Part 16: And Now For Someone Completely Different.

Warning! Much ahead!Wow, it's been a looooong time since the last update hasn't it? Well, for those of you reading this on the archives, or just jumping from the main page onto here, then you'll probably notice that I'm posting instead of EpeeEm. As it turns out, EpeeEm had a lack of motivation to keep doing any ScreenShot-type Let's Plays. And that's perfectly understandable because it's a bigger time investment than what most people might think. Still, rather than let the thread die out completely, EpeeEm gave the thread the opportunity to continue the Let's Play. He uploaded his saved data and just let us run with it. As of this posting, I'm not entirely sure if the thread wants to do a collaborative LP, but until that's decided, I, giver336(or you can call me killer336), will take over.

And I, MissEchelon, have been here this whole time. Twiddling my thumbs. Doing nothing. Living the life.Well actually that's not entirely true. I went on holiday to Japan which was pretty good. And that's the story of how I finally got a legitimate copy of a MegaMan Battle Network game. Coincidentally it was this game. But I won't be playing along because I don't read Japanese real good...


So, before I continue on with the update, I just want to explain a few things about how this will go down:
-I plan not to use Number Trader until I reach a point where it's mandated to complete the Chip Library (At about 150 Standard Chips or more)

-I plan to show how to get every Standard class chip without Chip Trader. For bosses, I may devote entire updates to viable strategies you can use against them.

-There are strategies I deem as "scrub strats," such as, UnderShirt on Grass Panels or VarSword Elemental SonicWave spam. For those of you who are not familiar with these, then do not worry. I'll be taking a more "fair" approach to the game.

-This will be kind of informative, but I'll do my best to keep it humorous, too. Expect some childishness here or there. These games take my normally calm demeanor and stomp on it brutally. We have an abusive relationship, you see.

-This first update may be a bit more technical than how you're used to. I assure you that this will be a rare case (barring explaining where to find some of the rare viruses), due to the fact that I simply need to introduce myself and lay the groundwork for people to understand. If you aren't interested at all, just skim to the bottom where I fight and kill BubbleMan. Next update should be a return to the norm.

-The first 7-9 images or so will be of a slightly lesser quality than what you may be used to. Rest assured that after that mark, the pictures return to normal. I was experimenting with the first few before Echelon steered me in the right direction.



Oh, and speaking of, she was nice enough to donate me a platinum account so that we could better organize our updates! I find it fitting that EpeeEm bought me an account and MissEchelon upgraded it. Life is weird like that.


Sooo...funny thing about that savefile? Yeaaaaahhh, it didn't load properly for me because Mr. Progs simply hate my soul. It was at the start of the game! That means I had to stay up all last night catching up to the thread. I'm fine with this, though, because now I can better personalize the Let's Play from here on. But who cares? Let's dive into this thing!




WELL NOW! When I was trying to catch up to the thread, I found THIS little guy in the hidden jack-in point just before the Virus Lab. This is considered to be a rare encounter in that area unless you have a particular ability. You see what I mean about this game being abusive?

Capcom just wants to be your friend sometimes. They're just terrible at it, like everything else.




I am deliciously fucked 10 ways 'till Sunday. Those permanent holes are mirrored onto my side. The Hothead can one-shot me at this early in the game (I WASN'T EVEN FIGHTING BEASTMAN AT THIS POINT ) AND each of his attacks leave LavaPanels! My health is only 160 at max! Still, there is hope, if I can just add everything I got, I can get to CopyDamage, and maybe score a Triple Delete. I never give up.



I'd probably give up.



Oh God, I have a chance. I had to dodge like a madman, WHILE charging a shot to damage the HotHead to 180. See that CopyDamage and DashAttack? My plan is thus:

1) Move down QUICK and paint that HotHead with CopyDmg
2) Move up and back to clear some distance between the Fishys
3) Once the Fishys are lined up, use DashAttack deleting them both and transferring 180 damage to HotHead (hence why I bustered him). This will require some doing to pull off (God help me)



BOOM BITCH!



