The Animation of Mega Man Battle Network

Well we might not be having Mega Man 12 or Mega Man X9 any time soon, unless either of those have been announced since I wrote this video. But Capcom seem to be very good at collating old releases and making collections, with the latest of these being the Mega Man Battle Network Collection. I’m gonna feel sick saying this but the first Battle Network game is now 22 years old. It’s been a while since my last video, so let’s dust off our glossary, fire up our old brains and study some video game a

nimation. The Mega Man Battle Network games, if you didn’t know, were tactical role playing video games for the GameBoy Advance, or most of them were anyway. Hardware limitations of the GBA meant sprites were likely split up and cleverly re-ordered to save space and memory. I have a very rudimentary understanding of this process, but if you want to know more, here’s some really good videos on the topic, links are below in the description. We’re gonna take a look at some of the animations in Batt

le Networks 1-6, how they worked and talk a little about animation fundamentals and pepper it with other tidbits. The animations we’re going to look at will mostly be Mega Man, but we’ll also look at bosses and enemies, and miscellaneous stuff like effects and NPCs. Because I’m a man of little free time, most of the footage I’m using will be from channels who have already captured this footage, with links of those channels in my description, because I don’t have time to play and record 6 ten hou

r games. So massive thanks to those channels. Okay so typically, a controllable video game character will be, at any one time, in 1 of three states: they’ll be in a loop, a link or a linear. Looping animations are things like an idle pose or running animation. A linear animation will play once and end, such as an attack or taking damage. And a transitional animation, or ‘linking’ animation are things like turning or connecting two animations, such as the last pose of an attack back into the idle

pose. You’ll commonly see a link animation play between linears and loops, and you’re more likely to see linking animations in games that use character rigs, where you have more control over ‘states’ of animation. Linking animations aren't as common in frame by frame animated games, cos it's a bit more work to make them look visually fluid, but they do show up occasionally. Jonathan Cooper, animation director on games like Assassin’s Creed, The Last of Us and Uncharted, wrote a book about video

game animation, and in it he posits a new, additional set of animation principles he calls the 5 fundamentals of video game animation. Within that, he talks about these types of animations we can find that contribute towards the “fluidity” of game animation, how smooth it all flows together. This is super common in loads of older games but the Battle Network games are good at doing a lot with a little, they’re good at finding elegant solutions, due to the restricted space available. Meaning tha

t you’re actually not likely to see many linking animations around. The fluidity is compromised for the sake of “game feel”, which is fine. You do see some, but I’ll talk about those later. Feel is how a game feels to control, like if it’s snappy or sluggish or something. Ideally you’ll want to minimise any interruptions or delay to player input, but we’ll come back to this. Okay so, usually you start each game in the "real" overworld, controlling Lan, a human boy. Much of a battle network game

happens on the internet, so there's actually not a lot really going on in the real overworld, in terms of animation. Lan can move in 8 directions. He can skate fast, and walk slow, with slightly different animations for both. There's some more twisting in the body while skating, for example. Though, only 5 directions will be designed, as 3 of them can be flipped. This obviously means that Lan’s design must be symmetrical in this case, so nothing looks weird when switching between left and right.

This is different to, say, The Minish Cap, where Link’s animations are asymmetrical but you only ever see him from 4 angles, so there’s more space to place unique animations. Also, we see Link from this viewpoint through the whole game, he attacks, navigates, speaks, performs unique actions all in these 4 angles, so there’s more room to be extravagant. There are a number of unique and polished linear animations which are saved for common actions and cut scenes, such as the "jacking in" animatio

n, which is slightly different in each game, and a handful of other moments for specific scenarios. These are always usually from the front, but might be at other angles. There's no animation for talking to people, as you tend to have separate close up facial animations when characters talk (which remain pretty much the same regardless of scenario), and there’s no animation for interacting with objects, mostly anyway. Other characters you interact with or are part of the story will have less mov

ement than Lan, such as only having 4 moving directions instead of 8. But they’ll mostly have 8 directions for talking to Lan, just not 8-way movement. There’s some environmental animation here and there, cars moving, flowing water, things to keep it looking lively and functional. Nice and simple. The most comprehensive animation is Lan’s movement, which is fine, you’ll spend most of your time in the real world doing this. All 6 games essentially use this same movement, aside from 4-6, which beg

