Battle Network/Operate: Star Force

Part 1: 200 Years in the Future

Music: Theme of MegaMan Battle Network

As I mentioned in the preface, Battle Network 1 was kind of rough. So rather than playing the original GBA game, I'll be playing the DS game: Operate Shooting Star (or Operate: Star Force as the English patch is called). This game wasn't released in America because it sold poorly in Japan due to labeling itself as a crossover between Battle Network and its sequel series Star Force when it was really more of a (lazy) BN1 remake that happens to have a bonus scenario featuring Star Force cameos.

But let's not start out too negatively.

Are you ready, MegaMan?

...Yes!

Instead, let's start 200 years after this game has ended.

Music: WAXA HQ

This game features a prologue that takes place after the events of Mega Man Star Force 3, which is the last game in that series.

Am I going to cover the Star Force series? Maybe! We'll see how I feel down the line.

In any case, this part is a bit wordy because RPGs, so I'll cut down on it to save myself some time and energy.

T-Two hundred years!?

What's an Inderned? Is that a kind of food?

The kid with the glasses is Zack Temple. It feels a little sad introducing him first considering he's the least important character in the Star Force games. His role is to be the resident smart guy, but he's... not really that good at it, honestly.

The pudgy kid is Bud Bison. On the off chance I don't get around to the Star Force series, let me just assure you that there's more to his character than "Haha, chubby guy likes food."

Blondie here, Luna Platz, helpfully explains the internet to the both of them. I'll wait on touching that when we actually get to the setting of the main game. As for who Luna is, she is the class president of our group of characters. She's also incredibly tsundere for the main character because Japan eats that up with a spoon.

Personally, I could do without it.

When Zack expresses worry whether Mega Man, the kid in blue above (also known as Geo Stelar), can safely enter an archaic internet, Dr. Goodall, the glasses lady here, informs him that it'll be fine as long as he remains Wave Changed.

Mega Man, as you might expect, is the hero of the Star Force games. His actual name is Geo, and he's in 5th grade as of this point. Which is kind of weird, seeing as he was in 5th grade in Star Force 1 and Star Force 2 took place over the span of summer vacation.

Dr. Goodall, meanwhile, is a scientist who... aids him with some things in the third game, to put it simply. Let's just say that she's a life saver.

In order to become Mega Man, Geo merges with Omega-Xis (aka Mega) here in order to become an EM body. That allows him to travel on the EM wave road and enter electronics. Conveniently, this will work for heading into the internet as well. Mega is an alien from Planet AM who merges with Geo to unleash his full power. He also tends to have a different catchphrase in every game he's in, though his usual is "buck wild".

Mega suggests that he goes into the portal on his own to handle their situation, but Geo protests to that due to Mega not knowing what they're looking for.

And also because he's the more reasonable half of their fusion, while Mega is the more "smash everything" type.

Now that we're done with character introductions, Dr. Goodall explains that the portal into the past isn't exactly stable, but it's their only way to get to where "she" was taken. We'll meet "her" later. Assuming I don't quit on this Let's Play project before that point.

Despite the risk of being permanently stuck in the past, Geo decides that going to save "her" is worth it. Dr. Goodall tells him not to cause any time paradoxes and his friends tell him to come back or they'll be upset.

With that, Geo heads into the time portal, leaving the Star Force world behind.

Did you enjoy getting to meet those four characters that were talking with Geo? I hope so, because we never see them again.

Music: Boundless Network

Geo winds up inside of what players of BN1 will recognize as the internet. You will become intimately familiar with this backdrop over the course of this game. Painfully so.

Of more immediate concern is the fact that the portal has indeed disappeared. Mega thinks Geo is trying to quit early, but Geo says that he's totally pumped up and ready to do his best.

I'll save you...

Did you enjoy getting to meet these two?

I hope so, because we're not seeing them again until nearly the end of the game.

Part 2: Tutorials

We start the series off with what is going to become a familiar scene: someone (specifically this character) telling Lan to wake up so that he's not late for school.

Operate Shooting Star has new mugshots for the main protagonists, but reuses the old mugshots for everyone else. Which looks nice for the ones who got updated expressions, but it looks poor alongside the old ones. Why not just redo everyone? The Star Force cast is using their Star Force 3 mugshots, incidentally.

That little bit of trivia aside, a news report comes in about a terrorist group called the WWW, who are planning to take over the Net. I'm sure that'll have no bearing on our protagonist whatsoever.

Lan's father also sends some email mentioning that he was too busy from work to come home yesterday, and will be home tonight (Monday). This is also a recurring thing.

Music: In the Room

Our protagonist, Lan Hikari, finally wakes up. At this point, we can control him without any fanfare. Also worth noting is that OSS has an Auto-Run feature for Lan and MegaMan, whereas in other games you have to hold down the B button to get them to run. That definitely isn't going to trip me up.

You can immediately go to the corner shelf to pick up what will continue the plot...

or you can examine the room to get a bit of an idea as to what kind of character we're playing as. Lan's a bit of a slacker if you can't tell.

There aren't too many details to check, though, so eventually Lan picks up his PET, or PErsonal Terminal. Think of this as something of a really advanced smart phone.

Even if it looks really archaic by today's standards...

Lan greets MegaMan.EXE, who is now on the bottom screen (only in the DS version of this game, of course). MegaMan is his Net Navi, an AI that can travel through the internet for him and battle viruses. More on this later.

Lan and MegaMan also both have voice acted lines, ala the much less lazier remake of BN5. Geo, who has voice acting in two of his three games in Japanese (and Star Force 3 in English), also has some as well.

Anyway, a quick run down of what we can do now that we have Mega Man!

- Folder: The folder is what Mega Man uses for combat. More on that later when it's relevant. To give the quick of it, you can have 30 weapons (Battle Chips) in one folder, which determines what weapons you get to use in combat.
- Library: Basically a list of what Battle Chips you've acquired. There are quite a few and some were event exclusive, with those events no longer occuring. Fortunately, through the magic of Action Replay, I managed to acquire those for completion.

- MegaMan: Shows MegaMan's stats, which will of course increase over the game. The original BN1 had three armors you could also equip, but those have been done away with for the remake.

- E-Mail: Plot relevant messages, though some might also relate to sidequests.
- Items: Key Items.
- Network: Multiplayer.
- Save: You know good and well what this is.

Checking the apology email from Lan's dad, Yuichiro Hikari, yields a new Battle Chip. Neat.

Downstairs, Lan's mother, Haruka Hikari, is also glad to see her son is awake. She's also made breakfast for him to eat.

I'm assuming she also hid this down there for... some reason. Maybe it's her way of being cute and gifting him something? It's a Recover 10, incidentally, which restore 10 HP when used in battle.

Worth noting is that neither of Lan's parents have a new mugshot.

Not like Mayl Sakurai here, Lan's next door neighbor and childhood... friend? I'm not going to play coy: the fact that she has a new mugshot means that she's going to stick around as a friend of Lan's, but he doesn't seem to like her very much in Battle Network 1.

Granted, the series was just establishing itself at this point, so there's some oddity with how characters are portrayed here when viewed next to the rest of the series.

Like this moment, where MegaMan snarks about Mayl being a chatterbox to Lan, while the latter tells him to shush.

Music: Home Town

The two head to their school, ACDC Elementary, which is of course in ACDC Town. On the way, Mayl mentions that the WWW have probably been sending out viruses to cause people's ovens to shoot fire. As you will quickly learn, everything is online in Battle Network, even when it really shouldn't be. This includes ovens.

Also, somehow viruses can magically do things like cause ovens to shoot fire. Get used to that.

The pair soon reach the school, which isn't too far from their homes.

Music: School

In another example of how jarring the mugshots for regular characters is, this nameless NPC tells us that a character named Dex is looking for us

and sure enough, we find him in the back of the classroom. In all versions of the story, Dex Oyama at the start is basically summed up as "Wannabe tough guy who thinks he's great, but looks like a joke next to Lan". This will become more apparent with time.

Dex challenges Lan's MegaMan to a Net Battle with his GutsMan, but they're interrupted by the last of Lan's "friends"

Yai Ayanokoji. I... don't really remember her doing a lot in Battle Network 1, so uh... I guess the only thing I can say about her is that her forehead is shiny.

Dex gets grumpy about Yai being a snitch and also calls her a shrimp for good measure, which irritates her. Class starts, though, ruining Dex's plans for a Net Battle anyway.

I'm gonna go ahead and address this now, even though it's more of a Battle Network 2 plot point, but it seems like Net Battling (having your Navi fight someone else's Navi) is supposed to be a restricted thing, like heroics in My Hero Academia. I presume this is to cut down on net terrorism or possibly deleting someone's virus combating AI. In any case, at the start of Battle Network 2, Lan gets a license to Net Battle whenever he wants, so it never comes up again.

Lan's teacher is Ms. Mari, who starts class off with Virus Busting 101. Unless this is Lan's first day of school, this is kind of weird. You'd think they'd have had this lesson before. (Spoiler Alert: They're going to have this lesson at the start of every game.)

Dex boasts about how good he is at Net Battling and how he could even take on the WWW, but Yai isn't impressed. Ms. Mari interrupts their bickering and tells everyone to Jack In (the process of sending your Navi into the net).

This comes with its own little animation that will change in every game. OSS allows you to skip this animation, surprisingly.

Within the school network, class is in session, with the Navis arranged in desks that correspond to their operators' desks in the real world. That's cute. This is our first look at GutsMan, whom you can see somewhat in the center, as well as Mayl's Navi Roll, who is to the right of MegaMan.

Music: Operation!

We then get three combat tutorials against Mettaurs, which are the Battle Network version of Mettools. This series seems to have a lot in common with the Classic universe so far, huh? Well, just wait.

The 30 Chips you have are randomly generated and appear on the Custom Menu in a set of five. When you have a chip highlighted, the Custom Menu shows you what type of chip it is, its code, and its attack value. You can also check the chip's information to see how it works. All Chip Codes are also shown under each chip.

- Lesson #1: Chips that are the same type can be selected. Above, Lan has two Cannons, so he can pick both of those in one turn. Should you be unable to defeat the viruses with the Chips that you have, you can wait for the gauge at the top of the screen to refill. MegaMan isn't helpless during this time, though, as he has a buster that he can fire (or even Charge once he levels that stat). You can also run from random battles at the Custom Menu... in the DS version. In the original, you couldn't run from battles unless you had an Escape chip. Running does not work in mandatory fights or boss battles.

- Lesson #2: Chips come in multiple codes as you can see above with the A, L, N, and J codes. If multiple chips have the same code, you can select all that match that code. This is a good reason to build a folder with as few codes as possible. Typically, people build around one code, but two isn't a bad idea either.

- Lesson #3: If you need more chips, you can use the Add button to fill your Custom screen with an additional five chips for the next turn only. However, you can still only select five chips per turn.

OSS also adds a feature from later games: the * code. Think of it as a wild-card code that can be selected with any other code, allowing you to do something like select three C coded chips and one *.

After class, MegaMan suggests going home, but we can finally make good on that battle that Dex wanted.

Boss Fight: GutsMan

Poor GutsMan doesn't even get the actual boss theme at this point, being more of a mini-boss than anything. His attacks are very simple, too.

