Permanently Jacked In: Let's Play Mega Man Battle Network!

(I don't think I'd have the time to post this until late tomorrow, so I'm going ahead and posting it now.)

I want to say, firstly, the presence of so many excellent LPs here, has made me more than a little apprehensive about doing my own. I don't consider myself a comedian or a good writer or even extraordinarily knowledgeable about the chosen game. I have reread and edited this entry 6 times and am still not quite satisfied with it. I'm going ahead anyway, though. Working on the second entry, this afternoon, I felt I was getting into the groove of the process. So, on with the show.

Mega Man Battle Network is an unique RPG offshoot of the main Mega Man series released in the US, October 2001. It was a pretty transparent attempt by Capcom to capitalize on the "collect-a-thon" handheld game craze pioneered by Pokemon. The original game was pretty good. Once they got to three and started having the multiple versions, not so much.

Let's Play Mega Man Battle Network
Part 1: A Medley of Flavors Masking an Absence of Real Meat



No matter how old I get, I will never tire of title screens admonishing me to press start. Pressed it will be.



Our scene, now, is the bedroom of a young boy. This boy will, probably, never realize he's been under surveillance as there is a camera stationed in the corner of his ceiling. His name is Lan, Lan Hikari.

Here we find our hyper-accurate listening devices picking up on the boy's NetNavi waking him. It warns him of the impending threat of school. Lan protests, initially, but logic prevails. Lan gets up and gets dressed.



Before going to breakfast, he grabs his PET. This isn't a puppy dog or kitty kat. No, a PET is a personal computer device. The name means PErsonal Terminal. It's, essentially, a cell phone with a USB connection. It also acts as a storage unit for a person's NetNavi. In Lan's case, the NetNavi is, the titular, MegaMan but appended with a ".EXE".



Lan checks his email before going to breakfast. The local news media says that the infamous WWW (Wet Whistle Willie) is trying to take over the net.

Also, of more direct importance to Lan, his dad emailed to apologize for being held at work all weekend and that he would be back soon. As a bonus, his dad sends him the chip data for the CrossGun C weapon.



Lan's mother is a curiosity. She asks if he has time to eat. I confess, my mom would have said, basically, the same thing but she would've ended it with a period.



Lan decides he has plenty of time to scarf some chow. Suspiciously inspecting underneath the plate, Lan finds that his mom is always looking out for him. She slips him the goods in the form of a chip, a Recov10 A.



Lan decides to say goodbye to his mom but gets a delirious response. Despite her yammering about timing, Lan's mother goes nowhere, ever. Lan takes this opportunity to escape from the cooky feminine sex and head for school.



His best efforts twarted, Lan pours out onto the street and finds himself face-to-face with Mayl, his wood-bee girlfriend if it weren't for him being young and terrified that all women are as upside-down as his mom. (1) She tells him that he's late. Lan deduces that the timing focused gene is strong in all womankind.

She insists that they walk to school together. Lan protests but she wins out because Lan is an invertebrate. (2) MegaMan calls Mayl a blabbermouth. Somehow, she doesn't hear it, even after Lan responds to his PET.



Mayl and Lan walk to school together. Mayl talks about the widespread oven rebellion thats causing burned turkeys and ham all across the county. She says that there have even been reports of ovens spitting fire. She thinks it's a WWW (Women Wearing Whipcream) virus. Lan knows that ovens use coils and electricity and judiciously calls Mayl out on her "fire-breathing oven" poppycock.



The two arrive at school and head straight to class. One of the kids tells Lan that "Dex" is looking for him. Dex is a ham-lipped water buffalo and Lan's defacto rival. This same kid makes a joke at Dex's expense. Lan takes his comment, "He's too big to be in elementary school", to mean that Dex is so fat he could barely fit in the door.



Next, Lan speaks with Madame Yai. As you can see, she speaks in nonsense code. This is probably because she wears woman parts. Lan decides to step back and avoid eye contact.

Lan continues to gather evidence for his inevitable college psychology thesis: Men are from Mars, Women are from Crazyville.

(No matter how long you wait, they're exchange never changes.)



Lan inspects the bookshelf for some educational literature. It seems that his teacher, Ms. Mari, is a big fan of Doc Yasu. Doc Yasu is, himself, a big fan of slashing viruses in half with gigantic katana. Lan decides that Ms. Mari is the only woman with her head on straight and, as such, is a perfect candidate for being the mother of his children.