in using smaller sprites to save a bit more space on the game cartridge, but the actions are essentially the same. Oh, by the way, I am literally just doing the 6 main games on the Gameboy Advance, so no 4.5, no battle chip challenge, no network transmission, and no operate shooting star. Sorry. I can’t be bothered. Whenever you "jack in", which is a retro futuristic way of saying "log on", and even that's a bit of a dated phrase in itself, you take control of MegaMan.EXE, your personal computer

program with a mind of its own, even though it can’t do much unless you tell it to. You teleport in in a sort of Tron style, a glow which dissipates after. This digital overworld behaves in the exact same way as the real overworld, so Mega Man can run or walk in 8 directions, and has a handful of bespoke actions tailored for certain situations, like taking this “battle ready” pose during scenarios, or this fist grab action for picking something up. And as I mentioned previously, the 4th, 5th an

d 6th games use new, smaller, more stylised sprites to save extra storage space on the game cartridge. So, because Pokémon and card collecting games were really popular at the time, the Battle Network games are tactical turn based card (or chip) collecting action games. This results in being pulled into a virus battle when running around on the internet and anything else you can "jack into". These net battles are where the animation is more detailed and comprehensive and where the games absolute

ly shine. Lots to look at here. MegaMan does lots of moving while in battle, but only when attacking. He is otherwise static when standing still, aside from blinking. This is to ensure that whenever you start an attack, it’s guaranteed you’ll start from the same place each time, as it can become unsightly to jump into the start of an action if you’re in a different pose. There’s no running around during battle. Instead, when you traverse the battle field, you have this blurry, shimmer effect as

you snap from tile to tile. It has this slight stretch aesthetic, which gives the move a kind of bouncy appeal. Enemies and bosses also have this, and it’s a stylistic way of keeping things from looking flat and dull. When you start a battle or when the round refreshes, you pick battle chips, giving you a number of different attacks. The great thing about this is that one action can cover a range of different attacks just by changing the type of gun mega man has on his arm, for example. I touche

d on this earlier, and this is what is referred to as “elegance” in game animation, it’s how much bang you get for your buck, how much you can do within the limitations you have. Your basic buster shot is just an arm pointing forward from this battle ready pose, popping back slightly with each bullet, and a nice muzzle flash cast of light. But if you take the buster off and put, say, a fan on the end, then you have a totally different attack, but the same basic action. And it’s not an entirely n

ew sprite, the base sprite is likely just the body and the arm, and it’s a matter of just swapping different hand sprites on top. The same with a lance or spear attack. It’s just the shooting animation, but this time it has a bow on the end, with its own little animation on top of what’s already there, just to add variety and texture. This method of one customisable animation for a range of attacks allows for loads of potential with relatively little work. Again, an elegant solution. For instanc

e, this throwing animation is used for loads of attacks, because Mega Man can throw a bomb or an orb that transforms into an object, a wave or a ratton for example, and the actual animation is just mega man with an empty hand, and the object is pasted on top of the animation. And what’s more is that you can alter how long each of these frames is held for to give a different feel to the attack. I like the slight raise of the foot here at the end, there’s a good feeling of weight here. Just to add

further clarity, throwing a bomb and throwing a ratton have slightly different ending frames. The ratton throw ends on a slightly lower pose compared to the bomb throw, with the leg kicking up higher and lasting a little bit longer. But the overall motion is generally the same, just with a slight clever tweak. The sword animation is cool, it’s a generic swipe that covers a range in front, but it’s the effect on top of the animation that determines whether it’s a wide attack or a long attack, a

fire attack, a water attack, it’s a simple and clever way of giving longevity to a resource. The pick axe is one of my favourites. It’s a risk reward attack, as the startup is a little slower, but the energy behind this pose and the follow through is just fab, just this little extra bit as he goes onto his tippy toes is just adorable. This animation is reused for the hammer, and is a little quicker. This slow build up is called anticipation and is a fundamental of all animation, but in game anim

