New way to play MMBN with 21 different Navi's makes for a strangely addicting game, even IF you can't read japanese.
First off, Lan isn't in this game. YOU are the operator. The GBA (or DS) is the PErsonal Terminal. You slot in chips from the Advanced PET toy into the Battle Chip Gate (BCG) to send to your Net Navi.
This game is far more than merely a MMBN game. When you start the game, you set the year, month, day, and time. It will ask for your name, your gender, your age, and your profession (selected from a list of thigns ranging from kindergarten student to college student, company employee, housewife, and a couple others). Then you select your Navi. At first, only Mega Man (Rock Man), Roll, Guts Man, and Number Man are selectable. But you can unlock Fire Man, Wood Man, Wind Man, Search Man, Aqua Man, Thunder Man, Metal Man, Junk Man, and Proto Man (Blues) by winning certain tournaments within the game. You can, in addition to those, unlock other Net Navis by inserting their chips into the BCG at the Navi Selection screen. BCG unlockable Navis include Star Man (included with the package), Napalm Man, Ice Man, Elec Man, Plant Man, Knight Man, Shadow Man, and Bass (Forte).
Once you select your Navi, you're taken to the PET screen where your Navi introduces him or herself. If you hit Right on the D-pad you will go to the calender screen, where you can set alarms and reminders for just about anything, including TV shows, school, birthdays, and holidays. Hitting left will return you to the main screen. At the main screen hitting left will take you to the screen that shows your statistics, like zenny obtained. On the main screen you can choose Tournaments (not available all the time, depends on the day), Jack-In (Plug-In; let's you explore the cyber world), Equipment (lets you edit your in game chip folder and set your functions for your over ride buttons, L and R), Data Library (just like other MMBN games), E-Mail (complete with 2 inboxes, one for tournament e-mails and one for other e-mails), Communication (for link play), and Data (for saving).
Battle is done differently in this game than in other MMBN games. Your Navi moves itself according to 3 things: enemy attacks, chip attacks, and the distance guide line. When you enter a battle you are prompted to select a focus (which can be changed at any time during the fight by hitting up on the d-pad) and a distance from the enemies (can be changed at any time by hitting down on the d-pad). Your Navi will generally try to evade enemy attacks and will try to position itself to attack when you slot in a chip. If you give it a chip that it cannot get in range to use on an enemy it will use it on nothing (such as a sword on an enemy not at the front row). Some times when you slot in you will cause your Navi to get hit if you aren't careful. In order to send chips to your Navi you select the chip at the bottom of the screen (which you can shuffle by sacrificing 1/3 of your cust gauge). Regular class chips use up 1/3 the cust gauge, Mega class chips use up 2/3 the cust gauge, and Giga class chips use up the whole bar. Some chips don't use up anything, like Area Grab. In addition to all that, you can use your over ride buttons at any time (set in the Equipment menu). All Navis have a buster attack and most have a Charge or special attack and a shield type move to choose from. Using these can very well cause your Navi to get hit by an attack if you aren't careful. The buster will continuously fire until the Navi is hit or until you hit the button that activated it again or by using the other over ride button move, but the Navi will continue to evade like normal while firing. At any 'paused' screen you can hit L button to prompt to escape.
Tournaments become available according to the day of the week, participation in these becomes available as you play the game a little. When you choose Jack-In you get to explore the net, just like any MMBN game. Its complete with mystery datas, gates, other Navis and random virus battles. You can even talk to your Navi by hitting the L button, just like other MMBN games. And you can jack-out at any time by hitting R button. B button will allow you to dash while A button will examine things. Some Navis have special mystery datas (like star shaped ones for Star Man or heart shaped ones for Roll) to gain power ups. Every Navi has their own unique way to gain power ups.
I would like to go into more detail about the actual story but, I haven't played a whole lot, nor can I understand Japanese. But I will update this review when I have had a chance to play this game completely.