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

Dex also always speaks in third person!



Seriously, in the whole series Dex is the only member of the ACDC gang who doesn’t get Lan into trouble quite as much.

Yai then notes that Dex needs some more practice.

Dex proceeds to glow red and spastically dance like a chimpanzee.




Oh great. Okay Douche, what do you want?



No you didn’t. You were late. Protoman’s deletion of Magicman just neutralized that total screw-up on your part.






You could say this to every person who showed up to help Lan at the end. Throughout the game Douche and Protoman have been a constant hindrance. I don’t think they deserve thanks.



Lan thinks differently though. Really, he’s just that nice of a guy.



Douche then declares that the next time something bad happens, Lan should leave it to him and Protoman. Lan responds by declaring that he and Megaman will be at Douche’s side if something like that happens.

Lan then realizes that Hub might not want to battle. And, you know, his name is Hub.





Outside of cut scenes anyway.

I don’t know why Hub would bother saying this considering he still wakes up Lan every game.




Nice how Froid, Ms. Mari, Ms. Yuri, and Higsby just stood there saying nothing.

After a brief pause, the doghouse alarm goes off.









Every game ends with Lan jacking in. Even if it doesn’t make any sense at all (looking at you Network Transmission).

Credits time!






This one requires some context. Apparently the school’s computer is bugged. Numberman jacks in, waves his hands a bit, and the thing is fixed.



Just off screen of this one is Masa, who’s angrily jumping since nobody is coming to his cart.

Dex is battling Numberman down there.



This one was weird. Megaman is running through the Net at top speed, and eventually makes it to Glyde and this program. He then celebrates… for some reason.



In the actual game, those two NPCs were constantly asking where their mother/child was. Douche is just there because he wants to I guess.



Gutsman is helping with the traffic system here. Community service? Anyways, it appears that to change the lights, the program actually has to loop the entire area. That is absurdly retarded.



“And here, class, is where Lan got electrocuted. You can still smell the burnt flesh.”



Dex jacked in Gutsman, who proceeded to screw the place up by trying to bypass the battery puzzles.



So… whatever happened to the other members of WWW? Well, Zap was arrested as we find out in BN6 Gregar, Match was also arrested but he was set free somehow, Madd plain old vanished, and Yahoot did the same.

The scene then cuts to Lan, asleep at his bed. Megaman somehow jacks… out to the real world and goes to wake up Lan.



Next time: Post-game stuff! And secret bosses!

It's a shame that the Life Virus was so pathetic, because its design is easily the best out of all the Battle Network final bosses. Its weakness might correspond to how weak everything else is in BN1, especially compared to the later entries in the series. Capcom obviously hadn't gotten the game balance even close to right. The Life Virus was featured again in Network Transmission where they upgraded it into something even more pathetic, if such a thing is can be believed. Apparently it was also featured briefly in the cartoon, where it was promptly killed using water guns.

More postgame eh... Postgame rocks XD
Then again seeing your take on the series is fun too...

Actually, in Network Transmission it's fairly tricky since its attacks are actually pretty annoying to dodge, and breaking its aura is annoying.

Unless you just use Z-Cannon or something.

But yeah, in the anime? That was just pathetic.

Much to my surprise, BN1 actually does have stars. I thought they introduced that in BN2...

Then again, to be exact, BN1 has a star. Note the use of the singular term. You won’t get anything for completing the library or reaching level 100 or any of that stuff. Just for beating the game.

Now then, to be truthful there’s only two real post game “events“ (neither have cut scenes).

Most of the stuff in this last update is stuff I could already do, but didn’t so I would actually have stuff to go over in the last update.



Anyways, unlike BN6, once you’ve beaten the game the music is restored to normal. You can still hear the crisis music at WWW base though.

Our first destination is Net 12.



Specifically, here, where I found that Knightsword B. If Megaman’s level is 70 or higher, I’ll encounter



Pharaohman. No, there’s no cutscene. He just appears.



