The Mega(man) Battle Network LP!

Shilly and the boss laugh.



Suddenly, Shilly jumps.




The scientist adds that whatever Shilly found better be good.






Because in the future, computers can predict the exact trajectory of objects from as far away as Pluto!







Shilly doesn’t have an answer.

Because apparently NAXA, a center of outer space research, doesn‘t have any asteroid experts of its own.



Shilly rushes off.




What, your super computer can detect and predict the trajectory of something 4.2 to 7.5 billion kilometers away, but it doesn’t give you a description of the object?

The scene changes to Lan’s room.



Seems in the weeks since BN3 Lan has broken his promise to wake himself up.




As you’ve probably noticed by now, BN4 has a significantly different art style (outside of battle anyways). This is probably one of the few good things the game has: BN1 to BN3’s sprite design was more detailed, but it didn’t really show differences in height very well. In BN4, you can clearly tell if someone is an adult or a child. Aside from that, BN4 to BN6’s backgrounds are much more colorful and detailed.



Either Megaman has suddenly exited his PET and moved downstairs, or this is another typo.



That’s… technically a legitimate way of saying you had a good rest, but it sure sounds weird.



Isn’t it Lan’s job to check the mail?



BN4 introduced another new PET, the Advanced PET. It’s probably the stupidest one of them all. Why? Look at it.



The operator is supposed to do his thing with only that small screen as his window into the Cyber World. BN1 and BN3’s PETs had large screens, and BN5 and BN6’s would produce holographic displays. BN4’s is just… yeah.



The menu is identical to BN3’s with only two differences. The first difference is that



The Key Items section no longer shows a picture of the item. The second difference will come up later.

Yuichiro and Haruka still haven’t gotten their names yet.




Apparently Blue Moon follows White version…?








I don’t think grabbing Haruka and slamming her into the stove’s port is going to help.

Lan’s spinning his PET open here.



Despite the fact that the Advanced PET does not have a jack (it uses infra-red light), Lan still shouts “Jack In!”. I guess “Beam In!” wasn’t as catchy.

Anyways, despite the fact we’re actually jacking into the stove (microwave is probably a translation error), for some reason you can do so from next to the refrigerator. Because of this, I thought the "microwave" was a part of the refrigerator for a very long time.



The return of the Jack In animation.






Really translators? Really?




The three Mettaurs turn to Megaman. Mr. Prog pleads for Megaman to help him.




Mandatory tutorial time!

Before that though,



Apparently the translators really think it’s viruses busting.



As you can see, the interface is largely the same, with only two differences: the removal of the Add button (no real loss) and the addition of the Emotion window. The game goes over the Emotion window pretty well, so just wait for that part of the tutorial.




The major difference between BN1 to BN3 and BN4 to BN6 is countering. While BN3 only let you do it with a finishing blow and awarded Bug Frags for it, BN4 lets Megaman counter at any time, paralyzing anyone he counters. Doing so allows him to enter Full Synchro (because apparently Hub Batch or Pulse Transmission aren’t needed now), which causes him to do double damage with his next chip and see when to counter enemies (they‘ll flash red while they‘re in the poses where they can be countered).

Full Synchro lasts until you use a chip (not counting Support chips of course) or until Megaman is hit. If you finish a battle in Full Synchro, you’ll start the next one in it.

Anyways, Full Synchro is very abusable.



Aside from that, the Mega Buster’s charge time has been significantly lowered. I’d compare BN4’s Charge 1 to BN3’s Charge 3.

Area Locking is no longer possible. Again, no real loss.












Yuichiro makes it sound like Full Synchro is an incredibly easy thing to reach, despite the fact that in BN3 Wily had to build a machine to get his operators to be able to do it.

Anyways, there’s two other emotions: Anger and Darkness. If Megaman takes over 300 damage in a short period of time, he’ll become angry and deal double damage with his next chip. Unlike Full Synchro though, Anger is temporary. As for Darkness, that‘s for later.

The program mopes that he won’t be able to heat anything.



Haruka wonders what should be done.



ON NO!




Somebody count how many typos there are in the prologue alone.











If you jack back into the stove and check the BMD there, you’ll get another 500 Z.



Lan’s PC is now much larger in size, for reasons that will eventually be explained.

ACDC 1 has a story-based locked door in it. So does pretty much every other Net area.



