After playing the first three entries in the Mega Man Battle Network series, I was excited to see what could be done with the spin-off title Mega Man Battle Network: Battle Chip Challenge. The game takes the netbattle concept of the other titles and converts it over to what is basically a card-based battle system that shares much in common with the various collectable card games available today.

Players compose a deck of battle chips which are used to fight their opponent. After constructing and fine-tuning a deck, you enter the Battle Chip GP tournament. The tournament consists of many rounds of battles against other netbattlers. The deck is set up like a branching tree. A series of four chips is drawn from the tree every turn. The chip drawn from the first level of the tree will then determine which chips from the second level have a chance of being drawn and so on until the last level. These chips then execute in order from first to last drawn. There’s also the opportunity to “slot-in” one of two chips that can be used at any time, but each one can only be used once per battle.

To put it bluntly, the game is very boring. Apart from building a deck and buying new chips there isn’t actually anything to do. Once a battle begins, you are bombarded with an avalanche of text that dictates the course of the battle. Each turn, chips are drawn and the fight rages on. The turn ends and then the process repeats until one of the two battling Navis is dead. The process is almost completely automatic; the only input the user has is the ability to “slot-in” a chip at an opportune moment. It would have been much better if the player decided the order in which to play the four chips drawn every turn. At least then there would be some gameplay. I literally started the battles, hit B to turn on the fast-forward text, and then put my GBA SP on my desk. From there I watched the battle unfold while explaining to the other PGC writers how mind-numbing it was.

Mega Man Battle Network: Battle Chip Challenge comes off as a poor attempt at a card-based battle game. It feels like nothing more than a cheap attempt to cash-in on the very lucrative trading card game trend that is currently infecting today’s youth. However, I only played a preview version, so there is a chance that things could turn around for the final release.