Part 5: Fuckup Tally guessing is closed now.

And with this update, all guesses for the final Fuckup Tally are set in stone. No more guessing. Which probably means I'll stop seeing more than 5 posts between updates. The winner, as a reminder, will receive a $10 account upgrade from Zebrin and an avatar from myself.

And mind you, I'll be picking that avatar, who said you had a choice in the matter?



Kind of a weird question, but not really a Fuckup. You can bet that on subsequent playthroughs it gets kind of funny.



The usual "Hey Lan, we have nothing to do, let's go outside!" routine ensues. Here's Tensuke, TopMan's operator.



This scene is arguably improved by screenshots. The top spins in place in a rather dull fashion.



Gosh, before the internet, what could life have been like? Of course, I'm sure most goons probably wouldn't be able to guess either.



It doesn't exactly leave my head spinning, but Tensuke at least is enthusiastic about it. Obviously.



While we don't have issues with Smug Lan anymore, I wish that 5:DTDS wasn't the only game in the series to have mugshots for multiple emotions. Tensuke's constantly pissed-off expression doesn't really suit this scene.



So yeah, his grandson thinks his favorite thing in the world is a boring waste of time.



Cue heartbreak. I like Tensuke, really, he's probably one of the only likable characters in the game. He's a pissy old jerk with a soft spot for his grandson.



Oh, kids. Always saying things that hurt like hell because children have no sense of empathy. At least we aren't dealing with Chisao. Not until the Red Sun scenarios anyway.



Holy crap! It's sitting there! Yeah, I really love how the series consistently uses animations that have blank animation frames, it really makes screenshotting them nigh-impossible.



It's jumping up and down and crackling with electricity. Now if only Kosuke had stuck around a little while longer!



So the top drove away his grandson and now is going haywire. Hey, if this is the worst mistake he's ever made, he's better off than most people. Remember SciLab?



Inside the CyberTop is just this fight.

Dharma: What the hell these things have to do with Buddhism is beyond me. Anyway, these viruses have are a bit more complicated than the ones seen so far. First of all, the projectile they shoot, air hockey pucks, bounces around diagonally on the field for several seconds. It's slow now, but stronger versions of the virus speed things up quite a bit. Actually being able to tell where its safe to stand is easy if you pause the game for a moment, but while dodging other attacks things get a bit insane. Second of all, their movement pattern calculates which panel furthest away from MegaMan would result in the puck bouncing right at him, meaning that they move around in very weird ways when you try and attack them.

The chips the random encounter ones later in the game drop, however, are oh-so hilariously broken.



Tensuke, rather than being grateful, is pissed off about us deleting the virus.



If Lan did, this game probably wouldn't exist period.



Fuckup Tally: 53

This is an oddly consistent Fuckup. Capcom of America has serious trouble with plurals. Who wants to bet they didn't actually hire a translator and just threw the string dump of the game through Babelfish and then 'corrected' it or something?



Yeah, you're a likable character! A rare honor for the series, let alone 4.



...

Wow.

I'm speechless.



I'm not even going to focus on that, just looking at that screenshot is like a black hole for my thought process. The reason Tensuke didn't delete the viruses himself is because TopMan is kind of broken.



CyberSenility! Those preliminaries were all staged, though, as this proves. Much like the A-License examiners back in 2. TopMan's eyes are baggy to simulate wrinkles, but they kind of just look like he's stoned off whatever he's smoking.



Fuckup Tally: 54



Bonus BONUS points to Tensuke: He programmed TopMan himself. Not very well, but still, holy crap man, you've made a sentient being with no experience in programming and a lifetime spent with tops of all things. Probably cobbled together from various parts and programs, but...damn.

What is it with old programmer guys being great in these games?



Lan spends pretty much this whole cutscene in Solid Snake mode, I should mention.



Tensuke is 68 (this is stated later), so 18-year old Tensuke pretty much said "Tops! Tops are my life's calling!" and here is still at it.



The only reason he made TopMan at all was just because he wanted to spend time having fun with his grandson Kosuke.

Awww.



The elderly Netbattlers' club has information that helps with making Navis. Alright, maybe I gave Tensuke too much credit, apparently making a sentient digital being is the sort of DIY project you could accomplish over the weekend. It's kind of hilariously blasphemous, given the new focus on Navi souls. Suddenly, producing souls turns into a casual sort of thing.

: "Oh, mighty lord of darkness! I made 3 souls last weekend, it was very productive! What can I get with those?"

: "An exploding soccer ball."



Sigh. Again with this. Honestly, I'd believe that 4-6 is an entirely different continuity from 1-3, if not for the occasional throwback. Lan's actual accomplishments get listed in 5, so that's debunked right there. It's just sloppily forced retconning.



Tensuke heads off to ElecTown to get supplies. But wait! He forgot the top. Time to follow after him, because it just takes way too much effort to write in plausible reasons to do anything.



Wonderfully productive, ain't it? Only now does Lan decide to throw himself into the situation as usual. For once, MegaMan performs a search for info rather than having to run around and find NPCs or check certain BBS boards. They meet in ACDC park, isn't that just the rarest coincidence you could think of?



Hi, old people! Tensuke isn't exactly in good graces with the club though, as after all he just made fun of NetBattling until making TopMan.



Fortunately, these are the helpful sort of old people who are bored and have nothing to do.



