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

Yeah, we can’t get to Net 3.



New viruses! I see a VulGear and a… a… a… I have no idea. Anyways, Vulgears shoot a slow wave of fire at you that turns to meet you; basically, Fireman’s secondary fire wave attack from all the way back then. Vulgears always stay out of your row when they’re not attacking, making things annoying. As for the… thing… it occasionally lays a mine down on the field. If you step on it, boom. They drop Fire Towers and Mine chips respectively.



And here we see… I forgot. Anyways, they can’t be damaged except when they attack. They attack by shooting a cannonball where you are, which will break your panel. They drop Wrecker chips I guess.

In any case, that’s all there is to the right path. On the left path… I have no idea. The left path leads to a confusing branch of roads, and that combined with the encounter rate made me decide to forgo exploring in favor of kicking Stoneman’s teeth in.



Wait, so the “landslide” was just that rock over there? Or is it a digital representation of it? Seriously, what the hell?

Incidentally, that rock sprite is also used in BN2 and BN3. Really.

Megaman demands to know what Stoneman thinks he’s doing.




He’s refreshingly upfront. Megaman asks why Stoneman would want to do that.



…As you may have notices Stoneman isn’t the brightest bulb in the shed. Incidentally, Stoneman is what the BNverse calls a Solo Navi; a navi without an operator. A notable example is Bass.




Megaman replies that Stoneman is the one going down.



Stoneman, like Numberman, doesn’t move. He doesn’t need to. He has two moves.



The first has him slam his fists into the ground, dropping three stones on your side of the field. They’re easy to dodge. However…




His second attack has his eyes glow. A 200 HP Rock Cube is then created on your side of the field, limiting movement. Note that there can only be one Rock Cube on your field at the time; if he makes another one the first cube will be destroyed.

Also note that breaking attacks will instantly destroy the cubes. As I found out in this battle, Dash counts as breaking.

Anyways, this would all be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that Stoneman doesn’t have mercy invulnerability. So start blasting away.




Yeah, BN1 is really strict on busting level. This was a no damage run (yes, I reset after taking the pictures) with me just blasting constantly with everything I had.

Lan agrees, then orders Megaman to get the security program running again.



Megaman proceeds to open fire on the rock.



To SciLab!



…? I guess the game was trying to make fun of players who constantly run in and out of Lan’s house, but I haven’t been doing that yet…



Who cares! To SciLa- er… Government Complex.

By the way, I’m not sure if they say it in this game, but elementary students get to ride the Metroline for free. I am not quite sure if that’s a good idea.



The Government Complex is just as big as ACDC. And it has the same background music.



This guy tells you how to do the Life Sword and Ultra Bomb PAs… not.

See, in BN1, Life Sword and Ultra Bomb didn’t exist.

What happens if you put the chips in anyways? You do Beta Sword and Beta Bomb, which lets you… use Sword and Little Bomb six times. Yeah.

Incidentally, despite the fact the translators named it Little Bomb, in this guy’s text he calls it Small Bomb.



This is the only lunch in the area.



If you say yes, Lan gets a lunch for free. It’s very tasty and nutritious according to the game.




Sal is actually one of my favorite characters. I really don’t know why (she only shows up in this game and Battle Chip Challenge, though she gets a mention at the end of BN6). I guess I just like her design.

I’ve always imagined Sal as being around the same age as Lan since BN1-3’s sprite style had everyone around the same height, and because her mugshot just looked like a young girl to me. I was pretty surprised when I watched the anime and found out she’s actually a lot older.

Anyways, that fact kind of fills this scene with pedophile vibes. So I’m just going to stick with my “she’s around the same age as Lan” theory, mmkay?


Back to the actual game, Sal comments that the number of viruses has sprung up recently, so she wants to practice net battling with Lan.



Dark Blue Flannel claims that Woodman is really hard at this point of the game. He’s… not. At least if you got Fireman (note you don’t need to S rank V2 to get it; you just have to beat him) or bothered to get some Fire Tower chips. Actually, you don’t even need those. You just need some decent reflexes.

Then again, DBF didn’t really work on trying to get a decent folder at the beginning of the game, so meh.



Every time Woodman moves, he jumps. When he lands, Wood pillars come out of the ground. Not too hard to dodge, though I think when he lands Megaman’s unable to move for a second because I got hit here even though I was smashing up.

After I got hit and noticed the damage he did, I decided that I had enough HP to be able to tank everything, which made getting pictures a lot easier.