- Shockwave: GutsMan sends a slow shockwave down one row. This is literally the same attack that Mettaurs use.
- Guts Hammer: GutsMan cracks the panels on one of your rows. If you step on a cracked panel and then step off, it will break and remain unable to be stepped on for a while until it repairs.
- Guts Punch: If you stay in the column closest to GutsMan's, he will occasionally come to punch you in the face.

You get nothing after defeating GutsMan (this time) except the satisfaction of showing a 5th grader who's boss. After that, Lan decides to leave school for the day.

Or, at least, he will in the next update.

Part 4: Number Munchers

While we can go to sleep and immediately start the next scenario, I suppose it's not a bad idea to show off ACDC a little bit first.

As mentioned previously, Mayl lives in the pink house next to Lan's. Because she's a girl, you see.

While this isn't something that comes up for a number of scenarios, it's mentioned that Mayl's parents are not around very often due to being overseas for work. I assume this is the reason why she latched onto her next door neighbor so hard, especially since they go to the same school and all.

Mayl is inside her house at this point in the game. I don't think it's something that is ever brought up in dialogue, but Mayl is a piano player.

In fact, in this game her piano even functions as the host for her homepage for some reason. It's also full of ghost viruses, likely because they use Recovery chips when damaged. You can also find @Mayl there, though her link starts nearby Lan's, so it's not terribly helpful.

Upstairs, you can find Mayl's bedroom, which also has a MegaMan Legends plushie.

To the southwest of ACDC is Dex's house, which is next door to the Metroline Station.

Unlike Mayl's house, it's only one room. I also don't recall ever hearing anything about Dex's parents outside of maybe Battle Network 3, so I guess they also are overseas?

Dex keeps his homepage on his PC, sensibly enough. @Dex is also good for skipping to the end of Internet Area 1 early on, but it's overshadowed in usefulness compared to later links.

Finally, Yai's extravagant manor is to the northeast.

It's only one room, but that may change in future games. Yai's homepage is inside of a portrait of herself.

Don't ask me how that works.

At the end of scenarios, Lan can go home and go to sleep after inspecting his bed.

There is a transition several days ahead and we see a suspicious man outside of ACDC Elementary School.

But never mind that, because the next day Lan's late for school!

Inside of the lobby, MegaMan informs Lan that he has two emails: "NetCrime is on the rise" and "Yai called your name in homeroom, so you owe her one". Lan seems kind of grumpy about owing Yai a favor for some strange reason, but he continues on to class.

Compared to later games in the series, ACDC Elementary School is rather large, having a nurse's office, a section for the first graders, a supply closet, and a number of other screens. Later games typically trim the school down to only Lan's classroom, or at least only a few relevant rooms.

Amazingly, Lan manages to sneak into his desk without Ms. Mari noticing. Despite sitting at the front of classroom. And being directly in her field of view. Also, somehow Ms. Mari didn't notice Lan was late despite her classroom only having nine students.

I can't even blame internet weirdness for this one.

More importantly, it seems Ms. Mari has a new teaching assistant for the next two weeks: Mr. Higsby.

He is... a character.

There is a small break before class begins in which Dex complains that Higsby is a weirdo, which isn't incorrect. Yai, meanwhile, gives Lan a tip about Program Advances: a powerful super move created by putting together three or more specific chips in a specific order. In this case, she talks about how putting three Cannon chips together creates the Zeta Cannon PA.

Meanwhile, this girl seems to think that ACDC is due for another terrorist attack. But what are the odds of that happening?

Another NPC talks about how chalkboards are obsolete in the internet age, which is one of many prescient moments the Battle Network series tends to provide.

Higsby returns to teach class, explaining that Ms. Mari wasn't feeling well and went to the nurse's office. And so he begins study hall, having the class practice their math drills. He also jacks in his Navi while striking a disco pose, because why not?

Higsby excuses himself from the classroom and everyone goes about doing their math work.

However, something soon goes wrong and the blackboard begins flashing an error message.

It's the plot of Danganronpa 3!

A familiar face for Classic players begins spouting how the WWW will control the net and delete society. Usual bad guy stuff. Several people in the classroom begin to panic, and Mayl deduces the reason that NetCrime is on the rise is because they were exposed to the WWW's mind hack technology.

It seems to be a fairly sound theory.

In any case, the doors are locked, much like in the FireMan scenario, so the only choices are to succumb to brainwashing or to jack in and defeat the culprit.

Dex decides that it's up to him to get everyone out of this.

Well that was pointless. Fortunately, Dex has a backup of GutsMan's data so he's not gone forever.

You might be wondering: then why is it a Game Over when MegaMan is deleted? Well strap in, because that answer exists but we won't be getting there for a while yet.

Lan is initially hesitant to get involved, but eventually decides to give it a shot after prodding from his friends.

Mayl also decides to give Lan a chip that lets him summon Roll for an attack while in battle. This becomes a series tradition.

Music: Running through the Cyber World

You may notice that the area theme for this dungeon is a re-arrange of the title theme. Fitting for a moment where Lan has to save someone other than immediate family.

The layout of the dungeon also resembles the school. If you look closely, you may also notice this is where the tutorial scene took place.

Throughout the dungeon are a series of electronic doors. The first three correspond to details in the real world, but all after just become random two digit numbers from (01 - 99) with no hint. You get about six or seven tries to guess the number before it changes, though you do get a hint as to which digit is incorrect if one is right. The game also tells you which digit it is changing if you exhaust all of your chances, though that may have been an OSS addition, as I don't remember any such courtesy from the original.

Eventually Lan gets the door open, though the students are remaining her for... some reason.

If you talk to NPCs while checking on the hints, you'll see the other students aren't doing too well

or being too helpful. At least they're trying.

On the way towards the AV Room, MegaMan runs into a trap. A Mr. Prog you can speak to along the way tries to warn you about this, but even if you talk him up, there's no way to avoid it.

Lan is knocked over by a fleeing Higsby when he heads to the AV Room, but he manages to find the malfunctioning device and fix it, freeing MegaMan from the trap.

In order to proceed, though, MegaMan now needs the ID card of a faculty member.

Meanwhile, the brainwashing is getting worse.

As it turns out, Ms. Mari wasn't in the infirmary after all and was abducted by Higsby. I hope he planned that out well, because it seems really lucky for him that he wasn't spotted shoving her into a closet and tying her up by any of the other teachers in the building.

Ms. Mari hands over her ID Card, allowing Lan to use a card reader in the hallway (that Higsby didn't break!?) to deactivate the final door leading to his Navi: NumberMan. He is the first custom Navi to not have a Classic counterpart and was instead apparently based on bean sprouts. Alrighty.

Lan is disappointed with Higsby lack of scruples, and Higsby admits that initially he did feel bad to be taking advantage of others. But all of the rare chips he got for working with the WWW made up for it. Curiously enough, NumberMan seems horrified that Higsby felt bad about exploiting others.

Lan says terrorists are scrubs, though, and tells Higsby to square up, leading to the next boss.

Boss Fight: NumberMan

Unlike the previous two bosses, NumberMan prefers to sit in his back row. In fact, I don't think he ever moves at all. While this is very annoying/bad if you rely on close range weapons, it means you can beat him fairly handily if you typically use long-range attacks.

- Dice Bomb: NumberMan throws a Dice Bomb into the player's area. If it is not destroyed after a set time, it explodes, hitting MegaMan's whole field one column at a time.
- Number Ball: NumberMan sends three balls down all three rows. Each ball displays how much damage it will do and how much damage is required to destroy it.
- Time Bomb: NumberMan summons a Time Bomb. If it is not destroyed in time, it will hit MegaMan's whole field one column at a time.

After the battle, Lan bullies Higsby until he cries.

However, Higsby also decides to have a change of heart and become a good guy. And... that's all the game intends to do about punishing him! Even Lan points out that he should have to pay for his crimes!

Oh well...

Fortunately, Lan is able to shut down the brainwashing server in time. And I guess no one is long-term affected by it?

Lan congratulates MegaMan on a job well done, but

apparently classes aren't canceled just because terrorists attacked.

[canned laughter]

Part 6: The Iceman Cometh

Time skip!

Turns out stopping a few fires, some brainwashing, and a Metroline snafu wasn't enough to set the WWW back.

As a small bit of trivia, WWW is pronounced "World 3".

Back with Lan, he is again late for school. The patch for OSS has MegaMan correct him that it's Friday, but the original game has MegaMan state that he has weekend school. I'm assuming this is something that the original Japanese audience could relate to better.

Heading downstairs, we find that Haruka apparently didn't pay the water bill. Lan complains that he wants breakfast, but there's nothing that can be done about it.

Upon arriving at school, Lan discovers that the fountain has also dried up, making it clear that the water being shut off at his home wasn't just an isolated incident.

Yai also mentions that there's a missing child in another class, which she finds suspicious. What makes you think he isn't just sick or something?

During class, Dex and the other students complain that they have no water, and Ms. Mari notes that she's been having similar issues. Due to the uncertainty of when the situation will be fixed and the effect that it's having on the class, Ms. Mari decides to cancel class for the day.

Hmm... that's concerning.

Also, GutsMan V3 is able to be battled at this point, which feels very early.

GutsMan is also one of those few Navis that has chips other than his V1, V2, and V3 Navi Chips.

In the park, we find a Waterworks employee investigating. You can tell he's legit because he's a non-descript NPC.

Higsby has also opened up a chip shop nearby the school. Throughout the game his stock will change depending on which scenario you're on.

You can also have friendly rematches with NumberMan in a nearby machine. He's at V2 at present.

Higsby also has two Chip Traders. The red one gives you a random chip for three chips while the blue gives you a random chip for ten. Both of them gave me junk, so I don't know if they have better pools in later games or I just got unlucky here. You can cheese these in the original game, however, due to the fact that they don't save the game when used. Later games force save the game when you use the traders to get around this exploit.

I want to believe you've renounced your evil ways, Higsby, but I don't know if I can buy that if you decide to dabble in gacha!

Detective Yai discovers that the missing kid was abducted. I'm assuming she overheard something from his mother?

This is a mercy, actually. Soda would only make people thirstier.

Inside of the Waterworks lobby, we find this kid mulling over checking the building interior before he turns to snap at Lan and wanders off.

Nice guy.

As it turns out, he's actually an important character.

In what is perhaps the most genre savvy move in the (early) series, the police decided that the best way to catch criminals was to recruit a child to the police force. And, to his credit, Eugene Chaud is typically presented as the most competent member of the police.

Go figure!

To get around the building, Lan decides to lift his dad's ID. Up to this point, he'd been getting to his dad's lab because the receptionist was opening the elevator for him, but now he can come and go through both the SciLab and Waterworks elevators with ease.

Don't ask me why Lan's dad has access to the Waterworks area. You'd think they'd limit access to where it was appropriate.

Lan's dad also never asks for his ID back, so I assume he gets a replacement. But the government officials never deactivate the ID that Lan has, which is even weirder!

Heading inside, Lan speaks with Dr. Froid, who candidly tells Lan that there is a bug in the pump program that the Waterworks team is working to fix.

Nothing ominous about that.

As they return to the lobby, MegaMan reasons that something strange is happening. Why would the Officials, what I'm assuming are the equivalent of the FBI, come to investigate a small bug. He also points out the kidnapped child, which... obviously is going to be connected in the future, yes, but it has nothing to do with this right now.

