Part 57: A whole lot of navi-fighting. S-ranking everybody before postgame.
We got another of those gatekeys at some point?? I hope this one opens a useful shortcut
...Oh well! At least it's some completion.
Oh hey, speaking of which! I think it's time I rounded out my chip library a little bit. And what's the best way to do that?
Admittedly, you can't get every chip from the trader, but you can get some nice ones!
also there is a cheat code that lets you trade chips at a 1:1 level
Now, while I'm in Netopia, there's one more thing I should do for completion's sake!
With all the wonderful chips I just got, there's probably a non-Gater way to take care of ThunMan.
Yessss
And I guess videos!
Here's me stabbing ThunMan to death
And Epee Em fighting thunder with thunder (and also swords)
HOW EXCITING. Navi battles sure are great, I hope I get to fight a ton more of them*!!!
*
Anyway, that's enough tooling around for now*, so let's check out the new parts of the WWW Area I can unlock with an SSS License!
*no it's not
Weird. It's one thing for these blocks to be scattered in the Undernet, but Wily's own evil base?
I guess Wily's just a big ol' weirdo.
So this little corner of WWW Area 1 is worth checking. Not for protectos (thankfully), but for G-G-G-G-GHOSTS
Wow I am terrible at ghosthunting apparently. Hope that doesn't become a problem later!
There was also another BugFrag behind an SS License block somewhere else around here. But this looks suspiciously like progress, so let's roll!
I am so ready for the next WWW Area! Woo!
...wooooooo. OK. That's a little bit of a roadblock. How about I just-
Pffffffff
And that's why you always wanna check where you're going first! Because slogging through the WWW Area, not being able to jack out or run from random battles, can be annoying! ...but also kind of fun, so it evens out.
So, that message about being 'the strong' out of 'many Navis'? Pretty esoteric stuff! What it means in the language of non-vague-hints, is "YOU MUST S-RANK EVERY NON-WWW AREA NAVI TO PASS"
"SERIOUSLY EVERY SINGLE ONE"
"NO REALLY"
"HA HA HA GOOD LUCK"
So it can be a little bit of a roadblock, yeah!
...So what's the easiest way to check what navis you've S-ranked? Well it's pretty simple, there's only really two ways to check. The most annoying way is to speak to a little NPC back in ACDCTown!
She'll list every navi you've S-ranked so far. Which in my case, is GutsMan, ToadMan, QuickMan, CutMan, ThunderMan, ProtoMan...
So you know which ones to go for next, right??
Haha, nevermind! First I've got to actually romp through the Net and make sure all the V2s are beaten, because obviously I can't fight the V3s until after that!
There's a V2 Navi in Undernet 5, but you have to go all the way around through Undernet 6.
It's a bit of a slog! But there's a rare virus in here, too.
Rush viruses are freakin adorable. They only take one damage per hit, and you have to play whack-a-mole with them. It's pretty neat!
We'll take a quick side-trip to Undernet 7, because there's another V2 navi here. Somewhere.
Right near this mystery data!
It's haunted mystery data, probably. And as usual, FreezeMan is a cool design, a fun fight, but also really easy.
(I got a CannBall P chip behind him, but green mystery data this far in the undernet has a really good chance of being a virus)
Undernet 7 is worth visiting at this point anyway, with an SS and SSS License you can get some mean loot here. AntiSwrd H, Recov300 R, GrassStage H, and SilvFist L are just laying around! But of course, there's plenty of those butthole geddon-using Dominerds down here, so you'd better be prepared.
Back in Undernet 5, my favourite place on the net! I can't believe I missed it last time, geez!
Because ShadowMan is right here. Not even in a corner, just by a wall sort of. And I am on a GutsRoll today, woo.
Of course, V3 navis don't appear until after you jack out and back in, so we may as well take care of some other stuff while we're out. Like-
I... have no idea how I managed to miss taking a video of that
But here's Epee Em's fight which is just as good/better!
...
NO TIME TO BE CREEPED OUT, LET'S MOVE ON TO SOMEBODY LESS TERRIBLE
....somebody marginally less terrible?
wait, hang on
Therrrrre we go!
I just want to stab him, over and over
Epee Em's here as usual fighting a giant ligher
Look at that shiteating grin, wow, even after an 11-year old wipes the floor with him. What a trooper.
