Part 4: Souls! I must have more souls!

I actually had most of this update already done, and had intended to combine it with the Tetsu update, but then I realized that devoting more than 4 hours a day to this game is even stupider than anything I've mocked it for.



And I bet you can impress Ms. Mari with that, Lan.



Here's the mail, makes me wanna wail, maaaaaiiilll....



Considering how this comes out of nowhere and is never seen again, much like most other things in this game (which is for the best), I have to wonder what the MMBN-verse's spam filters and such are like. Firewalls are literal walls, so I'm picturing a giant coffee filter that Navis and data have to pass through.



Contrived as hell, par for the course as hell. Gosh, what are the odds of that?



Anyway, here's what I've been looking forward to showing this update. Meet Shuko, our opponent. The vending machine is beeping and making noises like one of those arcade games that spits out tickets when you flip the token into the hole or something. I love it, it's just such a great synopsis of everything so far.



Not only do vending machines in MMBN4-land apparently have timers when you insert your change, it's some kind of major accomplishment. What, do you have to win a short WarioWare-esque microgame or two before you can buy a damn Twix bar or something?



Shuko gets all excited and panics. And yes, her mouth constantly hangs open all the time, that's not just the usual shoddy timing with screenshots.



She runs out of time, and the resulting sequence really just HAS to be seen to be believed. You guys are going to love this one.

WAAAAAAAH!



Is this how vending machines work in Japan? You're on a timer to make your selection? Is it like one of those gameshows? Hell, that'd make this game hilarious. Having to dodge giant Tetris blocks while carrying eggs in your mouth to spit into a giant chicken ass just so you can use a vending machine.

_{(Also, you catch a rare sight of me slipping up and including a state save in my screenshot. I've been doing that more for this game in case I notice a Fuckup but miss the screenshot, so I can reload and then grab a picture.)}



If you didn't watch the video, the short version is that Shuko has serious depression issues. How much do you want to bet that she's popular in Japan and they think she's just adorable? "Oh Shuko, poor girl, you're so cute!" And then of course tentacles, because...Japan. You can take the tentacles out of Japan, you can't take the Japan out of the tentacles.



Hell, I'm calling this a justified reaction. What do you say when someone suddenly begins monologuing about how terrible their life is because they lost their vending machine prize?



Anyway, Shuko's brothers Atsu and Ty (Who are of course twins so Capcom only had to make one mugshot) have showed up to cheer for her.



Honestly, it just keeps piling on. She doesn't have XDR Tuberculosis or anything, but you can bet your ass that they'd have stuffed her full of diseases or something if they had the time.



To thank Shuko for all she's done, they talk about getting rid of 'that wooshing thing'. Using the most awkward, vague language they can to describe it. If you paid attention, AquaMan's speech tic is *woosh*, so....



It doesn't look so bad in screenshots, but when they go 8 text boxes without actually naming what it is they're talking about, it stands out a whole lot more.



Note the past tense.



Fuckup Tally: 47

Yes, there are a lot fewer Fuckups in the Tournament segments. I love it, they put MORE effort into the scenarios that are just game-stuffing wastes of time rather than anything to do with Darkchips (remember those?), ShadeMan, or the Asteroid.

Oh right, wait. The actual REASON this is a Fuckup is because Shuko explicitly uses the word "says". So the whole "Oh, they aren't talking about AquaMan!" thing falls flat.



So you bought her a new one BEFORE deciding whether or not she needed one?

Fuckup Tally: 48



Because of the awkward, contrived choice of words, AquaMan thinks they're talking about him. This is a bad thing.



Dohohoho, you silly rascals, convincing someone that they're worthless and going to be chucked out like old trash.



Seconds later, they get the message that AquaMan has jacked himself into the Cyberworld and ran away. You could call this an honest misunderstanding if it weren't for the fact that the whole conversation between them was around 30 text boxes long, all without one single definition of what it was they were talking about. Maybe it works better in Japanese?



This is a problem, obviously, but this isn't just a "Chase the NPC" situation in the making.



*Aside glance*



You read that right! AquaMan is crying, and so the entire internet is submerged. This is even worse than what FlameMan did!



Hunting time.



Oh, by the way, no matter what happens during a tournament scenario, NPC dialogue doesn't change. Despite the whole Cyberworld being flooded. Effoooorrttt.



Anyway, the NPC brother gave us a CyberCanister. That's the air meter right there.

MEGAMAN, A PROGRAM, REQUIRES AIR, YOU SEE.

Fuckup Tally: 49



To my great surprise, they actually DID change the dialogue of this NPC. Who remains blocking our way.



Okay, I admit that that's some impressive dedication to the job right there.



If you run out of air, MegaMan begins taking 10 damage per second on the overworld.

Yes, they're combining a water level, a timer, a find-the-NPC quest, backtracking across areas we've been through before, and contrived stupidity all in one scenario.

I'm almost suspecting that Capcom was TRYING to torpedo the series so they could develop other things. I mean honestly, you'd have to make a concentrated effort to produce something that's just so many levels of awful.



Trying to calm AquaMan down yields the result everyone was expecting:



"LETTING PEOPLE EXPLAIN THINGS IS FOR DORKS, LALALALA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"



That was Town Area 2, now we're in ACDC Area 2. Oh no, a gate, whatever will we do.



