Part 40: "But, perhaps it is my anger that has made me blind to the truth for so long. I see it now, this day has made it all too clear."

Well, it's been quite a while since the previous story update. But, Miss Echelon and I hope to resume our normal schedule of one update per week. We put together a surprise for you at the end of this update to make up for the two months absence, so get your snacks and beer ready. YOUR JAWS WILL DROP.

And if we fail to live up to that schedule ummmmm totally not my fault I swear

just like this update not having gone up like a week ago totally not my fault

it was probably ghosts idk hey did somebody say beer and snacks??



Despite all that time, I'm still on my plot break.



Now that the Navi lets us pass, we can check what kind of rewards lie in these mystery datas. And the only rewards that exist in these datas is Zenny. I checked about 23 times to be sure.



This right here is the most amount of Zenny this area will drop.

I hear you can trade your zenny for chips, so we're still good on the treasure front.



That right there leads to the main part of Undernet 6, the same area where that BubbleMan cube was. I won't be going there JUST yet.



I detect a ghost.





Not you! Get outta here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J2vBA8XwWc



FlamMan's chip is actually pretty good. It lays down flames in a straight line by default, but by holding the A button, you can control if the flame will move up or down. And it does decent damage, starting at 120. I'd put it if I were you.

I had no idea you could control it like that THANKS GIVER



And for my next trick, I will equip Reflect -- the program I got in the last update. Reflect will return 100 damage down a row if the shield makes contact with an attack.

Ooh, this seems delightful



LIVING LIFE ON THE EDGE!

Yeah I can highly recommend WoodStyle for everything. Even/especially fire.



Remember what I said many, many updates ago?


Well, it's important now. This heater means that a certain fire boss is in this area.

Nice to have hints this time instead of the usual blind flailing.



When you kill FlameMan Alpha, Fishy2's spawn here. Yes, when you kill an Alpha boss, the virus population of certain areas change. We've already seen this in ACDC 2 where Eleballs and Boomers spawn after FlashMan Alpha is defeated. Spikey2's and 3's don't spawn in the DogHouse unless BeastMan Beta is there. Ratty's and Shrimpy2's don't spawn in Beach Area 1 without BubbleMan. DesertMan's computer spawns Totems and Mettaur3's. We'll be seeing what PlantMan spawns in a later update.

Fishy's are bastards, can't say that enough.



I MUST EXPRESS MY DOMINANCE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc51IHp4buc

And of course I get Zenny.



Maybe you should try being nicer to him??



BUY MORE CHIPS



I WANT IT ALL

I WANT IT NOW



MORE BRUCE LEES

I WANT A GOOSE THAT LAYS GOLDEN EGGS FOR EASTER



There's a method to my madness, guys. We need more flying fists. MORE FISTS.

There's a method to my madness, too.



Not that I'm saying you're a bad egg, Giver.





I actually like the RockArm series. Fairly reliable.



If you can get Sensor2 in G code, I highly suggest you try to get multiple copies of it. It's hard to go wrong with Sensor2 G, especially if you're following me and using Metagel2 G. G is for Giver

Sensor and Metagel are pretty great. Both together are the greatest.



Why the fuck is this in F code? Higsby pls



huehuehue



And it's time to clean up Undernet 2's BugFrag shop.

Shopping spree~

Meteors is a cool MegaChip. It stops time, and 30 meteors hit the enemy's field for 40 damage a piece. The enemy's back column is hit by 12 meteors, while the remaining two columns are hit by 9 meteors. Depending on the amount of area the enemy has, the meteors will re-distribute their damage based on the amount of squares divided by the amount of meteors. if you arealock someone to one square, they are eating 30 meteors to the face.



And now this game is broken. Here's why:



I have FullCust set as my Regular Chip, and I got lucky enough to have Folderbak in the same draw, so let's use it.



TIME POWERS GO



Oh look, my Regular Chip just came back! In fact, my entire folder did.

Repeat as necessary until the heat death of the universe.




My breaks are long. I'm getting my next style now. You guys have seen enough of Shield style.

noooo i love wood shield styleeeeeee







AW YEAAAHHH

Oh, OK. guts guTS GUTS WRAAAAAAGH




Much like its BN2 counterpart, Guts Style will double the attack power of your buster, and reduce the Rapid level to 1. However, Battle Network 3 added the Guts Machine Gun, which essentially turns your buster into a small machine gun upon rapid presses of the B button. This makes bosses completely flinch and can deal about 12 times your attack rating in damage. Guts Style in this game does not start you off with Super Armor, you'll have to earn it by leveling up the style.

