With Deck And Chips In Order, Let's Rock Man! (Mega Man - Battle Chip Challenge (GBA))

Member Name: scream4bruce

Product:	Mega Man - Battle Chip Challenge (GBA)
Date:	21/08/07 (88 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Solid card game with Mega Man, quality music, proceeding automatically

Disadvantages: Lack of tunes, considerable element of luck to battles, uninvolving

I had never played a battle card game before but seeing as this was a Mega Man game I decided to give it a shot. I believe MegaMan Battle Chip Challenge is more than an English port of Rockman EXE N1 Battle on the WonderSwan Color, because for starters there are characters which you can choose from to begin with, though in the grand scheme of things - that is collecting chips and competing in competitions - this is not too significant, and it is certainly not where the replay value of the game lies.

MegaMan Battle Chip Challenge is fairly easy to play as there's not much to it other than setting up a deck of chips, though the in-game tutorial should help. During a battle these chips are selected randomly, but in a manner such that this is much a game of probability. In keeping with the percentages game there are the wild cards - handily assigned to the shoulder buttons - of which you do choose when to play, but such is the lack of involvement that you can sit down to a cup of tea while you watch the action unfold.

As soon as I had figured out how to play the game, I never thought that I would play it beyond half an hour, especially seeing as there is a considerable element of luck to the battles. But, as with card games of this sort came that desire to collect the chips and build from it numerous winning decks. Luckily, wading through the numerous battles and dialogue had been made a pain-free process with a button pressed or held enough to allow matters to proceed automatically, though in contrast the graphical effects employed before a tournament match - even if it is a couple of seconds - seemed pointless and slowed things down slightly.

For the Mega Man fans, there are a number of details which might not seem right, such as Ice Man coming under the water element meaning that fire was not particularly effective against it. However the card game in itself is solid.

I wasn't familiar with the way the Mega Man characters have been rendered here, but they appear to be well drawn and the animation is decent enough. The music is also well done, but more tunes would not have gone amiss.

Despite this being a card game of sorts, there's no trading to be done but there are special chips which I am informed are for use in a related game. What I did get to do was pit my deck against those of other players both by link-up and by trading codes along with their setups (which you can do through the internet) which was cool - though make sure to come prepared when linking up!

There was one competition where because of the terrain the hit rate was so low that it drove me up the wall. However, this was the only downer for me as I went on to clock over 20 hours, much to my surprise. As there is not much outside of the card battling, this is only for those with any interest in the genre. Mega Man fans might want to give it a look, as this is not a bad game to spend a couple of hours with.

Summary: MegaMan Battle Chip Challenge for Game Boy Advance