The Mega(man) Battle Network LP!

Anyway, the puzzle's solution is easy: Read from the top left, top to bottom, and you'll get "OLDMANINSQUARE!", or "Old man in square!".


He's not in the square itself, though. Rather, you have to go to an alley on the top-left of the square:





And if you try to talk to him after this:


The Memo, presumably, is a Key Item.

"the green navi is in town area three!"

Specifically, behind the merchant.

And talking to him afterwards:


Moving on, the HintData:


"You Might try looking in side the vase of flowers!"
Honestly, I have no idea what gave the green navi so much trouble. Apart for the fact that "inside" is one word.

Park Squirrel, naturally. But I wonder, why did Chisao send this to Lan, and not Dex?



The last line you'll probably only get once you're there, but it's not very complicated:
"ElTwrComp2
Mr.Prog
3rd from right"


You can also talk to the other ones, of course:

I am mildly unsurprised.


*cue three round virus battle*



Well, considering that it's a guy who kidnapped a child who can't be older than 8 or so...

SIMON! ...Oh wait, sorry. Wrong characters.


Why is that at all relevant to the situation? (This is entertaining, though, considering the popularity of using female seiyuus for children's voices in anime)

Now, I didn't do this part in order, but I'll post it in order. The first navi is in ACDC 1:

He proceeds to ask us for one million zenny, then tell us he won big at the cyber-racetrack so he'll give it for free. And then he calls Megaman a thief.

Number two is at ACDC 3:

That's really all there is to say on the matter.

Number three is at Town 1:


I won't even bother you all with this quiz. You can go over to my photobucket account if you really want to see it all. Five easy questions get us Data3.

Incidentally, the number datas?

Key Items. The description is the same for all of them.

Now, number four is at Town 2:

He then asks for a Bubbler R. Incidentally, once you refuse and come back, and then refuse again...


He doesn't actually give it to us, of course.

You can buy Bubbler R's at the ACDC merchant:

For 800 zenny. I don't know if he has a limited stock, but if he does then I have to wonder what other ways there are to get Bubbler R's. I don't remember seeing any Shrimpies anywhere.

Data4 get!

The final data is at Town3.


*cue battle with two MetEX's and a normal HeelNavi*
To be honest, I'm relieved that it isn't another waste of money.

Anyway. Back to the ElecTown Square.

The battle is nothing special. We haven't seen these before, but they're not nearly as fast or powerful as the version in the hotdog stand's computer.

Chisao walks in from the alley that the old man was in earlier.









Chisao says nothing. Or rather, he says ellipses, but I don't know how you pronounce that.

We are then instantly brought to the exit of the DenDome station. I haven't tried, but I assume that the game won't let you leave. Once you go back into the stadium:


The sound that is playing is horrific.

Five minutes? That's all? What if he had to, I dunnow, go to the bathroom?


Dex is so great in this scenario. Unlike a certain person who is related to him.


That's right, folks: In the battle network universe, delaying for five minutes is grounds for immediate disqualification. In a local tournament.

Chisao walks over to Dex.

You mean, the five minutes that you had to wait? Yeah, real pity.


You just said that.





Versus Gutsman

Chisao apparently expected Dex to lose this match. I like to think that beating Dex in front of his brother is canon.




But... You just told Chisao to apologize.

The brothers walk away...


But Chisao stops and looks at Lan before leaving the stage.

Here's GutsSoul:

As Blitz said, it's a pretty insane soul, especially considering it's the first one we get. It gives a new Chargeshot: Gutspunch, and by mashing the B button we can use the GutsMG, which is rather useful - much more so than a charged megabuster, anyway, due to the invincibility frames. It deals 30 or 40 damage at base attack, split over multiple 5-damage shots. Finally, it gives us +30 to non-elemental chips (and panelbreaking chips, but there are barely any of those that deal damage). And get this: Just by being in GutsSoul, I can now deal 120 damage with a single Vulcan1. My folder's going through an overhaul next time.
The only bad thing about GutsSoul is that you have to sacrifice a panelbreaking chip for it, and those are universally pretty bad early on. Unless you're having trouble with Mets, that is.





Next time: Gutsman Omega! Maybe.

Current Folder: Still the same. Will be overhauling soon though, to accomodate for three Vulcan1's and an extra Invis I picked up.

So as a note on Gutsman, his ghost forms are actually one of the hardest bosses in the game. No, seriously. Like in the last few games, Gutsman has the ability to turn your side of the field into holes. But while this was manageable in BN1-3, in BN4 it's a complete nightmare. Gutsman's new move, Guts Machine Gun, does a large chunk of non-flinching damage. Pretty much the only way to dodge it is to move to another row, and you can't do that in BN4 because Air Shoes sucks in BN4 because it's both way too big and way too expensive. And like all Omega navis, Gutsman Omega does way too much damage and has way too much health.