Darn gate...such a problem....



Fuckup Tally: 50

(No, you can't walk across the DIRECT PATH BYPASSING THE GATE, it's just a crappy part of the graphics.)



That gate belongs to Shuko, conveniently, so we just need to track her down. MMBN4 is almost totalitarian in its sequence, I should note. Yes, you have to talk to her brother here to make her appear in ElecTown. Just looking for her yourself won't produce any results.

Remember the IceBall M bit from 3? I didn't have to talk to every single Navi who knew about where/how to find the ColdHead viruses, I only went to Beach Square to show the sequence, since I already had the Fish program. None of that in 4.



This is one thing about 4 that will drive completionists absolutely batshit. Rather than dungeons and specific areas for the tournament scenarios, Capcom just walled off small extra portions of the main Cyberworld. Off the top of my head, let me think about how many actual dungeons are in the game:

1: ElecTower Computer (The Goddamned Bats place)
2:  ToyRobo Comps 
3: Final Dungeon.

The entire rest of the game makes use of the Cyberworld instead. Because the FreezeMan and FlameMan sections were everyone's favorites, right? The areas blocked off for certain tournament scenarios never have anything, they're all empty, but it's impossible to have access to all of them in one playthrough.



Anyway, AquaMan is past that gate, and that wraps up the scenario at least.







So yes, he probably would have figured this out himself if we left him alone long enough, rendering all of our efforts pointless. Of course.



I said it before: Acknowledging how bad something is doesn't make it better! Anyone else getting that "new webcomic that makes bad jokes about how bad it is starting out" vibe?



Yeah, hey, don't worry about flooding the entire fucking internet and rendering it uninhabitable by programs or Navis, bringing the entire basis of the world setting to a stop. Hell, imagine OUR world with the internet defunct for some reason, that'd be just peachy, right? Let alone a setting where countries are named after computers.



OH, RIGHT, THAT THING. It's just like Yumland all over again! Massively destructive events just get glossed over in favor of moving on with something stupid!

Wait...



Your head either is surrounded by or IS a fishbowl full of water. How would crying affect your ability to see at all? What do you cry, squid ink?

Fuckup Tally: 51

AquaMan's reaction to the whole flooding-the-Cyberworld thing can be summed up as "Oh darnit, I did it again!" You scamp.



At least he can fix it though, instantly sucking an entire Cyberworld's worth of water back into himself. A very impressive skill reflecting a complete mastery of water, which won't be shown at all in the fight with him, or ever again for that matter.



To be fair, I kicked his sorry little ass so fast he barely could show anything period.



*Snerk*



And here we have the new, stupid gimmick for 4 and 5...



This will happen for all 6 version-specific Navis in the game. We got AquaSoul! Yes, Navis officially have souls from here on in the series.

Hey, remember that part in the ending of 3, when Yuuichiro found out that MegaMan was deleted? "If Navis were given souls, what would separate them from humans? Maybe it was a terrible thing I did to Hub." Or something. Apparently the writers really really REALLY liked that idea, because from now on, and ESPECIALLY later in the game and in 5, nobody shuts the hell up about souls now.



Fuckup Tally: 52

Shuko tripped, that's all. There was NOT a giant explosion, to my disappointment. Wrong sound effect, Crapcom of America....



Yeah, MegaMan. It's too bad about their parents dying, not like we'd ever know what losing a family member was like. I wish Lan had a brother he could be close to like that.



So, DoubleSoul. This is what's replaced Style Changes in MMBN4 and MMBN5. It's more versatile, and overall more useful than most Style Changes (Hub Style from 2 excepted), but it's also kind of gimmicky. For one, they don't reflect your play style at all, and what order you get them is mostly random.

You get 3 the first playthrough, 2 the second, and the last one the third. AquaMan (GutsMan in Red Sun) will always be first, the rest of the order is random. So the good, useful Souls you actually want probably won't be very available to you for quite a long while.



Soul Unison/DoubleSoul

More similarly to the original games, DoubleSoul gives MegaMan some of the abilities of another Navi. You take on that Navi's element, your charge shot changes, and various other effects are included as well, usually involving powering up certain chips.

To actually use DoubleSoul, you must sacrifice a chip with the affinity of the Navi in question. Remember when I went over the expanded elements in the first update? Yes, certain Navis can be weird elements, NumberSoul for example requires a +/- chip.

You can't use Regular Chips for DoubleSoul, unfortunately, so if part of your strategy requires or is enhanced by a certain soul, you'll have to modify your folder accordingly. DoubleSouls only last 3 turns.



You also get a rather nifty change to MegaMan's sprite, combining it with the other Navi. Some of them look decent, like AquaSoul, others can actually look pretty cool, and of course, some of them just look terrible. Special mention must go to Roll Soul. Since that's Red Sun only, have some official art:



PFFFFTT....



The final match of the first tournament is against TopMan. I actually like this scenario a bit, I remember it being short and simple, with a bit of humor in it. And I really like TopMan.Exe's design. I mean, how can you not like that pipe he's got?



It takes class to fight with a pipe and cane. One of those Cool Old Guy type of designs. So I guess tournament one will end on a less excruciating than usual note.

Don't worry though! The game gets far FAR worse after this. This is just the warm-up. It always gets worse, and believe you me, it WILL get worse.