Part 46: EPM returns, as MissEchelon becomes no longer able to participate. The combined forces of Giver and EPM ranting proceeds to break the character limit and require a split update.

I'm fucking PISSED! But let's get this update started. I have a special guest joining me today and you probably thought he was dead!



Too soon?

^ This fucker.



Right now, we have a father to check up on.

Maybe Lan's resistance to radiation and other hazardous conditions is hereditary, if Yuuichiro got all the way here. Still, that door that's been innocuously sitting there this whole game finally opens!



You kinda left a CardKey behind. Made it real easy.

Which begs the question of how HE got in, but presumably Yuuichiro is, well, Yuuichiro.







I take it no one else thought to do this.

The word "thought" itself already makes a lot of very generous assumptions about everyone else.







Pfft, we'd all be screwed if we did that. Dad's got the right idea.

LET'S? Lan, as if you aren't the one it'll all come down to!







Don't worry, this bit of exposition isn't as big as the last one. At least this is done better than Battle Network 2. In that game, Gospel randomly decided to have an end-game around the airplane scenario, then we get all the details of their plan at the very end.

Later updates will make up for this. Those who saw my original LP thread for this game may recall that I ended up just posting videos because the number of images needed would be in the quadruple digits otherwise.







Okay, 20 years ago Alpha's creator came to SciLab, and 10 years later, Alpha was made. It's a bit weird. The game almost had me believe Alpha was created 20 years ago.

It, um, was. Lan is 10 years old, for one thing. Alpha is 20 years old, don't...don't worry about other details. Let's assume this image from last update is false:



It contradicts a lot of other things, so presumably that guy is just...wrong or something. I'm baffled too, but the majority of the evidence points to Alpha being from 20 years prior.





Sounds to me you should have deleted Alpha when you had him locked up. Yes, that would cause massive problems with the current society, but before you delete Alpha, you could have probably made a Net 2.0, or backed it up somehow.

There IS a reason why Dr. Hikari didn't delete Alpha, so we'll see when that time comes.

You can thank me for correcting the spacing in this update, by the way, as each linebreak was mangled when you sent it!

PLS! I swore I fixed that!











The name of the internet's creator, Lan's grandfather, is a pun. "Hikari" is obviously Dr. Light, but Tadashi means Right. So the name is Right Light, to presumably poke fun at translation confusion in the original series.





I don't think I want to live in this world so long as a man named "Hikari" is in it. They always cause trouble.

I continue to ascribe to my theory that the world is an incredibly fucked-up meritocracy where the vast majority of the populace is unfathomably stupid, and thus anyone of basic competence is vaulted to the highest levels of society.





No, not the BattleChip.

The way these games equate programming with magic never ceases to baffle me, even though I've played them for over 10 years now. Capcom Science is a truly mind-shattering thing. Of all things to apply the dumbshit cliche of "everything made in the past is better than anything today" to, they applied it to fucking computers.







This is true, but even with Alpha being this weak he's still causing massive problems. Terminator 5: Stop The Kirby

Alpha's more like Gooey, y'ask me!





Hooray, someone bothered to track these things! I guess tracking the other Navis wasn't ideal. Wily most likely protected them in some way. ...That's why they should have interrogated the HELL out of Sunayama. GAME!

Well, Alpha's a whole lot less controllable than Navis, obviously. Besides, Sunayama's an actor. He very well could have said something like "there isn't a base" and that'd be perfectly plausible for a group of villains pretexted on cyberterroris- Excuse me, I need to shove my head into a microwave for a few minutes to re-acclimate to Capcom Logic.



Dr.Hikari doubles over from not taking his pain medication. Would it have been so hard to take it before leaving? I guess the medicine arrives at a certain time and he wanted to get out before his wife would stop him.

Almost certainly that, yes. Hospital-strength painkillers are addictive as all hell. They probably don't ever give him any more than he absolutely needs at any one time.







Chew.

...Y'know, out of context, this image...







Send a whole task force, really. WITH GUNZ

Or magnets. Magnet guns. Or just point an ICBM at it.



