It's perhaps a condemnation of this series that this is only among the worst-written BN games. Where previous games explored ways a near-future society could look and the cast of kids had fun interactions building narrative arcs, BN6 is just full shonen nonsense. Its writing rarely demonstrates any of the care or joy that I'm certain went into it, unlike the time-crunch panic constantly evident in its creative decisions. The story is an unrewarding slog and the side-content is actively nothing.

And yet, the fight mechanics are better than they've ever been. It reminds me of Quake II, actually - another game whose singleplayer experience was poor but kicked ass as a multiplayer game. Quake II was creatively barren where BN6 is rife with legitimately interesting ideas (Copybots! Playing as other Navis! alright that's it) that get maybe 30% of the way there. But they're both damn fun to play with others! Nearly two decades later and BN6 still has a competitive scene - one that survived the colossal lull where Capcom barely acknowledged the spinoff series' existence.

I can't recommend playing this unless you're a BN series diehard (in which case, you probably already have) or you're a sweaty tryhard with one or more friends playing alongside you and NetBattling you at every turn. Narratively, it's disappointing the series went out with a whimper - but the sterling fight mechanics keeping the MMBN legacy alive makes this a bittersweet entry.

Played on MMBN Legacy Collection live on [The Neon Caster's channel]