ation it’s more directly linked to Feel, which I mentioned earlier. The longer an attack or action takes to happen once you’ve given the command, the greater the disconnect between player and game, especially if it’s unintentional. But when put to good use and done right, it gives the player a sense of satisfaction. This sort of forward thrust move is interesting as it covers a range of varied attacks, such as this orb conjuring into an elemental fist attack, a guts punch, and a dash move. Many

of these moves finish with this little realignment animation, as though readjusting after the attack, which is a linking animation after all. Resetting the end of the attack animation back to the idle pose. There are also a lot of attacks that simply dim the screen and the attack itself just plays without any movement from MegaMan. Some might have a shake or something, like FolderBack. Also some chips will take effect immediately, again with no animation from MegaMan, such as Invis or HealthUp.

Some games have chips like InVis be immediate, and some have them as screen dims. Debates on which is better or more effective? I’ll leave that to you. The HeavyStamp program advance from BN1 is interesting, it uses one frame from the throwing animation to form this attack that MegaMan does to the other side of the battle field, with another element on top, to give this unique looking animation. Really cool. GutsShoot is another interesting one, it has GutsMan pick MegaMan up and throw him, but

the first couple of frames actually use his hurt animation, and then uses the final frame of his punch animation. Just loads of ingenuity to reuse assets effectively. This is mostly how it goes throughout all 6 games. Battle network 6 has Mega Man in slightly more dynamic poses for certain animations, with better lines of action, but the same elegant tricks are in place to make things look awesome. Actually let’s just quickly chat about that pose. It’s quite good in that you can initiate a lot o

f attacks from this pose without it feeling awkward that he has to twist or move to get to those starting points, it’s kinda like this point in my Classic Mega Man Animation video in Mega Man 7, where if you shoot when you have the shield, you shoot with the closest arm to the viewer, meaning you get this awkward snapping that’s not very appealing. It works here however, all the attacks feel tight and smooth as they all start from this dynamic starting point. Even when you have a different form,

which brings me onto my next point: Style changes. These start in Battle network 2, and evolve into soul unisons and beast crosses as the games go on. They start as simple static poses with added armour segments, and when mega man performs any other action, it briefly switches to the original animations just recoloured. You can even see it when jumping around the battlefield, that slight shimmer effect when you move doesn’t disguise your original appearance. However, once we start getting more

complicated changes, like soul unisons, we start seeing shimmer animation of those as well. It would notice too much if you switched from Metal Mega Man back to basic Mega Man and back again. Even if this is still just pasting additional elements on top of a base MegaMan, which I suspect it isn’t, it’s still massively comprehensive. There’s lots of additions which essentially make this feel like an entirely fresh animation construction. This may be one reason why the overworld sprites were chang

ed in these later games to accommodate more space for more frames. That’s a theory anyway. Speaking of more space for frames, in battle network 6, as well as the cross system, using powers and appearances from other characters, you can also “beast out”, turning an already altered Mega Man into a further altered one. So you have a new base set of animations, and then if you’re already crossed, additions are made on top of your Beast Out, like flames or horns or something. Hefty, hefty stuff. Also

the beast out animation is hella cool, shaking the camera like crazy and giving off this really over the top purple fire with Mega Man silhouetted within. Great stuff. You still have that snappy responsiveness for those moves that need it, and it doesn’t feel unsightly to look at, those poses have been made just so. The limitations have created this tight visual language which prioritises the feel of the game. It’s just a wonderful display of clever programming, if anything. I think it’s safe t

o say that MegaMan looks and feels great in these games, thanks to the combination of great posing, great and varied timing, and use of effects on top to alter an animation. Also I just love Gyro Cross’s style and animations. Urgh! Love it. I think we should have a quick talk about bosses. Because there’s LOTS of them. There’s like at least 14 bosses in each game, with the most being 24 or something. The game’s battles are exciting and tense, you’re gonna want some cool looking characters, poses

and animation to reflect this. Because there are so many characters to animate, some bosses have fewer frames than others, but the way in which they’re used makes up for that. Let’s compare a couple of bosses from the first game. Let’s do FireMan.EXE and SharkMan.exe. FireMan is the first boss and part of the game’s first chapter. When he jumps around the field, he has these frames which build into and out of the shimmer effect, almost as if he is literally jumping around the field. His standin

g sprite is static but he has this confident straight back, with a fire on top of his head, looping over, and loops over in other actions as well. It’s probably a separate asset. He has some cute smear frames on these quick actions, as he builds up two types of flamethrower moves. These two moves aren’t the same frames, by the way. They’re slightly different. I thought it might be a cleverly split up and reordered frame, but….no, no, they’re entirely different poses. This move he does here could

