Mega Man Battle Network 5

Mega Man Battle Network 5, known as Rockman EXE 5 (ロックマンエグゼ5) in Japan, is a video game developed by Capcom for the Game Boy Advance (GBA) and Nintendo DS handheld game consoles. It is the fifth game in the Mega Man Battle Network series, and the first Mega Man game to be released on the Nintendo DS. Battle Network 5 comes in three different versions: Team ProtoMan (Team of Blues (チーム オブ ブルース)) and Team Colonel (Team of Colonel (チーム オブ カーネル)), both for the Game Boy Advance, which have similar gameplay but slightly different supporting characters and stories, and Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team DS, Rockman EXE 5 DS: Twin Leaders (ロックマンエグゼ5DS ツインリーダーズ) in Japan, for the Nintendo DS, which includes the content from both games as well as extra content.

Gameplay
Gameplay in Mega Man Battle Network 5 in this game is largely similar to that of its predecessors. The intrepid youngster Lan Hikari and his sentient computer program, MegaMan.EXE, must work to defeat the once-again-revived Nebula crime syndicate. Lan explores the real world and interacts with people and places there. When Lan plugs his PET, a handheld computer, into a computer with an interface jack (of which there are many), he can upload Mega Man to the cyber network. In that network, Mega Man can explore, but he's also threatened by viruses.

When Mega Man encounters viruses, the screen shifts to a battle screen, set on a six by three square grid. On the left half of the grid is Mega Man, and on the other half are his opponents. Mega Man has a relatively weak arm cannon, the MegaBuster, but his main weapon is Lan's library of battle chips, one-use-per-battle special attacks which grant various abilities, including simple attacks, attack enhancements, defensive effects, terrain transmogrification, or assistance from other Navis. Before battle, the player can construct a folder consisted of thirty battle chips, and each turn of a battle (measured by a timer bar at the top of the screen), the player is presented with a random selection of these chips. The player can send Mega Man up to five battle chips, after which the battle takes place in real time, with MegaMan, controlled by the player, attacking with his MegaBuster, dodging attacks, or activating battle chips from his queue.

Mega Man joins a team led by either Lan's and Mega Man's rivals Chaud and ProtoMan.EXE or new characters Baryl and Colonel.EXE, and the members of this team assist MegaMan in various ways. Mega Man can take on the attributes of one of his teammates with a Soul Unison. The team plays its largest role in Liberation missions, wherein Mega Man and the rest of his team enter a part of the Nebula-controlled Internet to free the area via a time-limited battle with a group of viruses. Also new to Mega Man Battle Network 5 are Dark Chips, super-powerful chips. While they appeared randomly in Mega Man Battle Network 4 when Mega Man was badly damaged, they are much more like normal battle chips in this game, in that they can be added to the battle chip folder like any other chip. Their extra power comes with a price: Mega man will no longer be able to achieve Soul Unison, and every time Mega Man uses a Dark Chip, he loses one point from his maximum hit points permanently. He can, however, use a Dark Chip for a Soul Unison; this is called a Chaos Unison, which is like a normal Soul Unison except that his MegaBuster is replaced with the effects of the Dark Chip he used for the Chaos Unison. While using this effect doesn't cause HP loss, it has to be done with careful timing, as charging with poor timing causes the Chaos Unison to end and an invincible, evil version of Mega Man to join the viruses and attack Mega Man for a short period of time using random battlechips. Much like previous games in the series, Game Boy Advance copies of Mega Man Battle Network 5 can connect using the Game Boy Advance link cable, to battle head-to-head or to trade battle chips.

Story
Lan Hikari and his friends, Dex, Mayl and Yai, are called to SciLab headquarters for the revelation of the latest research project Yuichiro, Lan's father, has been working on. Before he can reveal it to them, however, mysterious agents take over SciLab, subduing everyone with sleeping gas, kidnapping Yuichiro, and stealing the PETs (and thus the Navis contained within) of Lan's friends. However, Lan was in a different section of the lab and avoids being discovered or having his PET stolen. These agents turn out to be working for Dr. Regal and his crime syndicate Nebula, which has returned after being defeated in Mega Man Battle Network 4. Nebula subsequently takes over the internet with an army of viruses and Darkloids, Navis that use dark powers and Dark Chips.

While investigating a disturbance at SciLab, Lan meets either Chaud (in Team ProtoMan) or Baryl (in Team Colonel), who recruit him to begin forming an elite team of Navis to fight against Nebula's control. In a series of scenarios identical between games, Lan meets up with other powerful operators and recruits them and their Navis; Team ProtoMan grows to consist of Magnet Man, Gyro Man, Napalm Man, Search Man, and Meddy, while Team Colonel consists of Knight Man, Shadow Man, Tomahawk Man, Number Man, and Toad Man. Through the teamwork of the group, the internet is liberated area by area and peace restored. However, the occupation of the internet was a diversion by Nebula while they searched for "The Hikari Report," a research project by Lan's grandfather Dr. Hikari.

Starting with a clue from an encrypted message on Yuichiro's lab computer, Lan and Mega Man discover VisionBursts hidden in the net, digital snapshots of the real world in the past. By piecing together clues left by Dr. Hikari in these areas, they discover he hid the Hikari Report in one of the VisionBursts, but Regal finds it first and claims it. The Hikari Report are a research project undertaken by Hikari and Dr. Wily to create SoulNet, an internet network connecting the minds and souls of humans and Navis across the world. The two believed SoulNet could bring peace and unity, but were unable to finish their research. Regal intends to unleash Nebula Grey, a program of pure hatred and darkness, upon the completed SoulNet, corrupting all humans and Navis in the world to evil and violence. Lan also discovers Regal is Dr. Wily's son, and the two scientists intended for their children to complete their project.