My element is now Electric, meaning my buster turns into a weak, but fast and paralyzing ZapRing. This essentially means I have an infinite source of paralyzing options at my disposal. It's worth putting some points on your Charge level to get off ZapRings much quicker. Also, I need to be careful of any and all Wood-elemental viruses.

...At least in the same way yo're careful of Fire-elementals when you're running WoodStyle.



Being of the electric element lets me use this chip. When there are obstacles on the field...





...a lightning bolt strikes them, dealing damage in a 1 square radius around them. If an enemy is caught in the radius of multiple obstacles, that enemy will take the combined damage of all the bolts he's caught in. This chip is pretty fucking brutal. Throw down an IceStage and you can rack up damage REALLY fast.



Pictured: soon-to-be shrimp bbq




Screw the plot, I have areas to explore now.

This seems to be a recurring theme. Very good!



Welcome to the main part of Undernet 6. So many arrow panels. It won't take too much fumbling around to see where the main path is. And don't complain that the viruses will whittle you down, they're easy

Plus if you get kicked around enough you get life pickups at the end of battle.








Wow, his stuff is actually not that great. BusterMAX comes with a bug that makes it so any chips you select get automatically used at the start of your turn. This is terrible. Rush is a PvP-only program that paralyzes a player who uses Invis for the first time. I suppose you may just want to buy HP+100 or +200 if you're average or new. The rest is just bad considering the price. And yet, I'll probably clean up his shop at some point.

I like how the dude's just like.... Yesssssss?



DEATH TO ALL NAVIS

Umm you can't say that here, there are children present. Deletion to all navis!



Score!



Not bad, we DID need a second one.



ScroogeMan.exe



ScroogeMcDuckMan.exe





I don't have a screenshot for it, but the last standard chip that comes in a GMD is ElecSwrd V

But I thought you wanted more zenny?? And didn't like collecting chips??




WAT



Well now, isn't that a surprise.

Haha, just in case Lightning wasn't wrecky enough





Remind me to stop fighting so much. I'm already at Level 2! In fact, you know what? I'm continuing the plot now.

Yaaay!



The clue we got was "where science gives life," so we need to inspect the Hospital Area, but we need to go to the special segment that Mamoru unlocked for us. Not suspicious at all, nope.

Maybe you need to give Mamoru another chip? I'm just sayin'.



If you went to the main section, that Normal Navi over there would pretty much tell you that the cloaked Navi is just floating over here. And naturally, that's your cue to use the alternate pathway.





I'm an eleven year old boy. Fight me.

Beginning to wonder how normal this is in MMBN-world





I've been getting S this whole Let's Play! HUSH







He can't be more frightening that the dodging technique I show off at the end of this update.

Maybe he or she is just frighteningly incompetent?





Yeah, because Giver wasn't going to do that anyway, just to show off



Fine, I'm ready, let's--



JOYKILL

I think this guy might be the greatest



Tired of getting Zenny for an S-rank? I know the feel.







Pictured: How the Elite Four and Gym Trainers in Pokemon must feel.

If he'd just ranked up high enough I'm sure that'd be kept down to a minimum by the lower-rankers clearing out the trash before it gets to that.







Rednu3 is such a bad hint, a freaking 4 year old could figure it out if they were playing this game. Reversing your letters is never a good way to hide something.

WElllll considering how confused I was by some of the word puzzles in the last game, this I feel is better.



Fuck it, this is gonna be too easy.



My folder has been changed to chips that use lots of button inputs to perform their damage. You know what that means we'll be seeing, right?



I told you guys there was a method to my madness.

Yeah I'll believe it when I see it.



Gonna equip SuperArmor for this, too.

I'm hiding who the boss is for some reason.

Kick that funky theme!

The special commands I pulled off are as follows:

Hold A and input:


This thread STILL needs more Bruce Lee.



Confirmed








I'm surprised we fight a Beta-level boss this early. This is the only game in the series where we fight a Beta-level boss as a mandatory encounter.

And BeastMan, of all navis...

But BeastMan is a scrub-tier Navi.





Well, if the Forbidden Program is the only thing that can stop Alpha, then I think you would still need to worry about it, sans Alpha or not.

WWW don't have to worry about anything, because they never think about anything before they do it.







MegaMan you scrub, why didn't you shoot him?