BN4 introduced one of the most abusable chips ever: Vulcan. These things do low damage, but they hit repeatedly, have no lag, and stun the enemy. Combined with Full Synchro and Attack +’s, they’re absurdly powerful.



Another new thing BN4 introduced was in-battle GMDs. These things have only 1 HP, but if they’re still alive at the end of the battle you’ll get an extra prize.



You can get either chips, zenny, or Bug Frags. Note that this is one of the only two ways in the games to get Bug Frags.



I shouldn’t need to explain this.

ACDC 1’s accessible BMD held a Mini Energy.







ACDC 2 can basically be summed up as locked.

ACDC 3’s accessible BMD held a Copy Damage *.




Yes, I’d like one Recovery Pat-



I… didn’t ask.



Well that’s good, but I doubt the 500 Z I’m spending is going to buy much.

This makes no sense at all. If we assume Zenny to be yen, this guy is basically saying $5 is expensive. If we assume Zenny to be dollars, we can pick up $300 from one random encounter.

In any case, I choose to buy the thing.











Lan celebrates while Haruka expresses surprise at Yuichiro’s speed.




With Yuichiro’s money. Maybe.





Lan’s stomach growls.

Haruka smiles that Lan and Yuichiro have done their parts, now it’s her time to shine.






Lan confirms and walks over to the door. Yuichiro follows.



Next time: “There’s so many electrical store!” Also, plot.

Current Folder

Cannon A x2
Cannon B x2
Air Shot A x3
Vulcan 1 V x3
Mini Bomb B x2
Mini Bomb L x2
Sword S x4
Wide Sword S x2
Crack Out * x3
Recover 10 A x2
Recover 10 L x2
Area Grab S
Attack +10 * x2

Total codes (not counting * code): 5

Maybe it's like MAX where the X stands for Exploration? earlier:
I'm amazed they didn't title the e-mail "viruses scan", having looked through this game a few times. Though it looks like Haruka managed to say "virus". Enjoy the rarity.

In the spirit of MMBN,

It's all downhill from here, isn't it?

Does it have good music, at least? What I've heard from the first three games seems to indicate that the soundtrack for the BN series is pretty bitchin'.

BN4's soundtrack is pretty good.

Too bad this is all you ever hear.

I'm serious. I'll be keeping count and everything. Right now, there's only been one (when the scientists notice the asteroid), but believe me that number will inflate.

Man, that's gonna get really repetitive, really fast, judging from your description. Oh, well; at least you can turn the sound off!

The viruses[sic]-busting theme and a certain other fight music you'll hear a lot are also quite nice.

One of the dungeon's themes is also slightly unpleasant to listen to, but fittingly so.

Man, I don't know; the first theme doesn't really go anywhere, and the second has too much buildup and not enough rockin' out. I'm just not feeling it. :\

Battle Network 4's best piece of music is the Undernet theme.

Seriously, it's awesome. And it's good that it is, because I'll be spending a lot of time there grinding.

BN5 DS also has a much improved version of the BN4 battle theme.

Those are indeed pretty sweet.

So I'll be playing BN2 and BN3 (Blue version, in case you were wondering) in order to catch up with the LP. Although from what I hear about BN4 (it's been a long time since I've beaten it), maybe I'll want to stick with the first few games for a while longer. Kinda frustrates my perfectionist side that besides the first BN game (which I've already gone through recently enough to not warrant a replay), you really can't complete any of the other BN games without another copy of the alternate version (or in 2's case, just another copy).

But...but...Battle Network 1 is so easy and lacking in strategy compared to the later games. What would you possibly need to manipulate luck for besides encounter rates (and chip trader)?

Your chip draw of course.

As I recall, after each battle the game selects which chips will pop up first in the next one. Only they don't mark the chips, they mark the slot in the folder.

So you just make a save state, get in a battle, see what comes up, and rearrange your folder.

Then you just start every boss battle with a Guts Shoot and win.

I believe ais523 is talking about the Tool-Assisted Speedrun over on TASVideos.

Wow I never actually noticed the typos ingame.

I only liked BN4 because of the Boktai-tie in and Dark Chips.

Also on a side note why do people need to work if theres random money floating on the net!?