Pharaohman is the kind of boss that stays in the back row and drops down obstacles to annoy you. He’ll either form these coffins that shoot laser beams



Or coffins that fire three Rattons.

He’ll also occasionally spew out some hieroglyphs, and then activate Pharaoh trap, which is that little button you see there. If I step on it…



A Poison Anubis drops onto the field, rapidly draining my HP. It’s destroyable, but it has a relatively high amount of HP.



His final coffin fires a Rock Cube at you.

Anyways, as you can see Pharaohman is the type of boss that gets harder if you let him do his attacks. Unfortunately, Pharaohman has a very high damage threshold, so flinching him is out of the question.

Basically, it’s delete him before he can set everything up.

Reset time.




Pharaohman V3 can then be found as a random encounter in this area. It’s worth noting that like Gutsman, he drops a special chip besides his navi chips: Anubis.

I imagine he was supposed to be a guard for Knightsword B and by proxy the 2x Hero PA, but since I came in earlier at a lower level than the game intended…

Moving on, our next destination is Net 14.




This is the first post game “event“. Magicman V2 can only be encountered after beating the game.

Magicman V2 has much stronger viruses on his side this time.



However, it seems the game takes mercy on you for this fight, so getting hit a lot won’t detract from your busting rank.

I guess anyways. I mean, I got hit like six times in this fight.

Next is Net 15.



This boss is just annoying to find. First off, you need at least 140 chips in your library. Second, you have to go to this little corner that holds absolutely nothing.

I dealt with the 140 chips thing by hacking a complete library, though that did something weird to my save screen.



224 out of 176! Whoo.

Anyways, that’s still better then actually having to hunt down all of those navis and viruses without Collect.

Also lacking a cutscene, Shadowman just appears.



His first attack has him jump in the air and fire three shurikens at your current position. Note he will do this as a counterattack to the Megabuster every now and then.



His second attack creates two fake Shadowmen. They’re destroyable, and it’s recommended you do destroy them. Why?



Because his third attack has every Shadowman on the field send an explosion down their row.

Reset time.



Shadowman is undoubtedly the most piss off battle in the game. Anyways, like Pharaohman his V3 form also drops a special chip: Muramasa.



Oh yeah, here’s Anubis.



It’s hilariously broken, as its HP drain pierces all guards and auras. As long as it isn’t destroyed, you’re golden.

To Net 16! There, we will face the final battle, and the second post game “event“.



Bass! I guess I may as well go over the requirements to find him again.

-Must have beaten the game.
-Must have a library of 174/175; the chip you should be missing is Life Aura.

Then you can encounter Bass as a rather rare random encounter. No, I have no idea how you’re supposed to figure this out without a guide.

As you can see, Bass has a 100 HP Aura. He will drop it when he attacks, and it will eventually regenerate if you destroy it after he does one of his charge attacks. Note if you interrupt his charge his aura won’t regenerate.



His only attack in this game is his buster shot. He’ll charge it to varying levels though at its base it’s just a shot down a row. A very damaging shot down the row though.



Here’s Bass charging. As you can see, this charge is vaguely blue. He’s open to attack while charging by the way, but his damage threshold is too high to really exploit.




Bass will fire a stream of shots at your area in a snake pattern four times straight. Each shot did 150 damage. And that’s with armor on.

He’s wide open during this attack though.

Anyways, if he does a yellow charge, he’ll fire a wave of shots down the field like so.




This is pretty much impossible to dodge without Invisible.



Here’s his final charge: red.

Once he finishes, he’ll hold out his hands. Nothing will happen for a bit. Then some of your panels will flash.



This will continue to happen around eight more times, with the gap between the shots steadily shrinking. To dodge you’ll have to spam the pause button.

Essentially, it’s a slower version of his buster spread in BN5-6.

Bass’s charges take varying amounts of time to complete. Yellow is the fastest, red is in the middle, and blue takes a while.

As always, against Bass you need to go all out and delete him before he deletes you.



Protoman is heavily recommended for this fight. Anubis works too, but a yellow charge and that thing is gone.



