Mega Man Battle Network 2, known as Battle Network Rockman EXE 2 (バトルネットワーク ロックマンエグゼ2) in Japan, is the second game in the Mega Man Battle Network series. The story takes place after the events of Mega Man Network Transmission.
Story
The following summer after WWW's defeat, a new terrorist group called Gospel emerged. Their tactics differed considerably compared to WWW, as they appeared to have no set goal. Gospel's plan had seemingly consisted of only causing random destruction with their NetNavis. Lan and MegaMan battled every member and prevented the worst possible situations. However, Gospel's hidden plan was to re-create the ultimate NetNavi, Bass.EXE (Forte.EXE in Japan). Using bug fragments, they planned to make a large army of Bass Navis to take over the world. Unknown to Gospel, their method of creating Bass was imperfect, and his abilities were vastly below predictions. In an attempt to increase Bass's power, the leader of Gospel overloaded energy into Bass, and changed him into a giant multi-bug organism, who was named Gospel, same as the organization. Although the bug beast was stronger than before, Lan and MegaMan managed to eliminate it.
Gameplay Changes
Folder Building
The previous game allowed for the player to use up to 10 copies of any chip (barring Navi chips, where the limit is 5 total) in their folder. This has been reduced to 5 to force the player to use a wider variety of chips. The * code has also been added to make certain chips usable with other chips of any letter code.
The Custom Screen has also shrunk to a maximum of 10 chip slots from its former 15. The Add Button also serves a different purpose - rather than temporarily expand the Screen capacity by 5 slots, it allows the player to discard their currently selected chips in order to permanently expand their capacity by the number of chips discarded.
Style Change
This game introduces Style Change, which replaces the armor feature which was used in the first game. There are 5 types of styles and each type gives MegaMan a certain ability. The styles also come with an element (Fire, Aqua, Elec, Wood).
Net Redesign
Carried out towards all the sequels from this point, the Net received a massive redesign in concept, giving each area its own unique background and ground design. No longer a confusing maze of thin, cable-shaped paths, but roads of varying width using a more block-shaped construction and other shapes. The net also gained the addition of features such as warp pads and one-way arrow paths. To avoid the mixing of layers, each one has a different color scheme or shade. While the soundtrack in the net remained the same in each area, the Undernet and Gospel areas gained their own soundtrack.
Net Square
Mega Man Battle Network 2 also introduced Net Squares. A Net Square is a place where Navis can hang out without fearing of being attacked by viruses. Net Squares have shops which sell battle chips and Sub-chips. Net Squares would be used in Mega Man Battle Network 3, but have been removed in Mega Man Battle Network 4.
Bosses
- AirMan.EXE
- QuickMan.EXE
- CutMan.EXE
- ShadowMan.EXE
- ProtoMan.EXE
- KnightMan.EXE
- MagnetMan.EXE
- FreezeMan.EXE
- Bass.EXE (clone)
- Gospel
Optional bosses:
- GutsMan.EXE
- ToadMan.EXE
- GateMan.EXE
- ThunderMan.EXE
- SnakeMan.EXE
- HeatMan.EXE
- PharaohMan.EXE
- NapalmMan.EXE
- PlanetMan.EXE
- Bass.EXE
Typos and grammatical errors
- Almost all text that utilizes quotation marks in conjunction with question marks or exclamation marks in the ending punctuation of sentences are used incorrectly and are kept inside the quotation marks rather than going outside.[1] Later games fixed this mistake.[2]
- When MegaMan encounters the NormalNavi in YumLand, he will state that he "Received a balloon from Electopia...." Electopia should really be YumLand.
Commercial
Trivia
- At one point in the game, an old lady will complain that her oven is on fire, and wonder what Lan meant by "that's an old story". Said event happened in the first game.
- In the Mothercomp, a GameCube symbol can be seen.
- This is the only game in the Battle Network series to feature the Bass navi chips having the same denomination as the other navi chips (v1, v2 and v3, in this case); as the Bass chips are all version-exclusive Giga Chips in the next games, and a special single-version event battle chip in the previous.
- Unlike many other games in the entire Mega Man franchise that were released outside of Japan, Mega Man Battle Network 2 mysteriously contains elements of subject matter that were allowed under its ESRB rating which may actually be inappropriate for American children under 10 years of age, and is the only game in the Mega Man Battle Network series to have such content. The most notable example is the inclusion of curse words like damn, crap, and hell (Lan: "Damn it! What should we do!?" Gauss Magnus: "Damn it to Hell." and Sean Obihiro: "Crap"). Yai Ayanokoji shamelessly remarked about being seen naked by Lan after he rescued her from AirMan near the start of the game. Additionally, Ms. Millions dialogue, while never explicit, has blatant sexual undertones.
- To make things more confusing, the game was rated "E" by the ESRB and the ESRB did not give a Mild Language qualifier.
See also
- List of Mega Man Battle Network 2 Battle Chips
- List of Mega Man Battle Network 2 Viruses
- Mega Man Battle Network 2 Walkthrough