MegaMan tells Lan to hide until everyone leaves and then do a bit of checking.

Good thing Dad is never around! Hahaha!

This is actually kind of sad.

After everyone leaves, Lan discovers that someone is staying behind in the Waterworks area!

He starts to jack in...

but he's caught by a woman with a custom sprite!

Lan decides to play the dumb kid card

and it works!

She even leaves without making sure that Lan left, allowing him to continue with what he was doing moments prior.

Music: Cold and Silent

Today's dungeon mechanic is ice physics. Ugh.

Occasionally, you also have to turn on a faucet of water to melt some ice so you can slide in a direction you couldn't previously.

Up ahead, MegaMan runs into a red Navi with a sword.

The red Navi takes offense to this and swipes at MegaMan.

As it turns out, this is ProtoMan.

You might've guessed that he's the Navi of the character that was just introduced.

As a fun bit of trivia, this seems like a good moment to talk about Navi Chip codes. Typically, a Navi's chip code relates to the first letter of their name. Roll is R code, GutsMan is G, FireMan is F, and so on. ProtoMan's code, however, is B rather than P. This is because his Japanese name is Blues.

There are a few other Navis in the series this holds true for, and I'll try and point them out as we go along.

Incidentally, there were a lot of Navis with names that started with S in BN1, resulting in the S code being very powerful. In order to prevent that imbalance, OSS changed some of those codes.

Nothing suspicious about an out of place clown.

The way past him has a broken faucet, preventing us from going that way. Heading down a different route, however,

leads to MegaMan being attacked by polar bears. Now this is more in line with a WWW virus.

Or, at least, I'd like to say that. Their HP is more impressive than the solo Mettaur, but their attack patterns are still shooting in a straight line.

Maybe next time.

Lan sends MegaMan a... thing...

which melts the ice on the water supply program.

Unfortunately, while the water is back, it's also not looking too clean.

That doesn't stop this guy from coming over and taking a drink though.

He then immediately dies.

Or maybe he just passed out. Either or.

Can... can they not see that it's purple?

Chaud says that Lan is a dummy who made the situation worse by not noticing that there were two bugs in the system. Presumably the WWW intended for this exact thing to happen: take away the water and then, when the water is resupplied, the restored water is tainted and undrinkable.

Pretty nasty.

Lan figures he should give this another shot.

Not a FireShot, mind you. That never shows up again in the series.

Yai decides to email Lan at this point to mention that the kidnapped kid was last seen in ACDC Town. And also happens to have the exact same name as the guy we talked to earlier at the Waterworks.

Lan complains about Yai not disclosing plot information sooner, and goes to search for Froid's son.

Apparently, the kidnappers just put him in a car, parked it next to Higsby's (AND THE SCHOOL GATE) and then just left. The door wasn't even locked.

He's not even tied up!

Lan then proceeds to get the handle for the broken faucet. I'm not sure why he has this, given the implication was that the WWW broke the faucet. Why would they give it to their hostage?

Froid's son also gives us this message to send his father instead of emailing him himself like Lan has been doing with his dad the whole game.

Why? Because we have an upcoming boss, that's why.

As a fun fact, the anime made Froid's son into a full on character named Tory. Tory is the operator of the upcoming boss in the anime universe.

I'm not even sure why I'm playing coy about who it is given his name is in the title of this update.

After repairing the faucet, MegaMan proceeds through the rest of the Waterworks since Froid isn't opening the door to have a conversation.

As it turns out, he might have been a bit occupied.

IceMan gets back up to fight ProtoMan, but Chaud suddenly gets mail from HQ.

How these WWW members get their ranks is never really expanded upon. But the concept of WWW ranks comes up again at least one more time.

As it turns out, the actual WWW member is after the Aqua Program and is using IceMan as a patsy while they make off with it. Chaud and ProtoMan head off to intercept them, and MegaMan tries to talk with IceMan.

Negotiations go poorly.

Boss Fight: IceMan

IceMan has some pretty simple attacks, but he's actually the first story boss since FireMan who doesn't just sit there and let you slap him in the face. Just try not to get hit by Freeze Bomb and he's not too bad.

- IceCube: When the player is too close, IceMan will sometimes create a block of ice in each row in the front column of his area. IceMan can also kick his iceblocks sending them at the enemy, leaving them in the back row if they miss.
- Freeze Bomb: IceMan will fire a glacier bomb in a cross patterm, centering at the opponent's panel that freezes on contact.

After the battle, Lan hands over the message to IceMan and Froid, and they finally decide to calm down.

IceMan then sucks the second bug off the Waterworks OS.

Meanwhile, ProtoMan realizes that the suspicious clown from earlier is actually a bad guy.

Unfortunately, ColorMan (another EXE original Navi) escapes along with his operator Ms. Madd. In Japanese his name was apparently ColoredMan, but that sounds dumber and is problematic for other reasons! As a result, he's one of the few Navis I don't use the original name for.

MegaMan and IceMan show up, much to Chaud's annoyance. Lan ignores his hostility and tries to get information out of him, but Chaud just jacks ProtoMan out and leaves.

Back in ACDC, Dr. Froid reunites with his son.

Lan seems a bit choked up by this, perhaps because he wishes he could spend more time with his own father.

But never mind that. We have terrorists and rivals to show up. Next time!

Part 8: Electric Slide

Back at the Hall of Doom, Mr. WWW isn't very happy with Madd bumbling around again.

He also has a strange stuttering problem for this scene. Not sure what that's about.

In any event, he tells Count Zap to "take down this town once and for all".

Now there's a smile only Colgate could love.

On a less goofy note, I do believe this is the first time we actually get the WWW leader's name in-game, so I can stop playing coy. Yes, this is Dr. Albert Wily as the head of the WWW/World 3. I'll have more to say about him later.

Time skip!

In the park in ACDC, Lan is hanging around complaining about how hungry he is. That seems to happen a lot more than I recall. In any event, MegaMan suggests that he go home seeing as a MegaMan Legends parody of The Brady Bunch is about to start.

Alright then.

However, before we can see what that entails, Lan's dad messages him to tell him that there's a party tonight at the Government Complex.

And he's *gasp* actually going to show up!

Seriously, Yuichiro is a great guy, but this game underused him so much that I was genuinely shocked that he is only making an appearance a few scenarios before the game ends.

By the way, we're almost at the end.

Lan and Haruka are, of course, invited to the party.

Dr. Froid has a WWW Pin for Lan if you visit him at the Waterworks, which lets you open the various skull doors that have been erected around the net.

There are also some NPCs around the world that will trade chips with you. This has nothing to do with the plot; I just like this image of this girl being so excited to trade chips with Lan that she asks to be his friend.

Yai also gives Lan 10,000 Zenny if you visit her in this scenario as thanks for the birthday gift. I'm not sure when we became friends, but it seems to have happened at some point over the course of things. I'm going to assume this is a case of Mayl and Yai being friends already and Lan being roped into buying her a birthday present paving the way for them to be something more than casual acquaintances.

In more important news, another friendly shopkeeper has shown up. This time it's Masa.

Boss Fight: SharkMan

SharkMan is a huge jerk. At V1 and V2 he's not so bad, but at V3 his attacks come out ridiculously fast to the point where he'll probably ruin your S-Rank if you aren't careful. Not helped by the fact that two the fins are invincible and have a habit of positioning themselves in front of him to block your attacks. At least you can still damage him while he's "underwater", though.

- Fin Cutter: SharkMan's main attack. SharkMan (or one of his two decoys) does a swift dash down one row.
- Aqua Tower: Same as ColorMan's.

@Masa is available inside of his cart and connects to Internet Area 3. Just like the last two we got.

I feel like these could have been spaced out better.

In any case, that was the last of the homepages, so I hope you enjoyed me talking about them.

Aside from SharkMan being available, both IceMan and WoodMan have hit their V3 forms.

I neglected to mention it earlier, but friendly bosses only battle you once in V1 and once in V2 unless mandated by the plot. Once they hit V3, they are able to be challenged freely whenever you like.

Anyway, it's party time.

Lan's mom is taking a while to get dressed, so Lan decides to go ahead.

Chaud is here, being as pleasant as ever. I bet he's just mad Lan was invited and he's here on business.

He wanders off, mumbling something about dumb kids, and Lan's father eventually shows up.

See, he does exist.

Lan's mother shows up shortly after in a new outfit. The family then heads downstairs to eat.

This is because the restaurant is apparently below sea level in order to facilitate the conflict for the next scenario provide a pleasant ambiance.

Battle Network!

In the dining hall, we have this scientist drooling over Lan's mother before realizing that she's the wife of the guy who probably signs his paychecks.

Woops!

Fortunately, Lan's dad is distracted with talking to his family about work.

The one time he's gotten to see his family this whole game after getting away from work and he still makes it about work.

Geez, man.

Dr. Hikari starts to explain that MegaMan is very special in a way unlike other Navis...

and suddenly he's paged and has to go.

Would it console you to know that other games are not nearly this bad about dangling time with his father in front of Lan's face and then yanking it away?

Anyway, somehow this guy managed to get into a government building without lifting any eyebrows.

Did I mention that the people in this universe are kind of stupid?

Count Zap says that he's hosting a "WWW Party of Death" and then has ElecMan kill the power.

Which will kill everyone else since the air has shut off.

This is why you don't make an underwater restaurant.

Count Zap inexplicably teleports out of the building... somehow. Or maybe he just hid in a corner somewhere with an oxygen tank and was banking on everyone else dying. Either seems plausible.

But it's okay, because Lan has night vision.

Lan jumps into a... trash chute apparently? to get to the Power Plant floor. Don't worry; that's not even close to the most dangerous thing he's going to do in this series.

Or this update.

Lan prepares to jack in, but a nearby scientist balks in horror, saying that jacking in now would be suicide. Because if he did, it'd drain the battery of Lan's PET quickly. And if that happens, then MegaMan can't fully heal after every battle!

The horror?

This seems like a good time to bring up that MegaMan fully regenerates his health after every battle in Battle Network 1.

Later games in the series do not do this due to features that will be mentioned when we get there. Suffice it to say, this normally would not be a big deal if you are used to later games.

Normally.

Worry for his mother prompts Lan to take the risk, and so Lan jacks into the terminal.

Music: Electrical Crisis

So, let's discuss all of the fun restrictions we have here, shall we?

- You can't jack out. Once you enter this dungeon, you can't leave until you defeat the boss.

- If the PET battery gets too low, MegaMan's HP does not restore to full after every battle. Unlike other games, there is no easy way to heal up after battles, meaning your best option is to throw a ton of Recover chips into your folder and pray you aren't immediately oneshot by a virus. In conjunction with the above, this means that you can potentially save your game into an unwinnable situation if your HP gets too low.

- The pathways ahead are invisible. Have fun trying to figure out where to go while you're on a time crunch.

Granted, that only holds true for the original. Operate Shooting Star gives you outlines of where there are paths. However, if you look at this picture, another problem becomes apparent. You might think that there are three paths here that you can walk on, but you'd be wrong. In actuality, there's only one path forward. The horizontal path is a road that's "above" where MegaMan is currently standing.

The only way you can really tell that is by looking at the colors on the bottom screen, but even then it's still disorienting.