After that Woodman will do a super jump and start crouching. He’ll rapidly fire off Wood towers on your side of the field. You just need good reflexes here.

After that some seeds will start landing on the field, releasing wood towers or flames down your row. It can also create a tree that will eventually turn into a fruit, and if Woodman lands on the fruit he heals.

Woodman, like Stoneman, has no mercy invulnerability. So this battle is really fast and easy.

I actually tried to record this battle. Unfortunately, the program I used just wouldn’t record sound, and all the help online didn’t work. I struggled with it for a bit, but I eventually decided the end result really wasn’t worth all of the trouble.



Meh.

After you win, Sal gives you /Sal, which will let you proceed further in the Net.



Sal recommends we go check out the Net merchant there. I shall do so.



Wouldn’t you know it, you can jack in to this booth.



Here we see… um… er… actually, I have no clue what these things are. The shadows turned out to be pinecone things that fired off fast moving 100 damage (!!) Wood towers at me, and the… thing over there on the top tried to set some grenades on my field.



These cloud things fire off rain clouds that travel up and down one of your columns. They also spend most of their time above the floor where you can’t hit them.

Inside I found a Recover 120 A and an @Sal.

Now then, back to Net 2! I guess I’ll have to go back to Lan’s house and jac-



OH GOD DAMN IT.



Yeah well screw you too mercy invulnerability. Turns out a fully charged shot causes bosses to flinch. This made this battle last a lot longer. Note that this was no damage as well.

Incidentally, I checked back with those GMDs Megaman couldn’t decode earlier and got a Recover 50 L from Mayl‘s. I still couldn’t decode the one in Dex’s PC though.

Anyways, past the /Sal barrier is Net 3 (past Miyu's barrier is actually Net 4. Yes, this is confusing). This area has a lot of level 2 viruses, and these jerks.



Hey there Billy! No, really, they’re called Billys. They are an absolute pain in the ass. They send thunderballs onto your side of the field, and if you get hit by one every time you take a step you take some damage (thankfully at this level it’s only 5 damage). This is as annoying as it sounds.



More importantly though is the Net Merchant. Sadly, he doesn’t have what I wanted (Power UPs) but he does have some HP Memory and a Wood Armor.

Wood Armor makes Megaman take half damage from Wood, Elec, Aqua, and Neutral attacks and double damage from Fire attacks. It also changes Megaman’s damage taking sprite from a full body flinch to him bracing himself. Obviously I’ll equip it.

The shop also has M-Cannon Ls, but they’re really expensive and honestly their chip code is enough to make me skip them.



Amusingly enough, these cars are programmed to stop when you’re close enough to them. Even if you’re on the sidewalk. Since Lan isn’t even facing the street he obviously doesn’t want to cross, giving the unfortunate implication that these guys are stalking him.

Anyways, inside the actual government complex there’s a vending machine in the upper corner we can jack into. Inside is a Spreader J and these guys.



These guys create a bubble that will slowly chase you. If it hits anything, that and the 3x3 area around it is hit with an explosion. They drop Heater chips which do… something.

There’s also a TV with an Escape L in it.



The TV also has some Rattys in it. These guys fire off small bombs that can turn once to try and hit you. Once they take too much damage, they open their eyes and begin to move faster. They drop Ratton chips.



The area where we enter the building leads to the Waterworks. We want to go to Sci Lab, which is right down this hall. Inside SciLab is another vending machine with 5000 Z and a new type (in other words a recolor) of VulGear virus that attacks with water instead of fire. They drop Aqua Towers.

If this seems confusing, note that the “Dr. Hikari” the man is talking about is Tadashi Hikari, Lan’s grandfather.

Anyways, if you talk with the lady near the elevator she’ll let you up to Yuichiro’s room.




Well crap. Oh well, we may as well see what’s here.



Anyways, examining Dad’s PC causes Megaman to ask to be jacked in. Lan obliges.

Inside is an @Dad and this thing.




My level huh? Let’s see what I’m supposed to be able to match.



…Let’s try that again.



That’s better.



We never actually see Yuichiro’s navi. One wonders if he even has one.

Anyways, the Mr. Prog tells us the Power Up program isn’t in the computer.



We know he has a PET though.

Lan decides to just leave Yuichiro a message. He writes one up, then hands it to Megaman, who hands it to the Mr. Prog.

As to why Lan didn’t just boot up the computer, open up a word processor, and just type the damn thing out there?

Too much effort required I guess.

Aside from that, near Yuichiro’s computer is a machine used for jack in tests. It holds a HiCannon J.

