Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Version and Mega Man Battle Network 3: White Version are video games developed by Capcom for the Game Boy Advance (GBA) handheld game console. It is the third game in the Mega Man Battle Network series, released in 2002 in Japan and 2003 in North America. While in North America and Europe, two complementary versions of the game - Blue Version and White Version - exist, marketed simultaneously, this was not the case in Japan. The game was first released in a single version in this region. However, later a version containing bug fixes, new areas, optional bosses, and other improvements was released some months after the original. It was released on the Wii U's Virtual Console in Japan on December 17, 2014 and in North America on May 14, 2015.
Plot
The year is 200X. Doctor Wily has reformed the evil organization WWW (World Three) and now seeks to release Alpha, a prototype version of the Internet that went berserk after becoming corrupted by bugs and was locked away before the current Net was set up. To release it, Wily needs the passwords, referred to in-game as TetraCodes, to the firewalls Alpha is trapped behind, which are hidden in secret locations.
Meanwhile, a tournament called the N1 Grand Prix is being held, supposedly to determine who is the best NetBattler. It is later revealed to be part of the plan for Wily to steal the TetraCodes, and the WWW attacks between rounds.
Lan Hikari and his NetNavi, MegaMan.EXE, fight NetNavis sent by Wily to attempt to defend the TetraCodes from Wily. Still, he manages to retrieve them anyway with the help of Bass, and uses them to release Alpha. Lan and MegaMan confront Wily immediately after he releases Alpha, and battle Bass. After Bass is defeated, Wily reveals he manipulated Sean Obihiro into forming Gospel and creating the Bass copies as seen in the previous game's events. Alpha then consumes both of them and proceeds to infect the whole of the Net with its coding.
MegaMan battles Alpha, and is able to defeat it. As Alpha begins to delete, the network in the area begins to crash as Alpha attempts to absorb everything to save itself. Unfortunately, this includes MegaMan and Lan. In an attempt to allow Lan to escape, MegaMan overloads, sacrificing his life to save Lan. Later, Lan's father manages to recover MegaMan during a salvage operation of the affected network location, and is able to revive him.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Battle Network 3 is similar to that of its predecessors, with few graphical enhancements and minor gameplay changes. Battle Network 3 saw the removal of Power-Ups that were collected to improve the MegaBuster - instead the Navi Customizer was added, allowing abilities to be added on with certain rules as to how these abilities can be added with respect to each other.
Each version of the game has a separate Contest Navi: BowlMan for Blue/Black, and MistMan for White. Blue also includes another Navi, Punk, that could be challenged from time to time. Punk's chip was only available as part of a special promotion in Japan. However, it can be attained via a cheat device or by being traded from Black to Blue. White, on the other hand, has no such Navi.
In Battle Network 3 the virus breeder is available, where special, friendly viruses (that must be found first somewhere in the net) are kept and can be fed using BugFrags. When a virus is found and put in the breeder, a chip for that virus is obtained. Feeding each virus BugFrags levels up their chip accordingly. After a family of a certain type of virus has been fed to the max, they will release information to the player as to where the Omega Virus of that family (i.e. For the KillerEye family, they will give you a clue to find KillerEye Omega) can be found. After the Omega Virus of that family is found and deleted, it will join the others in the Virus Breeder and will be available when the corresponding Virus Chip is used. This is the only Battle Network game that features non-Navi Omega viruses.