On the other hand, Gutsman's chip is actually really good for once.

After the LP on BN3 finished, I did what I often do, and watched a speedrun. (I'm quite happy that I correctly guessed why the runner was farming MetaGel chips before it became obvious.) However, the strategy used left me wondering about the game's balance; the speedrunner's entire folder was based around Elemental Sonic Wave (from VarSword), Bolt, and getting those chips as soon as possible (mostly via using FullCustom to effectively throw away unwanted chips until the chips that were wanted turned up). Elemental Sonic Wave seems really scarily powerful; it beat almost everything up to and including Bass, with the few things it didn't work against (due to field obstacles) beaten by Bolt (which works really well in that situation). (And the only reason it didn't work against Alpha is that it has too many hitpoints to die to two VarSwords, which is all he had; he needed to use MstrStyle to finish it off.) None of the navi abuse that I'd have expected from reading the LP!

So I suppose my question is: what were they thinking when they designed VarSword? Is the wave so hard to pull off that it's balanced, or easy to assume it is? (It's not as if some of the other uses of VarSword aren't pretty powerful too; it can duplicate LifeSword, which is a Program Advance.)

As far as I know, the combination for Elemental Sonic Wave isn't anywhere in the game. I'd guess it was a reward for buying a guide. Besides chip code and rarity, Variable Sword's only balance is the fact that, like Slasher, new players will have no idea what it does.

With that said, did the speedrun go up to all seven stars? Because postgame is the part where things actually get hard, which gives incentive to seek out the win buttons that are Flashman/Plantman.

It stopped after Alpha, and was only aiming to reach that point as quickly as possible. I assume the folder would have had to have been changed to continue in the postgame for much longer, at least at the point where things didn't just die to two Elemental Sonic Waves (which I imagine wouldn't be reached for a while).

Whereat?

Nah, the stopping point would be the whole mess of things you have to do to get to Serenade. Namely, getting the Hammer, which requires beating Flamman Beta, beating Darkman, who requires at least 140 Standard chips to even challenge, and beating Yamatoman, who requires the 100 Bug Frag Giga chip. And even assuming they managed to pull that off and get past the mandatory Number puzzles, Serenade requires all 200 Standard chip to even challenge. And if they managed to do that and beat Serenade, then they'd have to scrounge up 300 Bug Frags and spend them at the trader to beat Bass GS. And if they managed to do all of that, they'd have to get past the Time Trials. And then they'd have to get all of the Mega chips, including Mistman. And assuming they managed to beat the Omega navis, they'd then have to perform every single Program Advance.

tl;dr The collection aspect of the game will kill the speedrun far before their folder does.

In other news, my computer just crashed. Nothing seems to have been lost, but the whole thing was very annoying.

EDIT: It turns out I skipped an entire post of my final BN3 update (specifically, right after the post where I beat Gutsman Omega). Here it is:




I’m really tempted to put Flashman V5 in my folder, but Folder Back’s instant Custom Screen effect makes it better in my eyes. White version players won’t have any doubts about this though.
















I’m not sure if I’ve shown it yet, but this is what happens if you counter a boss.

Speed Demos Archive: http://speeddemosarchive.com/MegaManBattleNetwork3.html

They aren't the only speedrun site around, but they are the one I normally check first (and my favourite). They don't seem to have any of the other Battle Network games, though.

I’m kind of worried about my computer (it failed again), but since everything seems to be working much more smoothly now, I think the worst has passed.



The answer to that should be obvious.



It’s kind of amusing how this obvious attempt of shrinking a sentence to make it fit inside one dialogue box ends up making Megaman sound really old-fashioned.



Either he’s saying “He is beat” or “He has beat”. Both are incorrect.

Lan pulls out his PET to groan to Megaman that he already knows he should be careful. He and Megaman then psych themselves up for the next battle.






Lan walks down the nearby staircase.





Apparently tops are outdated in the future.




Actually, that top is pretty interesting in the fact that it doesn’t seem to be tilting, slowing down or stopping.



The old guy is stunned.



Kosuke runs away. In response, the old man hmphs.



It’s kind of hard to see what’s happening here, but the top is spazzing out. Despite the fact that it’s actually bouncing up and down now, though, it’s still balancing.

Incident begins to play (Count: 5)




I don’t even want to try to guess how a virus got inside a top.




I doubt that.