Also in here are a some Handy viruses. They set Time bombs on your field. Needless to say, they’re really annoying. Thankfully they don’t really move much.

There’s nothing left to do here, head back to ACDC. As soon as we get there, we get some mail.

It’s from Yuichiro. He apologizes for not being there.



Heck yeah!




HECK YEAH!



Now the buster charges ever so slightly faster! Whoo.

Next time: Um… oh! Iceman! Yeah, him.

Heater chips are Heat-Spreaders, I believe.

Are you sure about the Armours? I always thought they halved their own element and gave you it's weakness.

I thought that too actually.

But yeah, half damage to all but the element it's weak against. Pretty handy actually.

Also, I did actually think those bubble things dropped Heat Spread chips. Problem is, when I actually got the chip, this was its description:

"Fire with a 1-panel blast".

And that just confused me.

EDIT: Yeah, just checked it, Heater is basically heat spread.

Still, that description is just what.

Probably means that it spreads one panel to all directions.

It's not like many of the future chip descriptions are very illuminating either.

Anyway, good luck with this. There is no way I could go back to this game and its horribly confusing net design after the wonderful simplicity of the sequels.

WWW net crime has increased, and the damage is getting worse.



The game then cuts to Megaman once again trying to wake Lan up.



Too bad Lan. This is Japan.





Incidentally, I have FINALLY figured out what this poster is.



Thanks to Bergasa; found it in one of his posts on the Megaman X online thread.

Moving on, while I could go to school, that’s I’ve got someone I have to meet at Net 3.




Turns out I was wrong about Stoneman. He can flinch. It’s just that he doesn’t flinch to anything less than 100 damage.




What do you want from me BN1? In all seriousness though, I’m pretty sure by now that you need under 30 second deletions to get a S rank.

By the way, note that Stoneman’s chip is S coded. This is because, obviously enough, his name starts with S. The funny thing about this is that there are a total of three navis in this game who also have names that start with S, and their navi chip codes all reflect this. So yeah, S code is pretty strong in this game.

The reason I mention this is because the “remake” Operate Shooting Star changed the chip codes of the other two navis Skullman and Shadowman if you were wondering because of this.

Much to my surprise…




I don’t need anything to get into Net 9.

Yes, Net 3 goes to Net 9.

Yes, this game is confusing.



Oh hey Headys were in BN1. Same principle: either remove their barriers with a powerful attack, or counterattack to delete them. Of note is that if there’s more than one they’ll always line up while attacking, so they’ll only hit one row.



Mm-hmm.



Gaias are annoying. They only take one damage from any attack while they’re gray. They’ll slowly move up to the front row and slam their hammer down, which will cause your entire field to blow up, one column at a time. Like Numberman’s number bomb actually. You’ll need good timing to avoid it. Thankfully, while attacking they take full damage from attacks.

Anyways, I was also allowed into Net 10.



Oh joy. These guys line up with you, create ice blocks and spit them at you. Not much to say beyond that.



That satellite thing sends a cursor onto your side of the field. If you get hit by it, it’ll start firing at where Megaman is standing, forcing you to move around constantly to avoid the shots.




Oh yes. Sadly, there was only one.

You know, I don’t think I’ve explained how the level system works. For each HPMemory, Megaman gains 1 level. For each PowerUP, Megaman gains 3 levels. And for each armor (you don’t have to equip them, you just need to be holding one), Megaman gains 6 levels.

There wasn’t anything really spectacular besides those though.



Now the charge shot is actually useful! Wonderful day!



Or not. That bubble thing has a Bubble Wrap: a barrier that pops as soon as it’s hit, but constantly regenerates. Unless hit with an Elec attack of course. The actual virus will line up with you and fire Aqua Towers at you.

The thing about Net 10 is that after this, you need to start clearing certain tasks to get to the next Net area. Net 11 and 13’s door require you to have a high enough level. never use Escape while in the area.




This is the door to Net 13.

Incidentally, to get to Net 14 you have to have the chips from every virus in the area. I say incidentally because I’m not going to Net 14, because the doors to Net 15 and Net 16 require some ridiculous things (7 or less battles before you get to the door and always getting above busting level 4 in every battle in the area respectively). And quite frankly, my folder is already getting too weak to really do anything.

And while Net 12 is also fairly annoying to get to (always have a busting level of at least 3 while passing through Net 11), the prize I get (a net shop with two Power UPs) is well worth it compared to Net 15’s (a shop with only one Power UP). That, and I only need to get past one area.