EVERY! GODDAMNED! GAME!





Psssh, what's this compared to taking several nuclear strikes worth of radiation?

Maybe it's like how cockroaches or tardigrades survive tons of radiation. Lan's brain isn't the only part of his body that functions on only basic levels, so his less-complex physiology is less susceptible to radiation.







At least we get a touching family moment, if nothing else.

Huh. I forgot about these lines. Interesting when considered with the ending sequence of BN5.





I wish the base was underwater. That would have been awesome.

It would! Imagine Wily with a skull-shaped underwater base powered by geothermal vents or something. But his precious Purple Drank manufacturing plant probably wouldn't work down there, I guess. That's where all the funding comes from.







Oh, we can't approach it? Now we can send out a submarine to launch a nuke to blow that base to kingdom come. Fuck the trial, fuck Wily's civil rights. Just murder him.

Nah, that's not silly enough. Dump all those stupid BubbleWashers into the churning depths. That much agitation in the water, plus whatever crazy bubble solution they have, would just drown the whole island in bubbles. Revenge is a dish best served with a honey glaze of irony.



Even Lan is exasperated at this point.





Surely we can get a missile past the turbulence, yes? I'm no expert on planes and missiles, but maybe a missile could go fast enough that it can still hit its mark?

That'd be a no, I'm afraid. The solution however would be to just launch ALL the missiles, one of them would hit the mark eventually!





If you guys don't remember the boat we used to get to Hades Isle, quit life.

Although that thing's a rickety old piece of junk. Much like the Millennium Falcon, however...



"Even though you should have done it yourself."

"Like, even before I was born."









We should recall that this game was originally intended to be the last in the series, Masakazu Eguchi even saying as much in interviews. This is the sort of thing that fits the end of a trilogy.



"Giver, EPM! Fight together to finish the LP!"



And this cut-scene is over. I think this room is just Dr. Hikari's office, while the room outside is his work lab. The man's got lots of room to himself.

Do YOU want to snub the guy who keeps 99% of the world's everything working on a daily basis?



I guess it's time we get this out of the way.

And doesn't she look so enthusiastic! Blink animation, I missed you too, who's a good boy? You are! You are! That's a good widdle blink animation, welcoming me back!





This would be a genuinely clever riddle if they didn't give you three answers, of which one was obviously correct. Riddles don't exactly work when the question is multiple choice!



At least there's only one more quiz NPC after this.





Pie R not squared. Pie R round.





Bad questions is the name of the game.

That is a heinous pun and I thoroughly approve.





Oh, I love this joke. At least Capcom is getting actual fun bits.

Alternative answer: A stack of pancakes!





Your mother. OOOOOOOHHHH. ...Wait.

Alternative answer: Interest rates!





Most of this is easy. Some Quiz Queen she is!

Between this and the Ohio one before, I'm almost certain these are all made up by the localizers, as wordplay is virtually impossible to translate most of the time. Besides, this would be a completely ridiculous question in the originals.





Kinda misleading with the first part of the question, so I like this one.

Alternative answer: DINNER ANYWAY, LITTLE GIRL!





Oh, come on, you just had a decent one, too!

Alternative answer: She's called a dirty cheating bitch by her ex-lover.



The only mammal to lay eggs is the platypus!



The previous quiz giver before her is harder than this.







Sweet.

Barrier, Barrier100, and Barrier200 form the Barrier500 P.A., and E is one of the codes you can do that in!







Whatcha tradin', strajuuuuuhhh?

THE TIMG TAG EXISTS, GIVER, AND I SHALL APPLY IT FOR YOU. God, this is what happens when I leave the thread, isn't it? _{Let the back-and-forth heckling commence!}

CHAOS! AND A COMPLETE LACK OF QUALITY CONTROL!





I don't have this.

More random NPCs!

On the other hand, that's a worthless trade anyhow given Rooks come in * code, and there's no P.A. that uses them. There's literally no reason to ever make it.



This frog face fucker.