- The puzzle for this dungeon is inserting batteries into a box and flipping a switch. Except the correct battery position is not always immediately clear. The only hint is "Don't place the batteries adjacent to one another.", but there's not even another battery here. Oh, and to make matters worse, in the original game you had to stop and recharge the battery every time you got it wrong.

And you also start getting significantly more boxes.

It may not surprise you to learn that I stopped my original playthrough of Battle Network 1 here.

After I killed the boss to vent my rage, but still.

On a different note, some of the Mr. Progs in this dungeon have been corrupted by ElecMan

and will actually try and fight! They lose 5 HP every second, though, due to being corrupted. Poor things.

Oh yeah, did I mention some puzzles expect you to not use all of the batteries that you're given?

For a small mercy, the game does throw you a bone if you completely run out of power.

The nearby scientist MacGuyvers a device to recharge your PET, giving you a bit of time to mash the B button before the device breaks.

Not sure if that's a one time save or if it happens every time. I didn't stick around long enough to find out!

The NPC in the hallway isn't doing too well.

But the generator seems to be active! I wonder if that ElecMan guy might be responsible for an improper flow of power.

ElecMan compliments MegaMan on reaching him, but states that he's already acquired the Elec Program. And with that, the WWW has all four. Oh no!

For some reason, MegaMan seems oblivious as to what the Elec Program is whereas earlier Lan seemed to intuit that the Aqua Program was similar to the Fire Program Mr. Match stole.

ElecMan is surprised that MegaMan isn't an Official, but decides it doesn't matter and decides to zap him.

"Boss Fight": ElecMan

ElecMan is more mobile than the last several bosses, an-

Oh, never mind. This is one of those unwinnable bosses.

ElecMan gloats that he can't be beaten as long as there's flowing electricity.

So Lan decides to subject himself to high voltage electricity in order to deactivate the generator.

Surprisingly enough, this is not the most outlandish thing that Lan survives in the series.

That would be in the next game.

Ahem. As I was saying.

Boss Fight: ElecMan

ElecMan is more mobile than the last several bosses, and he likes to lock MegaMan down with obstacles to boot. Ideally you'll hit him hard in order to cancel the attacks out, because he hits pretty hard if he can actually connect a blow with you!

- Sequence Bolt: ElecMan makes several panels flash a few times, then proceeds to hit those panels.
- Electric Boomer: ElecMan creates a ball of electricity between Tesla coils that hits MegaMan twice.

As it turns out, beating ElecMan did nothing to stop the impending plans of the WWW.

ProtoMan shows up and laments the fact that MegaMan deleted ElecMan before he could get the location of the WWW Server.

I think the point of luring people into a trap is not letting them actually get the thing you're luring them with...

Also, apparently they couldn't break the security on the device they'd set the trap inside of.

Keep in mind that I still have no intention of retracting my comment of Chaud being one of the more competent characters in this setting and realize what that means for this universe.

Rather than try and stop his blunder from having dangerous repercussions, Chaud decides to double down on being a jerk.

Did I mention that everyone is still suffocating?

Boss Fight: ProtoMan

I hope the dungeon and previous boss fight haven't worn your HP down too much! ProtoMan's fast, has good range, and also likes to counter your attacks by blocking with a shield occasionally. This also has nothing to do with the boss, but I'd like to point out that the designer of this dungeon actually apologized for this marathon of madness.

- Proto Shield: ProtoMan's basic defense.
- Step Sword: ProtoMan teleports in front of MegaMan and uses a Wide Sword attack.
- Fighter Sword: ProtoMan stands in the front row of his panels, and swings a Fighter Sword, hitting three panels ahead to the back row.

Well, Chaud has failed at every conceivable step of his plan, including deleting MegaMan out of spite.

Sucks to be him, I guess.

MegaMan points out that his being a civilian Navi is why he won. Because he has to rely upon Lan, they fight as a team as opposed to ProtoMan who fights alone. Chaud tells ProtoMan not to listen to their rubbish

but ProtoMan actually seems affected by MegaMan's words.

I bet you'll never guess which one of these two comes around to MegaMan and Lan a lot sooner than the other.

ProtoMan finally jacks out and Lan reactivates the generator.

Lan assures his mom that he was just fine, and also gets an email from Yuichiro, who is checking in on everyone. Apparently, he was oblivious to the true nature of the blackout, so I assume he was clear of the building when it happened.

At least, I hope he was. Kinda dickish if he's upstairs or something and can't come down to bother to check.

[canned laughter]

No seriously, this time the scenario actually ends that way.

Part 10: Shooting Star

Music: Shooting Star

Geo apologizes to Mayl for being unable to protect her Navi.

Which is interfering in the past, right? So why didn't he just explain what was happening to MegaMan instead of shooting at him?

Oh right: obligatory boss fight.

As it turns out, Mayl knows fully well that Geo was trying to help her. And she's been standing next to Lan this entire time.

So she just never bothered saying anything about Lan audibly talking about MegaMan chasing after a Navi that looks like himself. Even though Lan has to stay here in this house for the plot to progress.

Not only is this a lazy remake, it's a lazy crossover.

Geo decides to come clean after that nonsense and explains that he is from 200 years into the future. In his future, a Navi named ClockMan was created that has control over time.

How? Uhhh...

Anyway, ClockMan went rogue and kidnapped "her" before going back in time, prompting Geo to follow after.

There's also an explanation of the fact that Geo is a human fused with Omega-Xis to become MegaMan, which causes Lan and Mayl to freak out over Geo's arm talking and that being weird. Good thing they never saw his original appearance.

If I had any photoshopping skills, I'd have put Ven's head over Lan's here.

Worth noting is that Geo keeps calling Lan "Mr. Hikari" here. I'd assume it'd be something like "Hikari-san" in Japanese. Lan tells him to be cool and just use his first name.

As an aside, Lan's first name is Netto in Japanese, just in case you thought the puns were an English thing.

Lan opts to use Geo's name as well, asking if that's what his arm Navi called him earlier.

I never realized how much Lan was the Omega-Xis of the Battle Network games, but it seems so obvious now.

In any case, in order to free MegaMan from the time trap, Lan has to go find some Clock Data.

Clocks are kind of rare nowadays since everyone has a PET, and man I am really familiar with that scenario. It really is lame when you want to check the time in a public place, but your phone is dead.

Fortunately, Dex has a clock at his place, so off they go. For now, Geo decides to hide in Lan's PET since he wants to minimize the amount of people that know about him.

Lan and Geo proceed to break into Dex's house and ignore him before Geo goes into his clock.

Poor Dex.

While Geo is able to find the Clock Data, viruses have gotten hold of it.

Because of course.

But MegaMan is still frozen in time. Whatever shall we do?

Here's where the "Operate: Shooting Star/Star Force" part of the title comes in.

Omega-Xis figures they don't need Lan's help to beat some viruses, but Geo points out that MegaMan was able to beat them in a fight. Omega-Xis says that doesn't count since they were holding back, but relents on the matter. I'm assuming their Hunter-VG's Battle Card function isn't working right now due to the time travel or something.

Lan takes a bit of time to teach Geo how to properly initiate a battle in this timeline

and the fight begins!

Music: Ride On!

Kinda late for a tutorial, isn't it? I feel like this scenario would've benefited from being placed somewhere after NumberMan or StoneMan.

Geo plays differently in three ways, much like in his actual games.

- Geo's buster charges automatically rather than needing to be held down. If you do hold it down, it rapid fires. Omega-Xis explicitly points out that this is a better buster because it doesn't make you button mash until your finger hurts. Omega-Xis is great.
- Geo can use a Shield with the Y button to block attacks. There's a bit of a delay in movement afterwards, though, so there's a bit of risk.
- Geo can use the Mega Attack to lock onto enemies and attack them up close with short range weapons. If he gets hit, though, he's wide open for a short while afterwards.

Mega Attack!

After the battle, Omega-Xis complains some more about Lan continuing to refer to him as an arm Navi while Geo retrieves the Clock Data.

And wouldn't you know it, it's 3 PM. The exact time that MegaMan was frozen at.

Omega-Xis also sends an email to Lan recapping the tutorials in case you forget.

More importantly, it's back to saving MegaMan from being frozen in time.

Afterwards, MegaMan is caught up to speed on things. Geo laments that he wanted to prevent people from getting involved, but Omega-Xis points out he kinda messed up big time on that one.

Don't worry about it! Don't listen to your stupid arm Navi!
Grrrr! You! Don't call me an aaaaarrm!!
(But he's fine with the "stupid" part...)

Anyway, MegaMan still wants to save Roll because she's precious to him for... some reason. Again, I'm going to chalk this up to Lan and Mayl (and, by proxy, their Navis) getting closer down the line, as opposed to this game where we outright see MegaMan expressing annoyance at Mayl for being a chatterbox right at the start. They're clearly not too close!

At this point, we can choose to switch between the two MegaMen at will for the rest of the game.

You might be wondering what EXE has over SF considering that Geo has all of those fancy abilities. Mainly is that his buster does more damage. Geo's buster maxes out at about 30 damage charged while MegaMan's gets up to about 80 or more!

The way forward is blocked by two more clocks, so we need two more Clock Datas. MegaMan mentions seeing one while they were waiting for Mayl

and it's in Miyu's shop. SkullMan V3 is also available at this point, incidentally.

She also comments on seeing Geo during this scenario, interestingly enough.

Too bad this is the last time she shows up in the games. She was kind of interesting.

The last clock is at Lan's school. Also, here's what the bottom screen looks like now that Geo is around. It will look this way for the rest of the game.

After clearing out the last trap, we FINALLY get the name of the person Geo is here to save. Oh right, he mentioned her name at the end of the prologue.

It's Sonia Strumm, Geo's first friend. As it turns out, she can also Wave Change into Harp Note, the Roll analogue of the Star Force series.

ClockMan comments that he never expected Geo to follow him from 200 years into the future and that Geo "suuuuuure is stubborn".

Music: Boss Encounter

Meet ClockMan.

He's basically Hyde from Star Force, only replace "scripts" with "schedules". I guess that also makes him like Clock King from Batman the Animated Series, too.

I was never a fan of Hyde, so that should clue you in on my initial impression of this jerk.

Especially when he reveals his evil plan is collecting beautiful women and freezing them in time as part of his collection.

You do realize that Sonia is, like, 12 years old, right?

Even MegaMan is disgusted. ClockMan says that MegaMan can't appreciate the thoughts of a geniuuuuus like him (presumably an allusion to the fact that he was originally designed to be an EM Being named Clock Genius, which makes more sense than people making a time traveling Navi and not seeing the potential issues that might arise).

Mega says what we're all thinking.

ClockMan gives the usual "Blah blah blah, I'm going to delete you, blah blah blah, I'm so smart" speech and it's time to fight.

Boss Fight: ClockMan

Music: Wave Battle (V2)

ClockMan's a bit weird compared to other Navis in this game because he fights as if he's from later in the series. As has been apparent up to this point, most Navis in this game use blank fields and just throw attacks at MegaMan. ClockMan, however, has a large clock in the background that cannot be interacted with but is used in a number of his attacks.

I feel like a Battle Network 6 remake with a bonus Star Force scenario would've been a better use of him, but that would've required more effort than this game seemed to have been given.

