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

Interesting thing about this game is the number of hidden South Park references.

The dialogue in Battle Network was fantastic up until about 4. Battle Network 2 is still one of my favourite localization jobs. I have no idea how some of the text made it into an E-rated game.

Oddly, this thread kind of makes me want to try Star Force 2. I heard it was a vast improvement over the first one, in any case.

Also, that's some spiffy fanart. Even if some... artistic liberties were added.

I was sold on this LP once I started hearing the inconstant disambiguations of WWW (Wildebeests Who Wash) but if we're gonna be getting artwork of that quality as well? Well I guess I'm, I dunno, extra sold?

This will end with me giving you money.

How did she get up there?

Blame it all on Bruce Timm.

Seriously though, that's an awesome drawing. If you're going to be popping those out periodically, there's basically no reason not to read this LP. How much time did it take you to draw it?

About 15-20 minutes to sketch and around 3 hours to convert to vector.

Also, the next post should be up tomorrow.

I sense amazing potential in this LP.

Admittedly, I never really got into Battle Network - the battles in the game never really did it for me, being slower than what I'm used to from a Mega Man game (which is mostly X and Legends, but anyway). Still, I'm looking forward to seeing this one, as I always liked the idea behind the game and wanted to see more of it.

TGIF, people!

Part III: A Day in the Life



Previously, Lan had settled in for a long spring nap. But, that sleep wouldn't be peacful for he would have a strange dream...

That dream takes place at night, here in front of school. In the dream, a man is in search of his adult education classes.



The next day, Lan wakes up late and rushes to school as fast as he can. Once he arrives, Lan asks about his email. MegaMan, flustered, wonders why Lan isn't more concerned with, say, getting to class. But, he shows Lan the two messages anyway.



The first is NetNews, warning Lan of rising student crime. The other is Yai, telling Lan he owes her one for calling his name in class. I don't know how that works. Yai called his name? Really? Ms. Mari needs glasses.



This would make more sense if MegaMan could point. Lan turns around and heads the direction he's supposed to be going. However, he's distracted by something...



Say...what's that?



Hello...nurse?

Oh, nevermind.



Come on, game! This would never work in reality. Lan sits in the front row for goodness sake! Ms. Mari really does need glasses.



Ms. Mari introduces the class to Mr. Higsby. He'll be helping her teach the class, she says.



Yai is a good judge of character. Mayl, not so much.



Why sure they do, Lan. They enjoy having a smoke in the teacher's lounge, didn't you know?

Turns out Lan was really late.

That makes me think. If it is the end of class and Ms. Mari just introduced Higsby, does that mean he was waiting in the hall or sitting in the corner of the classroom all period? Weird.



Nobody has much interesting to say except this guy who has a hard time remembering the alphabet. I guess it's understandable; Ms. Mari has been focusing on "more important matters" in class.



After Lan makes his rounds in the classroom, the next period starts.



But only Higsby returns. He says that Ms. Mari came down with something and couldn't stay. A likely story!



Of course, with Virus Busteress Mari out of commission, we have to go back to doing normal school work.



For some reason, Higsby flips into Saturday Night Fever mode and then leaves.

As soon as he does...



...the blackboard goes haywire and starts playing a WWW (Worrisome Wayward Washingmachine) recording. The, suspiciously, grayed-out man tells of their nefarious plot to instigate Ragnarok.



Come on, Mayl! They're bad guys!



At the end of the presentation, they advertise they're open positions for any interested parties.



The class quickly falls into disarray as the doors have been electronically locked. Dex takes up the hero's mantle and tells them not to worry. (It doesn't help.)

Lan makes his rounds, once again, and recognizes a ham when he sees one.



Mayl connects this morning's NetNews with the current events. Deduction: Other students saw this, went bonkers, and started killing each other.

If a mass murderer bursts in and starts cutting people up, I want my money back. This movie is terrible!



Lan moves to help Dex out, as this is a dire situation, but Dex refuses.

