The Mega(man) Battle Network LP!

Sal reluctantly agrees.




ACDC’s mayor seems to be working very fast.

Sal muses one of her group members is probably waiting there.




There aren’t even 20 trees in ACDC.




The voice groans in pain as Lan skates in.




Lan, not caring that he’s interrupting a public event, rushes up to the Net Battle machine.




Lan forcefully shoves the Mayor aside and jacks into the machine.

You know, between this sudden violence and the earlier failure of a pep talk, Lan’s really out of character this scenario.




While it would be hilarious if Lan did all of that for no reason, Sal was right.





You’re talking to a guy who, according to BN6, clears out ACDC Area so often that the only viruses left are small, weak ones. You’re also talking to a guy who is perfectly content to do nothing more than live his life.

Dude, nature is fine. Especially compared to the Classic universe.



*sigh*



What the hell was your plan anyways?

The navi sighs that this is probably for the best.





…So you have an unstoppable desire to do whatever you want as well as a deeper desire to be stopped? Okay then.

With that, Sal sends more mail.







Well that can’t be good.



Lan never bothers to explain himself to the mayor or the crowd. In fact, since the would-be terrorist didn’t even start his plan, all everyone saw was Lan jacking in.





Huh.

It seems that while nobody was looking, the Auto Navi project was completed.






Wait for the Officials? I mean, this is their jo- oh who am I kidding they never do anything.



Sal starts to cry.

The scene shifts to the back of Park 3.




Woodman gulps.




Oh for crying out loud, are you really taking this guy seriously?

Considering he’s agreeing with you, I’d say no.




Are we talking about the same person who immediately headed over to Elec Square to try and convince her friends to stop being crazy?





Understand what?

Woodman gulps again.







Because forcing everybody out of an area won’t attract attention at all.

The navi walks away.




Oh my God this text spacing.

Anyways, obviously enough we have to head to the back of Park 3.



Unfortunately, now is the time for the mandatory minigame.



Lan asks if Megaman is alright. Megaman replies he is.

Obviously enough, the goal of this minigame is to make it to Park 3 without getting hit. There’s just one problem. Somewhere in the translation process, somebody seriously dropped the ball. For whatever reason, once that cutscene plays the game will slow the hell down as soon as it needs to load something.

What this means is that if you battle a virus or use any of the options in the menu…



The game becomes so slow it’s almost unplayable.

I apologize, since this is something I can’t really show with still images. But know that even turning the sound off and holding the Turbo button did not speed Megaman up to his normal walk.

Now then, you might be thinking that this is some anti-piracy thing. It’s not. If you play Battle Network 4 on anything that is not an original Game Boy Advance, your game will spazz out. Using a Game Boy Player? A Game Boy Advance SP? A Game Boy Micro? A Nintendo DS? Sucks to be you.

There is only one way around this.



Hack your game.



What makes this minigame worse is that the game designers clearly did not think it out. The Wood Towers are extremely fast, and many are placed right next to each other. If you don’t stand in just the right spot, you’ll pass one pillar only to get hit by another. And for whatever odd reason, if the Wood Tower is already up, touching it will still damage Megaman.

Also, each hit takes off 30 damage, so your HP is going to vanish very fast. Imagine dealing with virus battles.





“Tree”? Look, that made sense when Lan and Megaman had only seen one, but Megaman just ran through three areas of constant Wood Towers.



Woodman is silent.





Oh my God that is the most hilarious justification I have ever seen.




This is coming from the navi of a guy who barged in on a public meeting to stop an unnamed plan that hadn’t even started yet.

Woodman is silent again.







The criminal navi walks over.




Woodman is silent again.







Yes!!! He has!!!




Woodman isn’t having any of that.




Yes, the navi narrated his own explosion.



Thanks for being more useful than 90% of Lan’s friends.

Woodman notes he should go back to Sal first, then jacks out.





Having seen that navi’s manipulation speech, I can’t help but wonder how he managed to convince everyone but Sal to become a terrorist. Did he promise that the trees would thank them?





