Mega Man Battle Network 3: Blue Part #65

Part 65: The King of the Net!

Wow, it's been a while. The main reason why this update was held back for so long can be summed up as "Scope Creep." You'll get a sense of what that means by the end of the update. I've prepared some...things for you guys to hopefully end this series LP off with a bang. Though this isn't the last update, it's definitely the one that the most effort has gone into. Actually, it's the next update since I just broke the character limit.

Oh holy shit an update! This... this is unexpected. Welcome, but unexpected.

And after getting all 200 Standard chips, we finally obtain the second star -- Blue. Keep in mind that this is out of 7. If you need any help with finding some pesky Standard chips, go to the Table of Contents Index, scroll down past the other sections, then click the Chip Encyclopedia for locations on every chip in every chip code.

I know there was a whole section of Secret Area 3 that I didn't cover, but let's go fight Serenade now for the sake of pacing.

No, I didn't chip grind.

Pfft, like anyone will believe that. I'm certain you've got 99 of every chip in your folder, and you got them all without cheating somehow.

Also, this is a special wide O. They used a double width circle symbol for "O" in all the door messages.

And people say I'm a dick. "Wanna fight me? Kill 10,000 random Navis."

The two aren't mutually exclusive, he's just a slightly more sadistic and/or psychopathic dick.

MegaMan's moving his head around in this scene to find the source of the voice. You won't see this kind of detail in the postgames of BN4 and beyond. It's the little things.

This kinda fits with the theory that BN3 was supposed to be the end of the series. So much love and effort was put into this game that you can feel it in everything they do. Ever play Final Fantasy Tactics? Same thing. All the little sprite animations for little things.

Meet Serenade, folks. Did he meet your expectations? According to the character designer, Serenade's androgynous appearance is supposed to indicate that he's so powerful, he's "beyond gender". But everyone calls Serenade a he anyway.

Oh, that's right! We get to say we are the UnderKing if we win. Yeti, you better hope Serenade wins, because if I win, I'm abusing my power. Count on it.

Eh, the head under the crown may change but the abuse of power is a constant. The current UnderKing told us to kill 10,000 Navis just to have a chance at taking the throne, after all.

You know, this makes me wonder why we're even here in the first place. It's not like there's a need to investigate, since theoretically, this would have taken place after the Alpha incident. And Lan isn't the type to go picking fights, sooo...?

Arrogance at work, I guess. Alternate joke: 'Meh, he can take him.'

I also like how Serenade's appearance messes with your expectations. Some players thought he'd look like a badass, like, well, Bass. Instead, we got something akin to an angel.

See, the humanoid angels are the newer versions. The whole 'inhumanly beautiful, winged human' thing? That's new. They didn't usually look like that. There's a reason when they approached humans, they had to lead things off with "Don't be alarmed, we're not here to smite you" or something to that approach.

...Which was a long-winded way of saying that Serenade tends to evoke images of Arabian Nights with me.

See what I mean?

Also, boo! Power of mercy, my ass! That's like the exact opposite of me.

Sometimes, the cruelest thing to do to your enemy is to save their life, to offer them mercy when they have no choice but to take it.

I hate and disrespect my enemy and thereby never lose.

After all, what's worse than owing every breath you take to the person you hate?

Come now. You've already seen this.

Blinky! Where have you been!? I was getting worried.

Nitpick: It's usually "Battle routine, set!" but this time they added an extra exclamation mark.

Ewwwwwww.

Dude. It was cool until you took it there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ygK2Q7OIX8

So Serenade is actually a pretty interesting fight! He can't be hurt normally, so if you're the type of player who just relies on a single overpowered strategy and go into this fight blindly, you'll probably lose. There are only 2 ways of possibly dealing damage:

1) Wait for HolyLight

This is the move you first see at 2:01. During this time, Serenade is quite vulnerable and open to attack. That's when you unload your highest damaging options. Keep in mind that the shockwave will push you back and block all frontal attacks, like Cannon, ProtoMan chip, etc. It's better to use throwing chips, or other attacks that can go around obstacle-type situations.