FUUUUCCCKKKK YOOOOUUUUUUUU!!!! I get fucking ZENNY after all that!? ...Oh well, guess I'll come back later.

The morale of this story is "never expect this game to give you a clean break"




While still trying to catch up to the thread, I ran into Moshys into ZooComp Area 3. A pleasant surprise, really.




Yeah, it's always good to run into a ninja-mushroom that adorable. For reals.




HELLO!! This makes up for the HotHead earlier on. And so early, too. Too bad I won't be using it. But allow me to impart some knowledge I learned during my development of MMBN: Chrono X.

-Defeating a virus in under 5 seconds yields 7 points.

-Moving less than three times will grant you 1 point. Moving three times or more gives no points. If you slip on ice panels, only the inputted movement counts. So if I press Left once, but slide over two panels, it counts as moving once.

-Not taking any damage grants you 1 point. Taking a hit reduces your rating by 1 for each hit. 'SuperArmor' effect ignores this.
Getting a double delete grants 2 points to your score, while a triple delete grants 4.

So, if you get a double delete, while not moving more than twice, while not taking damage, and all in under 5 seconds you will always get an S-rank(7+1+1+2=11). This is of course against viruses. Bosses are pretty lenient in that you need only kill in under 30 seconds and not get hit.

S-ranking will be the name of the game in this Let's Play. Expect to see a lot of showing off what S-ranks give when you have Custom Style and what not.

Huh, that's... kind of cool, I didn't know that it was based on how much you move. Seems a bit weird, but I guess it makes sense for virus battles.





I did it. I finally caught up to the thread. And to my genuine surprise, I get Wood Custom! I'll let my assistant explain, but you really, really don't want to go for Custom as your first.

Ooh! Ooh! I vaguely know this! First up, Custom Style doesn't exactly grant you that many bonuses as a first style. I mean great, you get to pick more chips. But... it's right near the start of the game. You probably don't have that many chips for it to be a big bonus.

Obviously that on its own ain't a problem. I mean it's not actively harmful, and it will eventually be useful. But what it does mean is that you're not getting a style that might possibly be of more use. Now I was never... good at these games as a kid. Buster spam 4 lyfe, and all that. So if it's one thing I remember, it's that there are better styles to start with, like Guts style.

What's that? Guts style kind of sucks if you're not using the buster? Ah, but if you're all Guts'd up, then you won't lose ranks when you take damage in fights. Which makes it easier to get good chips, which makes Custom better when you get it as another style!

I'm not actually that big on the other styles. Depending on your playstyle, some styles are going to be a better fit for you than others.

They all have their strengths, pretty much. I used to run Guts/Team, for buster spam and Navi-chip spam. Navi chips are pretty fuckin good, and you're bound to have good ones of them before you get your shit together enough to build a good custom folder. I currently dig on Shield style though.

In this game they also give you stuff for the navicust and do some other weird stuff around that. I can never remember what, though...

She's right. The order I recommend is something like this:
Blue Version: Guts/Shadow (Invis is cheap to buy in ACDC Square) ---> Bug ---> Team ---> Custom
White Version: Guts ---> Ground ---> Team ---> Custom

Due to asinine post-game requirements, the order I laid out should require the least amount of grinding for styles. Since we started with Wood Custom, we will most definitely be getting another style or two before actually needing the Custom-style exclusive chips. I could just stick with Wood Custom all the way, but then I can't show off the other styles, now can I? Either way, I'll be sticking with this to preserve what happened in the thread.




Oh, look, a good draw! I want to aim for Swordy3's chip: AquaSword. See CopyDmg? That's our ticket right there. I'll be using Guard, CopyDmg, and Metagel. Don't use TimeBomb. In order for the damage to copy, the hits have to be at least a few milliseconds behind each other. Simultaneous hits won't count. We have to HOPE the Pengi decides to be nice and come forward though.