Bass drops Life Aura, the last chip in the game. I’m pretty sure he’ll drop it no matter what rank you get though.

And that’s it for the game!

Now for some of the secret stuff.

First off, remember how my save screen had 176 chips as the total?



This is because there is actually a Bass chip. It can not be gained without hacking though.

If used…




Bass will fire off his yellow charge. Sadly, despite the animation it only hits once.

Incidentally, in this game it’s F coded. In BN2-3 though, it’s X coded.

Finally, I’d like to showcase some of the special Program Advances.

In no particular order…





400 damage to the closest enemy.





250 damage to Megaman’s row.





200 damage to the panels ahead of Megaman. No, I don’t get why you need Repair G either. This PA doesn’t change the field at all.

Kind of a bad picture at the end, but Megaman throws three syringes forward across all three rows. Whatever it hits takes 200 damage, and if it hits anything Megaman recovers all HP.





200 damage to the first enemy in front of Megaman. Has a spreader effect if it hits. Looks awesome.





Full heal and Megaman is turned invisible.






I forgot to take a picture of the actual PA the first time, so I redid it at a different encounter. 500 damage to the first enemy in Megaman’s row. It can be assembled fairly early on, so it can be used to break the game difficulty.

And that’s it. Incidentally, BN1 did not have a PA Memo, so you had to memorize the combinations.

And no, the Life Virus does not have a super form (not that I could face it: that max library code prevents me from facing the Life Virus). That starts up from BN2 onwards (though the next chronological installment does have a super form for the Life Virus).

That won't stop me, of couse, from loading up a .sps file from GameFAQs and clearing the game one more time.



As it turns out, BN1 does not have a special CG if you 100% complete it. That's not to say there is no CG though.



This was probably for a demo version.

And with that, this Megaman Battle Network 1 LP has finally been finished! DarkBlueFlannel, wherever you are, I hope you’re satisfied with my LP.

Oh, right.

So if you checked the LP Claims thread, you'll note next month I'm LPing the rest of the series.

So I'd like to take a vote on how I should do things.

Should I just go chronologically (BN2 - BN3 - I'll do BN4 if you guys really want me to. - BN5)?

Or should I do them out of order? And if that's the case, which one first?

And finally, should I do Battle Chip Challenge?

EDIT: And as a side note, do any of you want to help out and do one of the seperate versions for me? Because seriously, I am not playing both versions, so if none of you want to help we're going to have to vote on which version I play.

wow, you ran through this game hella fast. impressive!
also, skip battle chip challenge. it's a pathetic waste of time.

Play through in order, so that you can show us how mechanics build and evolve through the series. great job!

Well I started with six then jumped to one, so that idea is kind of shot.

well, 6 notwithstanding.

Well, that's one vote for chronological then.

Anyone else?

3. Whites the only one I've ever played. Which versions of 345 are you planing on doing anyway?

...And do you guys really want me to do 4?

You playing 4 saves me from playing it. If they do add GBA to the 3DS VC I hope these show up on there. I liked 3. I'd replay it again if I knew what a good chip code to carry me though the story is.

Okay, I think I'll keep the poll open until Saturday (10/16 if you want to be specific).

So far it's:

Chronological - 5
Anachronic order - 1

BN2 - 2
BN3 White - 3
BN3 Blue - 4
BN4 Red Sun - 2
BN4 Blue Moon - 2
BN5 Team Protoman - 1
BN5 Team Colonel - 3

EDIT: Oh, and no, I can't do BN 5 Double Team or Operation Shooting Star.

Chronological with Blue, Red Sun, and Colonel for versions if you please. Yes, I am evil enough to make you do #4.

I vote you do BN2 next, then BN3 White. I picked up Blue for $5 at Gamestop a while back and your LP would give me a good excuse to play it so I could note any version differences along the way.

I vote chronological.

If you're going to be LPing only one version, I might LP the other. Having somebody else setting the deadlines might cause me to be a little more active in updating :P

Another vote for chronological. 2 is by far my favourite of the series.