Well of course she is. She’s got a custom sprite, and she’s not insane.



I imagine the conversation stopped for a while here as Sal stared at Lan in disbelief.





The other NPC reminds Sal that the match is starting soon.

Sal has more people under her control than WWW and Nebula combined.










So BN4 just comes out and says that Sal is pretty young, despite what the anime shows. Still, this is BN4’s translation speaking, so I guess it’s kind of up in the air.

Though I admit it would make more sense for Lan to be surprised that Sal has control over 1500 people if she’s as old as/only a few years older than him.








She has already.




You know, I think I should start skipping most of this pre-battle conversation. Your thoughts?

God damned flickering.







Woodman’s main attack is him sending two logs at you. At Woodman’s current level, a single Attack 5 charge shot can destroy them.



His second attack is just him firing three seeds down his row.



Finally, Woodman can still fill your field with Wood Towers.



Woodman’s main method of movement is jumping. Incidentally, what kind of jump he does will tell you what move he’s using. The normal jump shown above warns that logs are coming.



A super jump is basically your cue to pause the game and watch what panels are flashing. Alternatively, it’s your cue to note which panel Woodman is jumping to and move to intercept him, as Woodman’s Counter pose is while he’s preparing the Wood Tower spam.

Woodman is a really refreshing boss in that he doesn’t have any stupid gimmicks. It’s just a straight up fight.






Lan, you haven’t even talked with Woodman this entire scenario. And while Megaman did, he definitely didn’t chat about nature.

Sal is one of those few characters who are genuinely likable. So of course she only appears twice in the entire series.




Because today, Sal has to… I don’t know, water her garden?





Sal and Woodman leave, never to be seen again.





…Lan, you’ve done that exact thing many times already.



Megaman, you fucking committed suicide last game to save Lan!



As always, Yuichiro sends an e-mail explaining Wood Soul. I’ll go over it once Alpha Werewolf finishes Roll’s scenario, mainly so I can show just how much better Roll Soul is.



Next time: There really are no words to describe how retarded the next scenario is. Just know that the alternative (Burnerman) is even worse.

Current Folder

Cannon * x2
Heat Shot C x4
Wide Shot 1 C x4
Sword S
Wide Sword S x2
Long Sword S
Air Hockey 1 F x4
Air Hockey 3 V
Area Grab S
Blinder *
Invisible * x4 - REGULAR
Attack +10 * x4
Gun Del Sol EX G

Total codes (not counting * code): 5



If you’re wondering why I haven’t changed either my folder or my Navi Customizer in such a long time, it’s because I can’t. Until the Hawk Tournament is over, there are no new viruses to encounter, and for reasons I will explain eventually I can’t buy things from the Net Dealers.

As for the Navi Customizer, honestly? The set-up I have right now is pretty much the best one possible right now. In fact, the very best set-up in the game is what I have now plus Super Armor and a Custom program.

Since I'm going to be doing this for all of BN5 too, I might as well make a template post to work off of.


Alpha Werewolf and I have already discussed the two souls we have right now, but I may as well give a more in-depth look at them.



Aqua Soul is a specialist at water warfare.

Required Chip Element: Aqua
Charge Shot: Aqua Shot (20 Damage, gives Mercy Invincibility)
Features: No slipping on Ice panels, a really fast charge shot, and the ability to charge up non-time freezing Aqua Chips to do double damage.

Since Aquaman's scenario was posted before Gutsman's, I'll look at Aqua Soul first. And, to be honest, there's not much to look at. Most Souls are pretty worthless without a good folder backing them up, but Aqua Soul is by far the worst with an absolutely pathetic charge shot.

But what if Aqua Soul is given a good folder to work with? To be honest, it still sucks. Aqua Soul's main feature is that it can charge up non-time freezing Aqua chips. You want to know how many of those there are? Nine. And if we don't count chips in the same family, five. By the way, you can't charge up the Bubble Spreader Program Advance.