#2 most asked question of the series, after "why didn't you just jack out?"





And it isn't like BeastMan would help us find the next guy. Yeah, we're screwed.

Let's go to the backup plan of 'flail around until we find something'







Someone! Anyone! Please save the plot!

Check the boards! Check the internet!!



And this guy walks up to us. He apparently watched me Bruce Lee that Navi.

So he already knows better than to mess with you. Neat!





I'm surprised BeastMan didn't just up and kill you after you lost.

Maybe he remembered to jack out. Or maybe he had a backup.







And who says everyone in the Undernet is a jerk. Things are looking up! MegaMan now begins to WALK back...

Nobody on the Undernet is a jerk, they're all cool, helpful guys who-



Oh, come the hell on.

Haha this guy is great



Hahahahaha, you expect to kill me with such trash!?

Fishy Omega simply runs across the screen 5 times in rapid succession. Other than that, this encounter sucks. Replace the Spikeys with a couple of Fishy2's and this could be interesting.

I am glad this fight does not have Fishy2's.



Failwhale.

TBF he probably already used his top-shelf viruses trying to defend against BeastMan.







I'm still confused as to why he would give us a legit clue. It's not like he wanted us to leave. Also, what if MegaMan jacked out instead of WALKING back?

#1 most asked question of the series though, right?







Success is about showing off. But no really, I hated this segment of the scenario.

Giver is about showing off.





And this is why. This clue. This fucking clue right here is SO bad. I literally spent one week stuck on this part because I had no idea what the hell it referred to. You may be thinking: "Oh, birds? Zoo! Yoka Zoo! The condor that we ran into earlier on." And no, that would make actual fucking sense.

Yeah, that would make a lot of sense.



HERE. IS. THE. ANSWER. Those don't even look like fucking birds! Not that you can tell because of how small it is! The only way I found this out is by spam clicking EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING. Jesus, would "healing birds" be too simple of a clue? At least that gives us a place to start that isn't too misleading!

The answer is Japan, Giver. The answer is Japan. ...Wait... don't tell me they didn't make you study the enormously depressing story of Sadako when you were in primary school? Because if you never learnt about that whole paper cranes thing than I could see why this would be more confusing.

No they don't. Screw learning about other countries!

Even then, I still think the hint could have used some work.





*grumble, grumble*

Stealing a sick kid's origami crane? For shame.



OH, FUCK YOU!!





I fucking hate this guy.



This guy seems alright.



Who's with me to kick some cloaked Navi ass?

Heyyy that might work.



If I was in this game, I would strap him to an operation table, then use a butcher knife to slowly cut through his fucking limbs. And if he had eyelids, I would remove those with a box cutter.

Who would code a navi box cutter?



This is some bullshit.

I forgot how many great friends Lan makes in this game.




Chaud sends us an e-mail about someone from 4chan posting something inappropriate on the message boards. I suppose we should investigate before the mods delete the post.

Sage



Gonna clean this guy out of his stuff whilst I'm here.

SHOPPING SPREE!





Clean up! Clean up! Everybody do your share!





Seems legit.

You really think someone would do that? Just go on the Internet and tell lies?





Dude, it's an obvious trap. We've already had that happened to us once in the same scenario. Don't tell me you aren't prepared for it this time!

Don't tell me you aren't prepared for it, man.







EVERYBODY DO YOUR SHARE



I WANT IT ALL

Buy more!



CLEAN OUT BOTH THESE SHITS

Never use it, gotta have it, why not.



The next boss has an interesting glitch associated with it. It's only with this chip, however. You'll see in the video.



Well, this is the place. SAVE NOW.

Well it's very pretty. Nice place to meet.





We fell for another trap.

Who could have forseen it?!?





If you can fall off, then they have the advantage since it's easy to knock someone off. Oh wait, MegaMan has a GUN.

Dude they just called you a baby navi. That shit = hilarious





Yeah, none of them are cloaked!

What, are you saying only cloaked navis can get ranked? Racist.







Oh, giant boulder. Hey MegaMan, shoot them while they're holding it.



No good ideas allowed.



Or just stay incompetent. That works too.



SURPRISE!





BUGFRAG BUDDY!

Bugbro! Gutspal! Manbuddy!



The BugFrags! They're clouding my vision!

I thought it was because you were crying and holding GutsMan



Damn, got called out by DEX of all people.

Apparently this ramp is the burn ward



: I'm packin' mad heat and rhymes. Time to cap some bitches.