’ve easily been re-used as his damage recoil animation, but that’s got unique frames, too. FireMan has got so much going on, he’s easily one of the more detailed bosses in the game, second only to perhaps GutsMan. There are a few others who have some jumping looking frames with their shimmer animation, and some others have recoil animations, but FireMan might be the one with the most unique frames. I guess it kinda makes sense. He’s the first boss and therefore needs to be on the easier side. He

’s glamorous and easy to read, showing us when he’s about to move, and when he’s about to build up and unleash an attack, which is called telegraphing. He’s a gorgeously animated boss. At the other end of this spectrum, we have SharkMan. SharkMan has 3 frames of animation. Well, when he’s above water, he has one static frame, and two teeny tiny, blink and you’ll miss them frames of him emerging from and submerging back into the water. However when he’s underwater, he has 2 additional decoys to h

ide with, resulting in 3 distinct shark fins that glide up and down and attack when they come in line with MegaMan. The fins themselves have 3 or 4 frames of this tiny wiggle, well sometimes they do. Sometimes they’re static, which I don’t understand. But when they attack, there’ll be this cool looking splash animation on top, which gives it a much more exciting feel than just the fins on their own. Generally the effects in this fight are what elevate it from feeling a bit too static and dull. I

n fact, the splashes themselves practically hide those two tiny frames he has when moving in and out of the water, makes me wonder why they didn’t just hide them altogether. But you fight him a little later and he’s meant to be a little tougher. Notice that the reduced frame count feeds nicely into the nearly absent telegraphing of his attacks. There’s near to no anticipation at all, which makes this an intentionally tough battle. StoneMan and ColourMan are two other bosses who have minimal fram

es, but are still given some form of life with clever use of movement. ColourMan for example has a tiny bob as he glides up and down his lane, and StoneMan’s arms are detached from his body and can slam down independently. If this is clever reordering of sprite parts, then you could maybe say StoneMan doesn’t have any unique animation at all, and is all just assets being mathematically moved around. DesertMan doesn’t move at all, though his hands glide up and down. Both the hands and his face ha

ve this flowing sand animation, with peppered bits of animation for damage and turning into wolves. PharaohMan has literally one unique frame, and hovers up and down his row, with no animation. Everything visual is left up to his coffins that release traps and attacks. I quite like DiveMan, he’s like a slightly more advanced SharkMan, hiding under water and only coming up to attack, but he’s got some nice strong poses with limited animation to get those attacks going, such as this big wave attac

k. Really pushed poses, love it. That’s another thing about all the bosses, they all have distinct personalities and traits. Some stand with straight confident backs, some have a kind of hunched, creepy look, some have a similar battle-ready pose to MegaMan, there’s usually some evidence of personality within their idle animations. This is generally the case across all 6 games, with some bosses having more unique and glamorous frames of animation than others, with less extravagant bosses being d

ecorated with effects. Which brings me onto my next point: enemies & effects. There’s lots of bosses, but there’s a poo load of enemies, and you can’t animate them all with lots of smooth uniquely crafted frames. But what you CAN do is texture and pattern these frames with other types of animation. A Mettaur is mostly still until it attacks, sending a wave across screen. Stronger ones hide in their helmet, but still static until then. If you got 3 mets, that’s a pretty uninteresting battle field