2) Trap him

You'll see this at multiple points in the video, but Serenade's special dodge can only happen if there is an un-blocked, un-broken panel either above or below him. So, by using obstacles or holes, he can't do his special dodge! Use chips like Magnum2 for this. Any type of obstacle you put down can get destroyed by that constant ball Serenade shoots all over the field. But a Rook chip will never get hurt by it. Protip: Panelgrab his entire middle row and laugh. Hard.

Serenade is such a cool idea for a fight. So many strategies (and I'm guilty of this myself!) for bosses are just 'Find the biggest boom and then point it at the enemy'. In this case, Serenade forces you to learn the patterns and time your attacks, choosing your moments when he offers them to you. It's a surprising amount of fun. This is the first time I've ever seen and/or fought him, and it was a blast.

Beyond that...Serenade's fight is just a bunch of waiting around patiently until you can attack. There really needed to be more attacks for this guy, but the developers were pushing the limits of the cartridge already.

Of course, that's nothing compared to what you can do!

This is bullshit. Bah.

01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110000 01110101 01101110 01111001 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01110100 01100001 01101100 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100101 00101110

00100000 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100101 01100001 01101011 00101110

00100000 01011001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01100101 01101101 01101111 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100000 01100011 01101100 01101111 01110101 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101010 01110101 01100100 01100111 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100

01000001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01100110 01100101 01110010 01101001 01101111 01110010

Ha, ha, ha.

Yes, yes, you're very clever. I don't even care what you said.

All that dodge does is delay his AI from doing the moves he's supposed to, so it's just for funsies. You could keep going on and on if you wanted. In the video I could only do about 13?

Serenade likes to be vague. Comes with the territory of being an angel. Damn roleplayers.

I dunno, angels seem to be pretty straightforward most of the time. 'Hey, Mary, you're knocked up now. Good job.'

Days huh? IT WAS AN EPIC TALE. THE ANGEL AND THE DEMON FOUGHT FOR MANY YEARS AND-okay, I think you know who he's talking about.

Yeah, they're not even trying to be coy.

He isn't being very clear of what that means. Going by this game, being Dark means you are evil and Serenade is very clearly an ally of SciLab.

Okay, so it's Bass. Bass and Serenade fought for days on end, and Serenade was the narrow victor. HAH! Bass got his ass beat. Serves him right.

No, the fight between Serenade and Bass didn't wound him. Rather, it was that Alpha incident that wounded him.

Remember this?

Wait, bugs? Bass can absorb bugs now? That's odd. He's never displayed that ability before. Hmm...

Hint hint, I guess. This is a clue towards what you need to do.

Oh. That's right, I remember now. We're all doomed.

As my first act as King of the Undernet, I order GeneralYeti to be sacrificed immediately.

I regret that I have but one life to give for my - hey wait a second! Fuck off! I'm not dying for this!

Cheater! You just said we were the strongest! LIES!

Actually, we won't. But you know what the crazy thing is?

Mamoru's father created the Undernet and it's Administrator: Serenade. This effectively means that Serenade is pretty much Mamoru and his father's NetNavi.

AAAAAA

Whaaaaaat

I will never make fun of you again! You showed me a wondrous area filled with many viruses! Challenges! And (weak) virus endurance rounds! You even have an awesome Navi! I'll never make fun of him again.

Liar. You'll make fun of him.

COME BACK

Well that concludes that! Now let's check out that other section of Secret Area 3.

Ooh! Stuff!

In this giant square, we have something very, very famous.

Our resident BugFrag Trader. Remember all those BugFrags I stored up a while back? Aside from needing 900 to max out all of the viruses, you can dump the rest of what you got in here. 10 BugFrags for one super rare chip? MORE

So, during my splurge, I had taken screenshots of DarkMan and JapanMan acquisition, but then I kept getting the V2, V3 and finally, V4. So yes, assuming you didn't check out any of the bonus sections outside of the "Main Story", then a V4 chip is new. Now, I've gotten a MistMan V4 chip traded over thanks to Midnite, but I've never actually talked about it.

