Part 10: Some things never change.

Uhh...I emailed slowbeef at the address provided in the LP Rules thread, and apparently something involving a spam filter or 554 Service blocked me. Not sure whether to try again or just bite the bullet and upgrade my account to enable the PM system.



Alright, so here we are, one week after the Hawk Tournament, which itself was a week after the City NetBattle Tournament. In total, the entire game has taken place over the span of a month.



Credit to the engineers. Bigass Space Laser completion only took a week or two tops. Maybe they just had everything they'd need lying around.



It only works once. Durrrr.



The beam is so intense that the gun can only be fired once before burning itself out. I guess that's at least mildly plausible.



If they miss, well, humanity's kind of screwed. But apparently, in mere weeks, they've accounted for:

• Atmospheric Interference
  
• Blooming (air gets ionized by laser, ions scatter the light and weaken the beam)
  
• Weather
  
• Orbital Debris (NASA has serious trouble with this whenever they schedule a launch)
  
• Cosmic Dust
  
• The other planets and Asteroid Belt getting in the way
  
• The movement of the Asteroid itself
  
• The rotation and movement of Earth
  

There's probably more, I'm no astronomer or laser technician. Fine, though, it's ridiculous, but we've already established how absurdly powerful computers are in MMBN.



Alternatively, this is a Chewing Gum and Prayer sort of slapshod operation that was hastily thrown together.



Title Drop!



The laser begins its charge, reaching 99% rapidly.



100%! Time to fire the Blue Moon Laser!



Fuckup Tally: 109

Why not just make the intended 200% level 100%? That's the maximum firepower, and that's the intended energy! It's the Gospel Servers all over again!

At least the laser powering up like this isn't stuffing chunks of the area into Cyberworld...



The screen is shaking, and an energy-buildup sound effect plays at more and more intense tones by this point. Dramatic!



FIRE THE LASER!



I wonder if it's red in Red Sun. If it is, I'm calling that a version-exclusive Fuckup, as a red laser would be much weaker than a blue one. That'll be for when the time comes though, and gives me another reason to play Red Sun rather than link with Blue Moon for its content. Only the Exclusive Navi scenarios are transferred, things like that and other version differences wouldn't be.



Who saw that coming?



With the power of the laser cut nearly in half, it wasn't enough to divert the Asteroid.



It probably had some effect, but not enough to avert impact. Not giving it a Fuckup because he probably just means it would have no beneficial effect.



I dunno, you tell me.



A Navi that could operate within the Laser Computer? They'd need to be pretty strong. I should note that this update is back to back with the previous one, the end of the last cutscene of that update goes directly here. Well, they've introduced LaserMan, time to put him to use!

: "The Itinerary of Darkness reveals its secrets to me! 'Wednesday, Nine-Thirty: Force MegaMan to Confront the DarkSoul Within Him'. Ah, yes, a truly sublime evil action! I can squeeze it in before 'Wednesday, Noon: Interfere with Plan to Save the World'! Mwahahaha!"



WHAT.

Fuckup Tally: 110

You constructed the laser in the span of two weeks, tops. The Asteroid was around Pluto when this all began, go re-read the first update for my rant on that. They seriously can't try again with increased security? Get the officials in! Get Chaud, get fucking everyone, it's the damned planet at stake! They don't say just how close the Asteroid is now, but just wait.



Dr. Regal has an idea, remember that sudden brainwave of his?



Whatever it is, he needs us for it.



Fuckup Tally: 111

No, no you don't understand, you have no possible way of knowing what he intends on. Dr. Regal doesn't elaborate until we show up later.



Meanwhile, in ACDC Area, quality production and effort were at hard work!



Fuckup Tally: 113

Another two-for-one Fuckup deal!



MegaMan and the Idiot Trio are interrupted by this NPC. Yup. Unlike the previous two Tournaments, this next one is back-to-back with the one we just cleared.



Yeah, I'm real fucking excited, believe me.

Fuckup Tally: 114

Maybe "Blue Moon" was supposed to at one point be a ranking thing, not the tournament title, but here we are. The Blue Moon Tournament! Aren't you excited? Don't you just feel such a sense of accomplishment from suffering through the last one? UGH!



So the tournament will be two weeks from the last one. After this, there aren't any more major timeskips, so all of MMBN4 happens within a single month.



It's being held in Netopia, of all places, and we've been there before!



