will start performing this when you're at 550 HP. This is also notable in that it's one of two attacks in the series that activates depending on Mega's HP instead of the user's. If it won't (seem like it will) delete him, Colonel won't use it.
  • That One Boss: There's at least one per game. A more thorough list is detailed here, but here's a few brief snapshots:
    • ProtoMan.EXE is usually one of the most aggravating bosses to fight in most games, if only because he tends to block anything thrown at him with his shield until he comes out to attack, which he does very quickly, leaving only a small window of opportunity to strike back.
    • DrillMan.EXE in 3, for being nearly impossible to hit without Break chips, which were either scarce or impractical in the first three games.
    • BubbleMan.EXE in 3. The continuous spew of damaging bubbles not only blocks your attacks, but also severely hampers your movement and a new one is made the instant you blow one up. Coupled with all the other obstacles thrown on the field and the fact his third version can only be encountered when Mega's at critical health...
    • QuickMan.EXE in 2. His attack pattern is very similar to ProtoMan's above. The only saving grace is that it has limited variety in attacks and has low hitpoints, which stems from QuickMan being an early-game boss.
    • SkullMan in Battle Chip Challenge has a great deal of health, a powerful attack, and has a scarily well-built program deck. His power chip is the Curse Shield, which not only shields him, but has an absurd amount of HP in its own right and it will eat your attacks for breakfast (and every time you hit it, it'll take a bite out of you, too). To add some nasty icing to this awful cake, SkullMan is often found on a poison stage, which will eat through your health and chips while you struggle to land each attack, hit by individual hit.
  • That One Level:
    • In 2, the Freeze Man scenario requires a lot of backtracking between Netopia and the Undernet.
    • The Undernet in all games. While the normal Net's layout is fairly straightforward with only a few frustrating turns, the Undernet takes almost sadistic glee in putting arrow panels in the worst of places, usually making it so that one wrong turn ends up putting you right back at the entrance (or worse, forcing you to walk back to the entrance just to try again). On top of that, the enemies become Goddamned Bats at minimum and Demonic Spiders at their worst, due to a combination of difficulty spike, weird powers you haven't seen anywhere else before, treacherous terrain, and putting them in combinations that turn otherwise straightforward battles into what could be described as "Super Meatboy on a 3x3 chess board".
      • Due to the design of the Net, it's entirely possible to wind up in the Undernet in 1 completely by accident. The kicker is that the Undernet has the exact same aesthetic as the rest of the Net, so unless you talked to certain NPCs who warn you of what's ahead, you're not going to know until you hit a random encounter with viruses much stronger than you can handle. On the plus side, if you're good enough to handle these encounters, you're rewarded with chips far stronger than the game expects you to have.
      • The Undernet in 4 is easily the toughest in the entire series, due to it sporting some very mean Demonic Spiders (see the subpage for more details) while the player's limited chip selection makes it difficult to exterminate the viruses with ease. On top of that, even accessing the Undernet needs the player to track down and purchase some key items in order to make the C-Slider to access its only entrance.note  If the player ends up with SearchMan's or ProtoMan's scenario, visiting this hellish place becomes mandatory, and the scenarios themselves don't make things any better. ProtoMan's involves a Pixel Hunt for a handful of "keys" that will allow Mega to proceed into the depths of the Undernet, which wouldn't be too bad if not for where this takes place and the poor translation giving out misleading hints. SearchMan has you scour the Undernet while occasionally dealing with quick-time events that take a large chunk of your HP if you make a mistake. All while the random encounters are still on.
    • Pretty much every area that only becomes available after beating the main campaign, but the third game's Secret Area and the fifth game's Nebula Area really take the cake. The former is a huge maze that cannot be jacked out of, while the latter is the stage of a series of long and obnoxious Liberation Missions that are mandatory in order to obtain upgraded weapons.
  • That One Sidequest:
    • Several NPCs will offer the player a hard-to-acquire chip, but only if they have a chip of a particular code to trade for it. Sometimes the chip of that code can be easily obtained through the Order system, or is part of a Chain of Deals that eventually lead up to something worthwhile. When this isn't the case, it's usually a rare encounter in the Bonus Dungeon that requires a high busting rank to attain. Get good and lucky with virus busting, or ridiculously lucky with the Chip Trader.
    • 100% Completion of the Chip Library can be a bit of a pain depending on the chip(s) you're missing. Usually, you can get a greater part of them by playing the game normally, and a few require some specific grinding for...and then there's the ones that flat-out require manipulating the RNG of the game through the chip folder and enemy actions to even have a remote chance of getting. Don't feel like having to grind for specific chips and performing every action flawlessly? Well, hope you like them being a Luck-Based Mission from the chip trader then! Some of the most infamous ones from the first game include Howitzer and Dropdown.
      • It gets even more tedious when you're trying to obtain chips to form Program Advances, which also have a completion record to them. Not only do you need a specific chip, you also need it in a specific code, which means either having to S-Rank a hard-to-kill virus or even intentionally tanking your Busting Rank at times.
      • Some of the chips needed for Library completion can only be obtained from Bug Frag Traders. What makes this difficult is that Bug Frags are painfully scarce most of the time. While Battle Network 3 makes it very easy to farm them with a Counter-Attack on rematchable bosses, the other games are not as merciful — Bug Frags in 2 only appear in certain mystery datas, while in 4 to 6 they are obtained either from overworld green mystery data (at one Frag apiece) or from in-battle mystery datas (anywhere between 1 to 5). The latter often means defeating viruses in the Bonus Dungeon while trying to preserve a mystery data that shatters when anything so much as a Buster shot grazes it, and sometimes after all that hard work the prize isn't even what you want. You can also get them from Liberation Missions or in the Virus Battler minigame, but both methods involve performing the same actions over and over again and are just as tedious.