- Clock Slicer: ClockMan throws small blades that move slowly in the floor.
- Clock Laser: When the clock in the background points to 3:00, he fires a laser from a Warp Hole.
- Calling Crimson: When the clock in the background points to 6:00, ClockMan summons the Crimson Dragon, the final boss of Star Force 3, to attack behind the player.
- Rogue Call: When the clock in the background points to 9:00, ClockMan summons Rogue, Geo's "rival", to attack three times with a sword slash. Interestingly, this is Star Force 2 Rogue given he doesn't have Laplace as his sword.
- Mega Clock Laser: When the clock in the background points to 12:00, it fires a giant laser from the background.

After the battle, ClockMan has been defeated. You'd think a guy with temporal powers would be more difficult to beat or at least use his powers smarter.

If he can summon the Crimson Dragon, why not just spam as many powerful abilities as possible until they die?

For that matter, why not rewind time whenever you take damage? There's a boss a few games down that has low-key temporal abilities and he can do that much.

After the battle, the MegaMen reunite with their kidnapped friends.

Harp Note also has a new mugshot for this game, curiously enough.

Sonia apologizes, saying she's always causing Geo trouble, but he says that's not true and things get a little mushy.

Also, apparently Geo/Sonia is canon.

Lan's a kid! And I'm not showing all of the dialogue, but Geo's pretty flustered by these insinuations, too, so I doubt their relationship is that much more advanced.

Then again, I guess Geo recognizes he likes being around Sonia, at least.

In any case, it's time to say goodbye to the Star Force cast. Geo and Sonia opt to take ClockMan's portal back to the future before it closes and they're stuck here.

Of course, they have no guarantee it'll take them back to their time.

Mega even teases Geo about it.

Fortunately, it is indeed connected to the future, just to remove any ambiguity from the situation. Wouldn't want people to think that Geo and Sonia got lost in time forever or something.

Before he leaves, though, Geo asks to become Brothers with Lan and MegaMan.

This is kind of amusing for reasons I'll mention later.

Seeing as their devices aren't compatible (and, spoiler alert, Lan will upgrade his PET a few more times over the series which breaks BrotherBands anyway), Geo decides to give Lan a program that lets him keep playing as him even after he goes back to the future. This also lets you view some silly conversations, much like a program in later games, by tapping Geo's mugshot on the bottom screen.

One conversation even reveals that Lan goes to school with a kid whose last name is Stelar, who is believed to be Geo's ancestor.

He also gives him a chip for himself. Incidentally, you also get a chip from beating ClockMan unlike other V1 Navis.

Both Geo and Sonia wave before heading into the wormhole.

Seeing Geo come back in time to save Sonia inspires Lan to do something about the WWW.

Which... he was already doing, right? I guess this is supposed to just be Lan deciding to be more proactive about stopping terrorists from now on.

After a dig at Chaud, MegaMan admits that he'll be right there to help Lan stop the WWW.

Well, obviously.

Part 11: Boom Boom Boom Boom

Oh right, plot was happening.

Wily celebrates his victory by... making doge memes, apparently?

Battle Network was very prescient.

Wily laughs himself to exhaustion, noting that he can make YOU-KNOW-WHAT with the Super Programs, and then delete the world.

I'm not really sure why he's being vague what it is while he's in the room by himself. And his goons already told us he's making something called the Life Virus.

In any case, Wily seems to be very happy that soon the world will be rid of millennials.

And he may have something of a grudge against Lan's family.

Speaking of Lan's family, Yuichiro mentions that Chaud has been hanging around SciLab and seems to be rather down. He suggests Lan come to see him and cheer him up.

They're friends, right?

Best friends.

For some reason, Yai is available to tell information about the Undernet at this point in the game. An NPC outside of Mayl's house will mention that this is something she tends to do often, curiously enough.

So what's the Undernet? Well, in the Japanese games it's referred to as the Ura Internet or the Reverse/Backwards Internet. This is because it's home to all manner of criminals and a series of black markets that sell items at exorbitant prices.

Naturally, Lan visits the place in every game, because why wouldn't he?

Also, this is a thing. For some reason.

SharkMan V3 is available to battle now as well. Have fun, because this is the most annoying version of him.

As it turns out, we just missed Chaud.

He's in the city harassing random people about being WWW agents due to trying to get into some deeper areas of the Undernet.

I think losing to Lan is really messing with his competency.

Upon seeing Lan, he gets mad at him and storms off with Lan wondering why he's such a jerk.

Anyway, if you visit the Undernet, you can indeed find that there are areas that are blocked off by the WWW, so we need to find some members in order to break those locks.

Talking to Higsby (while you're behind his counter, otherwise you trigger his shopkeeper dialogue) gets you one memo.

Given that he seemed to be a new member, he only is C-Rank. This is where I mentioned the ranks come back up.

Using Higsby's memo lets you open the WWW link in Internet Area 4.

Unfortunately, Wily isn't an idiot, so he bugged the access point with an actually tough virus battle. The blue guys (Hard Heads) lock you down by destroying your area, and then the FroShell bombs your remaining spaces with heavy artillery. Each of them also is heavily shielded, making it difficult to damage them until they're either attacking (Hard Heads) or have taken enough damage to their shield (FroShell). Attacks like Fighter Sword that hit multiple spaces or ranged attacks also get around FroShell's shield, though.

Higsby helpfully informs Lan that there are more levels of protection needed to reach the Undernet. It seems we need more keys to get in deeper.

Higsby is kind enough to direct us to a B-Rank member, but the other two have to be found.

As it turns out, Ms. Mari's sister was previously affiliated with the WWW. I probably should've held off on mentioning her being a villain in the anime until this point. She mentions that her being a twin is why she was able to become an A-Rank member, which makes me wonder about Ms. Mari being tied up in that closet. Was she meant to take the fall for the school attack? She would've been the only one who wasn't hypnotized.

This guy in ACDC also mentions that he was one of the original members of the WWW. We never find out exactly what his deal is, sadly, but he's got S-Rank access.

He mentions that despite Wily running things in a way he doesn't like, he used to be a nice guy. Maybe we'll find out more about that later.

ProtoMan V2 is also available to be fought in Dentown.

Making it through the Undernet, MegaMan comes across BombMan, who is protecting the path to the WWW Area.

Well, that's an understatement. Let's get rid of this guy so we can stop Wily.

Boss Fight: BombMan

I've heard that BombMan is supposed to have Area Grab and Iron Body, but I never saw him use either. Mainly he just stood in place and let me beat him down. So, basically, he's not too tough to beat. Honestly, I never even saw the Mine attack.

- Stealth Mine: BombMan sets a hidden mine in the opponent's area, and will set off if landed on.
- Bomb Fire: 3 bombs appear in front and both side panels besides BombMan and kicks them onto the opponent, exploding in a cross pattern causing heavy damage.

After the fight, though, BombMan reveals that he's actually a bomb

and somehow blows up the path behind him without damaging the platform he was actually on. Weird.

So Lan goes to see his dad. After a brief talk about Chaud, Lan shows him the WWW link that he got.

Lan gives the Timmy Turner answer.

Yuichiro is hesitant to send his son into someplace dangerous, so he tells him straight up that if all goes poorly, MegaMan could be deleted and Lan's actions could trigger a war. He asks if Lan understands.

When Lan says yes, he immediately acquiesces. Alright then.

Lan goes home to sleep, and so begins the final scenario.

Part 13: Hub

Oh boy. Who's ready for a big text dump?

As Lan accepts the batch file, he's contacted by his father.

Yuichiro says that if Lan uses the Hub.bat then he will save MegaMan, but he needs to tell him something important first.

And here we go.

"About 10 years ago, I was working on a new kind of Navi. A kind of Navi that could truly befriend its operator."

"But a program is only a program. Though I could make a Navi follow its operator's orders, I couldn't make one think and act on its own. So I started thinking... Maybe if you had some connection with your Navi... The Navi could respond to your emotions... and thereby create its own emotions... So I tried."

"Looking at human DNA I came to a conclusion. If I made a Navi with DNA just like its operator's its basic values and emotions would be the same. Operator and Navi would become a single entity! Making an ultimate Navi!"

"But, it was tough making a program with DNA...I could make about 95% of the program, but no more...I just couldn't figure out that last five percent! My research came to a sudden stop..."

"It was about this time that I had a son...A cute baby boy...We named him "Hub." But our happiness didn't last long...He had heart trouble and became too weak to live...So I thought...Somehow I will keep his memory alive. Lan, Hub was your twin brother."

"You were born from the same egg...your DNA is identical. I could use Hub's DNA to make a Navi for you...Suddenly, I had the DNA solution I had been searching for! The Navi I made...was MegaMan.EXE! And the results proved that I was right!"

"MegaMan.EXE is a new generation of Navi. As close to you as a brother...But there was a danger...If I made the DNA 100% the same...The Navi's internal and external state might synch with you. So damage to the Navi would also damage you, too! So I changed MegaMan.EXE's DNA by 0.001%. If you use Hub.bat, that 0.001% will disappear..."

Alright, so that was a lot of words for a twist that was foreshadowed very well for a good chunk of the game!

Basically Yuichiro turned his dying kid into a Navi so that he'd have a chance at life. Understandable, but I'm not sure if it's wholly ethical considering the dangers of the procedure and the nature of his existence as MegaMan. Not to mention the potential effect on Lan.

I asked Hub to keep it a secret. If you knew the truth, you'd be too scared to use him.

I mean there's kind of a good reason for that. Multiple, actually.

And a Navi that you can't use isn't a good Navi...

That comment's a little dehumanizing. And it's coming from the guy who made Navis more human!

Lan vacillates on this, worrying that he'll lose MegaMan in exchange for gaining Hub. This is actually an interesting concept given that MegaMan in the anime and manga based on this series is a straight up Navi that has no human DNA at all.

Yuichiro reminds Lan that with a 100% DNA sync, anything that affects one of them will affect the other as well.

We never really see anything that Lan goes through affect MegaMan, though.

And so Lan begins to apply the Hub.bat.

A flash of light affects MegaMan

and he awakens!

I don't really want to take away from this scene, but Roll has been standing here staring into space ever since she made this pathway. It's a little awkward.

Also, while MegaMan is powering up, Lan isn't going to become Super Lan. I think...

Kinda hard to upgrade from being able to get electrocuted by a generator and survive.

Hub laments that he never got the chance to be around as a brother for Lan, but that watching him grow up and be happy was an enjoyable experience in its own way.

Lan wonders if he should treat things any differently, but Hub says to just treat him as MegaMan and things will be fine.

After the cutscene, none of the Navis really react to the revelation.

Though, it is worth noting that Lan goes on to create the BrotherBand feature in the Star Force universe due to his bond with Hub. It's also why I prefer the game universe as the canon adaptation of the series given that the BrotherBand is simply a thing that exists in the anime and manga universes.

That's what I found so entertaining about Geo asking to be Brothers with Lan. He might very well have known that, too, given that there's a sidequest about it in Star Force 2.

Also, a Mr. Prog here points out that the game can't be saved after this point to avoid locking you into the final boss segment that starts with MagicMan. I don't think this was the case in the original game.

Oops!

Lan heads on ahead to the final room and finally confronts Dr. Wily.

A good question. Let's find out.

Time for another plot dump!

"...Me,and your grandfather, Dr. Hikari! I made robots,and Hikari specialized in networks. We were both lost in our research. Then, one day... In order to win an international competition, our country had to pick one of our projects to fund. After long debate... They canceled my robot research! I couldn't believe it! My research was vital! Vital! I had no place to turn to, and so I left the lab. That's why I'm mad! If it wasn't for Hikari...! So I made the WWW to get back at him! He made this world what it is, and now I'll destroy it!"

