In some of my spare time, I write up and expand on a series of concepts for games I’ve been mulling over for quite some time. There’s about 90 of them so far, though a lot are just one line of text with the basic idea and nothing fleshed out, and a few seem like games only I would enjoy playing because nobody else has had any input on the ideas. One of the most recent ideas is one I discussed with Donut, a Megaman Battle Network MMO. I felt that the best way to go about a game like this would be with teams of up to four players, like Phantasy Star Online or Monster Hunter. That way, battles could still use the same grid-based combat as the GBA games.
NOTE: From here, the rest of the description is written in present tense to avoid confusion.
With more players, the battlefield gets bigger and more viruses will appear at once. The field is 8 x 4 (including both halves) for two players, and 10 x 5 for three or four. The Custom Gauge is shared by the entire team, so everyone selects chips at the same time. When it fills up, every party member has to confirm they want to open the custom screen, so it won’t open till everyone presses their menu key. For normal battles, you get 30 seconds to pick your chips. For boss battles, you get 60 seconds. If everyone finishes selecting chips before 30/60 seconds pass, you can confirm you’re ready to skip any remaining time and resume the battle.
Like in the GBA games, using a Navi chip (the ones that summon a Navi to perform one attack) will pause the action. All the players will leave the field until the attack ends, and your teammates can choose where they’ll reappear.
If you lose all your HP, you get deleted and can’t take part in the battle anymore. As long as one of your teammates is still alive, they can beat the rest of the enemies and win the battle. If you win, then any deleted players will be revived with a little of their HP. There are chips and Program Advances that will allow you to revive a deleted ally during the battle. Even if you get deleted but the rest of your team wins, you’ll still get loot (money and/or a chip).
It’s also possible to fuse with your teammates using TeamCross. You choose one of your allies to fuse with, adding their maximum HP and buster stats to yours, and taking on most or all of their Navi Customizer programs and other traits. Whoever you fused with isn’t able to enter the battle, but they can send you battle chips during each turn. While you’re on the custom screen, your fused ally can add battle chips to your screen for you to choose from, in addition to your own chips. Even when fused, both you and your fused ally still get loot from battles you win. With four players, you can have two fused with TeamCross. If you lose all of your HP while fused, you’ll revert to normal and your ally will reappear on the battlefield, but you’ll both only have a little of your HP.
To individualize your Navi’s appearance, you get to customize their look when you start the game. You can choose a body type and colors, design an emblem, and choose a head and face type. On top of that, there are equippable things like flashy parts and pieces of body armor. The earliest pieces of equipment only have visual effects, but as time goes on you can wear stuff with other benefits as well. There’s equippable things to buy, but with Zenny, NOT REAL MONEY.
Listed below are some possible new and changed battle chips, and Program Advances.
-GrabArea: Takes over the entire column, even in a 4 x 8 or 5 x 10 battlefield.
-ColumnOut: Whereas PanelOut3 just destroys the panel in front of you and the ones above and below it, this one wipes out the entire column, even in a bigger battlefield.
-Grabber: Equivalent to the Catcher chip from earlier games. In vs. netbattles you use it to remove your opponent’s chips. In virus battles you use it to damage a virus and have a chance of obtaining whatever kind of chip it can drop, in addition to the normal loot from the fight. Using it to kill a virus raises the chance of getting a chip. If you use it for a counter attack, it’s a guaranteed steal.
-SelfPrism: With this, you temporarily turn yourself into a mobile Prism. Any friendly attacks aimed towards you will split into three, covering the row ahead of you and the ones above and below.
-BackupData: Revive one deleted ally.
-Zeta/Omega Shockwave (PA): Requires three or five consecutive Shockwave/Shockwave2/Shockwave3. Makes you invincible for 5 or 10 seconds and lets you shoot infinite Shockwaves, up to three at a time.
-Resurrect (PA): Requires BackupData, Recov300 and Roll v3. Revives all deleted allies, restores the whole team to full HP and gives 5 seconds of invincibility.
So there’s your massively-multiplayer Megaman EXE.