Part 3: MegaManos Battle Network of Fate
Tetsu is a fight-happy, honest, macho sort of guy. And manages to be an annoying, bland character all the same. I can't help but think that this is the sort of character some 14-year old would come up for as some sort of wannabe-badass self-insert in a story.
More like "in 5 seconds". Welcome to the first of the many godawful tournaments in this godawful game, all the segments follow the same formula:
1: Blah blah at the matchup board.
2: Introducing: Someone Boring, Annoying, and Pointless.
3: Lan heads outside.
4: OH SHIT PROBLEM
5: HELP LAN DO ALL THE WORK
6: Slog across the Cyberworld
7: (Optional) Idiotic quicktime minigame.
8: Oh right, the FIGHT.
Or in short, fucking boring, absolutely contrived, and never once relevant to the GIANT FUCKING ASTEROID heading to the planet.
And this is the only time this is ever mentioned. Said gang doesn't even get a name. We never see anyone else from it.
Tournaments have amazingly flexible schedules. There's always time to waste between matches, and it always is just enough for you to do whatever inane task the game's vomited forwards for you to work on. Remember the mantra: It only gets worse.
Yes, there's literally no point to being out here and even the characters admit it. MegaMan might as well have said "Lan, the game can't go on unless you head outside".
Pictured: A man who wouldn't be out of place on a Saturday morning cartoon. This jackass just sort of walks at Lan and bumps into him.
At walking speed, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone with osteoporosis, or hell, bones made of glass, that would have this happen. Mind you, it's obviously faked, part of a scam, blah blah.
Preposterously Obvious Thug NPC #2 is the same way. At least we do run into nicer versions of NPCs with these mugshots, although in this game the nicest thing someone can do is not exist in the first place.
Here's what drives the entire Tetsu segment. Two dumbass thugs decide to try a scam so idiotic only an especially stupid 6th grader would fall for it, and then proceed to ask for more money than nearly anybody period could have.
The game is fully aware of this. Dear Capcom: Admitting that something is stupid doesn't make it any less stupid. It just highlights the sheer apathy and absolutely shitty writing.
On the other, I think this might be the longest drought between Fuckups we've had yet. If I counted "Stupid Writing" as a Fuckup though, I'd basically be increasing the tally every screenshot.
The scam falls apart in favor of just beating Lan up. There's no reason for this, apparently these two thugs are just sociopaths who want to beat up children, but only after coming up with scams so terrible that even they see the flaws.
Every villain in the game is basically exactly like this. You saw ShadeMan. You won't find a single motivation or functioning brain cell in any of them. Then again, the same applies to everyone else as well.
Say it with me: It only gets worse.
Why are you on the fucking ROOF?!
I should note just how lazy this game is with action sequences. Remember Bass vs. MysteryNavi after FlameMan? Slamming an Earthbreaker down on the DarkAura? Yeah, absolutely none of that. The screen fades to black and back to normal, probably because they couldn't be assed to give Tetsu a standing-back-up sprite.
THERE we go!
Fuckup Tally: 43
Nice to see they put all the relative effort in where it mattered, right?
Tetsu proceeds to walk off. I should note, every single time a cutscene with Tetsu ends, the screen fades to black and an obnoxious footstepping noise is played. It sounds, honestly, I'm serious, like they just banged coconut halves together. I won't stoop to Monty Python references, but I kind of wish I'd recorded it.
Oh, and we need to go track him down and say thanks despite the fact Lan JUST DID THAT. There's no reason, just do it because Capcom fucking says so.
Aaand there's another one of these for Keyboard Fox. The Number Trader isn't available yet, so no using that code. Still, inter-LP crossovers, ain't it great?
This MIGHT be a pun. But like whenever someone points out something like "Well, dinner refers to such and such meal of the day, not necessarily..." and so on, that's really giving them way too much credit.
Lan proceeds to abruptly be a Cub Scout or something, running into the middle of a fight to say stop or he'll tell an adult.
This is a valid point, but do you even SEE any Officials around? And why would they even be here, this is miles away from DenDome.
Violence: Bad.
CyberViolence:
Sure, Navis can be healed a whole lot better and easier than people, but still. For god's sake Lan, every single problem in the series has followed the same format of "Netbattle It, if that doesn't work, someone else will take care of it".
Speaking of Netbattling, guess what new monotony we're in for?
Fuckup Tally: 44
Updating the Fuckup Tally is my own personal highlight. The only joy I get out of this. I am taking that to be a very bad sign.
Remember back in MMBN2? FreezeMan's section? Or in MMBN3, FlameMan's section? Yeah, substituting the internet for dungeons was always boring. So naturally, every single tournament scenario involves the "Haul ass to the deepest section of the Cyberworld you have access too" step. And don't forget the fucking mantra! At least the number of places we have access to period is minimal for now.
Tetsu mentions his arm being hurt as well. No fighting actually occurred, and he just sort of blurts it out of nowhere. If I had to guess, this might actually be old dialogue bits that were left in when the scene was rewritten. I'm kind of at a complete loss, it's either that or just really disjointed text.
Fuckup Tally: 45
Given what we've seen so far, when in doubt, assume the dumbest possible option.
And yes, of course we're going after him. 90% of the game wouldn't exist if Lan and MegaMan didn't have the compulsion to throw themselves into absolutely every problem.