And really, who pays any attention to Giver if we don't have to, right? He's like equal parts competence and condescension.

You can only get a V4 chip if you equip Team Style and score an S-rank of a Beta-level boss in 20 seconds or less. Sounds hard? Don't worry, there will be nice little strategies posted for you that you can consider and borrow.

Not only can you get every single MegaChip in the game (outside of Punk and Version exclusives), you can find all of the super rare Standards chips in the BugFrag trader as well. All these ones are really hard to find if you remember. You'll need to equip a specific program and search a specific area.

I guess you could use the BugFrag trader if you don't want to S-rank the Navis? It'd be a bitch and a half to get specific ones, but I guess doing this will let you S-rank fewer of them. Still, with the strategy guides Giver will post it shouldn't be too hard.

This? Well, Sensor2 A is a code only found in White Version normally. Yet another reason this is so much fun. I guess I know who to beat up if I want more BugFrags!

: FUCK you, bitch. I grew up in the streets and this punk ass just goes around robbing everybody.

"He'll awaken with a growl" FUCK

Hey, don't mind me I'll just be on the opposite side of the planet

Well, I guess we did put in 300 BugFrags.

Well, that's it, I guess. Nothing more to see, and we're gonna have to fight the incarnation of destruction at some point, so- hey, wait a minute.

I AM NOW JESUS

Apparently, killing an angel turns you into Jesus. Who knew, right?

I'M GONNA FLY LIKE AN EAGLE

INTO THE SEA

Does any one knows what these are supposed to represent? I am reminded of the Mu symbols in Starforce 2.

I'm reminded of Starforce 2. Time to go get smashed again and forget that game exists.

Banned.

120 HP with a beginner-level folder for the last time in Secret Area. This monolith set is 20 rounds. Not only that, but it's also on a hidden path, so this BETTER be challenging.

Here we go. SMUG DEPLOYED

Already the first fight sucks. Blahblahblah Fishy2 is hard, blahblahblah

Okay no, you just copy and pasted this formation from Undernet 6, and upgraded the virus. Did you guys run out of ideas? One virus by itself is never an issue, seriously!

I guess the poison panels might trip you up if you get vined on them? But you shouldn't get hit in the first place, so...

OH NOOOOO! METTAURS! A BEGINNER LEVEL VIRUS!!

This is the postgame area. To get to this, I need at least 140 unique Standard chips, beat the final boss, obtain at least 1 GigaChip, defeat FlamMan Beta and find 8/9 of the virus sets at minimum. Why am I still fighting freaking Mettaurs? This is just insulting.

...Yeah, I've got nothing. This is pathetic. It's literally up and down.

Hooray, Level 3 viruses. I am so bored right now.

Fuck Rattys.

Navis of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Get fucked, Ratty

Well, the obvious target is the Doomer since it has PanelGrab. The Breakers can only attack straight. This shouldn't cause you any real problems.

Jesus Christ. STOP WITH THE METS. THEY SUCK AT BASEBALL.

And he knocks the insult out of the stands.

The Spiker can at least run into your area and deal some damage that way. With quick sidestepping, you should be able to avoid it. Also, Spikers are only an issue if your folder mainly comprises of frontal assaults, like mine. But hey, I have good dodging and a free Reflect. Snore. The Totun should give 0 trouble. It will sit there and uselessly shoot flames.

Hm, does it really count as a beginner folder if you're using the NaviCust to break the fight in half?

Oh, HELLO!

I have exactly 3 sword chips in my folder(of 80 damage apiece) and 1 Attack+10. That is EXACTLY enough to take it out. Keep in mind that CopyDmg doesn't work on them at all. Finally this game is stepping it up.

Both those Swordy3's have 2 Areagrabs, so it's very easy to get locked to one column/square. Then you've got the Shadow laying down constant damage. One of the more challenging ones of this set.

And the rest is just waiting for my swords to finish it off.

Perfect timing with that AreaGrab. After 3 sword slashes, Swordys will typically use AreaGrab. Which is exactly what I counted for when I placed the RockCube down.

