Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Falzar & Cybeast Gregar Review (Wii U eShop / GBA)

Mega Man Battle Network 5 changed a few things around for this series, but was mostly quite similar to its predecessor. Deciding to go for one last hurrah on the Game Boy Advance, Capcom created a sixth Battle Network game. Don't expect any big surprises though; it's still quite similar to its peers.

After spending the entire series in ACDC Town, Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Falzar / Gregar provides a bit of a twist - Lan, who is of course still the main character, is moving to a different location called Cyber City. Naturally it doesn't take long before a familiar face returns and starts causing problems, so Lan and MegaMan.exe once again have to thwart the villain's plans.

The general gist of the gameplay is still unchanged from before. Lan explores the real world to gather information, while his NetNavi MegaMan.exe can explore the virtual world and fight enemies. This final instalment once again mixes things up slightly, but doesn't make any groundbreaking changes.

Perhaps most importantly, the new liberation missions from the previous game didn't last very long, because they're nowhere to be seen this time. This is a bit of a shame, because they were a nice, relatively infrequent way to give players a bit of a change of pace.

However, one of the best things about these missions was the ability to play as certain other characters. This, thankfully, has been kept, although it's been reworked slightly - these so-called Link Navis will show up at certain points and become playable for a while, helping MegaMan.exe by removing obstacles and doing other things.

Most of the other changes are battle-related; these include small alterations to how chips work, but the biggest is probably the new "Beast Out" system. After a certain point in the games, MegaMan.exe will be able to transform into Beast MegaMan, giving him a variety of new abilities and attacks. This form is quite powerful, and as such can only be used in fights for a limited number of turns - if time runs out, MegaMan will revert to his normal form and become tired and weak.

Attempting to Beast Out again while tired will trigger "Beast Over", which will make MegaMan invincible and twice as strong for one turn, but with the major drawback of being completely uncontrollable - all his actions will be random. Naturally you must think very carefully if you want to trigger this or not, because if the battle doesn't end quickly and Beast Over runs out, MegaMan will be penalized even further with drastically reduced stats.

Another noteworthy change is that the Soul Unison system from Battle Network 4 and 5 has been replaced by the new Cross System, which allows MegaMan to transform and use abilities from other NetNavi. Each of these has a certain element, however, and should MegaMan take damage from an elemental attack he's weak against he'll instantly lose the transformation. These Crosses can also be combined with Beast Out for even more options.

This being the final Battle Network game and also a very late Game Boy Advance title, you can expect some pretty graphics and good music, although of course it's all mostly similar to the previous titles. Curiously enough, although there was a version of Battle Network 5 released for the DS, no such thing happened with Battle Network 6, so it remained a GBA-exclusive.

As before, there are two versions you can choose to download, each with some small differences. Mostly this comes down to the available NetNavi, with each version having 5 different ones; this also means there's different Crosses available in each. It doesn't really matter which one you get, so if you want to get a specific character you'd be wise to do a little bit of research before buying.