Why would you not take the camera with you? I'd be too afraid of people jacking my stuff!

It could have been a video camera, and he was afraid of it catching him jacking his stuff!





Free camera! Sell it in Ebay Area 2!



This code is correct, as the "I think" might imply otherwise. While I'm at it, one of the codes listed on GameFAQs is wrong:


Missing letters are fun.







Most people would say giraffes, so I'll say elephants.





Wrong answer. So I'll pick giraffes





Again, this error is for a program we don't yet have.

I will give a hint: It's a code I used to enter every time I played this game in the past.



Do NOT stop the boats.





Damn, a snag.





Hmm, I wonder who can help.

Yuuichiro! Wait...









The forehead is so strong, it blinds me.

Sorry, Yai, we get suicidal and homicidal, respectively, whenever we need to talk to you. Echy-Sketch isn't here anymore, you are not and never were our BFF, got it!?







Lan, make up something. We all know you won't tell in order to not make them worried. That's sweet, don't get me wrong, but you need to channel your inner Heisenberg and lie with a straight face.

In BN, Heisenberg would be the one making Drank for Wily.



You have much to learn about lying.





"I want to have an escape route just in case it gets really bad. I can't trust the computers and a boat seems like a safe bet since it isn't connected online."

To be fair, we ARE asking her for a speedboat engine transplant out of freaking nowhere.



Scrub liar.







Don't forget that you guys made the final fight in the last game HARDER by allowing Sean to make copies of your Navis. You were not only not helping, you were an active hindrance.

Lest we forget that their defeat of such was depicted as helping ANYWAY, when they caused the damn problem to begin with!





At this point Lan just kinda refuses to talk. He doesn't really answer Yai's question, but stutters around it.

This is one thing I NEVER understand about all sorts of allegedly "heroic sacrifices" or "save the world or save the loved one" situations. If the world is going to be absolutely fucked over by not saving it, what the hell would one expect to be DOING by saving someone who is LIVING ON IT!? Much along those lines, there's very little reason why an apparently apocalyptic threat merits anyone "staying someplace safe" when in theory there ISN'T anywhere safe if it happens.



And Yai gets irritated.

Lest we forget that she's skipped grades to be in Lan's class, and Lan is ten years old at present. Yai's age is literally in single digits, and given the plural "grades" is used, at MOST eight years old! I swear, at this rate, Japan is going to-

_{oh my god my family actually took me to see those horrible Baby Geniuses movies}

IT'D BE JUST LIKE THAT. One day this obsession with plucky young heroes is either going to end up with that, or we'll end up "underflowing" the protagonist's age as some anime or game ends up starring a pregnant woman whose midterm pregnancy somehow is the hero.



That's actually the very next textbox. No dialogue trimming this time.

I think she's getting used to it. That said, I imagine it being frustrating to realize that one is only good for their money.



Yai has been redeemed slightly in my eyes.





The power of the triple dots hints otherwise.



I can't believe I'm saying this but...Thanks Yai!

_{I need to wash out my mouth now.}

I remain pristine, thankfully.



This is just to show that I've gotten around to compressing this. You can use the EX Code for SuperArmor that I've shown a while back instead of equipping the program. But hey, red is an allowed color on GutsStyle, so why not.

It's also, y'know, the style that GIVES the program...Those do tend to be compatible.



It is time. Oh, yes, we're finally gonna start doing this. Now, I've said in my very first update that I'm going to avoid using this until I hit around 150 S Chips. I wanted to build my folder from the ground up, make the most out of weaker chips, thereby letting me properly graduate to more powerful things. This, I think, is far more useful for anyone looking to improve their game. If you've gleamed nothing from this LP so far, then see you next year in my class

Now that we are heading off to the final battle soon, I deem it appropriate to do this. I'd quote the section where this is posted on GameFAQs, but its honestly quite big. So, just go there and check out the Cheats section.

You couldn't have at least waited to the post-game? Bah.

There is a good reason for this. Well, not good as opposed to showing off and-ah, fuck it.