However, GutsMan is summarily demolished. The viruses in the school mainframe must've picked up on GutsMan's battle non-scheme quick too.



Looks like Lan is up to bat.

(I skipped one or two lines here. No, Yai is not saying that it's a relief that Dex/GutsMan got trounced. But, it's much funnier of if you think of it that way.)



Before going, though, Mayl gives Lan the Rorita...err...Roll R chip so he can "summon" her in battle. This might be useful if there were multiple copies of it.



Lan net-dives and sets too it.



Dungeon Smalltalk
This dungeon is slightly more difficult than the first. MegaMan comes up on a number of locked gates (that correlate with the actual school doors) for which you have to find the combination. Some have hints...



And some don't...



For these, the best way I've found is to start halfway between zero and ninety-nine. Then, you can just keep picking the halfway point until you come to the solution. It tells you whether you're high or low and whether the first or second digit is correct.

I have a feeling there are more efficient methods.



In the middle of his travels, MegaMan hit's a snag. Lan has to go around to the AV room to see what the problem is with the network.

Once he gets there, he bumps into Higsby. (If you hadn't come to a conclusion about Higsby yet, this is where it becomes obvious.) Lan goes inside. It turns out a comptuer was frozen up. Aren't you glad real networks don't act like this?



Eventually, I get here. This guy indicates where the virus is likely holed up. Lan has to go around the long way.



A hop, skip, and a jump away...

I arrive at the teacher's lounge network area. But, it looks like I can't access it without running an ID card through the time recorder. MegaMan asks Lan to go find Ms. Mari as she seems to be the only employed teacher at the school. Of course, if she does turn out to be sick there's going to be a problem.



Lan rushes over to the only open room he hasn't checked: the storage room.

But, upon entering, he finds...



A silent film!

Wait. No! That's not right.



Oh yes. He finds Mrs. Mari, tied up.



The game asks if you want to help or just leave her bound and gagged. Strange. Anyway, we get her ID card.

Notice that Ms. Mari says she's giving Lan the ID Card as thanks for saving her. So, that means, she didn't give him the ID Card because, say, they'd be locked in the school forever if she refused.



Anyway, now it's time to confront that NetNavi.



NumberMan/Higsby underestimates Lan and MegaMan. Lan confronts Higsby about his villainy but all he cares about is getting rare chips. Lan sees that the only method for changing his mind will have to be violence.



Battle Gab
I should rephrase what I said about GutsMan. GutsMan isn't trivial, he's downright laughably easy. This NumberMan is trivial. His few attacks are just trigger-finger tests.



His first attack is to create three balls in a line. They will slowly move toward you. Each will have a number on it. That number is how many times you have to shoot it for it to disappear. Out of the three, one will always be low: around 3-8. Shoot that one with the buster, to open up a hole, and hold your chips for afterwards where he'll be open for attack.

His second attack is to generate a bomb. The bomb will have a 3 second counter on it. The easy solution is just to get right next to it and hammer the buster cannon until it's nullified.



His third attack is similar to the second. He will throw out a die. Deal with it the same as the bomb.

(This screen is from my second duel with him because I didn't get a satisfactory capture of this attack the first time.)



As long as you know his attacks and how to avoid them, it's entirely possible to get a no-hitter in this battle, as he has no randomness that might trip you up.

Note: I didn't get a no-hitter, as you can see, primarily because I was constantly re-punching the capture button and taking stupid hits.



But, I replayed the battle afterwards and passed it with flying colors. My previous no-hitter claim still stands.



Lan teaches Higsby an important life lesson. Having rare chips does not an easy battle make. Thanks to his double-spanking, at the hands of MegaMan, Higsby sees the light.



Though a kid, and having no experience with server maintanence, Lan manages to fix the server with a swift kick.

All his classmates, and Ms. Mari, take a moment to pat him on the back. MegaMan, however...



Poor Lan. Though a hero, once again, he still has to go learn where to place his semicolons.


