After ~73 hours, I finally 100%& #39;d Battle Network 4! This absolutely has its share of issues like all BN games do, but overall I *really* liked this one. It might be my favorite out of 2-4 so far. Probably 4>2>>3 right now. Looking forward to 5!

I definitely understand why most people dislike having to do multiple playthroughs to 100%, but it honestly didn& #39;t bother me at all. All cutscenes are skippable, and if you have to redo scenarios you can pretty quickly breeze through if you remember it.

If you need 4-5 playthroughs to get all the souls, that is far less fun. I lucked out and only needed the minimum of 3. The damage/health balance in this is my biggest complaint. You feel *really* weak for most of the game, to the point where most enemies are just unkillable.

There are a lot of encounters that are simply never worth fighting (the sheep, for example). There are also a lot of encounters with MMBN1 syndrome where you either roll invis/barrier or escape on the first try or you are unavoidably dead. No chance of dodging.

The final boss is also easily the worst battle in the series. He floats and most of the chips target the ground or require traveling along the ground to do damage. In loop 1 he has 2000 health, and I was capable of hitting him for like 40 damage.

There are so many QoL improvements, a much more interesting, diverse, and effective chip pool even though there are like 100 fewer chips than BN2 or 3, a better style system and NaviCust system than BN3, and mostly interesting Navi fights. Really liked this game.