Megaman shouts at Lan to jack him in. Lan obliges.



I guess I could confront that virus.



Or I could take advantage of the Dharma viruses that appear here to get Air Hockey a scenario early. Dharma viruses move around their side of the field a bit before launching a hockey puck that will ricochet off the sides of the field to head straight to you. Dodging is usually as simple as moving one panel.



But who cares about how pathetic Dharma viruses are. Their chip is freaking awesome.



When Megaman uses an Air Hockey chip, he’ll release the same puck the Dharma viruses do. However, his version only bounces off the enemy field’s side. As such, depending on which column the puck is launched from, the puck will either bounce in a /, \ or <> pattern. That’s assuming that the enemy side of the field is the base 3 x 3 though; if one Area Grab has been used, the pattern changes to either < or >.

But I digress.



Air Hockey’s main feature is that it’s an instantaneous, fast moving, easy to aim, multiple hit, Breaking aligned chip of doom. If used in virus battles, multiple deletes, Counters, and acquiring Battle GMDs becomes much easier. If used in navi battles, the opponent can quite literally be stun locked to death.

But I’m sure you guys don’t want to listen to a list of reasons why Air Hockey is good. So I’ll just show you.



After I actually get through this part of the scenario anyways. The Top’s BMD held 1600 Z.



Is there a “virus” or are there “viruses”? Make up your mind you two.

Cue easy virus battle.



Incident stops and the old man runs over to Lan.




Is Lan implying that this old man is a virus?

The old man angrily shouts that Lan should mind his own business.



It seems this scenario is making up for the general lack of typos in the last two scenarios.

Oh god damn it, Photobucket screwed up my upload.

Update delayed until I get all of the images to work.

EDIT: OH MY GOD I hope I NEVER have to do that again ARGH.

Lan and Megaman are stunned to hear that the old man is a Net Battler.





Lan seems to be ignoring that the majority of the net battles Megaman has been in have often been to stop disasters.




Lan wants to know why not.




Like all RPG protagonists, Lan does not know the meaning of the word privacy.

The old man tells Lan not to worry about it.



Then he says something that I’m betting will make Lan worry.




Called it.

The old man scoffs that it’s not a major problem.






So apparently that scientist was just acting after all. Presumably the tournament officials scattered Gold Bugs all over Den City, not caring about any environmental or public damage they could cause.



Tensuke takes a few deep breaths before continuing his conversation with Lan.

I imagine that “but it hits me” was supposed to be something like “but it crashes”.





You already did.





Wait, so Tensuke got this far with a handcrafted Navi? That’s actually pretty impressive.







What?

Tensuke hmphs again.





So apparently navis are so easy to program an old man who has done nothing but make tops can create one. Makes you wonder why there are so many basic models running around.

Yet another typo.




Megaman asks why the Net Battle Club won’t help Tensuke.





That would make sense, but sadly it’s not the real reason.

Lan points out that Tensuke could just apologize.






Topman cuts in with another “Hah!”.



Yet another “Hah!” causes Tensuke to scream at Topman to shut up.



I have no idea what this line is supposed to mean.



I somehow doubt Tensuke was supposed to shout that last line.

Tensuke walks away.



Parts? Chips? What, are there model Navi kits?

Yet another line that I think shouldn’t be there.

Megaman points out Tensuke forgot his Cyber Top.



Megaman orders Lan to find Tensuke and give back the top. But before I do that, I need to go back to ACDC.




Despite the fact that an NPC outside mentions buying chips, as long as Nanako is here you can’t buy anything. Apparently she’s too incompetent to work a cash register.






This isn’t a mistake. I’m just showing it because it’s kind of amusing.



Since I had to skip through Topman’s cut scenes to do the side note last time, I didn’t save last time I beat Aquaman Alpha. So I’m back for round two.



But this time, I have Air Hockey.

Air Hockey 1 isn’t as close to being as impressive as its later versions, but each one did 100 damage, something none of my other chips can match.





With Full Synchro, however, I can do a nice 200 damage. And remember, Random Synchro is far more likely to happen if you use multi-hit chips.

As a complete side note, if I had used Air Hockey 1’s / or \ pattern while Aquaman was standing in the very center of his area, Air Hockey would have hit three times for 150 damage. In fact, I’m pretty certain every version of Air Hockey gets an extra hit if the opponent is in the very center.




But no matter how good the chip is, it’s still not enough to salvage the rest of my folder.




I’m pretty sure those clerks are going to get fired.





Tensuke turns to face Lan. Then, after a five second wait, he pushes Lan back.





Lan explains he came to return the top and proceeds to do so.