The team storms Nebula's base and battles through it until Lan confronts Regal in the SoulNet server room. Mega Man seals Nebula Grey and the room begins to self-destruct. While the heroes evacuate, Yuichiro stays behind to speak to Regal about the research of their fathers. He collapses as Regal rejects the idea he could reform, and a voice calls out to him and orders SoulServer to overload. In Team ProtoMan the speaker is unseen, while in Team Colonel Dr. Wily enters the room and gives the command. Lan narrates that an unknown figure saved his father from the destruction of Nebula's base, and Yuichiro calls the group to SciLab to meet Dr. Regal, who has had many of his memories erased by SoulServer and is now a peaceful scientist. The Navis of Lan and his friends visit the VisionBurst of the ACDC Town of the past as Yuichiro speaks to Lan and Mega Man about the hope for another world passed down through the generations that they will one day carry with them.

Characters
The membership of the liberation squad differs between the two versions of Mega Man Battle Network 5. Recruiting each member involves largely similar challenges and each character fills a certain role on the team, but the motivations and in-game abilities of each character are sometimes quite different.

In both games, the liberation team is led by an experienced official Netbattler, with a Navi with a sword for an arm. In Team ProtoMan, the team is led by Electopian official Netbattler Chaud, Lan's recurring rival and operator of the swordsman Navi ProtoMan.EXE. His equivalent in Team Colonel is the new character Baryl, a Netopian official visiting Lan's home country of Electopia. Baryl is the operator of Colonel.EXE, a Navi who can adapt any chip to connect to his arm and adapt any object to fight as a soldier for him.

The first addition to the team is a Navi returning from Mega Man Battle Network 2, one who can protect the rest of the team from attacks. This second operator is drilling in otherwise-abandoned mine on Oran Island, and unknowingly endangering Lan's vacationing friends. In Team ProtoMan, this is Tesla Gauss, who has inherited MagnetMan.EXE from her Gospel agent father, Magnets Gauss. In Team Colonel, this is Princess Pride, operator of KnightMan.EXE.

The leader of the liberation team then hires a free agent to join the team, but this free agent insists on testing Lan and MegaMan at length, forcing them to overcome a series of challenges. In Team ProtoMan, this free agent is series newcomer Charlie Airstar, a Netopian helicopter pilot, and his agile Navi, GyroMan.EXE. In Team Colonel, this is former Gospel agent (now revealed to be a mercenary) Dusk and his ninja-like Navi, ShadowMan.EXE.

The next member of the team is recruited when Lan foils his plot to steal Ubercorp's booster system, a system that amplifies a Navi's effectiveness a thousandfold, from aboard the cruise ship Queen Bohemia. In Team ProtoMan, this is fireworks maker Fyrefox and former Solo-Navi NapalmMan.EXE, and in Team Colonel this is Netopian Native American Dingo, operator of TomahawkMan.EXE. Both of them get aboard the ship by being hired on to offer the passengers Netbattles for entertainment, but they have different motivations: Fyrefox wants to make more-spectacular fireworks, while Dingo wants revenge for the production of the booster system, which ruined the livelihoods of many in his home community.

The next member of the team is brought on to crack the security systems of Yuichiro's computer, in an effort to discover what he was working on when he was kidnapped. A wedge is initially driven between this member of the team when imposters from Nebula disguise themselves as MegaMan and this member's Navi fool them into thinking that the other is an agent of Nebula. Once they realize their error, they team up and defeat the Nebula imposters. In Team ProtoMan, Lan and MegaMan are suspicious of the close-lipped nature of Sharo soldier Raika and his military-minded Navi SearchMan.EXE, while in Team Colonel they are suspicious of how desperate shopkeeper and onetime WWW agent Higsby, operator of NumberMan.EXE, is to join the team.

The last member of the team forces herself onto the team, in order to accomplish her own goals. In doing so, however, she accidentally gets ProtoMan (or Colonel, depending on the version) captured and corrupted by Nebula, and the team must confront and rescue him. In Team ProtoMan, this is series newcomer Jasmine, operator of medic-themed Navi Medi.EXE, and she seeks to find a medical book hidden on the Undernet to cure her grandfather. In Team Colonel, this is DNN reporter Ribitta, owner of ToadMan.EXE, and she seeks to deduce the identities of Team Colonel.

Development
The fifth installation of the game was first advertised in Japanese magazine, Corocoro Comic in August 2004.

Reception
Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan was the 48th best-selling game in Japan in 2004 at 255,061 copies. This version was also the 55th best-selling game in the country in 2005 at 211,099 copies. Mega Man Battle Network 5: Team Colonel placed at number 65 with 194,472 copies sold that year. Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team DS was the 52nd best-selling Nintendo DS game in Japan in 2005 at 106,526 copies.

In North America, both the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS versions of Mega Man Battle Network 5 met with fairly tepid critical reception, with Metacritic and GameRankings aggregate scores just shy of 70% for all versions. Reviewers criticized the game for its lack of innovation over its predecessors, describing it as an "incremental advancement," "an old, whiffy GBA kids RPG," and "just too darn much like its predecessors." Reviewers often highlighted the reuse of aging art and sound assets from previous games, comparing them unfavorably with contemporary Game Boy Advance games.

Reviews weren't entirely unfavorable, especially when the topic of Battle Network 5 's predecessor was concerned. GameSpot, in particular, compared it favorably with Mega Man Battle Network 4.