...OK, I've totally lost track of what other navis I need to beat, so I guess it's time to check up the easy way to see.
The chip library! Because of course you only get the V3 chips on S-ranking the V3 navis (actually you can get them as low as 9-rank sometimes, but possibly only after initially S-ranking them?? I fully admit I'm not sure - Battle Network chip drop conditions are sometimes bizarre)
So we're missing ShadowMan, KnightMan, MagnetMan, FreezeMan, and-
...Well hello there! How on earth am I missing my most-abused navichip? No idea! But I'm about to abuse him further, mwahaha.
We're not Gospel, but feel free to fight against us?
Yeah, that's about how I expected it to go.
Here's my GATEMAN VS. GATER. TWO GATES ENTER, ONLY ONE LEAVES.
And Epee Em taking a much less cheesy go
There's one more important things to do in the centre. It's really easy to miss, but definitely worth doing!
Up in the MotherComp room there's a lady who may or may not have been our best friend ever at one point.
Apparently Jenny is a scientist?? Cool beans.
ANYTHING FOR A FRIEND
That's right, there's a third folder in this game you can pick up. Lots of fun for trying out different folders when Navi-hunting. Which is exactly why I picked it up, of course.
It's full of mostly crap, but we can fix that no worries! We'll chock it full of totally not gamesharked chips, and head on out to the undernet.
[not pictured: heading on out to the undernet]
ShadowMan! You know, it's kind of a dick move that he starts out on a grass field and has fire attacks to use on you. Which is exactly why I am running a folder composed of GrassStage, Meteor15 and HeatMan. Gee it's funny what sort of chips you can get in *-code, huh?
Toasty!
This also happened.
Ha ha ha no. I'll keep my existing styles, yeah. But that just goes to show how much I rely on WoodShield still - it takes more battles to get a new style than it does to level an existing style up to V3 (AquaCust is barely V2).
But anyway! We're getting close to finishing up the S-ranks, let's try embarrassing the shit out of FreezeMan! Because it's exactly as easy as it is hilarious.
Oh. Did I mention that FreezeMan takes double-damage from Elec attacks? And that ice blocks make Elec attacks do double damage? It stacks. Oh yeah.
It's nice to see somebody who isn't me get beaten up by ToadMan.
Seriously, I love this guy, but how is he such a late-game boss?
Epee Em has a similar idea
What's really hilarious is that with this folder it's actually harder to get the V2 chip from FreezeMan than the V3 chip. Took me four tries!
Right. I know KnightMan's around here somewhere. I distinctly remember being hugely embarrassed that I forgot that jacking out was a thing I could do (also known as: the MegaMan Battle Network experience)
Aw yeah. Just as easy to charge-shot to death as last time! Haha, I'd forgotten how fun WoodStyle charge shots are. THEY REAL FUN.
Seriously I just love wrecking shit with tornadoes
And Epee Em is also wrecking shit. Yeah.
One last navi! And it's another easy one! actually, now that I'm not some dumb kid trying to buster-shot everything to death I'm finding that a lot of these bosses can be easy!
MagnetMan! Know what his weakness is? Apart from the obvious ElecBall fuckery displayed earlier...
It's Snakes! Snakes is actually the weakness of many things.
See, SnakeMan's chip does two things. The first is create snakes to home in on the enemy, which come from every hole in your side of the field. After that he'll bite at an enemy, but if you've set it up right, you won't need it.
WHAT AN EXCITING ROMP THROUGH THE UNDERNET but seriously I'm ready to proceed in the game now.
Now that's more like it!
Another boss battle?? What a twist!
Hey, that was blink animation's fault.
That sounds nice!
Very nice!
NapalmMan is another fun navi fight! He's got a turret that he brings up from different panels pretty much the whole battle, which will block attacks, even when you think it won't. He'll also shoot you with a machine gun and probably do other things. He's pretty neat, design-wise!
And... not too hard, even if you fuck up constantly (which I DO).
Here's a video. You know how I'm always extolling the virtues of Gater? It has several shortcomings. First that it doesn't hit rows above you very easily, and second that it can be blocked by things like turrets. So if you want to see me fuck up an easy Gater twice, I recommend you watch that video.