Hey wait a second. You got hit by the sword there. This is bullshi-

Yeti is going to be a salty man, but if you see in the gif, there was a part where I got hit with the blade, but took no damage. While technically MegaMan's sprite collided with the Swordy's attack, the damage is only called on the first frame of the swing.

Magic tricks

....RRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH

Not even worth complaining about. The Sand Panels don't restrict your movement enough for Fishy3 to be a problem.

Oh. Yeah this is annoying. See, while the Spikey and Metrodo are easy pickings, it's the Volcanest that's an issue. If you recall, it moves along a single column and regenerates its HP to full whenever it touches a Lava Panel. I do NOT have enough damage in my folder to kill it before it heals.

I'd show a gif, but it's essentially just "Wait for AirShot". Because AirShot will push him 1 square back, which means he'll have no LavaPanels to heal from. You can take care of the rest of the viruses by going B+LEFTB+LEFTB+LEFTB+LEFT

You know, I saw a sale back there for Barbie's Horse Adventure. It's a viable alternative for those of you having trouble with this.

Game. Please. You were doing kinda okay with the Swordy3s. Then you just kinda fell over and had a seizure on the ground. You're better than this.

Cute, but what you may not realize is that the EarthJelly's attack cannot traverse over Broken panels. So, this encounter just shot itself in the foot! Stand over a broken panel with AirShoes, or just stand behind a hole and you win!

Hah, that's funny. It should have been annoying with grass panels instead of the ice. Plus, while there's a Holy Panel column on your side, it won't half the damage rate taken from poison.

I think this game is throwing in the towel. What a disappointment.

Well, a lot of Giver's more powerful chips are based on front-row attacks. That being said, it's not like he can't beat it anyway. The cracked panels might surprise you if you're not prepared for them, but if you made it through the EarthJelly round you'll be fine.

Round 15, for those of you not counting. Both of these Pengons carry IceStage, and there's no way in hell I'm gonna be able to take them both out before they use it.

Like that, I managed to kill at least 1. That starting draw was at least good. Yes, ShotGun, ShokWave and MiniBomb are good.

Remember that launching a RockCube at an enemy counts as Breaking damage.

If there's a virus, yo I'll bust it
Check out my strats while RockCube resolves it
Ice Ice Baby

For those who wish to sing along

OH FUCK! This almost made me take back some of the mean things I said. AlphaBug Omega's regen is pretty fast. And with these chips...? I'm gonna have to do some serious AI predictions.

OK, I admit it. He walked into my hits more times than I expected. Still, that regen proved to be an issue.

I feel like you got a free pass in this one.

Game, you disappoint me. After that last fight you pull out this trash? We're at Round 17! It would be so easy to make me switch my folder too. Put one Shadow virus on a field of Holy Panels. I have no way to win.

Instead, I just use AirShots to make this encounter pointless. The yoyo only goes three squares ahead.

BUNNEHZ

ALL THE BUNNEHZ

Now, if you're unlucky enough to get caught by a bunny while the others haven't synced up, then you could potentially get paralyzed over and over again with no reprieve. Level 3 bunnies do attack quickly, so I could see it happening. Now, an infinite combo might sound really cheap, if there wasn't "get out of jail free" card. New command code time!

You see, in Battle Network 3-6, if you press any buttons while paralysed, you will shorten the time you are paralyzed by 1 frame. The game will let you input up to 30 buttons before it maxes out. BN3 runs at 60 FPS, so you can shorten the time you are paralyzed by a half second. If someone is spamming FlashMan on you in PvP, just abuse this secret trick to throw off their paralysis combos.

Magic tricks.

White Version Update posted:

Or hints that are just plain wrong! This guy sucks, moving on.

I'm sorry! I WAS WRONG! I never managed to push 30 buttons in that timeframe!