Lan talks to someone else whose spouting the same "dragon oven" nonsense as Mayl. Lan recognizes what gender with which he is conversing and removes himself from the vicinity.



At least he's avoiding the subject of home appliances.



Finally, this is Dex.

In the midst of this exchange, Lan just shakes his head. Some men refuse to use their noodle when dealing with the fairer sex.



The bell breaks up the verbal sparring, none too soon. Dex would've gotten it handed to him with a side salad, anyway.



Ms. Mari comes in to start class. It looks like our first subject is Virus Busting. The kids who don't have Ms. Mari are missing out. Poor saps. As you'll remember, Lan read today's NetNews.



Lan was going to begin Operation "Woo the Teacher for Fun and Profit", but some doofus jumped in without even raising his hand. Ack! And Ms. Mari gives him bonus points for it. The nerve of that guy! MegaMan takes the opportunity to rub in Lan's failure as teacher's pet.



Because knowing is half the battle!



Dex decides to pump himself up. Yai wields the pin that bursts his bubble. Lan takes the opportunity for a much more subtle gibe. What would the WWW (White Warbling Woodpecker) want with Dex anyway. He's not important.

Ms. Mari wants to start the class off easy. She's going to have everyone battle the Mets(?). Jacking In causes the screen to go all black except for a swirly gyroscope with one of the crystals from A Link to the Past inside. I still have no idea what that has to do with plugging in, what amounts to, a USB cord.



In the digital world, we'll be battling digital monsters or Digimon. Ahhh! Sorry, wrong mythos. You'll know that it's the digital world because the background has motion graphics in the form of superfluous numerals.



Ms. Mari warns everyone before she lets loose the viruses of war. Then MegaMan is transported to the battle screen. (I'll just explain her monologue in text.) She tells Lan that, since MegaMan is doing the battling, he'll have to back MM up with a constant stream of new chip data.

Pressing the B button in battle will fire MegaMan's everpresent buster cannon. However, Chips are the real weapons and are absolutely vital to winning fights. Chips have an Attack Rating (ex: the 40 underneath the cannon) which is the amount of damage it will deal to an enemy.

At the outset of battle, Lan has a selection of 5 chips. Normally, he can only send one chip at a time to MegaMan. However, multiple chips of the same kind can be piggybacked on one another.

Chips also have a Chip Code (ex: the "A" underneath the cannon). Differing Chips of the same letter can also be piggybacked.



(1) Here's the full battle screen. The left section is MegaMan's area. The right section is the the enemy's area. Neither can cross over to the other side. As you battle, the guage at the top will fill. Once it is full, you have the option to send more chip data. (2) However, Ms. Mari has set things up easily for Team Lan. Having two cannons, both with an Attack of 40, MegaMan can administer swift justice to the mets.

Normally, in battle we would need more than one round of chips to win as the initial chip selection is compiled randomly. There's no guarantee that you'll get the chips you need at the beginning of battle.



In this second battle, Ms. Mari teaches us about support chips. These chips don't deal damage but give you other benefits. Some chips can make you invincible for a short period, some restore HP, and some (like Steal shown above) can increase the size of your zone. It's all fairly straightforward.



In the third battle, Ms. Mari explains that, instead of using the five chips initially provided, you can Add another row to the pool. This provides a wider selection of options and the possibility of a more sophisticated battle strategy (not really). (Not Shown: The actual effect of the Add command.)



After winning that battle, Ms. Mari calls it quits. Class is over. MegaMan gives us some sound advice: Go Home and Hit the Hay. Before we do this, however, Lan wants to see if the manly art of virus busting has altered the thought patterns of his female classmates.



Madame Yai is still talking in code. Mayl and her nameless classmate have added "Talking about Lan behind his back" to their skillset. Of course, Mayl ignores the simple fact that she and Lan still are kids. She needs to look at a calendar or, at the very least, a mirror. The last girl is still discombobulated by her, potentially, malfunctioning oven. She gets it wrong, though. If her oven explodes she won't be doing any shivering.



Since I don't want to have this update be devoid of real fight scenes, Lan challenges Dex to a NetBattle just for kicks.

Battle Gab:

There is no evident strategy to GutsMan's attacks. His movements around the board appear to be random. He only has two attacks. The first is to hammer the ground sending out a shockwave, across one row, one space at a time. This would be cake to dodge if it weren't for his other attack. GutsMan's second attack is to hammer the ground and "crack" all the tiles in that row. If MegaMan moves onto a cracked tile and moves away, the tile will disappear and take a certain amount of time to regenerate. Also, if Gutsman does his second attack twice on the same row, the second time it will destroy the entire row.