One area with new and stronger viruses. Yeesh. The bees line up with you, then fly at you. If they hit Megaman, they do a large chunk of damage and regenerate their health to full. They drop Drain 2 chips, which is an obvious sign that I really shouldn’t be here yet.



Piranhas! Note that in this game they drop chips that only fire off a set amount of arrows at a time, so now back row shenanigans like in BN6. Anyways, they fire off cursors down your row. If it hits something, they fire an arrow down the row.







YES.

Anyways, I guess I’ll explore this place.



…The crap? The fan thing constantly fired twisters down its row. Combined with the other shrub things’ grenades, I barely pulled through this fight.

Ooo.

Anyways, that’s all there was to this area so I should probably stop sequence breaking and get on with the plot.

Incidentally, if you’ve been paying attention you’ll note that so far the Internet is structured like this:

-------------> Net 3 > Net 9 > Net 10 > Net 11 > Net 12
Net 1 > Net 2-------------------------> Net 13 > Net 14 > Net 15 > Net 16
-------------> Net 4

I can only wonder how Net 5-8 is going to be squished in.



Lan asks if Haruka isn’t feeling well.



What.



What the hell are you talking about? Make some eggs, some toast, some bacon, whatever. She’d only need water if she was making rice or pasta or some kind of sauce. Or if she needed to wash some vegetables or something. Anyways, those aren’t breakfast meals.

Megaman then reminds Lan to get to school.



I mean, look at this! You have a refrigerator full of food! Is there nothing in this entire thing that can be cooked without water?

Anyways, once again, Mayl is waiting outside. Once again, she is angry that we are late.










Lan wonders if the whole neighborhood has lost water. Mayl decides to go check if the inside of the school has water.

Lan muses that he’s thirsty.

Anyways, in class everyone’s pretty annoyed about the no water thing. Yai also notes that a kid in class B is missing. For some reason, she calls this kid a rat.



That you’re an absolute female dog? Sorry, we already knew that. I never actually got around to mentioning it in my BN6 LP, but Dex, Yai, and Mayl are pretty much the worst friends ever.

…Well, I guess Dex has his moments (none of them are in this game though), but Yai and Mayl? Nuh-uh.

In fact, in my opinion anyways, in the entire BN series the amount of friends his age Lan has that aren’t asshats or completely one dimensional, and show up for more than just one scene per game can be counted on one hand. It’s like… Mamoru, Iris, Chaud eventually, and… yeah, that’s it.



Dex interrupts by screaming his house doesn’t have water. Ms. Mari tells him to quiet down.

Dex is surprised the whole town has lost water, and Mayl asks if the officials know the reason. Ms. Mari replies that they haven’t figured it out yet, and as such class is canceled for the day.

Dex celebrates, but Ms. Mari tells him to not to move around too much to conserve water.



We can battle Gutsman again now.



Gutsman2? Does that mean…



Yay. Do note that you can also get GutsPunch chips from him if you get around a 5 or so.

Also note that unless you got Knight Sword from Net 12, you’re not really likely to S rank this guy. You can still 10 rank him though, which will give you what you need. In fact, this is my third Gutsman3 chip; the other two were 10 ranks.

Anyways, from this fight I noticed that all bosses, not just Stoneman and Woodman, seem to have a set amount of damage that they “ignore”, in other words, they don’t flinch. Going above that will cause a flinch though.

In other words, they’ve got a really weird version of Super Armor.

Moving on, all of the NPCs will talk about how there’s no water.



That’s not suspicious at all.



Higsby works fast.



Higsby has a 3 Chip Trader and a 10 Chip Trader already set up. I decided to use the 10CT first.



Well screw you too.

Okay, let’s try the 3CT.



Meh.



Higsby also has a machine that’ll let you battle Numberman V2 and presumably V3.




The battle wasn’t very hard. Anyways, we can’t fight Numberman V3 yet. Why?



I just freaking S ranked Numberman V2. What do you mean I’m not good enough?



Hey there Vile! Er… Vava! You know what, screw it.



Anyways, Higsby doesn’t really have anything good yet.

A NPC asks if we have a Fire Tower F.



Meh, why not.



Oh shoot, I just realized I completely forgot about one of this game’s easter eggs. If you go to Mayl’s room after the events of Numberman, but before you beat Stoneman (you may need to talk to the Metroline officials first, not sure), you can find her behind the ladder. If you talk to her, she’ll screech that she’s changing and that Lan should get the hell out.