Sequence of events following the battle with BurnerMan, the final of the Hawk Tournament:

1: LaserMan/AquaManDS encounter
2: Brief cutscene of MegaMan being worried
3: Laser failure cutscene
4: Blue Moon Tournament intro cutscene
5: OFF TO NETOPIA!



We have zero gameplay after the AquaManDS fight until it's time to haul ourselves off for the third tournament.

Fuckup Tally: 115



A bit of consolation is that the Chip Order service is back up and running. Sadly, I lack significant funds to load myself up with anything decent. ACDC/Town/ParkArea just don't have high enough zenny drops to make profits with. And there's nothing like those Double or Nothing suckers in MMBN3.



Wow! A world map! We can only visit the places the game wants us to, though, it's all but guaranteed that you won't be able to visit everywhere on one playthrough. They might all open up later, my memory is fuzzy on that.

Japan is the center of the world, naturally, and just look at how lazily the countries were drawn. You can see NetFrica/Africa in red, Sharo/Russia in yellow, Netopia/North America in green, etc.



Arriving in Netopia, we immediately get an email to meet this guy. Mr. Bonds will be Lan's guide.



We have some time before we check-in at our hotel, so we're told to talk to all the NPCs.



More importantly, we get the NetPassport! This opens up the Cyberworld vastly, remember the "Hey! You can't just go in there!' guard Navi? It blocked the international net areas, which include YumArea, NetArea, SharoArea, FricaNet, and most importantly, the UnderNet.

Yes, a fucking theme park gets their own set of 3 areas while every other country in the world gets only one. The UnderNet, as per tradition of course, is a gigantic 7 areas or so.



Appropriately, the virus encounters start pulling out the stops, especially with the terrain. Come on! Even the Secret Area in MMBN3 didn't have this! And this is just the statue behind Mr. Bonds.



Yet another code for Battle Chip Challenge.



Huh, that's blunt. Netopia is populated by slimey assholes, remember? At least Lan doesn't get his Passport stolen this time!



Wowzer Box? Yes, you have to go through the dialogue trees 'correctly' to count as having talked to everybody.



Alright, Old Netopian Man, let's see this Wowzer Box.



NETOPIANS!



You need to cough up 1000z here for the chocolates. You can talk her down to 500z, but why bother?



Holy ethnic diversity, ShadeMan!



YES!

The ExpandMemory, I'll remind you, increases the size of the NaviCust, and there's only two in the game. I know where the other one is, ideally I'll grab it next update, I had only forgotten where this one was. It's in the charioteer statue in front of the Colosseum, which is the site of the Blue Moon Tournament.



This is the same woman from NAXA, despite the fact we've seen her sprite/mugshot reused for random NPCs. Flave and Tetsu got mugshots, but nooo, nobody at Capcom gave a shit about the asteroid, much less the people associated with it.

It's stated directly later, but it's already obvious that the Blue Moon tourny was set up to find the strongest NetBattler possible for Dr. Regal.



Ooooooh yes. I save-scum my way to a few new chips, most importantly being a second GunSol1 and two Slasher chips. A NetMerchant sells Slasher chips in NetopiaArea, but I didn't find that out until later.

And trust me, Slashers are going to be very, very useful. Plenty of viruses and Navis invade your side of the field from here on out, and 240 points of damage is massive even on later playthroughs.



You bet, that was quite productive. An ExpMemry, chips, heck. Mr. Bonds begins leading the way to the hotel room.



Fuckup Tally: 116

A car zooms past Lan, distracting him from following Mr. Bonds.



For some reason, rather than stopping the first time, the car drives backwards to where Lan is and stops.



NETOPIANS!

And thank you as usual, blink animation, for providing a rapeface at just the right moment.



No chloroform, ouch. Lan just gets slugged in the head and knocked out. Because actually spriting any of this would take work, latching sound effects are used to 'show' that Lan gets taken into the car, which drives off.



Mr. Bonds, realizing that Lan hasn't followed him, checks back. Uh-oh.



Fucking Netopia! You haven't changed a bit since our last visit, have you...

Fuckup Tally: 117



Which is leaving Lan with the capability to use email or make phone calls. I mean, yeah, he can Jack-In, but he could just call for help.



Fuckup Tally: 118

Which of course isn't what we'll be doing!



And oh, how convenient, you can access the Cyberworld from this statue right here!



Hidden around NetopiaArea are 4 boxes like this one, each containing part of the key.



They have viruses inside.