FORGIVE MEEEEEEE

It's so cool. I played White originally, so I mashed the buttons like he said, but I eventually forgot why. In other words, after a while I was just mashing buttons because it was a placebo effect, like hitting Down+B in Pokemon. BUT IT WASN'T A PLACEBO EFFECT

Oh wow, this is a problem. You see, N.O.-3's HP regen is among the fastest in the game at an estimated 90 HP/sec. Essentially, you'll have to knock them out in one blow, but as you can see, my chips suck. Luckily, I know how to reset cooldowns. This is a pretty neat trick you can do. By performing a different action, you can shorten the time you are encumbered by an animation for a few frames.

Easier to show than to write it out. It doesn't look like a whole lot, but with a very quick A-->B+Left-->A, you can pull off your battle actions a little quicker.

IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME!

You wait until now to pull out the Auras? You could have stopped me a long time ago! Oh, well, challenge accepted.

So what can we learn from this? Well, we now know Dominerd's attacks are blocked by Reflect/Shield! Finding yourself cornered? B+LEFT Need to defend against big attacks? B+LEFT Need someone to walk your dog? B+LEFT Need an essay written? B+LEFT

In other words, I think they made B+LEFT block a little too much stuff.

Anddddd that's the last one. Overall, disappointing.

The Laser. It is going through your shield. YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO BLOCK THAT ARGH

Shing! Sparkle, sparkle!

Ooh! Wait, didn't we already have this from BN2?

"MissEschelon on the LP Archive posted:

Oops! No, this is completely different. Uh huh.

Behold, Hub's human powers taken hold in the form of a NaviCust program! Instead of it being an unlockable super-form, it's just an ability you can toggle on/off at will. Now, inputting this program into the NaviCust will throw an error immediately. However, this error changes depending on what elemental style you have equipped. So just go to GameFAQs. Still, equipping this program gives us the following bonuses:

- Super Armor (no flinching from attacks, which means no Rank loss)
- Break Buster (normal shots can break obstacles)
- Break Charge (Charged shots can break obstacles)
- Custom 1 (extra chip in Custom Screen)
- Mega-Folder 1 (Allows 1 extra MegaChip in folder)
- Shield (Basically Reflect, but without the 100 damage)
- Under Shirt
- Air Shoes
- Float Shoes (panel effects don't hurt you. Poison not included in BN3. Elemental damage boosts still apply)
- Shadow Shoes (prevents cracked panels from breaking when you step over them)

Even if you input the correct code, MegaMan's HP will be cut in half, much like HubStyle. You can actually negate this by installing BugStop! One of the very few uses for BugStop in BN3.

I still don't know how exactly a file related to Hub made its way down here. Was Mamoru's dad part of building this? Did Yoichiro just scatter the data everywhere like breadcrumbs?

The world may never know

My error code happened to be S2C, but there's at least 2 more Error Codes

Behold, the lowest max HP possible in Battle Network 3.

Neat.

And it's time to leave! I've got random items in the real world to pick up. MB: 46/50

Man, how did I miss this one? MB: 47/50

You missed it because nobody cares about RegUP ever unless they are a crazy person trying to get every single item in the game.

Wily, you're so sneaky with these. MB: 49/50

Wow, I'm bad at this. It was right next to the jack in point! MB: 50/50

If you ever decide to invest in the Reg+5 Navicust Program, you could potentially Regular a Scuttlist chip, which, if you can time the exact Scuttle you want, can be a strong opener.

Oh hey, an NPC that doesn't spawn until the postgame.

Hi Mr. Prog! Of COURSE we'll help you.

And as usual, Mr. Progs aren't doing their job.

No, Mr Prog...

*gasp* HE'S A THIEF!

NO! MR. PROG!

What an evil Prog! As your new king, I demand this Prog be executed immediately.

Torches and pitchforks at the ready, sire. Shall we burn him at the stake, drawn and quarter him, hang the evil bastard?

SpinDark...? For what?

Oh. For DarkLicense, of course. BN3, I love you, but why is there a Spin Key Item for only one Program in the game?

It could be that they meant to have more DarkPrograms in the game, but ran out of room. I'm still amazed they managed to throw all this stuff into the tiny little GBA cartridge.

Remember those weird curtains in Undernet 7? I think it's time to claim our rewards!