In case it's not obvious who Dr. Tadashi Hikari is by now, perhaps this helpful picture will better illustrate things.

Heya, Dr. Light.

Wily complains that Thomas Tadashi said this, too, but he doesn't care. He's gonna blow up the world and it's all because he didn't get a research grant.

Kind of a petty motive, but that's Wily, I suppose!

For this scenario, Hub Batch boosts buster power to 6, one more than maximum. I believe this let MegaMan's charged shot do 100 damage in the original game, but here's it's nerfed to 96 for a reason I'll get into momentarily.

Geo's leftover data also gets a boost from the Hub Batch. Why? Reasons. His charged shot only does 36 damage, though, so it's not as impressive.

The Rocket Computer is a straightforward path, though there are still some virus battles along the way, because of course there are. This will be a tradition in every final dungeon.

And so, the twins reach the end of the road. The only thing standing between Wily and global annihilation is the pair of them.

And so begins the final battle.

Final Boss: Life Virus

Music: VS. Life Virus

The Life Virus is... well... pathetic. As in "the buster damage from the original had to be nerfed because you could kill him with only that" pathetic. Not to mention that, in order to attack, it has to slowly charge up first and then attack. And it drops its barrier to attack you, too! The only real threat is its viruses, because it doesn't move at all.

Again, Prof. 9 from SomethingAwful came through here and made an actually challenging version of the boss, accessible via Action Replay. I believe it replaces ProtoMan V3 while active.

- Scuttles: Summon the virus species within four basic elements to attack player.
- Life Aura: Life Virus' basic defense. It allows it to repels all attacks under 100 damage and features self-regeneration.
- Laser: Fire a purple-ish laser forward.
- Sword: Slash a purple-ish sword in a 2x3 figure.
- Meteor: When its HP is nearly depleted, it throws a meteor that will collide and send shockwaves on all areas.

The Life Virus has been defeated.

Wily doesn't take this very well.

Oh, and the rocket is beginning to self-destruct, too.

This is a terrible day to be Wily.

Lan and Co. decide to get while the getting is good.

But Wily stays behind and is consumed in the explosion.

Battle Network 2

Part 1: Network Transmission

Music: Kaze wo Tsukinukete (Pierce Through the Wind)

Network Transmission is an interquel that takes place between the first two games in the series. Unlike the traditional Battle Network games, it is done in the style of a Classic MegaMan game. It seems rather neat, though it is typically remembered for having quite a bit of difficulty. It also uses the anime theme song linked above as the hero theme of the game, even in the American release.

Network Transmission features the return of multiple Navis from the previous game, including FireMan, ElecMan, and ColorMan, who have all been recreated. Aside from the latter, they are infected with the Zero Virus, though ColorMan is only goofing around in an arcade system and leaves after his fight with MegaMan. Given that MagicMan doesn't return, I assume this verifies my theory that he died in the explosion of the WWW Base.

New Navis introduced are: NeedleMan, BrightMan, QuickMan, SwordMan, GravityMan, StarMan, and another character mentioned in the plot summary below. Only two of these characters appear after this game, and only one has a major plot role.

Plot: One month after the defeat of the Life Virus, a new incident spreads through ACDC Town. A strange virus has been infecting Navis, causing them to run wild and attack indiscriminately. This "Zero Virus" is actually a ploy of a newly resurrected WWW, now spearheaded by a man named The Professor. Presumably an S-Rank WWW agent in Battle Network 1, The Professor distributes the Zero Virus through fake vaccines created from a viral entity: the eponymous Zero.

Zero was a virus created by Dr. Wily. While initially he didn't have sentience and spread his viruses as a means to gather information and brainwash Navis, time saw him gain a "soul" and become filled with regret for causing so much trouble. Despite that, he still fights MegaMan when confronted, if only to protect his own life.

While Lan and MegaMan defeat Zero, they feel sympathy for him, and Yuichiro aids him by modifying him into a Net Navi. (Unless you don't find a certain Key Item, in which case ProtoMan just deletes him because MegaMan can't bring himself to.) Heading to the Undernet, Lan and MegaMan confront the Professor's ultimate weapon: a recreated Life Virus. Again, it is defeated, and the Professor is incarcerated with the aid of Zero. (Or the Life Virus' deletion just deactivates his cloaking signal if Zero is gone.) Peace returns to Electopia once more.

At the same time, a Navi and his operator receive a missive from a shadowy organization...

Part 3: Life's a Gas

After the test, both GutsMan and Roll are nearby to speak to. They're both excited to have gotten their ZLicense, which is kind of cute, but it was just a scavenger hunt. Don't get too excited!

What IS exciting is that completing the ZLicense exam caused the Board Room to open up! Now we can see everyone's forum posts! Too bad MegaMan doesn't ever really use them.

Right now only two boards have anything substantial. The first is the Street Board.

And the other is the Chat Board.

Well, that was some neat worldbuilding. And now we know what this KotoSquare is tied to.

Seems like we've gotten a lot accomplished today!

Upon jacking out, however, we suddenly get a phone call.

Music: Suspicious Mood

It seems that Yai has been in the bath longer than is normal. Lan thinks it might just be her relaxing, but Glide says that Yai never takes long baths since she finds it bad for the skin. There's also something going wrong with the gas heater.

This sounds like a job for DenGas! I hope that guy isn't still looking for Yai's house...

Also, Glyde is spelled Glide in this game. I don't trust myself to keep using the y consistently, so I'll probably call him by this name until the next title.

Mayl and Dex decide to get involved as well in order to make sure everything is okay, and so the trio heads to Yai's place. Along the way, you might notice some NPCs have updated dialogue.

Of course, despite the fact that everyone can see that something strange is going on

and can smell an odor that suggests there may be some kind of gas leak, no one is going to contact the authorities about this!

Oh hey, here's the DenGas guy! Hiding behind these trees! That's kind of weird. He seems pretty happy, though, so I guess he's just taking care of the problem. Hopefully he'll be done soon!

Dex decides to go check on Yai given that there seems to be a gas leak. He doesn't want to endanger everyone, though, so he opts to go in first, saying he'll be back in five minutes.

Five minutes pass, however, and there's no sign of Dex.

Mayl waits outside while Lan heads in to see what has become of the two.

Upon heading inside, Lan is surprised to find that there is indeed a gas leak. Even though a kid farther away from the house could smell it.

Then again, Lan is apparently flunking everything not related to Net Battling, so this is about the intelligence we should expect from him.

In any case, he does have enough awareness to realize that there's some shenanigans going on when the door locks behind him, probably evoking some memories of the oven incident in the last game.

Fortunately, the PETs have a gas sensor screen that shows where the befouled air is most concentrated. This effectively serves as a blockade for now.

Mayl is getting worried, so she decides to send Lan a Roll chip.

With that placed in his folder, Lan heads to Yai's bathroom. Incidentally, this is the only time in the series we get to see the entrance hall of Yai's house, as well as her bathroom.

Music: Incident Occurrence!

Inside, Yai is buried under a giant cloud of gas.

Dex isn't faring much better. I'm assuming he might've panicked in the face of so much gas and tried to get some air from the ventilation, only to pass out. Or maybe it started spewing gas directly underneath him?

Either way, he's out cold for the moment.

This looks like a job for the internet!

Music: Smoky Field

Maybe you'd be able to tell if you opened your eyes!

MegaMan says the interior seems normal, but it's pretty clear something is wrong, as a nearby Mr. Prog explains.

Another also points out that Dex did manage to send GutsMan into the system before he passed out. Glide is here as well.

A third Mr. Prog bravely tries to solve the problem

to no avail. Mr. Prog, no!

Oh, never mind. Well, at the very least, he managed to demonstrate the gimmick of this dungeon. The valves will blow gas towards MegaMan that will push him down a side path if he doesn't manage to dodge it. Later in the dungeon, though, you'll need to get hit by the gas in order to cross gaps to other platforms.

Up ahead, GutsMan doesn't seem to know what happened to Dex and is panicking a little.

Fortunately, there's a ventilation system just across the gap that MegaMan fixes, allowing the vents to start blowing clean air once again.

Fortunately, Dex comes to almost immediately after the air around him cleans up. Given the Power Plant scenario in the last game, I'm just going to assume that every child in this universe can survive nonsensical amounts of punishment.

Dex figures that Lan has things in hand, so he decides to do something helpful and deactivate the bugged door lock. Not a bad idea, all things considered.

In Area 2, MegaMan runs into Glide, who mentions the gas flow ahead is a bit too strong. So MegaMan proceeds alone through the puzzle.

I had forgotten to mention this earlier, but there's a new type of item in this game called a BugFrag. What is this? Well, we'll find out later since there's nothing we can do with it now.

MegaMan deactivates the gas at an intersection, allowing him to proceed ahead.

Somewhat. There's still this plot gate blocking the way. Fortunately, it's not in front of the next ventilation system.

Unfortunately, the gas still isn't clearing. However, MegaMan reminds Lan that earlier this morning, Yai mentioned she had a collection of rare fans.

There's an option here to see if you remembered what Yai said, with one of the options being "I spoke to Yai today?". I wanted to choose that, but it seemed a bit too mean-spirited for the present situation.

Lan goes to look for the fan, stopping to admire a statue in the hallway. If you speak to Dex, he gives you a hint that Yai probably keeps the fan tucked away somewhere.

Fortunately, the gas cloud that was blocking the way to Yai's room earlier has disappeared.

It's not really hard to find either way.

While Lan is able to clear the gas blocking the way to the bath, the bath itself is still too heavy on the gas to get Yai free. There's also a weird line from MegaMan here that I think is supposed to say "You found Yai".

However, MegaMan has managed to get the last system exposed. All we have to do now is fix it and

Music: Pressure

Oh no, it's... Santa apparently?

After clearing one last easy puzzle, MegaMan reaches the culprit behind the attack.

As it turns out, the boss turns out to be AirMan, operated by the guy we saw earlier. We don't get his name here, but it's Arashi. I find it odd than they changed Netto and Saito to Lan and Hub (among other names), but then kept so many other clearly Japanese names for people and locations.

At any rate, Arashi's evil plan is to hold Yai for ransom. Not a terrible plan, but it's kind of hindered by the fact that we never see Yai's parents in-game. So I can't tell if he's already contacted them or he just got really excited to gas Yai. Either way, with how much gas Yai is currently under, this doesn't really seem to be conducive to giving her parents time to wire a transaction.

Lan and MegaMan aren't impressed by his hostage taking and the usual dialogue goes here. Battle routine set, execute, etc.

Boss Fight: AirMan

Music: Battle Spirit

What can I say about AirMan? He's the first boss, his basic attack is basically a Mettaur shockwave (get used to this being the case for the first boss), and there's not really a lot to say about him otherwise. He's got low HP and he's fairly easy to deal with. His only real notable trait is moving about three or four times before doing an attack.

Neat boss theme, though.

- Air Blast: AirMan fires an explosion that travels down the row.
- Triple Tornado: AirMan summons three tornadoes on all three rows. The tornadoes then travel down at different speeds, with a gap for the player to dodge them. The tornadoes also serve as shields for AirMan that block any shots sent towards them.
- Double Tornado: AirMan summons two tornadoes on the player's area, and these tornadoes will move towards the player's current location.