This program is kinda big, but it's permanent AirShoes chip, hooray!



Beautiful!!! FastGauge as a Navicustomizer Program? YES PLEASE! For those that forgot, FastGauge halves the time it takes to get your chips back. This is a very welcome program.

What was that about making the most of weaker chips before? These are all NaviCust parts, that's completely irrelevant! And this is one of the best in the damn game! I'm calling you out on this one, mister. For one thing, FastGauge is what most players set as their Regular chip, this lets you keep using your FullCust * as your Regular AND you get a FastGauge right off the bat. This is a very significant upgrade!

Too bad it takes up quite a bit of space to use. I'd rather stick to my SuperArmor.



Eh, just lets us set every panel to Sand. Only useful if you're spamming Tornados.

Or AirStorm, right?



This is where you get your 3rd and final WeapLv+1. Now, your Style's buster power maxes out when you equip 2 WeapLv+1, thus the only reason this is here is just so you have alternate colors to mess with.

If you bug all three, you get a different buster bug, but it's just a silly thing.







Good SubChips. The free LocEnemy is nice, saving us 10,000 and the Unlocker is very good to have if you randomly run into a purple mystery data.

Oh, it is? Wow, Unlockers are good for Purple Mystery Data! Jokes at your expense aside, _{for now}, those get pricy in bulk, so a freebie is extremely appreciated.

We both know goons forget everything.



Behold, the only place in the game to get AirShot 3.

Which almost certainly means that the code to get it is openly available, probably provided by an NPC somewhere or written on an interactable object.



Another CopyDmg? YEAH BOI

Having two of them makes something in the post-game significantly easier, at that.



Note: you NEED this for a Program Advance.

And said P.A. remains compatible with the extra inputs you can do with this series of chips.



Also, this.

I love this chip. StepCross deals absurd damage right in front of the square MegaMan steps into (hitting twice its listed value), and hits once to all diagonals. Great for unconventional attack angles.



Recall that you can substitute pieces of a Program Advance combination with an * counterpart, so this may be useful.



Free game nuke if you can time a specific command that I will show off very soon.



HeroSword is a fun chip, hitting 3 squares down making it an extra-long sword. The Program Advance that comes with it is very fun, too.

A component of the E-P-M folder I'd planned on using from the start of the LP, actually. That P.A. is actually a counter-intuitive one because its order breaks the pattern established by others: StepSword P, HeroSword P, StepCross P. In other words, Standard-Mega-Standard chip order, instead of the usual Standard-Standard-Mega order. No idea why.



Muramasa! This chip got buffed from Battle Network 2. It can now hit 2 squares ahead instead of 1.

Yeah, because it NEEDED that buff, clearly! Yet another P.A. component, which is the same effect as the one in BN2 but with a tweaked combination of chips to account for the lack of ShadowMan's NaviChip.









These four will make a Program Advance. The order of the advance is the same as the order in the screenshots. It is quite possibly the coolest looking Program Advance in the fucking series. Let's save its reveal for a special time...

It's also VERY strong, so when you see it, keep in mind that it'd have been accessible since the minute the Number Trader showed up. The speedrunners of this game use it to kill most of the bosses.









This basically completes our Spin color series. We can now rotate NaviCust Programs of any color!



Hohohoho.



This enables us to perform extremely obscure commands. We will be seeing those next update.

They're extremely obscure for very good reason, however. I say "good", but I actually mean "Capcom", come to think of it.

Trading complete!



Let's stimulate the economy with our seemingly infinite cash flow. We need to buy this chip in this code to complete a PA.

God damn, if you did that 'one thing' that nets a ton of Zenny with this, you could start scraping the cash limit.



And since we can only get one AirShot 3 from Number Trader, we may as well purchase a second copy.

Despite the existence of a sequence of chips in the same code (albeit *), there is no AirShot P.A., that said.



You can't really get Blackbombs anywhere else besides the data they appear in, so we could use a few more.



MORE VARSWORDS

MORE P.A. COMPONENTS.



