Trying to complete the Mega Man Battle Network series

[q1w23er4]

I'm thinking of playing through the entire series, mainly on my Miyoo A30 on the shuttle bus after work from my Coupang job.
The order would be the DS remake of the first game, followed by the GBA versions of 2, 3, and 4, then the DS remake of 5. After that, I'll play the GBA version of 6 and the fan-hacked 7, and finally, I plan to complete the Mega Man Star Force series as well.
Would this order provide a good experience?

 

[Aziamuth]

I don't think there's a preference in version except for 1 and perhaps 5 (and even then I don't know how much better it is in comparison to the GBA version), so you should be good to go

On the topic of the first one, I found it a bit rough for my liking, but the basics are there so it's not a bad game

 

[qw90700]

I'm thinking of playing through the entire series, mainly on my Miyoo A30 on the shuttle bus after work from my Coupang job.
The order would be the DS remake of the first game, followed by the GBA versions of 2, 3, and 4, then the DS remake of 5. After that, I'll play the GBA version of 6 and the fan-hacked 7, and finally, I plan to complete the Mega Man Star Force series as well.
Would this order provide a good experience?

TBH the DS remake has content of post-Star Force series. Meaning after you finish Mega Man Battle Network series you play Star Force series and after that you kinda suppose to play DS remake of first Mega Man Battle Network game.

However this Star Force content is not forced, and safely to skip thing so in that context you can start from the DS remake just fine. But IDK how you can avoid this content without being spoiled or how you may realize it's Star Force content thing.

Another "however" is, even if you had played Star Force content that is about "last of the last" it really doesn't mean anything much to a person who barge enter from the DS remake but it's just a heads up.

 

[LillyGameFox]

if you wanna play all the game in like a Chronological order there is a little more to it!

01. Mega Man Battle Network (GBA or NDS)
02. Mega Man Network Transmission (GameCube Platformer)
03. Mega Man Battle Network 2
04. Mega Man Battle Network 3
05 . Mega Man Battle Network Battle Chip Challenge (GBA Spinoff game)
06. Mega Man Battle Network 4
07. Mega Man Battle Network 4.5 Real Operation (GBA Spinoff game Japanese exclusive but have fan translation i recommend the version that makes the battles like the mainline games)
08. Mega Man Battle Network 5 (GBA or NDS)
09. Mega Man Battle Network 6 (recommend the fan translation of these since the Official English versions removed content)

then there is also the Wonder Swan game called Mega Man Battle Network WS a Japanese only game but i don't see this as cannon since i believe it ties in to the anime

there are some Arcade games and some now i believe dead phone games as well but these are exclusive Japanese stuff and non cannon anyway.

then just do the Star Force in order.

 

[Zeo]

About the Battle Network remake with Star Force content, i could hardly call it anything special. The only stuff it will confuse are the cameo of the characters from that game and what they do

The plot is also very lazy and had little to do with the main Star Force plot (in fact, i always got the idea that it was meant to be after the final game)

Play the DS version with that in mind and later when you play the star force games everything will start to make some sense

Is also worth to mention tha the first Battle Network aged compared to rest and is way harder thanks to the limitations of being the first one of the series. And the DS didnt update the gameplay that much

 

[JG5009]

Everything said here is pretty spot-on, I wouldn't treat Star Force like something you must leave to the very end, it barely references things from BN aside from some detail or joke here and there, if anything, starting SF1 with the DX patch (It's just makes the game better, so much better) somewhere between BN2 and 3 could be pretty good since by then you would have the knowledge on folder building to make the jump effortlessly, playing both series in parallel can give you a nice break from either when you feel tired of one type of gameplay, because both series become a backtracking fest fairly often which can lead to quite strong burnouts (it happened to me many times).

 

[Kobu]

You don't need to play the first one. Really. It's incredibly bare-bones compared to what follows immediately after and as a result ends up feeling more like a concept of what they wanted to do in BN2. Look up the plot online if you really care about that and you'll be fine. But don't count on anything stellar or very consistent throughout the saga.

Battle Network 2 is where its at. Everything is better. The music, the chips, the dungeons, the battle system you name it.

 

[JG5009]

Also, I would recommend checking Shanghai.EXE if you can get the eventual chance, it's pretty much a full scale BN fangame but it has touhou inspired characters instead and it takes all the best mechanics from the 6 main games.

There's MMBN Chrono X as well, it's still in development (and it will take a good while before it gets completed) but there's a small demo out.