I've just realized that a lot of you probably have no idea what the games I'm talking about are.

So I may as well do a quick summary.

I apologize for the bad pictures by the way. Google Images is pretty untrustworthy.



Continuing the similarities between Classic and Battle Network, BN2 does exactly what MM2 did. It took the basic ideas introduced by BN1, refined them into something more playable, and added a host of extra stuff to further simplify/deepen the game.

As far as the overall plot goes though, it's pretty minor. I mean, the events get mentioned a few times in BN3, and there's a name drop in BN5, but other than that, nothing.

On the other hand, it is famous for somehow getting an E rating despite the script and plot's surprisingly dark nature.

As a side note, 100% completing this game was near impossible for reasons I will explain when I LP it.



Yeah, big image, but this is the only good comparison picture of these two styles.

BN3 was the first game to have separate versions, and honestly there weren't many differences. Blue gets Shadow style (the ninja up there) and White gets Ground style (other guy with the huge boots).

As for relatively big differences, there were also these guys.



Mistman, the genie, appears in White. Bowlman, the other guy, appears in Blue. Since you needed both of their navi chips to fully complete the game, this made 100% completion fairly tricky.

The remaining differences between the games (and this applies for all of the game with separate versions) were the Giga chips, and the codes of the chips you could get from random encounter.

BN3 Blue had the hilariously game breaking Folder Back giga chip though.

Moving on, this game, like Classic MM3, is pretty much the definitive Battle Network game. The writing reached its peak here, and the sheer amount of customization possible was amazing.

It's also really, really, really, really easy to construct a game breaking folder. There are at least three fool proof folders that are easy to assemble and completely destroy everything in the game.



Ah, yes. BN4.

I'll be blunt. This game sucked. It threw out all of the previously established plot points, ignored all of BN3's sequel hooks, and simplified the game to an extreme extent.

Aside from that, it's plot can only be described as tournaments. I mean, yeah, there's something going on under all of tournaments, but that stuff is just squeezed in between tournaments.

It's like the writers went: "Hey! The players liked the tournament in BN3. Let's make the next game focus more on them!" only they completely forgot that people liked BN3's tournament because it had good writing.

There really is a lot more I could talk about on how awful this game is, but I'll save that for the LP you guys are making me do.

Okay, version differences. In reality, there is only one difference (besides the general giga chips and dropped chip codes of course): the souls you could get. Both games actually have the other version's "unique" scenarios in their data, so if you linked the games you could then access the other versions scenarios.

Only they fucked that up so badly that you can actually destroy your game permanently if you do it too early.

What's really annoying about BN4 is that there is really only one good folder if you really want to beat the game.



Okay, BN5. As far as game canon goes, Team Colonel is the only one that actually happened for reasons I've already explained somewhere in the BN6 LP. So sorry Team Protoman players.

These games have, like always, only one major difference: throughout the game you recruit navis. These navis are version specific, though you can see them in that picture.

There's one other difference, but that one's a secret.

This game is pretty much a solid meh. Its gimmick was either interesting or annoying, depending on your type of folder and this game honestly had a pretty ridiculous net design. It's like BN1 in that regard, just not as bland.

It, incidentally, probably had the worst chips in general. I mean, yeah, there are a lot of usable folders, but... there's nothing that really stands out.

As for the plot... eh... yeah, its plot is pretty meh too.

Regarding BN5, what I liked about it was the general mediocrity of the chips. It made the game a lot harder than the other games (BN3 takes the prize in that category though).
Also Souls are rad.

Bowlman.

BOWLman.

His arms are made out of bowling balls and also he throws one.

I think we have a contender for worst Mega Man character ever.

fix'd that for you.

No. Sorry. There is nothing good about a bowling robot who battles by bowling and is made out of bowling.

That is bad.

Capcom you are bad.

I thought you were cool, Loki

don't you want to be cool

Actually his main attack is a bowling pin machine gun.

Just an FYI.