So how should you use this Soul?

If you actually decided to use this, you definitely want to follow Aquaman's example and use Geyser chips. 400 damage to the entire field is very nifty (especially against the final boss), and the fact that Geyser and Magnum both come in V helps a lot too.

...Of course, if you're actually using a V coded folder it's probably to abuse Air Hockey 3/Super Vulcan/Videoman, and you kind of want to be able to use Full Synchro for that.

Final Thoughts

In the end, Aqua Soul is probably the worst Soul of BN4. Though Spout Cross in BN6 totally made up for it.



Guts Soul has both guts and strategy!

Required Chip Element: Panel Destruction
Charge Shot: Guts Punch (60 Damage, pushes anything it hits back a panel)
Features: Mashing B activates the Guts Machine Gun (Megaman becomes temporarily invincible and rapidly fires six 5 damage shots), and +30 damage to all non-time freezing Panel Destruction and Null chips.

Like most of Red Sun's souls, Guts Soul completely overshadows its Blue Moon counterpart. As Alpha Werewolf showed in his Gutsman Omega video, Guts Soul is more than capable of handling itself without chips, and with chips (especially Vulcan) Guts Soul is an absolute monster.

Aside from that, Guts Soul is one of the three Souls that can benefit from the Rock Cube buster bug (purposefully bugging a Megabuster program can cause the Megabuster to randomly form Rock Cubes instead of firing), as its charge shot can push the blocks. And a free 200 damage is never a bad thing.

So how should you use this Soul?

Unfortunately, the Vulcan series does not share a common code. As such, you're best off with a V-W dualcoded folder, which gives you Magnum to enter Guts Soul with and Vulcan 3/Super Vulcan to play around with. You even get Thunder 3 to guarantee hitting with your super boosted Vulcan!

Final Thoughts

Guts Soul completely shatters the difficulty of the first part of the game (you start with numerous * coded Panel Breaking chips as well a bunch of Null element chips), and if it weren't for the relative uselessness and rarity of Panel Breaking chips it'd probably hold you through the entire game.

Are the tournament scenarios you encounter random (from all possibilities, or from a fixed set of possibilities per version)? Or do you always encounter the same scenarios in the same version?

Also, I'm beginning to see why you dislike BN4 so much. It's not so much one major issue with the game (unless it has one I just haven't seen yet), as the fact that it has basically no redeeming features compared to other Battle Network games, because it manages to screw more or less everything up to some extent.

They are mildly random. The non-soul navis, I believe, are random; The soul navis are semi-random, but this ties into spoilery stuff:
You always get the same navi as your first soul. Your second soul is - I think - a choice of two, but in the second playthrough you'll always get the one you haven't gotten yet. The third is a choice of three, and in the second playthrough you get one of the two you haven't yet, then in the third playthrough you get the last one.

The third soul is also a choice of two. But because the game is a jerk, you can only get the final soul on playthrough 3. Playthrough 2 will just give you the same scenario as playthrough 1.

Actually, BN4 does have one major issue. We just haven't gotten there yet.

One major issue?

Interview about BN just a few days ago.

BN4 is pretty much a never ending tunnel of fail, but there's one major issue with the game that makes everything worse. Anyone who's played BN4 before should know it.

I definitely agree with this. Windman.EXE looks freaking awesome, as does Wind Soul. It helps that Wind Soul is actually useful, but that's to be expected from a Red Sun soul.

So am I, considering that they had to get through Windman. And to be rescued by us once already, just in this game.


This whole scenario features Lan's supposed chivalry; It's quite irritating, considering that the gender of the navi and operator have nothing to do with their netbattling abilities.

The cutscene then switches over to the pirate ship area.


Seriously?


I can only assume that "Well..." is the game's shorthand for "Mayl gives an explanation", especially considering the next one we see.





...What? How is speed the deciding factor in clearing the prelims? I can see it helping get points early on the net, but at no point were we under pressure of that sort.