Arashi complains that his evil plan was ruined and flees for now, swearing to meet Lan again. With that, MegaMan deactivates the last of the gas, finally clearing up the air in Yai's house. Dex also succeeds at getting the door open.

Yay, teamwork.

Back in Yai's room, the girl in question finally comes to. Mayl explains how Lan risked his life to save her from the gas, and Yai is extremely grateful for Lan's heroism.

No, just kidding. She just accuses Lan of peeping at her unconscious body.

Good old Yai.

Mayl explains that Yai's modesty was preserved, though, as she was the one who got Yai out of the bath.

Haha, that's such a Yai thing to s- I'm sorry, what?

While Lan and his friends laugh over an 8-year-old talking about people missing out on seeing her naked body (Did I mention that BN2 was weird?), Arashi meanwhile takes a call at the Metroline.

It seems that Arashi might be tied to that group that we saw at the beginning. Or maybe DenGas is just really hardcore.

In a rather humorous exchange, Arashi's boss (who is symbolized by a shaded out NPC mugshot for some reason) tries to continually make tryhard threatening statements towards Arashi for his failure while he is wholly unimpressed.

This is why you never work for an edgelord.

Unfortunately, Arashi found this lesson out a bit too late.

And he happens to notice a nearby briefcase containing his severance package.

Needless to say, Arashi never meets Lan again.

Part 5: Dynamite with a Laser Beam

That night, while Lan sleeps, ProtoMan inspects the Den City BBS and finds the most heinous of criminal activity.

I am of course referring to shitposting.

As ProtoMan erases the message, Chaud wonders if Gospel could be related to "that secret file" before dismissing the idea. I'm sure it'll never come up again.

Unsurprisingly, Lan wakes up late for the camping trip. Dex sends an email threatening to go without Lan if he doesn't show up within 5 minutes.

Ms. Mari is wandering around town to speak to, though she won't be coming on the trip. Aw.

What kind of excuse is that, though? You could just change. And Mayl and Yai are also wearing skirts!

There's also this kid who might be a future villain down the line. He's actually just roleplaying cops and robbers with a friend.

Lan's friends don't have a whole lot to say, aside from this gem from Yai.

But soon everyone piles into a bus and heads out for their camping trip.

Music: At Okuden

Hooray, another new location! This one won't be visited too much over the game, though. You'll see why in a little bit.

Lan's friends all merge into his body to avoid having too many characters onscreen at once, and he heads north to find Chaud. Clearly here's here to follow up on that Gospel lead

but from Lan's perspective he's just being really tsundere suddenly.

In any case, Chaud is now a member of the camping crew for this segment. Checking the nearby bus stop reveals that there aren't often many buses to Okuden Valley. Fortunately, there's a Metroline nearby that will allow us to circumvent that little problem when we need to revisit later in the game.

There's also this lady selling lunches. I miss Sal!

A guy in a bandana screams loudly to show how excited he is about being in the great outdoors. I feel like there's a Hiker in a Pokemon game that does this. I want to say Generation IV?

Heading over to the campsite, we meet this guy. He is VERY SERIOUS about litter laws.

He is also standing next to a giant swarm of bees that we now have to deal with.

So now you have to wander around and press A in little corners in order to find what you need to move on. There are a few NPCs nearby who give some vague hints, at least, but it's something like "Someone threw away a newspaper and left it stuck to that tree" in an area with multiple trees.

This guy also gives you some vague hints.

By gathering together a discarded lighter, a newspaper about the Jumbos making a home run, and a stick, Lan is able to make a fire to chase away the bees. Hooray!

Nearby is a guardian statue that can be jacked into. It's actually designed to check the air quality of the valley.

It's not terribly important, but there is a Mr. Prog who suggests that the air in the area is getting befouled. It seems like people aren't really too mindful of casually polluting the area.

No wonder this guy is so serious.

At any rate, the party has no reason to loiter forward and begins to head over to ca

BEAR

The group collectively freaks out and decides to put off camping for now.

Or, at least, that's what I would do. In actuality, if you press the L button to ask MegaMan for advice, he says something to the effect of "Bears are bad, but we can't let them ruin our camping experience."

Good looking out, Hub.

Seeing as this is another pixel hunt, you're expected to wander around until you find these Binoculars behind the waterfall. There actually is an NPC who tells you about them being back here

except his dialogue changes when the bear shows up. Capcom, please.

At any rate, it turns out that the bear is... a fake! Dun nun!

Yes, instead of a real bear, it's actually a robot bear! This... doesn't make it less dangerous! If anything, that probably makes it MORE dangerous!

Regardless, Lan jacks in to handle the problem. Conveniently, the bear decides not to maul him for his insolence.

Inside of the bear is a Mr. Prog, who tells us how the bear was originally a mascot for a park before it was infected with a virus and began to maul people for their insolence, injuring many people.

And that virus is still here to this day because apparently no one ran diagnostics on it.

I forgot to get a picture of the viruses, so here's one from Miss Echelon's BN2 LP. These are Spikies, and they'll be a recurring enemy family in the series from now on. They're wolves that spit fireballs.

After the battle, the bear calms down and the group decides to move the bear so that passers-by won't be scared.

I'd say that they tried, but that's clearly a lie.

At camp, everyone prepares to make BBQ. Unfortunately, Dex needs firewood, Mayl needs another knife, and Yai wants fish.

Naturally, they expect Lan to take care of all of these problems.

Nearby, Ribitta has also arrived to do a report.

She may be a bit lost.

If you haven't beaten ToadMan yet, you can challenge her here. Otherwise, she'll just ask for a raincheck.

Ribitta's misfortune is our fortune, however, since she brought her van. Seeing as Lan is currently locked into Okuden Valley at present, Ribitta's van allows you to access Den Area's internet in the event you need any chips or upgrades in the event of a (hypothetical) terrorist attack.

I want to say the AirMan scenario might have been the same, but I don't think I've ever gotten the Yai Code sooner than post-AirMan, so I don't know.

This is the reason why Okuden isn't visited much, incidentally. There's no major internet area tied to this location.

Fortunately, there are three NPCs nearby who are able to help Lan with what his friends need.

There's also this guy, who prevents you from going to the next screen. In exchange for his insolence, though, he does give up a Bubbler Battle Chip, which is also dropped by the Shrimpies in Ribitta's van. I'll put a picture of them in the next update.

Someone also left a canteen here. Litterbugs!

Oddly enough, there's no water or liquid in it at all.

At any rate, Lan's friends celebrate their camping trip with some barbecue. Mayl wonders where Chaud got off to, but everyone else wants to start eating instead of looking for him, so they do.

Everyone is having a grand old time.

And then a bomb goes off.

Well, that sounds pretty bad.

And unfortunately there's no service out here, so we can't get any information from the Net.

The phone feature still works, though, and will be used momentarily.

Ribitta has updated dialogue now, and has a few other things to say as the scenario progresses. It's not really a lot of extra dialogue, but it is neat how they put in some effort here.

This guy is also pretty worried.

As are a few NPCs who try and get Lan to evacuate. Sorry folks, only preteens are qualified to deal with terrorists.

The screen that was blocked off originally by the Bubbler guy is now open, allowing Lan to find Chaud.

I wish I could get the blink animation to pause on funny lines like the SomethingAwful crew...

Chaud explains that last "nite" (Capcom, please.) he saw the post claiming there would be an attack at Okuden. And it's nice that he came to intercept the attacker and all, but you'd think he'd have some other Officials on standby for when things went down.

Anyway, Chaud wants Lan to find four detonation devices around the valley and deactivate them while he deals with the bombs.

As this nearby NPC explains, this entire sequence was setup just to justify even more pixel hunting. Yaaaay.

Chaud also sends us this email a short while later where he tells us to find the bombs... which is what he's doing.

Capcom, please.

The first detonator is a PET that has been discarded haphazardly. Lan and MegaMan jack in to handle the detonation program.

Music: Time Limit

Time for another easy dungeon.

After Chaud gives Lan instructions on how to disarm a detonator, of course. It's not like Lan is in bomb disposal.

So, there's supposed to be a gimmick here, related to the addresses on the floor. By following them you can figure out where you're supposed to go.

If you go the wrong way, the floor explodes. This has no negative effect on MegaMan at all.

Basically, this means that the gimmick of the dungeon is nonexistent, since you can't even use the pathways that blow up no matter what. The only real "danger" is that the pathways blow up on specific tiles. So, if I walk across the above pathway while going northeast, it'll blow up in front of me. But if I walk across it while going southwest, then it'll blow up behind me and I'll be cut off from where I came from.

Just blow up all of the fake paths to avoid any irritation. It's not hard at all and the puzzle is really vague and non-intuitive.

More play-by-play from Ribitta.

The second detonator is the canteen that the girl mentioned someone left behind. Starting with the second detonator, bombs will appear on the enemy's side of the field. This will hold true for this and the next detonator.

For the fourth detonator, the bombs tend to show up on MegaMan's side of the field. Additionally, these dungeons have a few Spikies as well as a totem-esque virus that can use fire attacks. Be mindful of where you lead them to attack!

This guy seems pretty worried about us.

And oddly excited about the bomb that's going to destroy the valley?

The third detonator is where the binoculars were.

At the end, Chaud calls to explain that the person who set this all up is probably holding the last detonator given that they're all short range devices.

In a shocking twist, this guy was actually the bomber.

Dave actually apologizes for deceiving Lan, surprisingly enough, but he claims that the reason he did all of this was to get revenge on people for sullying nature!

By... destroying nature.

It makes sense if you don't think about it.

Dave decides to spoil who his Navi is in advance, but allows Lan to jack into his PET to try and stop him if he's got the guts!

Lan does.

Incidentally, the moment you enter this detonator, you're locked in. I hope you're ready, because you're not leaving until you beat QuickMan.

But before we do that, let's turn back time a little and talk about Network Transmission. I already glossed over it a bit since I never played the game, but it's worth mentioning that MegaMan and QuickMan have actually met before.

Of course, the meeting is retroactive due to NT coming out two years after BN2's official release and thus has no bearing on any relationships established here, but it's not like there's anything to talk about in QuickMan's dungeon.

During the Zero Virus incident when Navis were going crazy, Mayl and Roll wound up in danger as they're wont to do. Lan sends MegaMan to save them from being trapped inside of a bank.

As will become apparent in a bit, QuickMan was a bit more manic than usual due to the Zero Virus.

MegaMan heads through QuickMan's stage, which is full of, you guessed it, frickin' laser beams. I guess this was to make up for BN2 not using any in his dungeon.

Needless to say, this game wouldn't be happening if Lan lost.

Also, I have no idea what he means by "I'm still not fast enough!" after he said he was the fastest earlier.

With QuickMan gone, Mayl is able to leave the bank, though she forgets to make her transaction due to all of the hectic happenings. Afterwards, Lan winds up getting an email. While there is no mugshot in NT to preserve continuity, we already know who he is now, so there's no point in hiding it.

Fittingly, the reward is a Fast Gauge, which reduces the amount of time needed to access the Custom Menu again, allowing you to select chips faster.

I'm assuming that QuickMan going out of control wasn't intended on Dave's part, but given what we know about him now, I doubt he was too torn up about it. If anything, it gave him an excuse to let QuickMan run wild while also being able to claim innocence.