The problem with GutsMan's pair of attacks is that it's entirely too easy to keep from getting hit at all. The only way for him to inflict damage is with the shockwave as the floor cracker doesn't deal damage. When he cracks a row, I break the farthest space right and move behind it. I cannot be hit, in this position, because the open tile blocks any shockwaves he might fire. All I have to do is take potshots at him. Simply lather, rinse, repeat, and win.

The fact is, this fight with GutsMan is trivial, even with no experience.

MegaMan slices GutsMan into a ham sandwich and has lunch. Awesomeness affirmed, Lan decides to head back home.

After leaving, Lan is confronted with new mail. Dad sends Lan even more good news. This time, he's got a PowerUp program. Unfortunately, his Dad's internet connection is dial-up so there's no way he could send it. Cheapskate, government hyper-science firm.

Also, Ms. Mari sent Lan an email. But, it's just more battle tutorial junk and not a profession of undying love. Into the Trashcan...



Before going home, Lan makes the acquaintance of a responsibility shirking potential pedophile.

Mayl's friend from class reveals her bad memory and short attention span. She apparently doesn't notice when her friend says, "Okay, bye. I'm going to stick around for a while and pull gum off the bottom of desks." She tells Lan that he's lucky. Make a note, preliminary indications show that this girl has difficulty differentiating the words "lucky" and "cursed".



Notice that this woman says nothing of the stove spitting fire. She may not be delirious and imaginative but she, apparently, is stupid. Lan expects this woman to follow through in burning down her house in the coming weeks.



Lan's final stop is Madame Yai's house. He hopes to pilfer a fat wad of cash from her loaded parents. His inspection is foiled, though. She's put up a very life-like statue of herself to block the door. Smart thinking!

She's even made the windows far to small for someone to climb through. Wily Devil!



After an adventuresome, uplifting, life-affirming, and educational day, Lan returns home to his loving mother.

But, all is not well at the Hikari Homestead.

Tune in next time.

Off to a great start here. I'm looking forward to the proceedings.

Does anyone still remember when this was a breath of fresh air for the franchise?

...anyone at all?

Yeah, I loved the hell out of the first one. And I loved the second even more, because it was a lot more refined and interesting. And the third one...pissed me off, although I went back to it a few months ago and discovered that having a bit more distance from the first two it felt less redundant. I think this is a series that would benefit from having about a third as many releases spread out over the same amount of time. If the releases had jumped, say, from MMBN -> MMBN 3 -> MMBN6, there would have been a lot less shark(man)-jumping.

Looking forward to this one. I really enjoyed the MMBN2 LP at Something Awful, until the author got sick of doing it and they shut it down incomplete.

I stopped playing MMBN when they started coming out with two games per iteration. I felt like it became impossible to keep up with amount of games that were coming out. At least with other multiple games per generation series (i.e. Pokémon), they come out every 3 or 4 years so you have some room to play through each one at a decent pace.

I'm still dreaming of an actual online Battle Network game! Making your own personal NetNavi and logging onto to fight viruses in an ever-changing, expansive world is almost better than getting an outright Pokémon MMO, in my opinion.

Anyways, I'm totally looking forward to this LP.

Roland Barthes would love this game so much if he knew it existed.

i personally have enjoyed every iteration of this series i've played, up till the DS ones.

Man, I wish my dad sent me high-powered weaponry as an apology for working through the weekend when I was 10.

I also wish my elementary school teacher sent me off to destroy the slathering hoards of hell-born mechanical viruses.

Lucky dog, that Lan.

Also: For my money, 5 was the worst one. Though I haven't played 6, or the second Star Force.

I enjoyed 1-3 and thought they got better with each game, but 4 was pretty bad and I haven't played 5-6. I can't recall what was so bad about 4, I think it had something to do with tournaments. Also, I love the Gamecube game even if the chip system doesn't quite work in a classic MM styled game.

The Battle Network series corresponds neatly to the original NES games.
1: Has serious problems that the later games fix.
2: The most fun.
3: Further evolved; the definitive form of the game.
4-6: Stagnation. (though BN6 is actually not bad.)

BN1 is broken by the lack of * code and the fact that every screen of the net looks exactly the same. Being able to use ten copies of the same chip is pretty fun in a totally wrong kind of way, though.

