https://shonumi.github.io/articles/art16.html

Wow, that brings back childhood memories.

> I should mention that I was a huge Battle Network fan growing up with the GBA. I joined my first online community (GameWinners.com) specifically for the Mega Man forum.

> My first username (Team Shadow V2) was actually a riff on one of the new features found in MMBN2.

> In a way, Battle Network is a huge reason why I'm here trying to preserve old games.

> The Battle Network games will always hold memories of joy and nostalgia for me, so I wanted to see the Battle Chip Gates fully emulated not only for the benefit of video game history, but also for my own enjoyment.

Me too... MMBN2 is a big reason why I learned English and became a programmer. Huge respect.

I still love it so much. It's fun to think back on it and reflect on how oddly prescient it was.

PCs reachable directly from the internet, hosting home pages: a world without NAT. Internet connected doghouses and dishwashers. Mobile handheld AI capable personal computers. Everyone has their own custom AI agents that help navigate the complexity of the cyberworld, and also for self-defense. What I can only assume to be vulnerabilities, reified as literal weapons used by the AIs. Underworld networks normal people don't dare to navigate into. Cyber terrorists everywhere doing things like trying to burn people's houses down by electronically sabotating ovens, causing major damage and loss of life by hacking water mains, power grids, traffic signals, trying to nuke dams, actually hacking entire nations and genociding their AI populations, disrupting global environmental control systems, hacking autopilot systems in planes to bring them down like 9/11...