Anyways, there’s another NPC at the bottom corner of ACDC who asks us to help find his dentures, which he lost somewhere in the park.



I’m going to hope they’re in a case.





As soon as you enter the Metro, you’ll get some mail.



How did she know this?

Anyways, Yai asks Lan to help find the kid, or else Yai won’t call his name in class anymore (in other words she won’t pretend to be him so Lan won’t get marked absent).

I find it kind of funny she thinks she needs to force Lan to help someone.



We still can’t face Woodman V2.

Anyways, inside the government complex is:



Chaud! Except in this game (and in BN2 and most of BN3 as well) he’s an absolute douche!

Anyways, I think I’ll cut it off here. I seriously need some stress relief from the never ending virus battles.

I mean, I’d turn on no virus battles if it didn’t mean that I would cripple my chances of improving my folder.

Next time: Hopefully we’ll actually get to Iceman.

Alright, time for Lan’s first meeting with Chaud.




The receptionist asks for ID. Chaud shows it, and the lady tells him to use it to activate the elevator.



What, so is it for tours normally?

Chaud thanks the lady and turns around.




Megaman reminds Lan that he is a kid after all. He then asks if Lan heard what they were talking about.



Incidentally, despite all of the stuff he does, Lan never becomes an official net battler, no matter what the anime may tell you. The closest he came was in BN2, where he could go up to a SSS License, but that was with a civilian license IIRC.

Lan notes he’s heard of official net battlers before.



Megaman wonders what kind of netnavis they use.

The answer? Aside from Chaud and the occasional NPC with a custom sprite, they all use the same navi type.




It’s just a little white lie.

Anyways, we need some ID.

Incidentally, just to the left is a crowd of NPCs. And by crowd I mean four people.



…?

Moving on, we need some ID. And I know just where to find some.




Eh, Lan becomes a scientist in the future anyways.



Hilariously enough, it appears Lan had to actually cut it out. Apparently in the future ID is sewn into your coa- er, smock.




And of course, SciLab ID gets you into the Waterworks! It makes perfect sense!

Despite the fact that Megaman says we should go to the pump room, we end up going to the main control room.

Then again, they could be the same. Not to sure about how places like this work.



Do note that this was in a bookshelf that was filled with personal belongings.



Oh hey he has a custom sprite. He’s clearly the next bad guy.

Lan mumbles that ACDC’s water has stopped. The man replies that he knows (why wouldn’t he anyways). For some reason, Megaman repeats the fact that the man already knew.



Really? A bug? That’s why the system has failed? I was certain it was because aliens were attacking.

The man tells Lan they’re working as fast as they can to fix the bug.



That seems oddly specif-



I thought you already knew.

The man then recommends we take a tour. We shall.



Unfortunately, this wasn’t the way in to the main system. I did find 3000 Z and a Recover 200 L though.

I also found a bunch of Piranha viruses, which I promptly used to grind 10 TriSpear Fs.

It took awhile (you only get them from Piranha2s, and you have to get around a 6-7 rank. If it was just that, it wouldn‘t be too bad, but there‘s no Collect program in this game so I have to hope I don‘t get zenny), but it was worth it as I was able to phase out the Shockwave chips and end up with a duo coded folder.

I also have a bunch of Chip Trader fodder.

So it works out.

Anyways, as it turns out, past an employees only door is the actual pump. I guess that answers my earlier question.



Anyways, one of the NPCs explains the problem.



Another employees only door leads to the water filtration room. Here we find Chaud, who I will hereby christen Douche.




Anyways, once we leave Lan and Megaman ponder the situation. If an Official has been called, it’s got to be serious. And Lan and Megaman want to help. So the two decide to hide until everyone else leaves.

They shall do so in Yuichiro’s room.

This plan seems to assume Yuichiro doesn’t come back to his own lab, and that the security staff won’t bother to check on the room of their most important scientist.

The game then cuts forward a few hours.




…They get out at noon? That’s… wow.

Megaman muses that since today is Saturday everyone must be out by now. Never mind that there is a crisis going on and everyone’s likely to continue working.

Once we get to the control room though, Lan discovers the door is locked.



Lan notes they can’t examine the network with the way in locked.

Megaman orders Lan to find something to jack in to.

Oh hey another custom sprite.



*face palm*



You’re one to talk.



As soon as she leaves though…





Okay, apparently the water cooler links directly to the main system. That… makes no sense whatsoever.

Megaman notes that the place is deserted, even of programs.