The first one also had the only final boss that was fun to fight against.

Y'know, if this was MM1, then there'd be lists all over the place. But we'll still have lists that go 2/3>3/2>>>>>>>>>>>which was worse, 4, 5 or 6? By Gamespite articles, 5 seems worst, though I tend to hate 4 the most. And 6...

But as far as MMBN goes? I stopped after playing through 4. Or should I say: Playing through 4 THREE TIMES. Just. To. Get. Everything.

And then the data erased and I didn't care anymore. ^_^. Nothing like bad cartridges to release you of all your sins!

I've been rolling my eyes at this series for years. Like Mother 3, I'm glad I'll get to see it done without actually having to play it. Should be a good thread!

I see most people here know more about the entire Battle Network series than me and, also, have strong feelings about it. That's nice (pronounced: terrifying) to know.

Just An Aside

As I play more of the game, I come to appreciate it a little more than I did the first time.

Back then, I felt the game was a pretty bland experience. I finished it but didn't really sink a lot of time into finding all the chips. This stems from me being, for lack of a more academic sounding phrase, a casual hardcore gamer. (I feel like I need to wash my mouth out for even using those terms. Well, wash my hands anyway.) This means that I enjoy completing a game, sometimes to see the conclusion, but not necessarily completely demolishing it.

Now, I'm far more analytical about the experience. I appreciate more the frequency of random battles. Generally, just wandering through the "dungeons" will yield newer chips, as battle drops, that will be completely satisfactory for beating the next boss. This, of course, makes it right up my alley. Also, there wasn't a moment in my pre-LP playthrough, of most of the game, where I felt I was being forced to grind for chips or upgrades. Without having to wander in circles, I was able to get plenty of money, for PowerUps and HPMemorys, to win in the boss battles.

I really applaud Capcom for having come up with a system that rewards timing and quick thinking as well as planning and strategy. (But, I still wish your folder organization directly affected your chip selection in battle.)


The next post will, probably, go up Tuesday.

Same here.

But what's with the constant misogynistic remarks?

I was on the fence about it but I wanted a way to have all the different quotations without just a "Hey! People said stuff." underneath. Don't worry, though, I wouldn't be able to keep it up even I wanted.

The thing that makes the Battle Network experience so good is the balance of action, RPG, and trading card game. If you have an addiction to all three of these things, MMBN will satisfy them all at once. It's like a porn mag with a pack of cigarettes and a subscription to WoW included for free.

Is that Osaka?

Monday is Tuesday, this week. Tell your friends!

Part 2: Hard Core Hackers?

When we left off, Lan had just returned home from a hard day at school. Let's go back to our program already in progress...



Mayl's lies again. These people need a science lesson. Lan just hopes that the guy hasn't futzed around in his room.

Upon closer inspection, Lan decides this guy can't be official. That facial hair would never pass.

The man, and his government branch, seem to think that this isn't a completely fallacious rumor. No, they say, it must be the deeds of mischievous hacker. (BandyAid, perhaps?)



Lan's mom tells him to take a hike so he doesn't disrupt the suspicious man, who is no plumber, tinkering with our houses inner workings. MegaMan has a fantastic suggestion: Surf the Net!



The internet doesn't work, for Lan, the way it does in real life. No, there's no browsers. It's more like, heh, a video game. Anyway, let's get to it.



Lan watches a lot of Power Rangers, and it's ilk, on the weekends. There effect shows through. Although, I rather like it. Everytime I transfer some digital photos to my computer, from now on, I'll say some phrase like this: "Jack In! Family Photos.JPEG, Transmit!"



Lan suddenly remembers that there's nothing much on the net anymore. The FCC came around and removed the racy pictures, the blog commentaries, and even Google. These days it's just a winding corridor of boredom and battles. In fact, in those three screens you've, effectively, seen everything on the net.

The problem with the Net isn't the lack of content but the preponderance of random battles. Though Capcom changed much of the system of RPGs, somehow, random battles remained. I don't have a problem with random battles if the battles themselves are swiftly concluded. In MMBN, though, you only rarely get the exact chips you need to win in one round. At any rate, I won't be bothering you readers with normal battles.



In MegaMan's inspection of the Net, he does find something useful. There's this Net Merchant. He'll be the primary source of HPMemory (+20 to max HP) upgrades.



