Trying something new for megaman was a good choice on Capcom's part.
The story varies because you actually have the option to play as 6 different characters! Lan, Mayl, Dex, Chaud, Kai, and Mary all get in on the action, so you can pick your favorite character to watch there own story unfold. There are two save slots, so you can save your best one and do another without overwriting. The main idea for each character is to win the Battle Chip GP tournament, a brand new contest for netbattlers the world over. A challenge for fame and glory at first, but afterwards there is another goal in mind.......
The gameplay is totally different (as said before) then what you are used to. The reason being that there's no fighting! Actually, there is, but you don't control it! The way this works is by building a battlechip deck of sorts. You start by entering a tournament. Once you've done that, you fight a certain amount of people and their navis one at a time. Every battle involves you fighting against another navi, so no random encounters or virus busting here! You start on a 3 square row, as well as your opponent. When the battle starts, a grid pops up onto the screen, showing 2 squares, connected to 3 squares, connected to 4 squares. You choose battlechips to fill those squares beforehand, but you have a certain storage capacity, so you have to pick the right battlechips for the situation. After the grid comes up, three are randomly chosen in order, and those are the chips that will be used automatically in turn-based order.
Each chip has its own health bar. When you attack with a battlechip, you damage your opponent, or both him and his battlechips. Once the chip's health is gone, that chip is unusable for the rest of the match, so use that to your advantage! You also have the option of two slot-in chips. Every turn, a bar on the bottom of the screen raises 5%. The closer it is to 100%, the better odds of you effectively using your special chips. These are chosen by you, so pick ones that will help you in a jam. There are many different chips with different abilities, so it's up to you to pick the best ones! Whoever's health drops to 0 first loses.
The graphics are good and the battling takes advantage of that, resulting in some nice visuals. The sound quality is good too, with some very catchy battle music. Replay value is great because there are many tournments and free battle areas, along with multiplayer battles if you link up.
Overall, this is a great strategy game that anyone could pick up. Some areas are harder than others, but it makes the game more challenging. Even though this game doesn't follow the traditional megaman battle network style, it shouldn't be pushed aside. I recommend this to everyone. Enjoy!