Changes in Red Sun, without explanations because seriously this is either changed objects or colours:




(Also: Sorry about the blurry pictures. There was a slight problem when I resized them, they'll be normal next time)

Current folder:
Cannon A x2
Cannon B x2
Airshot A x3
Guard A x4 (one regular)
Minibomb B x1
Minibomb L x2
Thunder1 L x3
Sword S x4
WideSword S x3
AreaGrab S x1
Vulcan1 V x3
Atk+10 x2

Most differences are because I grabbed an early Guard. It works similar to the BN6 Reflector, but sends a shockwave and makes it very easy to multi-delete. The extra WideSword is from a Green Mystery Data, while the Thunders are dropped by Billies, who I'm sure Blitz is going to explain in the next update. Their chip is useful - though I'd rather use a set of B-coded ones, dropped on an S rank.

Clearly, the human race has lost the will to grind.

(Alternative explanation: Mystery Data is basically corrupted zenny data, but only a good programmer can make an algorithm to restore them - such as Yuichiro)

BN4 seems to have forgotten that Hub died before Lan could form memories. As such, this picture is impossible.

EDIT: Upon checking, it turns out Hub died when he was one. So this picture is even more impossible.

And by "works similar", he means "much slower, far less useful, and doesn't guarantee Counters".

Billies are BN1 viruses, so I'm not.

Auto-scrolling text is not fun to capture.



Yuichiro notes they’re already at the Metroline. He then jumps in surprise.






Oh well, just use your PET while you‘re on the Metro.



So according to BN4, Yuichiro does not have a PET or a Navi, despite being one of the main scientists of the Navi project as well as BN2’s Navi Master.

Yuichiro tells Lan to go find something to do. He then walks back to the house.

In other words, talk to everyone.







ACDC has been completely redesigned. Perhaps the most significant difference though is the fact that Yai’s house has replaced the school.






I heard you the first time.




I assume “button” was supposed to be after Select.

The rest of the tutorial didn’t have any typos, but it did have some of Messed Up Text (MUT, from now on). What do I mean by that?

I mean stuff like that.



Wow, they got it right.



As always, you can jack into the Dog House. Inside was a Barrier A.




Dex asks if Lan wants to go on the Net later.



Note: Shopping is not to be confused with shopping.





Real specific.



I swear, did they just feed the original text into a translator program? It’s not really in-character for Lan to say “delaying”.

Megaman assures Lan that Yuichiro will be back soon.




Yuichiro walks up.





The two enter the Metroline.

Yeah.




This code can be inputted in Battle Chip Challenge to either unlock Hub Style or let you battle a special Megaman. I don’t feel like checking.



Does anyone actually speak like this? Anyone?



This store imagines computers? That’s… interesting.




The rise and fall of fortunes has nothing on Elec Town.




I haven’t even reached the main part of Elec Town yet, and look how many errors I’ve found.




Lan, you passed like four electronics stores on the way here.



Indeed. It’s quite hard to tell whether or not the building with gigantic electronics related advertisements that is displaying computers near the front door is an electronics store or not.



Yes, Let.

Lan and Yuichiro enter. And one hour later, they exit.

Lan agrees. Yuichiro promises to be back as fast as possible.







?





???




Someone’s feeling a little repetitive.

Anyways, Yai and Mayl are here so let’s talk to them.

Lan confirms and adds that he’s with his dad.




Mayl recommends Lan jack in as well.



This fellow doesn’t seem suspicious.



So this game has a rule with viruses. Every virus but one (and that one’s not really a virus) has three levels, and every level has an EX form. And I’m pretty sure there’s an Omega form too.

Battle Network 4 reduced the maximum amount of chip codes a chip can have from five to three. Two will be dropped by the base form of the virus, and two will be dropped by the EX form. Generally, the chip code you’d get for S ranking the base form is the one you’ll get for 7-8 ranking the EX form.

Inside the stereo was a RegUp 1 and a Panel Grab *.





Glide’s face appears to have been chiseled.




Probably because this is the first time Megaman’s ever come here.




I think it was BN4 that really expanded on the whole Megaman x Roll thing. Probably because from BN4 onwards, every Navi inexplicably gained complete sentience, so Hub interacting with her wasn’t creepy.

These earphones are so high-tech, you only need one!










Yuichiro walks over. No, I don’t know how Megaman suddenly detected that Yuichiro had exited the building.




Mayl and Yai return his greeting.



*sigh*





Lan assures his father that he enjoyed what time they did spend together.