And if you believe that-





Bro you didn't even hit anything.

Neither did you, though.





I like how these guys have the same reaction to GutsMan's attacks that you generally do.

: Navis be duckin' when they see my bucket.



: ProtoMan comes up to say hi, but says "fuck it"



: Another Navi drops, you can't stop the S-rank!

Wait does GutsMan even have an attack like that...?







I had it under control, until MegaMan forgot he had a gun.

A common theme to this series, really.







Weren't you going away to another school?

Best bros, sticking together. forever!! Because why not? Why not.







Good notion, but this is just over the Internet, right? It isn't like he had to move ALL the way back across another country just because his friend was sad. That would mean Dex moving away was pointless to begin with if he could simply drop everything like that.

Of course he moved all the way back into his old house. What did you expect?

How does the internet work though







I want my rank, dammit.



GutsMan warps back in?



We need this ability to jack in to the UnderNet, immediately.







Nope, Chuck Testa.





I will hold off on commentating on this until after the video.

So... he's pretty much MegaMan.exe?





You have to wonder how easy it us to ascend the ranks if 3 Navis can be taken out with one attack like that. Either they were excessively weak, or GutsMan is really that strong right now (could be both). And before you raise your expectations, no, Dex's newfound skill isn't really shown in the future games.

Maybe they umm... uh... it was a fluke? A glitch? ...bugfrags





Why is it so forbidden, exactly? I get that there is supposed to be some mystery to this, but I think it would have been far more effective to tease us with some rumors about what it could do, hinting at why it's forbidden. All we know right now is that it can stop, or very effectively deal with Alpha. This sounds like a good thing, so one wonders why we have to go through hoops to get it. Now, there is a GOOD reason for it, but all I'm saying is that it would be better to be teased about its forbidden nature, and then smack you in the face with its reveal. As it is now, the only thing possibly holding interest is the fact its "forbidden."

Maybe it's like when they name viruses after random strings found in their code. It's not actually forbidden, it just has some weirdly-named vars.







Fight at 4:20

Mine glitch shown at 5:16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bl2E6ca9NY


The Mine glitch is an odd one. When GutsMan uses Z-Punch, he becomes invincible much like the Program Advance. However, the Mine chip seemingly breaks his invincibility completely which is just what you saw. I don't yet know if it works in PvP.

Note that this only works if you say "GutsMan, you're all mine!" when you deploy this chip.



Here is a slowed down GIF of GutsPunch (I shall talk about the new Style shown here in the next update). You can clearly see its sexiness and the combo itself. Punch, kick, sword, punch, kick for 560 damage. Each chip in the GutsPunch series gains Breaking properties when you activate their hidden command and they cause hitstun allowing you to easily combo another.

DAMN!!

Christ, man. settle down

NEVER!



Let's start this off positively: I love the fact that GutsMan is using a Program Advance. You see, Dex is supposed to be one of Lan's rival, and right now, this story is pushing forth the idea that Dex is improving to finally be a match for Lan. This is not only shown, but it is done through gameplay. Before, only the player could use a Program Advance. In fact, anything outside of the player's actions concerning Program Advances was relegated to message boards. Now, we see a character break that barrier and use this very same ability to show that he is improving. To show that he can do what you do. Capcom could have easily just added more HP and damage. Instead, they went through the trouble of making GutsMan the only boss in the series (outside of a special fight in 4 and 5) to use a PA. That says a lot right there.

GutsMan is the truest of bros







And now with the negative. Notice that I've been saying GutsMan this whole time. That's because when it all comes down to it, CopyMan is pointless. For some reason, fans wish to see more of him simply because of his copying ability. I'll touch on that in a second, but the question I ask is: Why is he here? CopyMan is NEVER heard from again after this cut-scene. For all intents and purposes, he is just a Navi that's in your way. They could have done a cloaked Navi sprite
and not have made a bit of difference. This leads to one conclusion, and I only draw this conclusion because I ran into similar problems.



I'm willing to bet that there was another plan here. Rather, Rank #3 was supposed to be a special fight, but due to constraints, the idea of a Navi was used. Why? Because a Navi that can copy others doesn't require any new sprites, or NaviChips, or Library balancing or any of the things that come with putting in another NetNavi. When it comes to videogame storytelling, there are lots of constraints, one of the most notable is: We already made the locations for this game, now make a story around it. That can and DOES happen.