I need to reduce his HP to 180 with Guard. Swordys always attack faster when they attack in WideSword formation. Thus, I moved up.



Mash dat A to get CopyDmg and Metagel off. Metagel hits both of them for 90, but the second Metagel hitting Pengi copies that 90 damage onto Swordy3. This nabs me a double delete. I moved only once, got a double delete, took no damage, so this means?



This means I get fucking trolled and get the chip I DON'T want, of course. Ignore the MegaMan in the top left corner over there. This screencap was taken from a separate fight where the reward was still the same. I just didn't think to take a shot of the reward from the Swordy3 fight instead. As you can guess, I have a few IceWave1 *'s.

But that's the last reason why Custom is not first on my recommended order. As MissEchelon alluded to, you'll need to have much higher knowledge than usual of the mechanics to get the most out of your chips to pull off plays like this. And I'm not even talking about strategy visualization, either. If you're a beginner, or even average at these games, doing things like this will require a lot of practice, something I'm sure most don't want to do.

TL;DR: Custom Style is a higher skillcap, pick Guts Style or something. Lower skillcap, and helps later on.




S-ranking viruses without using the Megabuster or Navi Chips whilst using Custom Style grants you exclusive codes and chips that cannot be gotten anywhere else besides Chip Trader. We shall call this "Custom Style S-rank" for this LP. That IceWave1 * was done with Wood Custom, thus, getting a Custom Style S-rank on a Pengi drops IceWave1 *. Here's what I did off screen while trying to catch up to the thread (and I felt like grinding, too.)





















OH FUCK YES!







This will come in handy for a particular fire-elemental boss.



I think somebody's showing off...._{but it is pretty impressive}




And after all of that, I got Level 3(!) Wood Custom. The sooner we clear this, the sooner we can get to other styles with other NaviCust programs. At which time, I'll let the thread pick what style I should go for. There may be many opportunities to vote since I grind off screen quite a bit. But damn, Custom Style was easier to level up than I thought. Only one more level before it's fully maxed. That's what happens when I get excited about all these nice chip codes.

But enough of the technical stuff, let's finally put an end to BubbleMan, shall we?

Who the hell is BubbleMan? I forgot already.






Time to end this bubbling coward. ...Damn, now I'm starting to talk like him.




Just some small edits here: EpeeEm wanted me to try and show off underused/unorthodox strategies against some of the bosses. I agreed to this since it would make battles hopefully more interesting. Unfortunately, there aren't too many things that can be considered
"unorthodox" this early in, so I decided to limit my folder a bit. Any chip that deals over 90 damage is banned.

Whoa it's like the reverse of my battle style. The uncheapening.




Finally, it took us months to catch your ass. Jesus, Mayl and the others must be dead several times over by now.



I'm honestly having difficulty remembering who's in trouble. Our dear friend Mayl and... I wanna say... another lady. The teacher? They were probably cooking or following other feminine pursuits because Japan??




Well, if they're blubs and you command them, what does that say about you...?

...Blubblundering.




I'm sure that 20 damage will mean all the difference. That's a whole HPMemory!

BubbleMan always gotta look on the bright side. The bubble is always half-full.






Higsby calls us and says that the bubbles are turning red, indicating they are in their final stages before they go kabloom.

Incidentally, this is true of real-life bubbles also.








Blubblublublublub. I'm sorry, I can't help it. This guy is just ridiculous. He's hated in this game for a reason.



Because of his perfectly squishable face.




But it's time to END him.

EPM's Double BubbleMan Bubble Rush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7_ZQ2MuwV8

Yes, we'll probably continue the tradition of double boss rushes.

Simply...
Blubtastic




Kneel! Show the readers why you're pathetic! In fact, you know what? I'm killing you again.



I NEED BugFrags, you don't understand.



Don't bully the evil guy, gosh what's wrong with you.






Hooray, he's going to delete the bubbles. We can trust him, right?




Higsby calls yet again to tell us that the bubbles are blinking. ...Yeah, I don't think we can trust him.