After a bit of dicussing amongst themselves, they decide to help if we can find all 4 of their Navis in Town Area and answer riddles. Hey, it isn't Bingo or anything like that, at least. Gameplay length padding as usual, but it isn't like this takes more than 5 minutes tops.



Now, the riddles are, surprisingly, not stupidly easy. So if you screw up, you get to play a minigame. MMBN4 LOVES these. There haven't been any up until this point, but starting with the second tournament, they get crammed up the ass.



Yeah, you just do this 40 times, which is easy. The same exact minigame, no matter how many times you fail the riddles, will be used. Always 40 alternating L and R inputs. Again, tedious and dull, but these go by in mere seconds, so it's not anything really worth complaining about.



Lather, rinse, repeat. After beating the 4th, we're given a key to the gate not far at all from Lan's computer on the internet. We need to speak to the President of the club, who will provide the most important secret for making a Navi.



The thing is, he's kind of an asshole. His Navi is a jerk too, but well aware of how much worse his operator is.



He sics viruses on us to drive us away. Out of curiosity, I held down the fast-forward button to see if this is a 'serious' battle.



Yup. Gee, thanks for trying to drive MegaMan off by attempting to MURDER HIM!



Fuckup Tally: 55

Considering he just did that, I'm calling this a case of the wrong mugshot being used. It happens quite a bit more over the rest of the scenario, which is only a few cutscenes anyway.



Old rivalries of old people, MegaMan's too naive to get it at all.



The Navi tells the President to stop whining and go meet Tensuke already, thankfully, so it's off to ElecTown square to preside over the cutscene, as nothing important can ever happen without Lan's presence.



When I think about it, I realize that Dex and Chisao are the only pair of same-sex siblings in the series who AREN'T identical twins. MMBN1 had Ms. Yuri, Ms. Mari's sister. For the rest of the series, there's Lan/Hub, Atsu/Ty, Tensuke/His brother...

Although the Anime, and one throwaway question in one of the quizzes in MMBN2, had Count Zap and Mr. Gauss being brothers. But yeah, there's an insane number of twins in this series, exceptions are only ever made when there's a gap between games. Out of all same-sex siblings in the series, ~71% are identical twins.

Capcoooom!



Hey, he's your great-nephew, you realize. You'd think he'd be a little more cooperative.



Fuckup Tally: 56

Tensuke's brother is a kite enthusiast. If he knows more about Navi-making, it's kind of odd that his Navi was a generic old Navi rather than KiteMan.Exe or something. That would require the dreaded effort.



Time to play Identical Twin Switcharound! On subsequent playthroughs of the game, the two of them actually switch sprites, which I'll grudgingly admit is a nice touch. And yet:

Fuckup Tally: 57

Look closely. The guy who hates tops has TopMan's icon on the back of his shirt as well. Obviously due to the pallete swap, but the simple solution would have been to just not include the damn thing on either sprite!



Things settle down somewhat, and ultimately, Tensuke gets what he needs.



That's it. Here's a reason for liking this scenario: It's really damned short. Cutscene, Cutscene, Cutscene, Navi Hunt/Minigame, Cutscene.



Yes. Lan hadn't figured out that Tensuke was his opponent. Despite knowing he was fighting TopMan, that Tensuke had made a Navi, and that he's been a top craftsman for over 50 years.

Fuckup Tally: 58

Lan's dumb as a brick, but for crying out loud!



And apparently TopMan, in the span of mere minutes, has been completely repaired and improved by the fixes.

Chaud has ProtoMan's code memorized, remember that detail from MMBN2? It was supposed to be impressive. I'd joked at the time that Navis must have a ridiculously simplistic programming structure. Now that's starting to actually look correct.

But then, one of the reasons Beardman was so helpful back in MMBN3 was because the compression program SciLab had couldn't handle the massive amount of data composing a Navi. And it's a notable plot-point again how much data a digital being is.

Fuckup Tally: 59

MAKE UP YOUR MINDS! Yes, it could be that the programming language for Navis is ultra-simplistic, but represents large amounts of data, but do you seriously think they thought it out that much? Yeah fucking right.

Anyway, TopMan battle!



TopMan is actually pretty hard. 600 HP is very high for this part of the game, considering the weakass Chips available. And his Little Spinners diagonal top attack is very difficult for me to avoid, as if I take the time to focus on them and check where the safe squares are, MegaMan will be smacked. I ran out of chips the first time I fought him, this is the second fight. Top Spin guards against all non-breaking attacks, so the occasional wasted chip doesn't help.



Considering that we're guaranteed to fight him again on at least one subsequent playthrough, you can bet there'll be a rematch alright. Of course, by then I won't have such a horrible folder.



Tensuke may have lost, but he won some respect from the NetBattle club at least.



Kosuke's back too, and has changed his tune now that TopMan's been proven to be a decent opponent.



D'awww. Grandchild and grandparent reunion.



Fuckup Tally: 60

The whole sibling switcheroo thing goes meta.



Fuckup Tally: 61

Despite the mention of souls, no, we don't get TopSoul. Version-exclusive Navis only.



That was the final match of the tournament, so it's over! No more tournament crap for at least an update or three, though I consider the period from here to the end of tournament 2 the worst part of the game/series.



At least we get a trophy. And to my great surprise, the trophies won in the game actually do show up in Lan's room, and stay there in 5.



Fuckup Tally: 62

Considering that at best only a week or two has passed in-game, I'd love to know how they're able to experiment with the Asteroid in any possible way.



Dr. Regal steps out for the time being.