MORE CHIPS I'LL NEVER USE.



MORE SHIT I WON'T USE.

WHY WOULD YOU BUY THEM THEN?



Higsby will sell the same codes of all levels of CrsShield to make the Program Advance. If you can just earn a single copy from Dominerds, go here for your PA.



I swear, eventually, Higsby's entire stock will be empty.

Magnum-chan! My waifu~♥



Lookie, lookie, a PA is here.

Jesus, I think we're getting near double-digits on those things in this update.



And we're done. Jesus Christ, I just spent 340,000.



Wow, the Net is really getting screwed over. Damn you Alpha!

Some people don't like the dull grey color to the point where there a patch was made that will restore the colors of the Net during this time of the game.

Keep in mind that the Net is permanently stuck like this.

Fitting in with the storyline, however, the UnderNet is not affected.



The Progs are gonna die.

Nah, just nap. I WILL CARRY ON YOUR LOVE OF PROGS, ECHY, IN YOUR STEAD!



I should be saving the world, but naaaaaaaaaaaaaah.



150/200 :toot:

I probably could have a bit more if I did RequestBBS, but this is still very good to have by now. If you're at the 100 mark right now, then you're doing just fine. In this screenshot, you can clearly see the tiers of power: S, M and G. Serenade, MegaMan and Giver respectively. Clearly, my coming was foretold.

Or Submachine Gun. You can, technically, have another GigaChip at this point by doing Linked NetBattles, but that is not required for game completion. Also, many Standard chips are not available until the postgame, not to mention the Virus Breeder chips.



Attention any and all ghosts: Come out with your hands up!

Frame perfect shenanigans.

Note: The links got mucked up here when the update was sent to me, so I've corrected them and added titles.

Giga Drill-Breaker.

And next up is a small bonus video. This one shows off the most powerful VarSword combination in the game: an elemental shockwave which can deal 640-1120 damage in the right circumstances. The sheer damage potential is exactly why I'm not using it.

One could call this even worse than Gater really, as it's a single chip.

Fuck man, I frame-cancelled so hard that the video didn't even capture it. Damn, I'm good. All I did was buster-cancel into an AirShot.

"Damn I'm good", said the man who failed to just record at a higher framerate!


Many of the special inputs in these games are Street Fighter references, and I'd expect the game's most powerful one to be in that camp too, but I'm unable to find out. Yes, of course I started by checking Guile's movelist first! Hmmm...After more searching, I came to a conclusion. This input, unlike most fighting game specials/supers, starts with a button input, however, and even if you reverse it, it'd start with a jump input, so I suppose my guess was wrong entirely.



FUCK!

I want to go fight DrillMan Beta, but due to plot circumstances I can't access Hades Isle, which also means I can't access a super powerful rare chip just yet.

This calls for a slight change of plans.



At least I can access Hades Isle from the warp point in Beach Area 2. Also, I'm living life on the edge. See those stalagmites in the background? Well, they share the same general shape as drills, so that's your only real hint.

Alternatively, for some players, fighting DrillMan is an experience straight from hell.



We're gonna be equipping BreakBuster. What this does is turn our tiny buster shots into an attack that can bust through obstacles. Not to be confused with BreakCharge; that just turns your charged shots into obstacle breakers. BreakBust+GutsMachineGun= :bubblewoop:

Your first thought may be "OOH, KINGMAN!", but he has a rather nasty response to you trying this on him. Probably because the game introduced you to BreakCharge and demo'd the ModTools specifically before you fight him for the first time.





Yurts and Momogros are added here once you kill DrillMan Alpha.

To be fair, suddenly running into new viruses in an area is a fine indication that there's a V3 lurking.



Leave your chips on the table and no one has to get hurt.

Note: Again with the broken video tags, so I'll provide hyperlink text again.

Really, the castration joke makes itself.

Why, yes, I just out-bullied the game's bully.



Anyways, despite a decent drop-off point, I have to extend this update for reasons that will be made clear next update.

Namely a shitton of exposition, I'm sure.