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The Lowdown
Pros: You're in control of your own net navi in a virtual world!
Cons: You're not really in control of your net navi.
 Purchase
at Play-Asia
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The Mega Man EXE
series has become more of a hit than Capcom could have expected.
Throughout four different games, players have only controlled Mega Man
EXE and Netto. In Rockman EXE 4.5 Real Operation players not only get to
choose their own net navi, but get to see what it is like to be a Net
Battler. Capcom designed Rockman EXE with the goal of making it a
simulation of what followers of the series have dreamed of doing. In a
lot of ways the game works, but also in a lot of ways the original games
are a lot more fun to play.When you start the game for the first time
you need to set the clock. The game has an internal clock, which works
similar to the Pokemon series. Special events, like tournaments, only
happen on select days. Just like in the other games and the anime,
tournaments are the main thing to do. Since there is no way to speed the
clock up you must actually wait for real time to pass just to enter a
tournament. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if there was other
stuff to do. Besides tournaments there is an exploration mode where you
can take your net navi to battle viruses. The adventure mode is where
you will spend a lot of time acquiring new battle chips and gaining
valuable experience points.
Capcom changed the battle system to make it more similar to the
anime. At a glance the battle screen and the graphics look the same, but
the differences are huge. First of all, you're not directly in control
of your net navi. It is free to move around on its own to dodge or in
many cases not dodge enemy attacks. On the bottom of the screen are the
three battle chips you have available to you. The chips are randomly
selected from preset folders that you can create. Using chips takes
energy from the top custom meter bar. When you select a chip, like
cannon, your navi will automatically equip the chip and attack whatever
they please. Battles continue until you clear all of the viruses or they
take all of your HP. The main flaw with the battle system is that if you
actually controlled your navi you could do a much better job. When you
want your navi to dodge an attack all you can do is cross your fingers
and hope it does it. Unfortunately, you're navi's AI is only slightly
better than the AI of the average virus roaming around. With no manual
override for players to actually move their navi around, battles become
much more frustrating than fun.
If you do purchase the game make sure you get the package that has
the "Battle Chip Gate". This nifty peripheral is about the two thirds
the size of a Game Boy SP and it allows you to actually use in battle
chips you own into the game. Having the ability to select from your own
potentially enormous collection of battle chips gives you an edge in
enemy encounters. Although, once you use a battle chip you can't use the
same chip until you leave the adventure battle or end the tournament
you're in. This little balance prevents players from constantly using
Dream Aura or rapidly using Cannons. The Battle Chip Gate is the only
way to do program advances in the game. You need to throw in the three
chips you want to use as fast as you can to perform the ultimate combo
move. If you've been collecting American battle chips or are thinking of
importing Japanese chips I can tell you that the Japanese battle chip
gate is universal. Yes, that's right American chips work in the Japanese
Battle Chip Gate.
I mentioned that you can select other Net Navis other than Mega Man,
which is something that fans of the series will enjoy. By default you
can play choose from Mega Man, Roll, Gutsman and Numberman. You can
unlock other Net Navis by answering math questions that Numberman will
give you. The difficulty of the questions is determined by the age you
put in at the beginning of the game. So, if you want to quickly unlock
all of the navis set your age really low. The other way of unlocking Net
Navis is to use navi chips that you can find randomly packaged in sets
of battle chip packages. You can unlock pretty much every navi you've
seen including Torch Man, Star Man, and even Blues.
One of the other cool features of the game is that you can battle a
friend's net navi if you have two copies of the game and a GBA link
cable. The two player battle mode is fun to play even though you can't
actually move your navi around to dodge attacks. The versus mode gets
much more interesting when you have two GBA's, two copies of Rockman EXE
4.5, a GBA cable, two battle chip gates and a stack of battle chips. If
you actually have all of that equipment the battles are as close to the
series as you'll ever get.
Capcom has been reusing the same sprites and graphics from the first
two EXE games over and over again. If you expected to see a brand new
looking Mega Man EXE game you're going to be let down. Even though
they're the same old graphics they still look decent, just not great.
Much of the music has been reused too. Thankfully, the tunes, like the
graphics, are decent.
Rockman EXE 4.5 Real Operation is a game that demands you play it on
it's time, not on yours. If you're willing to wait for tournaments and
put up with the frustration of not being able to directly control
battles there is a lot to do. There are tons of tournaments waiting to
be won and over twenty net navis to try out. On the other hand, for
Rockman EXE 4.5 to be fun you really need to get the Battle Chip Gate
and collect battle chips. Rockman EXE 4.5 offers less than other games
in the series and is designed with fans of the series in mind. If you
haven't been following the series you should try before you buy.
The game is full of Japanese menus and will be extremely challenging,
just to play through unless you're really good with Japanese.
US Bound?
There has been no announcement of an American release yet. Although,
Capcom has begun selling the pocket PETs and battle chips here, which
suggests a North American release is inevitable.
Overall
Rockman EXE 4.5 Real Operation has some interesting ideas in
gameplay, but the implementation of these ideas aren't great.
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