Mega Man Battle Network 3, “Other” GBA Capcom Games Headed to Virtual Console

As “Mega May” marches on, Capcom is already looking towards revisiting more of the Blue Bomber’s pixeled past in the future.

Once again, the Australian Classification board for various forms of media has outed an otherwise unannounced game on their website. Was it an accident that they spoiled it, or do they just not care? The debate rages on. Nonetheless, both versions of the third title in the Mega Man Battle Network series, Mega Man Battle Network 3: White and Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue each received their own corresponding listings within the down-under digital domain (they’re both “G” for General, in case you were curious).

Naturally, this opens up numerous questions. For one, why the third game? What about the first and second? And sometimes games are rated almost seemingly for the sake of rating them, without an actual release forthcoming– could this randomness be the case?

We thought it might be, hence our reluctance to jump on this story right away. But as tipster luigiman1928 brought to our attention, there is more to the story as Capcom told IGN that “We are working on bringing this and other [Game Boy Advance] titles to the North American Virtual Console.”

Hey, the other Mega Man Battle Network games are Game Boy Advance titles– maybe they’re in the works as well? To say nothing of the Mega Man Zero series and Mega Man & Bass, of course. “We’ll have more information about the lineup in the coming months,” they added. Hey, E3 is in the coming months… but that’s just speculation.

Not forgetting about our friends around the globe who love the Blue Bomber, they note that “For Australia and Europe, we are still in discussions about the release of Virtual Console titles for those markets.” Given Australia is where the ratings were put on display for the world to see, one would hope so.

IGN also takes care to note that this is the first indication of third-party titles being released on Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance Virtual Console service for the Wii U: “The first month of handheld games on Nintendo’s home console has strictly been a first-party affair, though there was another Australian ratings board leak that possibly hints at Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow releasing on the service too.”

Worth further noting is that unlike previous iterations of the Virtual Console for Nintendo’s own systems, the Game Boy Advance Virtual Console was developed by the folks at M2, who had previously developed a Game Gear Virtual Console for Nintendo 3DS which is considered to have outshone Nintendo’s Game Boy equivalent on the same platform, as well as the more recent 3D Classics line of SEGA Genesis titles, which went above and beyond the call of a normal port. That said, it leaves one to wonder if they have any tricks up their sleeves to incorporate the Mega Man Battle Network series’ multiplayer or trading elements into this release. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely as other games with multiplayer features which have appeared on the service have nod shown such capability.

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