Also he beat the WWW twice and Gospel once but EH DETAILS.

You can probably see where this is going.


Mayl then thanks Yai, who tells her that there's no need to thank her. After that Yai informs Mayl that there are many weirdos in this world, and the decide to go to the Park area.

At this point we regain control, and as we leave the castle:

Yai didn't say anything yet...




Incident starts playing at this point.

Yeah, for real. In the scenario that involves fighting Roll, she gets kidnapped.





...Why? I mean, Lan can still talk to Megaman even if he jacked in at the ice-cream truck in Castillo and Megaman is at, say, ACDC1.




Glide is in Park1, right after the ramp to/from the Castillo HP.

Roll is in Park3.






Just... Wow. Roll is held in place by a bunch of virii that (as far as I could tell from later plot points) consist solely of normal mettaurs, and her captor is a normal navi. Nevermind the abilities that she displays later, which are just as illogical as Aquaman's (and affect even more scenarios retroactively): Why the hell isn't she blasting them all away?

Anyway, the normal navi leaves to go netshopping. He asks Roll to wait there, and to not escape.

The navi is at the ACDC2 vendor. And incidentally, that GMD was a WideSword S, so if you want those - I've pretty much confirmed that this GMD will always have one.




And Roll was kidnapped by this moron? Really?



*cue virus battle* Very easy one, too - Roll would beat it easily.


I missed a screenshot here, Megaman asks the navi: "Well?"

He gives us the Room Key. Which brings up the question: How did this random guy get a private section of the Park area?

Anyway, back to the plot.






Exactly what I'm thinking.


Megaman tells her that she should go home right away, and reminds her about the match.



*cringe*

...What?


If you're that fast, how come you were caught?



Megaman tells Lan that he thinks he made Roll mad. Lan agrees, saying the Megaman should probably jack out. So he does.


I can only assume that she is talking about being kidnapped by Shademan, but I don't know where the line about having that much power came from.



Roll rises above the virii, and though I missed it in the screenshot, there are little red hearts above them.

As we jack out, Megaman says we have mail.






Talking to Mayl has her thanking us. Yai, however:


I have no idea either.

Anyway, Roll is in Mayl's giant teddy bear.

Now, I'm just going to summarize: Roll wants to play tag with us.


She teleports around the area. I'm pretty sure that A. being close to her triggers a telport and B. She can only teleport so many times in a row before pausing for a moment. Incidentally, while starting up the teleport (which has her spinning in place for a moment, then vanishing in a bunch of sparkles and reappearing, also spinning) you can't catch her. Once you caught her thrice:







The bear, incidentally, had a BMD with Minibomb *.

Was it really neccesary to cut out five letters?

Versus Roll

I took this battle very slowly - couple Darkchips could've ended it right away. I'm very surprised Roll couldn't even beat a bunch of Mets.


The announcer says that Lan is the winner.

At this point I have to conclude that everybody does the flailing motions that we saw Dex do back during BN1 when they're netbattling.


Why? There were other navis in the past that did that.

Anyway, my computer's being a total bitch and it's terribly slow to just copy the URLs for the images, so I'll just summarize the next 16 screenshots.
Mayl leaves, then Yai tells Lan that Mayl was training because "someone" always protected her, and she wanted to protect that "someone" in the future. She then calls Lan "someone", and leaves.
At this point, Lan remarks that Roll was strong, and asks Megaman who he thinks "someone" is. *sigh*

Anyway, we now have RollSoul. While I'm sure Blitz will post a more detailed analysis in a moment, there's really not much to say about it.

RollSoul is activated with a Recovery chip. It changes your chargeshot into the Roll Arrow, including the chip breaking effect, and makes every chip you use heal you by 10% of your health. That last one is the reason you want to use RollSoul in the main game, and not just against other human players - RollSoul is a soul that you don't need to build your folder around, and later in the game Recover300s are a viable chip to use anyway.

And now, the pairings:


Yeah, that's right. I'm not doing Videoman next time.