As you may have guessed, Megaman slips on the ice. It’s like G/S/C’s Ice Path, just even more annoying. Why? Because it isn’t just 90 degree angles you have to work with. Megaman can go in eight directions, and you have to use this fact to solve these puzzles.

Oh, and the music sucks too.

Ahead is a BMD with a Sonic Wave J.

Anyways, there are a bunch of leaking fountains that are blocking our way. We need to get to them and turn their handles.




As soon as we get to the next area…




Protoman takes the opportunity to try and cut Megaman in two.

The irony here is tremendous. Why? In BN2, Douche accuses Lan of being a Gospel agent and assaults him. As for why he made that assumption considering Lan stopped WWW and saved the Mother Computer (BN2 thing) right in front of his eyes…





…I honestly just stared at the screen here for about two minutes. I have no possible comment on this typo.

Anyways, Lan recognizes Douche. Douche also recognizes Lan.



Yes Douche. I’m lost. That’s why I’m in a building where everyone has already left, in a room that requires ID to get to, and in a machine that links to the main computer.






…Methinks there was an error here.



Wait, what?




Jeez. Douche is such a… douche.

With that, Protoman teleports away.



Lan’s annoyed at Douche’s attitude. Megaman reminds Lan to calm down lest he get thirstier.



Can you guess what we’re doing in this area? Anyways, further ahead is this creep.




Even though he says that, you can walk past him. And you should, because past him is a HPMemory.

Unfortunately, we can’t get any farther because



No sabotage here!

Anyways, this place is pretty boring, and I’m sure you don’t want to read a walkthrough.

I’ll just note the BMDs I find: an Ice Punch B, a Wide Sword C, and a M-Cannon L.

Anyways, after a particularly annoying puzzle, we reach the miniboss of this section.



Yeah, remember these guys? Random encounters in Net 10?




Lan orders Megaman to melt the ice.




As always, brute force is the answer.

Lan decides to head back to ACDC to see how things went.




Megaman notes it looks really nasty.

Then a delusional zombie walks into the picture.





The man faints. Lan is about to check if he’s okay when Douche gives us a call.



HOW DID HE GET LAN’S NUMBER?



It’s great to see people are so retarded they’ll drink purple water.



Wait, so the machine is supposed to be frozen over? What?




It’s Lan’s fault you did absolutely nothing to stop me even though Protoman is capable of just teleporting around the system. It’s also Lan’s fault that people are drinking clearly polluted water.

Really Douche? Really?

Also, does that mean the water is purple normally? Did someone just redirect the water to go through where the pollutants are kept after they’re filtered out? Or did someone just dump an obscene amount of purple dye in and nobody noticed?

Anyways, Douche tells Lan to stay out of his way. He then hangs up.

Lan decides that if first you don’t succeed, try try again.




In the future, bottled water does not exist. Nor does any other sort of drinkable liquid.



You know, I didn’t mention it before, but in BN1 the chip traders do not auto save. As such, you can save scum these things.

Not that I’m doing that. Just pointing it out.

Anyways, as soon as you get to the Metro you get some more mail.



NOT NOW YA-



Wait what?




Megaman notes things finally makes sense.



Seriously. The name of the victim is pretty important.

Megaman and Lan decide to find the kid to make Froid stop.



IT’S PURPLE.

Amusingly enough, this NPC model doesn’t have a sideways sprite. It appears they just chose randomly on what models would receive more sprites.

Anyways, obviously enough the kid is in that car.



The kid goes rolling out. Apparently the car’s lock was on the outside. And apparently the WWW’s leverage over Froid was being left unguarded.

Yeah.



Yeah, Froid’s kid is just a basic NPC model. In the anime though…



He has a name and a new design. Say hello to Tory Froid (Tohru Hikawa in Japan). Amusingly enough, in the anime the situation is reversed: Tory’s dad is held hostage and Tory is forced to freeze the Waterworks. After that, Tory doesn’t really do that much, and in later seasons as a running gag he’s always late for whatever the group did that day.




To help us, the kid hands us a Handle program. Guess what we’re going to do with it.

He also hands us a message for his dad. As for why he doesn’t just e-mail it over…

Back at the Waterworks, Lan tries to tell Dr. Froid that his son is safe but…



So it’s time to do things the usual way.



Brute force.



I love how both the father and the son are referred to as “Froid”.



Our “friendly neighborhood navi” is gone by the way.

Okay, the BMDs I found on my way to the huge ice sheet puzzle held a Recover 80 C, and a Tri Arrow A.