Aside from that, the only interesting thing is the presence of this Glyde, Madame Yai's NetNavi. Yai lost a program and, unlike Mega, Glyde is entirely immobile. He enlists MegaMan's help and gives him the @Yai link so he will be able to access Yai's Portrait's digi-space.



MegaMan is an altruist and willingly moves to the aid of his fellow digital data. MegaMan refrains from telling the green, glorified tuna can that Glyde was far too busy, and plagued by arthritis, to search for him. Tact is MegaMan's middle name. (Mega Tact Man!)



Having wandered around a bit, MegaMan scrapes enough Zenny, from battles, for an HPMemory upgrade. He won't really need it for a while, but it's nice as a preventative measure.



MegaMan moves through the @Yai terminal to get to her portrait's digi-space. There, he tells Glyde the great news. Glyde decides MegaMan deserves a reward. He gets "Spreader I".

I should probably point out that all manner of objects have jack-in ports in this game. So, when I say "Yai's Portrait" I, literally, mean that a picture frame in Yai's house has a Net uplink and a "Net Homepage", or digital space.

After an afternoon of busy work and nary a sign of anything that could be mistaken for excitement, MegaMan has another sterling notion: Let's eat! MegaMan is a pretty brainy program.



As an aside, Lan and I have similar tastes. I love a good Cheezy Poof. In fact, I intentionally use this misspelling in real life.

(Note: Pressing L as Lan makes MegaMan comment on the current situation. It's vice-versa for when you're controlling MegaMan, like in the above.)



That vagabond is trying to molest Lan's mom! Have at you, Fiend!



Crap, it's worse than that. Lan's mother is panic-stricken. Lan decides to be a hero and...
Jack Into a Stove that is On Fire!



If for nothing else than to pacify his mother, Lan goes in for the craziest stunt of the day. "How do you fight fire?" he says. "With superior digital firepower!"



Pay close attention, people, this is what the inside of your oven looks like. Don't let conventional wisdom persuade you into believing otherwise.



This program tells us that digi-fire (you heard me) is blocking access to other sections of the oven control program. Go figure. He gives us wisdom; we need an IceBlock program to put the digi-fire out. Sounds logical.



MegaMan stops mid-stride to tell Lan that he sensed a disturbance on the Net. It seems there's a virus with a WWW (Woeful Winter Wisteria) signature. Lan begins to think that it's exactly like Mayl was saying.

P.S. There's no conclusive evidence, yet. Lan is forgetting that there was a suspicious technician earlier. Also, he never actually saw the oven "spit" flames.



MegaMan scores some cashola in the oven program. Lan and MegaMan have no idea how that got there but decide to pocket it and skip calling the police. Later on, Mega Man finds a Steal and a Sword chip.



Here we are. This little guy gives us the IceBlock program. The trick to the IceBlock program is that you can only extingush 7 fires. If you use all of them and still can't reach the boss, you have to return here. If you must return and "recompile" the program, all the fires will regenerate.

MegaMan tries to leave but the digi-fire gets even more virulent. Booted back into the real world, we find Mom shocked that Lan accidently knocked over the cooking oil.



The villain calls Lan up on his PET. It turns out that the sinister government employee is in cahoots with the WWW (Wild Wacky Wednesdays) Coupon Club. He confesses to having rigged peoples ovens to ignite. He thinks he's won the day but forgets that it's only the afternoon. There's at least two hours till dusk.



Lan is momentarily blocked from re-jacking a burning oven by the excess flames. However, Lan's quick thinking puts the surplus fire to bed. His mom forgets that a fire is like a melanoma; it's only better when it's gone. That is, unless it's engulfing your enemies. (Not Shown: Lan running around in circles making fire engine noises.)



Once again, inside the Oven, MegaMan is back on the case. He puts out his first digi-flame and is rewarded with even more cashola. Oven-diving is a serious money-making venture here, I guess.



Control room, Ahoy!



More travels and oven-based swag.



This dungeon, since it's the first, is short and simple. Here is MegaMan standing in front of the boss just out of range of the looming cutscene.

But, before Lan goes in, he needs to inspect his chip folder.



The, 30, initial starter chips are fine for this battle. But, by this time, Lan's accumulated a couple of superior damage dealing chips as normal battle rewards. You can get chips a number of ways: buying, trading, and battle rewards.

I'll be exploiting the game's rules in the boss battle. As Sanagi pointed out, the game has no significant restrictions on filling your folder with copies of one chip. (I had bit of jibber jabber here before, I will never make an assumption when I write commentary again.)

