At Nintendo’s Direct Mini, Capcom surprised fans the world over with the announcement of the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection. Fans had been hoping for this for quite some time, but there had been no sign that an announcement was inbound. It was definitely a welcome surprise, as this collection includes all ten of the Mega Man Battle Network classics.
From the first two numbered entries to each pair of Battle Network 3 (Blue and White), Battle Network 4 (Blue Moon and Red Sun), Battle Network 5 (Team Colonel and Team ProtoMan), and Battle Network 6 (Cybeast Gregar and Cybeast Falzar), Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection has them all. This will let fans play though each version if they so choose, but since these titles came out so long ago, many may be wondering about their differences. Each game is equal in terms of quality, but Team Colonel and Team ProtoMan have some differences
Team Colonel and ProtoMan Exclusive Content
Each game will feature minute differences like color differences and certain characters in certain locations, but the big difference in each Mega Man game comes down to the team structure, Soul Unions as a result, Giga Chips, and liberation missions. It’s also noteworthy that Team ProtoMan will come with a few more ranged attacks, while Team Colonel will have more short-ranged attacks. This impacts gameplay to some degree, but not a serious one.
In Team Colonel, players will have a team composed of Colonel, KnightMan, ShadowMan, TomahawkMan, NumberMan, and ToadMan, while Team ProtoMan obviously features ProtoMan, MagnetMan, GyroMan, NapalmMan, SearchMan, and Meddy. By sacrificing certain chips, Mega Man can perform Soul Unisons with these characters—obviously corresponding to those on his team. Furthermore, Liberation missions are strategic team missions where the whole team is at play, meaning that the team roster impacts the gameplay experience in many of these.
Team Colonel and Team ProtoMan also feature their own Giga Chips, which are the strongest individual moves in the game.
Team Colonel Giga Chips
- CrossDiv – Colonel hits enemies in an X pattern.
- MetrKnuk – Fists rain on random enemy panels and can crack them.
- BassAnly – Bass hits up to four times with Hell’s Rolling attack
- OmegaRkt – Alpha fires a rocket that explodes hitting all nearby targets in the enemy area
- BugCharg – Dark Mega Man fires G-Cannon
- Phoenix – Random field-wide meteor shower. Heals Mega Man some HP at the end of it.
Team ProtoMan Giga Chips
- DeltaRay – Hits enemy a total of 3 Hits with ProtoMan’s Delta Ray Edge attack.
- BigHook – Duo attacks a 3x3 area.
- Bass – Bass fires his buster at the enemy area, hitting each panel 8 times.
- HolyDrem – Time freezing attack that fires down each row for every holy panel.
- BugCurse – Dark Mega Man unleashes tons of bugs on the opponent.
- DethPhnx – Engulfs enemy field with flames then uses Navi Recycle
All in all, Team Colonel excels in some areas that ProtoMan does not (in terms of team composition and strategy), while Team ProtoMan does in other areas. Many fans may agree or disagree on which is better or which has better Giga Chips and so on, but the games are incredibly fun. There’s no going wrong when choosing between Team Colonel and Team ProtoMan.
Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection releases on PC, PS4, and Switch in 2023.