Don't get too comfortable, Dear Readers. Chapter 2 isn't over yet. Stay tuned for the, exciting, second half...

Subway Quandary and MegaMan Powered Up!
Same Mega-Time, Same Mega-Channel!

This is riveting!

I am riveted!

This almost makes me want to renounce my sheer hatred and loathing for the series and give it another shot.

Question, guys: Does the encounter rate became less insane in subsequent installments? Because, seriously, I'm an apologist for random encounters and all, but in this game it's just too freaking much.

It stays about the same through them all, as I recall.

You can usually get something to make it so weak viruses don't attack you, though.

This is absolutely terrible of me, but everytime I see Higsby, I think of Spike from Cowboy Bebop.

It makes all of his lines better with Blum voicing him. Or all of Spike's worse with "Huh" added on. I'm not sure which.

Higsby is the best character in this series.

Man, you should've seen some of the shit we attempted in Hebrew school. Not that it worked often, but damn if we didn't try.

I think of Mr Mackey from South Park, especially since Higsby outright says "M'kay?" at points.

I like the fan art, all 2 pieces. 3 pieces

Re: the fanart, I'm feeling an icing/cake metaphor here.

That is terrible of you. You need to go to your room and think about what you've done.

No examples? If you post one or two, you'll be contributing to the rich tapestry of this thread.

Any particular quota you were hoping for?

Did I just get kissed by the prom queen? (FYI, I'm a master of metaphor.)

You've already exceeded your quota for awesome. Anymore awesome you post will be counted as overtime for the rest of the week.

I would deign to make passionate love to this LP.

Just throwing that out there. I am not ashamed.

That's going on the dust jacket!

The Trashcan
If I have any pictures that I don't use in the actual entries, I'll post them with an explanation of why.

I drew this picture first, but sound judgement made me replace it with the silent film picture.



So, what's wrong with it?

First, the colors are pretty good and I'm glad at how they turned out. However, mechanically it's a mess. Mari is levitating. Her forearms are too short. Her right leg is too long. Lan's head is too big and his hands look like platypus fins. I still don't know how that happened. I got as far as you see and realized the biggest problem with it: it wasn't even funny. So, I scrapped it.

I'm putting in a request now for a Dr Froid pic when his moment comes around. I still fangirl over him so hard.

Ah, Hebrew school. Let's see. There was one girl who tried to crawl in on her hands and knees. Problem was, she was in the front row and got caught. The teacher caught her and tried to discipline her, but the girl squeezed under her desk, which was up against the teacher's desk. The teacher gave up on her, but the girl would randomly pound on the teacher's desk in front of her, just to make a lot of noise (the desk was flimsy, wooden and hollow).

Then there was the time the teacher walked in smiling, until someone threw a piece of chalk at her and it hit her right between the eyes. Her smile turned into a frown instantly. The mental image has never left me.

This was night school--grade two. I think parents dropped their kids off to get a few extended hours of peace after regular school under the pretense that their children were going to learn all about the rich history of the Jews, etc. The worst kids were French Immersion students, interestingly.

(Edit: Oops, forgot the title.)

Part IV: Did I Just Repeat Myself, Again?

We return to the adventures of Lan Hikari. The school day has just ended.



MegaMan has the notion that, since the Metroline has opened up, Lan could go check on his dad and get that promised PowerUp program.



Haha, Mayl. That kind of thing is for NPCs.

You see, Lan has urgent goals. Though this is true, he decides to wander a bit and stop by the school library.



This girl makes me wonder, for a moment, why I'm playing this game.



Wow, Lan's dad is a pretty famous guy. That or Hikari is a very common Japanese surname.



Lan heads down to the Metroline entrance. But things have gone awfully wrong. The Metroline isn't running.



This helpful guy tells us that a landslide cause quite a problem when the automatic breaking program failed. The technicians deduced that it must've been a net based attack as there was no evidence of people breaking into the control room.