So, I'm going to remove the Escape chip (they won't work in boss battles, anyway) and replace all those 30 DMG Shotgun chips with 40 DMG Cannons. Also, the 30 DMG CrossGuns will have to move over for two 60 DMG ShokWaves, gleaned from Met battles. Finally, I'll put the two MetGuards (3 seconds of invincibility) in, for good measure.

Now, on to that cutscene.



MegaMan tells the nefarious NetNavi that his mischief is for the nonce but justice is forever, in so many words. The Navi doesn't acquiesce. He thinks....

Wait, Mr. Match? HAHAHAHAHAH!

Anyway, MegaMan challenges him to a duel. May the best man win.



Battle Gab:
This is FireMan, the first true boss. (GutsMan, as you remember, was optional and barely a speedbump.) Though FireMan, also, has a random movement pattern, he has three attacks, some of which are far less easy to dodge.

The first is a straight beam of flame. It's easy to slide past, just move out of the line of fire, he practically mails it you. The second has him firing a trio of bombs that will explode and leave a flame for a few moments. The third is a series of fire columns that move toward you one space at a time.

The third is the most difficult to dodge, especially if he does the bombs just before (like in the screenshots).



You can see that I didn't manage to pull off a no-hitter, this time. FireMan's movement is much faster than GutsMan. There were a number of times where I'd fire a Cannon Chip and would be a split-second late, missing him completely.

Nevertheless, FireMan fell as expected. Lan recieves a 1000 Zenny bonus for the effort, too.



Mr. Match (ahahahaha!) can't figure out how he lost. But, it seems he's finished his mission: Terrorizing a Distressed Housewife. Lan interrogates him and gets a strange response. A program of great import was hidden in Lan's Mom's oven. Whoever the WWW are, they are definitely smalltime (crooks).

The man tries to backpeddle, but he's already said too much. He threatens the welfare of Lan and his family and hangs up the receiver.



Back in the real world, Lan's mother completely forgets that the house, technically, did catch on fire. Lan gives her the benefit of the doubt, though, she's been through a traumatic experience. She and MegaMan pat Lan on the back.



MegaMan assumes Lan is worried about the Mysterious Plot of the WWW (Wily Wandering Wolverine). Lan isn't and neither am I. Seriously, those two-bit hacks? Are you worried? MegaMan seems to be as he vows to protect the Net and let freedom ring, or something like that.



MegaMan pushes Lan into a pact to fight the WWW, should they reappear. Lan agrees but insists on filling his stomach first. The important things never escape Lan's mind.



Aww, Man!



Lan, hungry but high on his victory, decides to go around town and see what his heroism hath wrought.



Word travels fast, especially when Lan wears his skates.



This man hears of villainy and it reshapes his entire life. Lan feels sure he will stop shirking work and become a productive member of society.

Aside from these two, not many people care about Lan's successes. However, there are still people to see.

On his way to see if Yai has removed her security statue, he finds this lady. She speaks the honest truth.



On the other side of Yai's house, Lan finds this girl. There are indications she might be casing the place but Lan believes in the decency of mankind and dismisses the idea.



Yes!



It seems that, if there is money here, it's been hidden with devious cunning. (5) This is Yai's portrait that MegaMan came to through the Net. If he wanted, he could jack in directly here.

After this, Lan decides he's pretty tired out and goes home.



Though a hero, Lan goes to bed hungry. Indeed, A sad truth.

Until Next Time!

Something that always kind of baffled me:

What, exactly, was so unique about Lans oven that it would have a piece of the program needed to create the Life Virus?

I mean, you'd think that it would be in just about any old oven, really.

It's sorta implied that Lan's pop hid something there that Wily could make use of.

Interesting to see someone play this who knows what they're doing, since my strategy towards the end of this basically boiled down to "Spam Elec Man. Repeat."

I was thinking of that, but wouldn't it have been more prudent to destroy it?

And the other bits don't really have that excuse.

Dr. Hikari is an amazingly short-sighted genius.

Fixed that for you.
Although, I have to point out, I really hate grinding. I'd rather beat my head against the same boss battle for hours than grind for the same amount of time. This play through, I'm paying more attention to the boss' routines. It's a boon to me that MMBN gives you the opportunity to "learn" the bosses.

On another note, I have way too much time on my hands! Behold...
My reasonable approximation of Lan and Mayl!

That a cool picture, but I have to admit to being rather disturbed by the... umm.... perkiness.