We now return to our regularly scheduled terrorist bombing.

Dave says QuickMan should teach Lan and MegaMan a lesson since they're kids.

You know, I'm not sure, but I think this guy might be fast.

Boss Fight: QuickMan

When I was a kid, I remember being a little bad at MegaMan Battle Network right out the gate. I think I may have died on the tutorial virus battle once. And I think I also remember losing to AirMan once. I don't know, my memory might be wrong.

What I do remember is QuickMan walling me hard. For a good long while. To the point that I almost broke my GBA in frustration. I mentioned that ToadMan was tough for an early game boss, correct? Battle Network 2 likes to mix things up a bit from the first Battle Network by giving its bosses gimmicks. These range from mildly annoying to "Dear God why?".

QuickMan's gimmick?

Complete invulnerability when he's standing still.

Now, fortunately, he does become vulnerable to damage after he launches his attacks (as well as while he's moving, but, y'know... QuickMan), but that was a very very VERY nasty surprise for me when I was younger. If you have GutsMan's chip, using it on QuickMan will help narrow his field, making it likely he'll be restricted to just one panel until they repair which will make it easy for you to attack him. Otherwise, you'll just need to wait until he drops his guard!

- Quick Boomerang: QuickMan will fire a boomerang down the row. His V3 form can fire it in a figure-8 formation.
- Double Boomerang: QuickMan fires one boomerang down one row, then immediately teleports to another and does the same.
- Quick Slash: When QuickMan runs low on HP, he can move up to the player and slash in a Widesword-esque manner.

After the battle, QuickMan is shocked that he lost. But even though he has, he boasts that he's won because

his post-battle explosions are a touch more lethal than most people MegaMan deletes. Oops.

The screen fades to white as an explosion goes off...

only to clear revealing that nothing happened. Apparently, ProtoMan came in at the last second and deleted QuickMan.

Which... is supposed to set off the bomb, right?

I guess ProtoMan deleted QuickMan harder? I don't get it.

For that matter, how the hell did ProtoMan get here? This is the inside of Dave's PET, which should be unconnected to any networks.

Did Chaud just come over and jack into Dave's PET and no one said anything about it?

I guess my IQ isn't high enough to understand this scenario or Dave's keikaku.

Chaud throws some sick bantz at "Speedy Dave" and then uses his authority as an Official to arrest him.

I'd like to tell you that Dave doesn't set the standard of sensibility for the rest of Gospel, but that's only partially true.

After the battle, Ribitta interviews Lan and calls him a hero. While Lan protests that Chaud was the one who prevented the bombs from going off, he's long since departed with Dave and Ribitta points out that Lan was the one to defeat QuickMan anyway.

Ribitta then closes out with mention that the netmafia Gospel was behind this incident. A few NPCs around have mentioned that the netmafia has apparently been overseas before this point, so this is their first time publicly making waves in Electopia given that Yai was an isolated incident.

That said, I don't really know what the Yai incident had to do with Gospel's overall plans. Maybe they just needed some quick cash?

Back at the Hall of Doom, Mr. Leader laments the incompetence of his minions.

Well, they were just the bottom ranks, anyway. The world will soon know the true power of Gospel!
...Dark! Your time to "shine" has arrived at last!

Oh dear. We've reached the Mercenary Tao portion of Battle Network 2.

Part 7: Style for Miles

There's a bit of a time skip after the events of YumSquare.

The Officials are getting up to speed on what happened. They aren't too excited to hear about what's going on, that's for sure.

Interestingly enough, they're contacted via telegram. I'm assuming Gospel's aim wasn't just to destroy all of the head Navis, but to cripple their communications.

When it comes out that Gospel's next target is Electopia, Chaud leaves to make preparations. Yuichiro begins to create an Anti-Navi weapon to terminate ShadowMan while also having the Officials contact all of the City Netbattlers to be on standby.

Incidentally, this is NOT SciLab from the first game. Yuichiro just does consultant work here. That said, he does have a laboratory here that looks much like the one from the first game, so I imagine he's here rather frequently.

Yuichiro sends a message to Lan saying he won't be home for a while. Which was kind of a given since he hasn't even shown up before this point!

However, unlike the last game, we're actually going to meet him fairly early this time around and he's inviting us to visit him at the Official Center.

Haruka seems to be taking things better than in the last game, at least.

Yai suggests that Lan take this time to read a book instead of surfing the Net in order to avoid getting caught up in the inevitable struggle between Gospel and Electopia.

Mayl has been set back on taking her BLicense exam by recent events.

And Dex is available to challenge GutsMan V3. That was a quick upgrade. He's not quite as much of a pushover as in the last game, but he's still not too bad. I'll have a video for him later once he moves to the final dungeon.

I also took this time to beat down AirMan V2, who is hiding in a dead end in Den Area 1.

A number of NPCs at Marine Harbor are discussing how things at the Center seem a bit more dire than before due to the increased Official presence online.

Ribitta is also using ToadMan V2 now.

A number of NPCs who originally receptionists are now crowded around the wall panel that connects to the Square.

The Square is emptier than usual, which makes sense given what happened in Yumland.

This guy is still here, though, and is still great.

Official Navis are patrolling the Net at present due to being on high alert.

There's also a job available at this time that takes you to Yumland. A Heel Navi wants to pay you up front

so that he can rob you while your guard is down for chips to sell on the Black Market.

Needless to say, this doesn't end well for him.

Fortunately, the key he gave us is actually a very useful tool.

Back in Den Area 1, the construction zone has finally finished and can now be entered.

With Gate Key B, MegaMan can unlock the top left warp

creating a quick shortcut to Yum Square! This will be handy in a little bit.

The Officials also praise Lan for managing to foil the fake requester.

In his dad's lab, Lan speaks with Yuichiro about recent events.

Yuichiro tells Lan to let the Officials handle their job for now, as he has an important assignment for MegaMan as well. Due to ShadowMan's capabilities, Yuichiro thinks it would be best to prepare a power-up program for MegaMan on the off-chance that they're not up to snuff to handle them. So he wants Lan to find a Change.bat file.

Unfortunately, he also has no idea where to get one.

Fortunately, this is the internet age! Behold, one of the few message board posts MegaMan will make in the series.

To pass time while waiting for the answer, MegaMan goes around to speak with everyone that remains in the Square. That means talking to this guy again, and that's cool.

Mr. Prog is also ready for action!

After talking to everyone, the boards will have updated with the necessary information.

Fishy viruses like to fly at you in straight lines, but they can't go through obstacles, making Rock Cube good for avoiding them.

Thanks, Mr. Stark.

Mushies will be around soon. Dominerds not so much. Not that I'm sad about it. They're consistently one of the most annoying enemies in the series.

I believe this is the last time pen pals come up in this series. Kind of weird how everyone's pen pal seems to be from Yumland, huh?

As it turns out, the woman in question is married to the man who was talking about his Netopian wedding.

There's a bit of a series of fetch quests here where he has you take his wife a battery for her PET so she doesn't lose power in the mountains. She then directs you to visit a purple Normal Navi in Koto Square.

Incidentally, the NPCs in Okuden are mostly oblivious to what's going on online at present, featuring mostly kids who are camping or some elderly people who are out getting exercise.

On the way to Koto Square, there are Official Navis patrolling the area as well. However, the Navis here seem to be largely ignoring their warnings to jack out due to respecting the idea of free choice too much. Curious.

At least they have some good sentiment towards Electopia.

What a bunch of stand-up guys.

I forgot to show it, but here's what the shop room of Koto Square looks like.

The purple Navi here gives us a key to Yumland Square, informing us that the Change.bat is there. Go figure.

Going back to speak to the camper, she gifts Lan with Gate Key A. Handy!

People around ACDC don't seem too troubled by current ongoings.

And this guy brags about his wife a little. Cute!

Gate Key A unlocks the bottom right warp, which opens the locked warp in Den Square. Now we can warp straight to Yum Square from the Official Center by bouncing between teleporters.

Music: Vicinity of Sorrow

YumSquare now has a sad theme playing over it. And that song will persist for the rest of the game.

It also played briefly when meeting the pen pal last time.

Heading back to the room where said Navi was, MegaMan unlocks the door in the back.

And the Change.bat is ours!

Oh.

Well, that's unfortunate.

Since the Change.bat is kind of important, YumSquare is now on lockdown and MegaMan is unable to jack out without leaving the Square the way he entered.

This leads to a series of fights against some automated defenses that release viruses at MegaMan.

Bunny!

After escaping from the Square, MegaMan feels a little guilty about looting the place, but Lan says that it's kind of a necessary evil for the moment given what's going on.

They also intend to return it, so that's good.

Yuichiro even collaborates on that point.

Yuichiro finishes the new program and installs it into MegaMan, which seems to have no noticeable effect at first. Yuichiro says that the program will develop over time in response to MegaMan's experiences, however, so we'll see how that goes.

Speaking of experience...

It seems that the desk jockeys couldn't cut it. Too much time pushing pencils rusted their skills, I guess.

In the Square, which is now empty, MegaMan confronts a Heel Navi with bad grammar.

Said Heel Navi then sicks a virus on MegaMan in an attempt to get rid of him.

Strangely enough, this guy has the boss music despite just being a run of the mill virus. Granted, it's one we haven't seen before this point.

His gimmick is being immune to damage while the mask is on his face. After a while, the eyes on the mask open and it launches forward one panel. If MegaMan is on that panel, it'll smack him for damage; otherwise, it just begins to release poison in a 2x3 area. To ensure the poison takes effect, he will steal one of your columns so you can't hide in the back.

While the mask is off of his face, it repels most attacks from the front unless they have spread effects. Ranged attacks or attacks from the side are still effective, though. He's also weak to Fire due to being Wood element.

He didn't last long.

Yuichiro is still working on the Anti-Navi weapon, so Lan goes to handle the situation.

In the hallway, there's this waitress who laments that Electopia's central computer being attacked might mean bad things for her job since people won't be concerned about ordering lunches through her if things go bad.

I guess that's not wrong, but it seems like a very minor concern to have right now.

In the next room, Lan finds the Mother Computer.

It seems that ShadowMan has infiltrated the system and is locking everyone out with their own security.

The Officials decide to handle this problem themselves.

It's very anime. One of them even says that they'll have to use that.

They even shout their attack names!

You said it, Lan.

Since this would be a boring segment if there was no gameplay involved, the Officials accept Lan's help for the next area.

I'll hold off on the music for now, but post it next update.

So, the Mother Computer. The most important device in all of Electopia. The backbone of our Net Society.

Surely its security system is top notch, right?

ahahahahaha

I think ShadowMan is doing them a favor by dunking on their security.

Random battles are beginning to show up as their second versions a bit more often now, but this first battle was nothing problema-

Music: Style Change

Oh?

MegaMan begins to flicker,

before suddenly changing form!

You are seeing a phenomenon called a "style change".
Dad!?
Style change...!?

Navis automatically evolve to reflect this effectively.
This is called a "style change". The data format is...

This is an [Aqua] Navi style ideal for NaviChip combos.
This style starts with 7 chip options in the Custom menu.
Also, charged shots will turn into Water shots.
Careful, though, you take twice as much damage from [Elec]!

Well. Guess I've got to talk about Style Changes now.