MegaMan seems overeager. For a moment, Lan wonders if it's not better to let the authorities handle it. But, Lan is suddenly reminded of his previous triumphs and enthusiasm wells up inside of him.
Net-Vestigation Time!



Lan returns home. His mother suggests that he plays outside but Lan has far more important things to do.



On the Net, this guy congratulates us on our victory over FireMan but warns us of the presence of copies wandering the Net.



No, it sounds like Bittorrent. Pirates!

In his travels, MegaMan passes by the net merchant, again.
I thought about grabbing a new HPMemory but decided I would try my best to low-ball the game.



MegaMan doesn't find anything like a train jacking in this section of the net. So, he moves past the above Access Point and finds a link to another section.

But, of course, it's blocked. It seems Dex owns the link and Lan will have to go convince him to give MegaMan permission to use it.



Lan dashes over to Dex's house as fast as his feet would take him.

Dex refuses, intially. But then offers on the terms that Lan filch a Recov50 L chip from Mayl.



So, Lan dashes over to Mayl's house. The door is unlocked and no one is home. They call it ACDC town but it seems more like Mayberry.



The piano must be where it's located. Lan disregards peoples privacy.



Lan jackes into the piano to find a thematically appropriate background, the chip, and a link for accessing Mayl's piano from the net.



When Lan leaves, Dex sends him an email and it looks like he wants a rematch. Lan decides he'll think about it as he heading that direction anyway.



Lan gets a little annoyed that Dex didn't just let him fight instead of going through all that thieving tomfoolery.



Battle Gab
Look it's GutsMan. Again.
If anyone wants to know the strategy, look back at the first entry. GutsMan is the same except for having twice the HP this time. The memory is fuzzy; I may have passed out during this battle.

I no-hitter him again.



After winning, Dex falls into shock. I don't know why. He hasn't won a single battle since the beginning of the game. There's no precedent for success. Dex hands over the link AND the GutsMan chip.

I feel a little cheatery if I use GutsMan. His attack cracks the entire enemy's area no matter the size. It's only use is for beating enemies that move around too fast to hit normally, as they'll break all the tiles and be stuck on one space.

On course, once again, Lan heads back home and gets on the Net. Now, he can pass through to the next section. I wonder what new sights are waiting on the other side!



Oh.



Hey, Lan doesn't need to search to know he's in the right place. This guy was standing right near the entrance. This game is awfully nice. Lan didn't even have to solve a block puzzle. Fast Forward!



After many winding, seemingly identical paths, Lan ends up directly in front of the problem just outside the cutscene event horizon.

I haven't rearranged Lan's chips since FireMan and I'm not going to bother now. I'm sure I can beat this guy.



Wow! This is something different. A bad guy who has his directive and just sticks to it. No Bitterness. No Neurosis. No Nonsense Personal Justification. Just honest, hard working villainy. Refreshing!

Mega/Lan's course is clear: "This means war!"



Battle Gab
StoneMan is the first boss that I consider annoying. It's not because he's hard; he's not. In fact, still with no upgrades (aside from the extra 20 HP) and the same chips I've been using since FireMan, he's an easy kill. The problem is, I just can't get a no-hitter with him. I'll show you why:



StoneMan's first, and primary, attack is to put up a block randomly in MegaMan's area. It can be destroyed but there's usually no reason to bother. While it's up, he'll repeatedly drop a trio of rocks on your head. It gives you warning in the form of a shadow. I guess I'm just not "twitchy" enough to consistantly dodge it.

He does this several times in a row and then switches over to his second attack.



This one has a cannon pop out of the ground and fire a beam. It is easy to spot and dodge.



I've replayed this fight a half-dozen times. Once I got him down to 43 HP without taking a hit. And, then it happened. Wouldn't you know it.

Either way, Lan gets 2000 zenny from this battle.



MegaMan immediately destroys the digi-boulder. I suppose the digi-boulder is a figurative representation of a program that does nothing but allocates too much memory so that other programs cannot function. But, that's just a guess.

With this done, Lan can finally go see Dad and get that PowerUp program.