This series did not start out well. The first is arguably the worst of the 6 games (yeah there are 6!). It at least introduces the aspects that made the series good (although it isn't the first one I played). You play as Lan (bad pun, I know) with his net navi (navigator), Megaman. The first thing that I like about the series is the setting. It's set in the near(ish) future, keeping with Megaman fashion, it never pins down a year (ie 20XX). In this future the internet is accessed with net navigators, or navis and the internet is a place that you physically explore and you can fight viruses and other enemies. Lan lives in ACDC town (another bad pun) with his mother, father, and his friends; Dex, Mayl, and Yai. The objective of the game is to follow the plot and stop the evil Dr. Wily from launching the Life Virus which would shut down the entire internet (somehow). So the plot is pretty half assed.
What is interesting to note about this game in particular is that there was a manga (Megaman NT Warrior) that accompanied it. The manga is actually really good, I only own the first two issues and they cover the events of the first game and start into the second game. My only guess is it got discontinued because I've never been able to find it again. There was also a TV show that went alongside with the games but wasn't really in canon with them.
The gameplay is where it truly excels, it's a mix between action, strategy, and rpg (the latter will become apparent in later installments). The game opens with you in your house and your parents call you to fight off a virus that's in the fridge (I think). One other thing to note is that in this future EVERYTHING is run by computers and that relates to exploration which I'll get into later. You jack into the fridge, meaning you send Megaman in there) to fight the virus. There you meet the most basic enemies in the game, Metools/Mettaurs! Yep a classic Megaman enemy is in this game and there are many more to come. In the fight you're introduced to the controls. Every fight in the game takes place on a 3 by 6 grid. It is broken in half, a 3 by 3 area is yours (indicated by blue) and the other 3 by 3 area is the enemies (indicated by red). You get a menu with your selection of battlechips (weapons). You can select any chip of the same code for instance you can get a widesword C and a timebomb C. Or you can select two or more of the same chip. In battle you can move around your 3 by 3 area and use selected chips with the A button. You use your megabuster with the B button, it does crap damage but it is upgradable to do decent damage. Your objective in each battle you get in is to delete the enemy as fast as possible.
It's the 'as fast as possible' part where the fun comes in. There's something really satisfying about destroying enemies in less than a second. Depending on how fast you kill an enemy you get a ranking from 1 to S. Based on your ranking you might get a new battle chip. This is what I really like about the series. The basic premise of the Megaman series was beat the bad guy, take his power. This is the same thing taken to the nth degree. You can get battle chips from EVERY SINGLE ENEMY IN THE GAME, INCLUDING BOSSES (you can actually get 3 different ones from bosses).
The basic flow of the game is to run around following the plot. You can use the R button to jack into different places. This is the exploration part of the game, you never know what you can jack into. Sometimes it might be a TV, or in some instances a tree! The areas inside TV's and such are just large squares where you can encounter viruses (sometimes unique ones) and you can often find items. You can use the L button to talk to Megaman when in the real world so you never really get lost. Another high point of the game is the bosses. What this series does well is it takes bosses from the original series and reimagines them. In this game we have Fireman (Megaman 1), Iceman (Megaman 1), Colorman (original for this game I think), Stoneman (???), Elecman (Megman 1), Bombman (Megaman 1), Magicman (don't know), and Bass (various installments) for the villains. As far as people you can challenge to net battles (that's what they call it) we have Gutsman (Megaman 1), Skullman (Megaman 4), Woodman (Megman 2), Sharkman (original for this game I think), and Protoman/Blues (Megaman 3 and on). There are two secret bosses, Pharohman (Megaman 4) and Shadowman (Megman 3). A boss battle consists of dodging attacks, landing your own and depleting their hp before they kill you. Straightforward really.
I want to talk about the negative aspects of the game first, it's piss easy. Bosses barely have any hp and if you have strong enough attacks you can kill them before they have a chance to attack. Second, the area design is awful, absolutely horrendous. It's designed in such a way that there are no definitive areas, it all looks the same. There's no indication that you are going where you need to go, in other games if you pause it, it tells you that you're in Den Area 2 or whatever. Not this one. When I played through this game, I had to pull up a map online to figure out where I was going, you shouldn't have to do that! One other thing, when ever you get into a boss 'scenario', the part of the game where the boss shows up, you have to go into some computer and stop them or whatever, is awful. Fireman's scenario is okay and Stoneman is tolerable but once you get to Iceman, that's when it becomes unbearable. In other games when you get to the boss area, you go through 3 or 4, on rare occasions, 5 areas to get to the boss, following whatever the gimmick is. In this game, starting with Iceman, each boss area is 5-7 areas long. 5-7 long areas. Sometimes you have to go through more than once! The gimmicks usually consist of puzzles, for Fireman you have to put out fires with an ice program that has limited uses. For Iceman you have to slide on ice, melt it, and figure out where the hell you're supposed to go. For Colorman (I like this one) you go through various short areas flipping switches to turn on paths to get to the switch at the end. For Elecman (holds back rage) you explore vast areas trying to collect batteries to put in a certain order to light the path forward. Sound fun? It isn't. Of course that's the puzzle they reuse in the final area of the game. What really makes this game unenjoyable is how slow it feels. Especially if you use a navi chip (an attack you get from a boss) it takes a full 10-15 seconds to do the animation. This game is the worst installment in the series but it gets better, boy does it get better.
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