No, no. I think we just wait and see how this goes... WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN?






SHOOT HIM, C'MON!








Nevermind, that works, too. Complete badass just decides to hop over us and slice him in half.






He raises a valid point. BubbleMan surely would have gotten away and stalled the thread for months again! But ProtoMan says this line again in Battle Network 6. I'd show you that moment, but on the off chance you're reading this in order and from the archive, I'll just encourage you to keep reading.


Higsby, who was probably still on the line exposits that the bubbles have dissolved. So killing BubbleMan apparently fixed the problem? You know, if BubbleMan were smarter, he could have simply told Lan that deleting him wouldn't have dissolved the bubbles. But that's why he's BubbleMan.



And that's why Chaud's Chaud. Because he's a cool guy (so is ProtoMan)



Yeah, well...you're a meaniehead.

I believe the correct term is 'Chauderhead'









ProtoMan jacks out and leaves Lan and MegaMan to contemplate their(in)actions. Yeah, I think their kindheartedness was a liability in this case.

Luckily, Lan has almost no self-reflective skills whatsoever.

Back at the house...


Good thing no-one got hurt.

We saved Mayl! And the lady with swiss rolls on the side of her head!

Yaaay!




I'll take an insta-A in your class as payment, Ms. Mari.






Higsby, being a salesman, is sort of good at reading people's inner expressions.




Please do, I have a Library to complete. And after this, Higsby will be available to buy from.

Higsby is the best, huh.






That would not a good idea, no.

Oh hell that's what they were female-bonding about wasn't it. Not cooking, CLEANING. THANKS, JAPAN.








So they leave annnnnd yeah, increment the "Save Mayl" counter again. What are we up to? #58392819? Princess Peach would be ashamed of such a low number.

Mayl tries her darnedest.




Lan being an 11 year old and not knowing how to deal with girls prompts this response. Sooner or later Lan, you're gonna break out of your shell. And when you do, you'll name your kid something terrible.

Either that or Mayl's looking at him like:





On his way out after saying goodbye, MegaMan asks if Lan is still thinking about what happened.








Of course he still is. If ProtoMan wasn't here to clean up, Mayl would just be a mess on her own wall.









But when all is said and done, Lan and Chaud can't change who they are. I always liked the character interaction between Lan and MegaMan. I always pictured MegaMan as Lan's teacher through life. Moments like this are pretty much what sells these two for me as characters.._{even if they all are about as interesting as wet paint.} Not a bad way to end this otherwise filler scenario, I'd say.







Whenever you get back to your room, Dr.Hikari will send you an e-mail detailing the effects of your most recent Style Change. I'll outline it below since it's been a while.

Custom Style effects:
-1 extra chip in Custom Screen.
-S-ranking viruses without using the buster or a Navi Chip results in an exclusive code or chip depending on the enemies themselves.
-Leveling up this style grants extra Custom+ parts for your NaviCust.
-There are four levels.

Wood Element Effects
-Wood Buster deals a base 80 damage tornado two squares ahead. Low range, and you're left open while using it, but it hits hard.
-Take double damage from Fire elemental attacks
-Constantly regenerate HP on Grass Panels. If you have UnderShirt equipped, you are effectively nigh-unkillable so long as you remain on the panel.



Yeaaaaahhh, I think my collection is coming along pretty smoothly. We're only at the end of BubbleMan's scenario! If you're following this LP to a T (which I doubt), then you should have around 60 Standard chips at this point. All I did was buy at least one of every item from the shops (discounting the first BugFrag one). This will make my post-game grinding much shorter than it needs to be.

I think I'll post a screen of my collection once I hit the end of every scenario or so. Just to keep track of the overall progression.



And that's it for this update!


I hope you guys enjoyed. This was my first Something Awful Let's Play post and my first ever Screenshot Let's Play post in general. Positive and negative criticism are both appreciated. But if you don't like the technical aspects, then I should be cutting back, if only because this was meant to be my introduction.