Hail, hail.

And I want the best damn food you can cook. I will be a phat king, and I don't care about managing my weight.

Sweet! This chip is back from Battle Network 2, but with the nerf of being a MegaChip. If an enemy hits the summoned statue, that entire side will take 200 electrical, breaking, and Invis piercing damage.

It was fucking amazing in BN2. Still is, just slightly less so.

Excellent virus busting tool outside of using it on Aqua-elementals.

It's still useful enough to wreck this shit's day, though.

And I demand 40 beautiful virgins! I must have successors! Yeti, go find some!

Piss off, Your Majesty. Get your own damn virgins.

And finally, we have the last HP Memory in the game.

Most of the Green Mystery Datas spawned behind the requirement doors, so there was no way I'd be able to document them beforehand.

Booo.

You got a horsey!

Oh look, infinite Snake BattleChips. INFINITE.

I have most definitely not built a chip folder based around Snake. Nope. That is vile slander and lies.

_{_{it was so much fun}}

And there's the last one of the set.

You know, this LP could be titled "Why Untrap is Better than Unlocker"

This door still won't open. I guess that's to be expected. Serenade mentioned a higher being.

Eh, we could probably find some way of smashing it down. That's strength, right? Just going straight through the problem? I mean, the top scientist is our dad. If we brought him in on this, we could probably be through the door in about thirty seconds.

So we need to prepare. I'm going to stuff as many HP+ parts in my NaviCust as I can: HP+500,+300 and +200. Then, I'll follow it up with the HP+1000 EX Code.

This means two things: I will constantly lose HP while on the battle grid, and everywhere I step turns into Poison panels.

Also, since I have a bugged Buster Program, if I press B, I'll get the Guard * BattleChip as my buster. It only works 15 times, but that's still plenty.

Highest max HP in the game.

Talk about your highs and lows.

And if you go back into Secret Area, the game will spawn new NPCs! Like I said, the little things. Man, why did I use the BugFrag trader so much. Now I'm in trouble.

You used the BugFrag trader because you're an egotistical jerk who only thinks about himself. ...In other news, water is wet.

Hey Yeti, wanna fight this?

...Sure!

"Grr"? Bad doggy?

...It's the doggy.

Nice doggy? I think he just wants the Beggin Strips. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GIVE HIM THE BEGGIN STRIPS

THE DOGGY SPEAKS

Hey, you're not a doggy!

Man. Now I'm irritated.

It seems like getting absorbed and spit out by Alpha caused a huge memory loss. Well good. You don't want Bass running around with a grudge against MegaMan. That'd be bad.

Well, I DID feed him, much like my own viruses.

: You reap what you sow, bitch.

Hail to the king, baby.

The folder I'm using is just a small demo for using Obstacles and bouncing Lightning/Bolt chips off of them. The basic premise is that you lock down the opponent's area with areagrabs and obstacles, throw down an IceStage, then use Lightning/Bolt for massive damage.

And BassGS? That stands for Bass Gospel Style. If you recall, there was a couple of textboxes near the end.

Gospel Saved Bass posted:

Apparently, whatever remains of Gospel that were around saved Bass. If you recall, there was a clone of Bass made from bugs that you fought in Battle Network 2. So I guess Gospel thought Bass was just like him, even if it's the wrong one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEp14-J4_Rk

Fight starts at 1:15

Prism just absolutely destroys Bass. You throw it in his area, and more often than not, Bass will attack the Prism, causing 300 damage to reflect back in his face.

So, Bass has some new moves! At 2:19, you'll see him use Gospel Claw, which just cracks 1 random tile in the top/bottom rows. If the player is in one of those rows, it will auto target the player's position. Yes, this move can't hit anything, why do you ask?

At 2:42, Bass pulls out Gospel Cannon. Which is a fire elemental breath that only attacks up to the second column ahead of him

G = Gospel head
[_][X][_]//[_][_][_]
[_][X][X]//[G][F][_]
[_][X][_]//[_][_][_]

If something collides with the Gospel head, then the attack stops prematurely. A nice strategy is to just walk forward and block the head with your B+Left shield.