    • Anything that gives you a key item in Battle Network 4, most notably the C-Slider and Nebula Code. Both cost a non-trivial sum - 9,000 and 10,000 Zenny respectively - while involving backtracking to acquire them. Due to Battle Network 4's New Game Plus structure, each time you start a new cycle, those items are not carried forward, needing you to spend more time and money just to re-open various areas of the net. The C-Slider even becomes mandatory for certain story scenarios as it is needed to access the Undernet.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Sean, once-leader of Gospel. He reappears in Battle Network 3 looking to redeem himself, but never shows up again in the main games after that. Especially egregious in the case of Battle Network 5, where a former member of Gospel (Princess Pride), someone related to a member (Tesla Gauss, daughter of Mr. Gauss), and a mercenary who worked for them (Dusk) join Team ProtoMan or Team Colonel and bring their associated NetNavis with them, allowing the latter to become Double Souls, yet Sean and FreezeMan.EXE are nowhere to be found. FreezeMan would have been perfect for the Aqua-element Double Soul Navi in Team Colonel, but that spot is taken by ToadMan, who belongs to Ribbita, a side character in Battle Network 2 who offers optional boss fights against ToadMan. Unlike the other elemental Souls - Napalm, Thunder, and Tomahawk - whose charge shots are understandably the same element as themselves, Toad Soul's charge shot is Elec element, the same as Thunder Soul's, making it feel redundant. Sean's reason for being in the Undernet would doubtless be better than Ribbita's excuse of wanting to make a report on it, seeing as he ran a criminal organization once and would likely be familiar with the area. The fact that Wily was involved in corrupting Sean in the first place would make him a foil of sorts to Colonel's operator, Baryl, who is Wily's adopted son, as well as Dr. Regal, Wily's actual son who leads the Nebula organization just as Sean did Gospel. Sean's redemption arc could have reached a satisfying conclusion in Team Colonel, with him working alongside Lan and Mega Man to save the world he once tried to destroy, which would have made him a much more meaningful and impactful team member than Ribbita.
    • Mamoru, administrator of the Undernet, and Dr. Cossak, Bass' creator never reappear after the third game. To a slightly lesser extent, there is also Serenade, the Under King, who only has one more appearance as a faceless voice in one of the Japan only mobile phone games.
    • Zero, the Battle Network incarnation of the franchise's greatest Memetic Badass. At the end of his own game, he decides to go wandering... and never reappears, not even when later games introduced counterparts to Colonel and Iris he could have interacted with.
    • Dr. Regal is revealed to be the son of the series' main Big Bad, Dr. Wily. This connection barely factors into Regal's story until the very end where Wily shows up and wipes Regal's mind to make him a good guy. Regal then ends up doubly wasted when Battle Network 5 ends with him now good and joining Yuichiro's research team, which seemingly sets him up as an ally for the next installment. But come Battle Network 6, he's vanished without a trace and no one mentions him again, not even his own father Wily, who's reasserted himself as the Big Bad and whose relationship with Baryl is given the attention instead.
    • Lan's and MegaMan's close friends go sorely under-utilized despite their potential. Their best scenes all occur in the first half of the series, but they're swept aside in the second—they end up as little more than The Dividual while the last few games focus on Lan and Mega bonding with other Operator-Navi duos.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • In the fourth game Lan travels around the world, meets all sorts of people and with their support faces an entity that claims mankind must be purged because of a few bad apples. Unfortunately, this is all presented as a very unsatisfying Random Events Plot.
    • Battle Chip Challenge featured actual, substantial character arcs for Dex and Mayl, which never had further ramifications in the series.
  • Tough Act to Follow: While Battle Network 4 already had a bad reputation due to the Random Events Plot (and a few other problems...), it was considered subpar and below average compared to how highly regarded and praised Battle Network 3 is.
  • Unintentional Period Piece:
    • The design of the titular network is badly outdated. Case in point, social networking in the Battle Network world is done through webrings. Show of hands, how many of you still know what those are?
    • Ironically, some entries are also able to argue that they could be a period piece of either the late '00s or even relatively early 2010s. Despite all the concepts that never came to be in the real world and all the dated things like webrings, there's still a lot that ends up fitting the real world (and indeed, didn't even exist yet despite being in the series) long after the games were released and the series was finished. The things that show obvious signs of being dated could simply be attributed to nostalgia, as more advanced communication did exist and were pretty prominent by the later games.
    • Not within the game itself but the argument over Serenade's gender. If it had come out nowadays everybody would have agreed "non-binary" and left it at that.
  • Values Dissonance: Dishwashers actually aren't as common in Japan as they were in North America, which is one reason why Mayl and Mari's excitement over the dishwasher comes off as Narm.
  • Values Resonance: As a franchise about living in a 20 Minutes in the Future society, this game that started in 2001 ended up predicting — accidentally or not — a lot of things about the modern world.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • Serenade. Any debate about his/her gender has a very high chance of turning into a flamewar. While Capcom themselves later on confirmed the cop-out that Seranade is a perfect being therefore transcends gender, most people ignore this as a result.
    • In the fifth and the sixth game there is usually only one or two of the kind random fat NPC that stood out among others and can pass off as either a male or female mostly caused by said NPC's pink shirt, hair curls and lipstick-like mouth. It was eventually revealed from some dialogue that the fat NPC is actually male.
  • The Woobie:
    • Sean, due to his background leaving him with no family or friends to rely on. Lan is his first-ever real-life friend.
    • Mamoru, especially when it's revealed the poor kid suffers from HBD, the same thing MegaMan (as Hub) suffered.
    • Poor, poor, poor Lan, losing MegaMan nearly all the time. MegaMan obviously, especially considering his past as Hub Hikari.

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