That's why you don't really see me knocking the story's locations in relation to the overall story (hurr, zoo+school+hospital+science lab=end of world). Because for all I know, those locations were set from the very start of development and the writer is simply trying his best to make due with what he's got. A lot of the times, the story is already decided! A writer is there to add dialogue, suspense, and all the little details that come with it. And even sometimes the characters and their endpoints are already decided and he's just moving chess pieces.

Honestly I'm cool with CopyMan anyway. You know the UnderNet ranked dudes are meant to be pretty underground guys (I'm sure you haven't heard of them [/hipster]). And CopyMan, with his MegaMan ability, would be excellent at flying under the radar anyway. Seems to fit.



So, due to budget, time, or maybe simply "the higher ups don't want to," I'm guessing that whatever was here originally was cut and CopyMan was put into his place, simply because of how easy integrating him would be. CopyMan exists so Capcom wouldn't have to make something new. Take that at face value, please. You don't know what went on in the development of this game, therefore we can't call Capcom lazy on this one. It is what it is.

We need to ration out the "lol Capcom so lazy" comments so that there's enough to go around for MMBN4, forever.

Again, this is still my theory. I won't pretend to know what happened behind the scenes when this game was being developed.





Now, back to what the fans want. Some people would like to see CopyMan a bit more. And that's only because of his power. But really, come on now. With power like this, don't you think he would be #2 or #1? Because as soon as MegaMan would be about to defeat CopyMan, CopyMan should just change into MegaMan and then the real MegaMan would lose right?

New fancanon: every navi is CopyMan. All of them.



Well, no. CopyMan shouldn't be able to copy MegaMan's connection with Lan, which is what makes the duo so strong. This can only mean that CopyMan's powers are quite limited. Sure, he can take on their shape, and maybe even their mannerisms, but he can't copy the essence of what makes a Navi truly strong. Especially one that relies on their Operator to fight. So, really, he'll never be anything more than what he is. And I'm cool with this.



Rant over.







And just like that, CopyMan exits the series.

To end on a positive note, Battle Network 3 is the only game to make you fight two mandatory Beta(V3) level bosses before the final boss.

Wait wait spoiler alert, there's a final boss in this game??





ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? YOU LET SUNAYAMA ESCAPE!?

You want to stop a beast from apparently doing something really fucking bad and you don't interrogate the guy or keep him locked up in some maximum security cell? Jesus Christ!

Pfft, nobody's paying much attention to that right now.



Pay no attention to the boy interrupting your live show.





Dat cool mugshot though.

...BOWLMAN







And in White version, this is a different boss. We will be seeing that next update.

BOWLMAN YOU BASTARD.







"Fuck you, man. That's MY shard of ice. It's blue!"

Because you never need to fight for what you want when you ain't a ranked navi or something huh



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhEnJGCDwg0


BowlMan is a fun boss. STRRRIKKKEE! The main thing is stopping that Gatling pin (the one where all the pins fly at you). If you can do that, he's way, way easier.



BOWLMAN





Bullshittttt.

God damn am I looking forward to seeing your dodges on Serenade







So everytime I get a Rank S, I'm getting a Rank Serenade? I r Serenade.

Nah just a coincidence. You ain't fab enough to be Serenade.







One thing of note: you can fight this version of BowlMan one more time before this scenario ends. Why? Just so you can hear the awesome N1 Grand Prix music.

Or because you're a sadist.









Fuck that.

Leave no stone unturned! ...heheheh

Okay, so this would be the normal end of the update. But I said one other thing:


And I meant that. So, we'll do just that. In order to pull this off, I had to replay some more of my White version and get myself ready. Omega bosses, after all, are the strongest variants of the boss. But it isn't so much that as what I show off in the video. But for my next trick, I really, really wanted MissEchelon to co-commentate as she saw the fight.

And the result is below


Check 2:54 for the surprise.

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

HOLY FUCKING SHIT! REWIND THAT! NO! MAKE IT A GIF!




Two months! It took me two months to learn how to do this! I may not have invented that technique, but I damn sure wanted to try to reproduce it.

It turns out the pins come in a set order every time: Middle, Top, Bottom, Middle, Top, Bottom, Middle, Top (repeat). My shooting pattern was Middle, Top, Bottom, Middle, Top, Middle, Top, Bottom, Middle, Top (repeat). Once I knew that, it was simply a matter of shooting at the right times which took FOREVER. But was it worth holding the update back? Hell YES.

Echy, say my name.



Get out of here you creepy robot