Yeah, this guy tells you what you need to do. Even with that, this puzzle is freaking stupid without a guide.



Yeah, there’s a BMD here. Can you see it?



And in the next area…



The final puzzle is straight out of Ice Path. I’ll be honest: it was only by humming the G/S/C cave tune was I able to stay sane throughout all of this ice crap and the endless virus battles.



Yay.



Well excuse me Mr. “I can teleport wherever I like”, I had to go through freaking winter wonderland to get here.

…Wait a minute he was expecting us?



Looks like Protoman’s smarter than his operator. Which is actually kind of obvious now that I think about it.

Moving on, Lan replies with a pithy “What!?”

Iceman gets back up and attempts to freeze Protoman with his breath.



Protoman barely gets out of the way.



Iceman notes he still has a job to do.




Douche asks how Megaman could possibly say that after so many people have suffered.



…I’m starting to wonder if they even realized it’s spelled L-O-R-D.





Someone forgot a space…



Wait, even Lan knows about this?

Anyways, Protoman takes off in search of the true enemy. With an “As you say Load Chaud!” Protoman warps out.



Megaman asks Iceman to listen to him.

Iceman blows some more ice breath and commands Megaman to be silent.



Hey Lan, give him the message.



JUST GIVE HIM THE DAMN MESSAGE!



Oh you have got to be kidding me.



Iceman starts the battle by putting up a barrier of Ice Cubes. Note that if you have any type of Punch chip, you can send these at Iceman.

These things eventually break, and Iceman will replace them. He will also occasionally kick them at you.

Aside from that, Iceman throws Freeze Bombs at you, which hit in a cross shape and freeze Megaman. Mash buttons to escape quicker.

And that’s it for Iceman’s moves. Reset time.



Battle took longer than I would’ve liked (Iceman would not stand still), but meh.






Megaman FINALLY hands over the message.




Lan reminds Dr. Froid to get things fixed.



Iceman proceeds to suck up all of the ice.



The alarm then goes off, much to Lan and Froid’s surprise.



HOW IS HE BALANCING ON THE ICE.



The navi tells Protoman that he doesn’t have time to face him. He gives his name, Colorman, and jacks out.



Megaman and Iceman run over.




Lan shouts Douche’s name. I guess he wanted an explanation.



You told us yourself Douche.

*flashback*



*end flashback*



Protoman warps out.




No, that’s definitely the reason. Seriously, have you tasted tap water before? Blargh.

Megaman asks Lan what they should do next.

Lan decides to go back to kid Froid.



Free water would be go-



…That works too I guess.



Lan is silent as he witnesses this family reunion. Megaman declares that this is what a family is like. Lan replies with a confirmation.



Lan denies it.

Megaman then notes that time is getting tighter, and that the WWW plot just keeps getting worse.

Dr. Wily notes that this will slow down their attempt to conquer the net. He asks what the problem is.

Mr. Match apologizes. He then mumbles something. Wily asks for him to speak up.






Yeah, cause Lan isn’t doing anything at all to help Megaman. Nope. Those battle chips? Megaman’s just psychically inserting them into the PC.

Wily declares that the WWW navis can handle anything. He shouts that there will be no more excuses.

Mr. Match tries to interrupt, but Wily shuts him up.




Wily tells the woman to get to it.

Wily and the Indian guy then leave.




The woman muses that they didn’t get Wood, but they did get Fire and Aqua.



The man notes that it’s so top secret they’re not even supposed to know about it.

The woman states that she knows, and decides to get back to work.



We cut to Megaman.



Much to Megaman’s annoyance, Lan’s response to Megaman’s day long effort is a bored “yeah”.

Roll then walks into the scene.



She hands over a letter from Mayl and leaves.

In the letter, Mayl states that Yai’s birthday is coming up. She asks if Lan wants to come with her to go shopping.



Oh hell no.

Unfortunately, Megaman won’t let you say no, so we have to go shopping. Great.

Next time: Traffic!

Go shopping
NO
But thou must!
Dragon Warrior strikes again XD- and I second the mothing to rename Chaud Douche for the first 3 games- wait did it just tell you his first name O_o
*Head explodes*

I never understood why they said all the plots were failing. They're getting the superprograms, aren't they?

I have a week of no school. Time to speed through the game.

Alright, guess we have to deliver the response.



Gah.



Now we’re supposed to head to the metro. But I’m sure Mayl can wait while we do more important things. Like heading to Net 16-



Damn it.



I don’t even get a chip.