Bass has one other move he never got to show off in the video. And it's quite possibly the best looking move in the series:

Vanishing World. THIS attack is worthy of Bass. When BassGS is below 500 HP, he'll have a 25% chance to bring it out. This move only happens one time, but if you aren't prepared, it will turn the tide completely in Bass' favor.

The maximum range this attack has:
[_][X][X]//[_][_][_]
[X][X][X]//[X][G][F]
[_][X][X]//[_][_][_]

It deals 500 damage, breaks shields and pierces Invisible on top of looking awesome. Unfortunately, Bass hardly ever pulls this move out. Really, it needs to be seen more often. I first saw this move when BassOmega used it and caught me off-guard.

If you see this thing, you'd better be on the top panels. It can and will fuck you up bigtime. However, as you see in the gif, placing a Pawn right in front of him will result in some funny image collision - Pawn can't be destroyed, and neither can the Gospel head, so they just kinda collide against each other a bunch.

Note: he's called the God of Destruction in the later games. So we went from being a peasant, to a king, to Jesus, and now a god.

I'm confused. Does killing a god give you their powers? What's the Authority we get from beating Bass?

In-depth knowledge of the game and its underlying code, mostly.

So just like Bass, MegaMan has the power of "infinity." Bass can absorb more beings with his GetAbility program and gain power, whereas Lan and MegaMan can always acquire new forms, and tap into their brotherly bond for unreal power.

...or that too, I guess.

Since this is a kid's game, we do need a life lesson in FRIENDSHIP.

I really think they're hammering it home a bit hard here. Yes, yes, we realize this. It's been the moral the whole trilogy.

Ouch. Hit a sore spot, didn't we. Even with a memory wipe, Cossak is still somewhere in the back of his mind.

You know, this is actually very sad. Bass can't remember the one person that used to love him.

And he charges up an attack out of frustration.

White?

Did Bass blow himself up...? I honestly couldn't tell you.

Originally, I thought Bass deleted himself here, since you can't jack out of Secret Area. The game is actually surprisingly consistent with that.

The thing is, Bass shows up by ripping reality a new one. It's entirely possible he's just gone back the way he came.

Yeah, I'll confess. If you watch the video, you can tell that I wasn't really trying. I don't mean this as a "I'm just better than him" kind of way. This was my first Battle Network game, and when I finally got to BassGS, I absolutely curbstomped him. I recall getting at least a Busting Level of 9, with a time roughly at 30.23 seconds. I ran Mine *, GrassStage, Magnum2 and Magnum3, a very strong Program Advance, LifeAura, FlamMan V4, ProtoMan V4 and 2-3 Recov300s. So I had decent stuff.

Here's the big issue with BassGS: he's the exact same fight as Normal Bass.

Normal Bass AI:
AttackThatDoesn'tRegenAura x3 --- AttackThatRegensAura

BassGS AI:
AttackThatDoesn'tRegenAura x3 --- AttackThatRegensAura

Whenever you fight Bass, the key is to always stop the Aura regen. If you do that, the fight is easy. If you don't, you'll probably lose. I mastered this concept by the time I got to BassGS. Since the AI didn't change on a fundamental level, BassGS just didn't challenge me. This honestly disappointed me.

Let's review: Bass has a new move that can't hit its target, another one that leaves him wide open, and an awesome new move that almost makes up for everything. Too bad I never saw Vanishing World on my first playthrough. Really, BassGS isn't hard at all if you just understand how to plan your attacks out. I will grant that his damage values (300/450/500) are pretty high. Those can mess you up.

Of course, if you're the regular casual player, you're not gonna go up against Bass too often. And honestly, you can brute-force your way to victory the few times you see him normally. If you're fighting BassGS, you're expected to know the way the game works. You're expected to know how to look and see the patterns. I can understand why they didn't change up his AI routines - again, memory and all that stuff. AI patterns do take up a bit of space, and a new pattern for a boss that 90% of the player base won't see? Probably not a good spot to waste memory.