It is finally happening. At long last, the beloved Mega Man Battle Network series is returning in a collection that contains all ten games that will be available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC through Steam.
The news came earlier this morning when Nintendo held yet another one of their Direct events, albeit a mini one. Fans over on the /r/BattleNetwork subreddit have long since been crying out for something new to come to the MMBN series with few remaining hopeful that a remaster or a collection would come to current hardware consoles. And now, they finally will get their wish when all ten games arrive next year.
- Mega Man Battle Network
- Mega Man Battle Network 2
- Mega Man Battle Network 3 Blue
- Mega Man Battle Network 3 White
- Mega Man Battle Network 4 Blue Moon
- Mega Man Battle Network 4 Red Sun
- Mega Man Battle Network 5 Team ProtoMan
- Mega Man Battle Network 5 Team Colonel
- Mega Man Battle Network 6 Cybeast Gregar
- Mega Man Battle Network 6 Cybeast Falzar
All 10 games will be coming in the Legacy Collection with only a handful of “new features” that consist of an art gallery complete with over 1,000 illustrations, music player with 188 songs, and the most noteworthy, a high-resolution filter option. However, if you watched the trailer, you can see that the “high-resolution” filter option does its job in smoothing out textures but it looks a bit… sloppy like a smudge. We were looking forward to any visual upgrades but after seeing it, we will probably leave that off.
The physical version of the game will be available only on Switch and PS4 while PC players will have only the option for digital through Valve’s Steam storefront. Players can also get a digital version on Switch and PS4 as well.
The one thing about the collection that I found to be confusing was that the trailer above mentions two different volumes for the collection. “Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 are only available separately in digital form!” I did not know what that meant exactly, and even the official Capcom USA page omits any details or reference to it. I had to search a little more thoroughly through Nintendo’s website to find out more and surprisingly, there was nothing on their homepage about the Collection so I actually had to use the search function to find out like some sort of peasant.
Apparently, the Legacy Collection Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 will divide the collection with four games in Vol.1 and the other six games in Vol. 2 for some odd reason but this only pertains to the digital form. Here is the odd breakdown of what you can expect in each digital Volume:
Digital Volume 1: (Store Page Here)
- Mega Man Battle Network
- Mega Man Battle Network 2
- Mega Man Battle Network 3 Blue
- Mega Man Battle Network 3 White
Digital Volume 2: (Store Page Here)
- Mega Man Battle Network 4 Red Sun
- Mega Man Battle Network 4 Blue Moon
- Mega Man Battle Network 5 Team Protoman
- Mega Man Battle Network 5 Team Colonel
- Mega Man Battle Network 6 Cybeast Gregar
- Mega Man Battle Network 6 Cybeast Falzar
As for the price, neither Capcom nor Nintendo has confirmed the cost for the Collection or the separate Volumes. What’s more, neither provided any specifics on a release date as they simply state a vague “2023” without mentioning any sort of quarter or season fans could expect as a release window. I get the feeling that Nintendo and Capcom really don’t care too much about this series and that really breaks my heart as I have come to love it SO much. And this collection of games could be the deciding factor for any future entries in the series.
The Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection is a significant entry in the series, and for good reason. The sixth and final entry in the series came out in 2005 in Japan and in 2006 in North America and we have not seen another entry sense. The game came to Wii U Virtual Console in 2016 but even still, fans have not been satisfied as they have wanted to see a new entry for some time and we suspect that any chance of that happening is solely based on how well sales go for the Legacy Collection. Personally, I hope it does well and for a show of support, will likely pick it up on Switch for the portability and on Steam for the potential for modding it out. I can already imagine just how insane that could be.