Anyways, like I said I’m confident enough in my abilities and in my folder to be able to make it to Net 16-



OH COME ON!



Alright, that was worth it.

Seriously, it’s really annoying fighting Fireman. He flinches to literally everything in my folder but my basic buster shot. Hell, I’m pretty sure he flinches to my green charge, which would mean his damage threshold is around 30 damage.

Moving on. I actually checked online; turns out that to unlock the doors Net 11-12 or Net 13-16, you don’t actually need to be at a certain level. You just can’t use the Escape chip in Net 10.

So I guess I’m not really sequence breaking at all with my absurd amounts of money.



Say hello to one of the most annoying enemies in the game: Rush. This thing only takes one damage from anything. It will randomly pop up all over the field, and as its HP depletes it’ll start moving faster. If you don’t hit it before it goes into its hole again, it runs away. It drops Pop-up, which is basically an invisible (at least when you’re not attacking) that lasts one entire turn.

Even worse, it’s a rare encounter. I feel no shame admitting I used save states here (although if it means anything to you purists, I only save stated the very beginning of the battle. I had to hit him all 10 times).

It’s also in Network Transmission, only there it’s worse. Same gimmick, just rarer (only appears in Legendary WWW Area 2, only the upgraded form drops Pop-up, and the upgraded form is randomly encountered where the normal form is) and with 190 more HP.

Pop-up’s also spectacularly broken in Network Transmission. With it and a maxed out buster, you can own every boss in the game except the Life Virus R.



I’m never going to be using this. Mind you, as soon as you get the Poison Anubis chip this thing is dirt easy, since Poison Anubis covers the whole field with poison mist, meaning that as soon as Rush comes up he’ll be hit.

Anyways, with that I am allowed in to Net 14. And what do I have to do to get to Net 15? Have seven or less battles before I get to the door.

Yes, it is stupid. You basically need a map, and even if you check said map you‘ll notice that the area is incredibly long.



WHAT THE CRAP IS THAT THING?! KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT.

It moved around in a 2x3 block. I’m not sure if it does anything since I killed it so fast. Didn’t get a chip either…




To make it through you have to walk only and have an enormous amount of luck. I’m honestly surprised I did it first try.

The final door to Net 16 requires you to always have a busting level of at least 5 in Net 15.



Considering the average HP of the enemies in this area is 200, this will be quite annoying.

Anyways, there’s a Candle3 (or Candle2, can’t tell) in this picture. They will constantly regenerate health as long as their candle is alive. Aside from that, they line up with you and shoot fire down the row.

To get through this area I walked everywhere to minimize virus encounters and saved after every successful battle. I did fail a few times though, and it turns out that if you do mess up the game offers to let you try again.

Incidentally, Rush also appears here. I’m not sure if you’re forced to start over if he manages to escape though; I only encountered him after opening the door.



What the christ that is expensive.



Alright. My buster is now at its maximum capability.

What? Rapid?

Oh that’s meaningless in this game. Seriously, Rapid 1 in BN1 is like Rapid 3 in BN6.



The game pulls a dick move here. Would you have guessed there was a path here without a map?

YES.




I know, right? Lan and Megaman don’t get any respect.

Anyways, in Net 16 you can challenge Bass as a random encounter.

After you beat the game.

And are at least level 70.

And have 174 chips in the library.

I don’t qualify for any of those.



This, and a nearby HeroSword I are your prizes for making it this far.

Alright, now that I’ve fully cleared out the accessible Internet, I guess I should go check on Mayl.



Because he’s like the only competent scientist in Electopia besides Cossack and Wily?



As soon as we go outside, we get some mail. One letter is a notice about the new metro.

The other…






Wow… thanks.



Higsby has some new stuff. Still nothing really useful though besides Fast Gauge, but that’s in the wrong code.



Numberman V3 is now ready for battle.




Argh, Numberman flinches to everything too. Okay, let’s do this again.

Okay, one more time!



*CENSORED*



There we go.



I think you’d win more if you made Numberman actually move. Just saying.

In BN5 Team Colonel Numberman appears again and he does move. He’s still easy though.



*sigh*

Alright, time to check on Mayl. Not.




…damn it I can’t say that to a kid. Besides, there won’t be war in Electopia as long as Megaman and Lan still exist.







Not like I’m ever going to use them. Sadly, I don’t have Escape N yet.





Wait, so that’s why Mayl crushes on Lan? Loneliness? That’s… surprisingly unhealthy. She’s lucky Lan is such a good person.

Okay, let’s go check if Mayl is ready.



Huh?