. This bird enemy (I don’t know enemy names, I refuse to learn) glides up and down different lanes, tilting as it does so, and then locking on and powering up its rocket when it’s aligned with MegaMan. This burner enemy has a looping animation of fire underneath, and opens its mouth to fire off an attack. All these enemies have varying amounts of animation, but they’re all slightly different, and when you have all these different enemies on a battle field together, combined with the often mesmer

ising background, then you get this really nice textured, varied appeal across the board, layering up different levels of animation until you get them all at once doing different things, and it feels alive. Add this into an interesting battlefield, like in Battle Network 2, and you get something really interesting at relatively little cost. It also helps that enemies all look really different, too. You can get a nice array of different silhouettes on the field, and this makes it easy to recognis

e what sort of attacks and difficulties you’ll face. The effects do a lot of work in the battle network games, for sure. Explosions and splashes and flames and electricity, it’s all really well thought out and efficient. Combining less extravagant characters with effects on top helps to keep things looking interesting and alive. In fact, I’d say the final bosses of each game make the most of this. The life virus is mostly static, just the occasional limb motion and the legs are redrawn, but it’s

mostly shields and effects. When I say limb motion, I mean even though this is moving, it hasn’t necessarily been redrawn into a different frame, it’s the same frame just moved into a different position. This is a quick and easy way to get across movement without redrawing the asset. Treble is mostly just the various parts moving, the only animated bit is the mouth, but most of the additional movement comes from it simulating other Navis throughout the game, which is clever I’d say. Alright, I

know its name’s not Treble, it’s Gospel. Like I said I don’t do names, alright? Alpha is, again, similar, in that it's mostly split up into various parts which float and move independently, with the shoulders having the most unique animation going on, really. Duo, the same. Mostly static with some floating assets that flip to another image if needed, mostly effects. Nebula actually has a bit going, there’s actual redrawn frame animation going on as well as general floaty limb movement, and lots

of cool effects as well. Gregar is the same as Gospel pretty much, but Falzar actually has a good few unique frames of animation with the wings and such here. Okay, I’m nearly done talking, but there’s one important thing I wanna bring up before moving onto stray thoughts. Everything in this game has a shadow. This is important, because it helps ground our characters into the environment, we have just that little bit of extra believability that they exist in their world. Other games have shadows

on their characters, like Link to the Past, or Secret of Mana, but for comparison some don’t, like Pokemon Leaf Green or Final Fantasy 3. Does that matter? I dunno. But I like it, I like that it’s a consideration, to help characters feel real and grounded, and that they exist. Alright, that’s mostly me done. I’ve used up all available spare time to research, write, record, edit, animate and produce this video, I’m done. Ahhhhhhhhwwwww f___k, I completely forgot you can actually take control of

Navis in the later games!! Uggggh, they all look really fab and awesome and I really wanna talk about how different they look and feel because they all need a quick buster attack which needs to read well and be responsive without looking disgusting and how they all have a different looking buster attack. Ahhh man that’ll just have to be another video or a YouTube Short or something…. Ugh, okay, some stray thoughts. Battle Network 5 originally had a turning animation, according to the Japanese tr

ailer, but this was ultimately removed. I like Protoman’s sword swipe in particular, nice and stylish and snappy. I like how Roll’s animation changes over the games, gaining more frames of movement. Personally I think Battle Network 2 has the most personality, with her raising her arms before leaving, nice and expressive. I like the fire in FireMan’s area in the first game. I like how FlashMan has a unique variant on moving across his side of the battlefield, kinda flipping in sideways. I like S

earchCross in the later games, Mega Man looks…..cool with it on? Also I like this bit of unique animation where Lan throws his PET at this guy. Just….ergh, such great humour these games have. Let’s see what viewers have to say. Ahuh, nice. Mm, interesting. Aha yes, nice one. Very good. Excellent responses! These games are huge so I can't cover everything, let me know in the comments if there's anything you enjoy that I didn't get to cover, or what your favourite animation is. Okay, I’m done. My

brain battery is like nearly at 10%, which is basically nothing. Thanks for watching, thanks to my patreon supporters for funding the episode, thanks to the other channels for having that footage I used, thanks to my postman for delivering Battle Network Legacy Collection on time, thanks to my girls for making me laugh and smile everyday, Thanks to my…Mum for…everything I suppose. Thanks to Ben for Netflix. Don’t forget to drink water. Be kind. Remember to get fresh air once in a while. Ooh I ne

ed to remember to fill in that form and return those shoes. They’re a bit too tight. Need to get the car in for its MOT. I’m hungry. Oh, loveyoubye!