Tetsu's generic Heel-Sorry, HEALNavi is in the middle of a giant smackdown, indicated by sprites holding perfectly still.
Honestly, even for Lan and MegaMan, this is getting ridiculous.
No SHIT. Even MegaMan himself, formerly at least competent, has become some sort of Adam West Batman-era superhero. If this were a cartoon, you can bet your ass there'd be an anti-bullying PSA at the end.
The fight against 6 HEALNavis is difficult, since so many come at once, obviously.
No, of course utilizing the superior numbers that are already present is an absurd idea.
...
I'm trying my best to make this garbage funny, but I can feel this game's sheer monotony and lack of anything worth actually discussing eating away at my commentary.
And so, to universal lack of anything even remotely akin to surprise, the bad guy does the dumbest thing possible.
Oh hey, monotony, that's new. Yeah, 6 fights with HealNavis, each accompanied by a virus. They don't attack frequently, but unlike other enemies at this point in the game, HealNavis can teleport freely around the field. With the garbage chips available at this point, this just makes every last fight with them a game of Whack-A-Mole as the bastards warp around doing nothing while I wait for the Custom Gauge to fill up.
Pressing L during this sequence nets this from Lan, so to speak. I know this entertains one or two people, and that's more than can be said for the rest of this.
6 boring-ass wait-for-a-decent-chip-to-emerge-from-the-alphabet-sewage-soup fights later...
It's like a neverending loop of horrible ideas, stagnation, and boredom.
MMBN4 is a terrible game, but it has no ENTERTAINMENT in the amount of suck it has. Someone mentioned how LPing bad games is like MST3K, and that's true. MMBN4 isn't Puma Man, Plan 9 From Outer Space, or Troll2. It's Manos the Hands of Fate.
Have to love how the Black HealNavis talk like children playing with army men.
"Move your guys there, Billy, I need to fight the giant!"
"That's your cat."
"YOU'RE RUINING IT!"
Hey, you know what was fun? 3-minute long battles against HealNavis who teleport randomly while I use one chip per turn trying to kill them. So let's ramp up that fun and have 3 literally identical fights against 3 HealNavis at once.
(EPM several months in the future: This scenario suffered from many lost images, and thanks to Spelling Mitsake, they've been replaced. However, he got this scenario on playthrough 2, unlike me.)
80% of my folder is unchanged from the default, and this is 300 HP per fight spread across 3 randomly-warping targets. My strongest chips are Sword, WideSword, and Longsword, and the odds of me actually getting a P.A. with this gridlocked sewage folder and lack of Add button are pathetic. It's doable, it's just asking for a long, boring as fuck struggle.
More than the scenario writers and programmers for this game, now I'm wondering who the fuck play-tested this and said to their bosses "Yes, this is a fun game and you should publish it as soon as you can!"
You! Yes, you, the few of you who've stood up for this trainwreck as enjoyable! I commend your bravery and question your judgement, but just tell me, what the hell do you SEE in this? There's nothing! The average Super Mario World romhack has less repetitive, unimaginative bullshit.
The 'unique' Black HealNavis, perhaps SOMETHING different, of course, will be handled by Tetsu's Navi. Like I said before, the 'action sequences' are just...well, watch:
Bastard must have farmed for DAYS to get that....
Yes, there are at least sound effects, but they're the same sound effects used every time the game pulls this crap.
This must be how blind people experience your average shonen anime. There's nothing, just screamed attack names.
And even more half-non-sequitor dialogue. You know it's bad when you can't even fucking TELL. I mean, is this supposed to be a realization of defeat?
It's the Metal Gear Solid Mood Improvement Special Operations team! They compliment you and explode when you beat them.
Or alternatively, this is all an elaborate metaphor about the dullness and brutality of a male-dominated cyberculture. As a last insult, we're called men. Damn that's cold.
Fuckup Tally: 46
When in doubt...
Well, after that, we remember that there's a whole tournament thing. It always ends with "Oh, right, the match!" like clockwork.
And none of this has anything to do with the asteroid. HOW many asteroid movies have been made? The plots just spurt out like a fire hose, but here we fucking are. Not even doing idiotic tournaments, but even MORE idiotic diversions FROM the idiotic tournaments. Short of deciding to focus on the fascinating emotional turmoil and daily worries of Glide, I can't think of a more dull way to handle the situation from a gameplay and narrative perspective.
It should surprise nobody that the most notable aspect of Lan to the majority of the population is that he's a grade-schooler. We don't even get "N1 Finalist" recognition despite it being broadcast globally.
After beating down over a dozen HealNavis, the boss is, SURPRISE, A HEALNAVI!
Alright fine, he uses FighterSword-range slashes and can summon viruses, that's different. But that's all that's different, HP aside.
I hated Tora, but for fuck's sake! This is line-for-fucking-line what he said when we beat him as well. Maybe not the EXACT words. I didn't exactly precognate that this situation would happen, so I lack the screenshots, but Tora said the same thing in BN3. All together now: It always gets worse. You just fucking wait, you think dialogue is the only thing that'll be copied and pasted into this game?
He leaves with one last damned fade to black with coconuts accompaniment.
Round 2, against AquaMan. Red Sun players would be facing GutsMan. Here we go again! Aren't tournaments FUN? The entire game is like this.