BoomerEX: Normally I don't make repeats of virus descriptions, but this merits notice. In MMBN4, aside from the basic Boomer, all variants of the virus gain a new attack that will catch anybody off guard. When all the other viruses are deleted, they will begin hurling their boomerang down single rows when they line up with MegaMan, as opposed to the usual U-shape around the perimeter of the field.



Sigh. No exploring yet, though at least this is entirely a valid reason for trying to stay focused on what we're doing.



Viruses with chips! Oh boy! And more field fuckery. The difficulty level jumps up pretty dramatically from here on out. Just wait until the UnderNet.



After grabbing all 4, time to make our escape.



Aw crap.



NPCs all look the same, how nice of you to clarify that for us, Lan.



KIND OF sorry?



Surprise! That was all just a test!

Fuckup Tally: 119

I love it, it's a retcon in the span of 10 minutes of gameplay. If this was all set up, why did you wonder where Lan was!? There were no witnesses save for the player.



Being the strongest in Electopia doesn't count for crap, I suppose.



We're given the room, as it's actually our hotel room. One night of sleep later, it's time for the Blue Moon tournament. Joy.



Know it, fear it, respect it, and love it.



Hey, a Mouth of Truth! Inside the Colosseum, this thing greets us.



And I do mean that literally.



A bit of a spin on the Mouth of Truth. It questions whether or not Lan is telling the truth, ordering him to stick his hand in its mouth. If he's lying, it'll bite it off. The thing is, it's a fingerprint/DNA analyzer, which confirms his identity for the tournament.

Passports just don't cut it, I suppose. And oh boy!

Fuckup Tally: 120

Instant DNA analysis my ass. Not even CSI would pull that crap! Being able to test and cross-reference a DNA sample in seconds would be an amazing breakthrough for forensics, there's an enormous backlog for criminal trials.

First they'd have to extract the DNA from Lan's cells. Afterwards, the DNA would need to be sequenced in order to identify multiple points of variation, which are segments of genes that are fairly unique from person to person, and recall that all humans are 99% genetically identical to start with.

After identifying them, they would need to use specific enzymes to break them apart from the entire DNA strand. Then they'd have to multiply it to have a significant amount of DNA to test period, one sample isn't going to be worth crap for testing.

Once the DNA is multiplied, a process which itself takes quite a bit more than a second or two, then it must be put through gel electrophoresis, which produces a series of lines for each point of variation being tested. Finally, after doing all of that, the lines are compared to the lines produced by a known control sample, and if the lines match up, the DNA is identical.

Incidentally, this is why criminal cases take so long. Juries practically expect DNA evidence, at this point it just seems like a prosecution is incomplete without it, and the defense's best proof is DNA. Cue clusterfuck of tests that pour into the labs that can do all this crap.

Capcom, do you get anything right when it comes to subject matter?

And food for thought: When the hell did they get a sample of Lan's DNA and his fingerprints before?



FUCK NO!

Rotten luck. JunkMan and JunkSoul will have to wait for a subsequent playthrough. And all of the generic Navi scenarios for this tournament are distilled pain. At least we get ProtoSoul in the second round, but that follows a horrible, horrible scenario, and MMBN4 ProtoMan is a complete prick.



Our opponent is a NormalNavi. Identical to Flave's Navi save for more HP.



And here's the operator. This scenario is horrible, but trust me, the HealNavi scenario is far, far, far worse.



This scenario is a bit strange. Jack Bomber, this guy, is fairly polite-ish, but Lan acts like a dick throughout the whole thing.



Which, in a somewhat meta moment considering my commentary, apparently all stems from the guy making a comment about how MegaMan looks weak.



He does, however, apologize.



Lan won't take any of it. How dare this guy call us weak!? We shall destroy we him!

Fuckup Tally: 121



I ONLY WISH.

Talk about an appropriately ironic line...



Lan continues to badger Jack, and he eventually retorts that he sees all NetBattlers that way. FootBombers?



It's a minigame scenario.



It's been made into a CyberSport, yes, he uses the term, due to its violence. Two Navis alternate kicking a ball towards a goal, one kicking, one defending.



Yeah, it's identical to soccer/football, except the ball is explosive and damages the goalie if it makes it in.



Jack insists it's nothing like Cybersoccer at all, and is quite insulted by such an accusation. I'd love to know how the sport ever became common 2000 years ago. Sure, burning oil or gunpowder would obviously be the explosive, that's plausible.

Fuckup Tally: 122

Humans aren't Navis, of course. Anything exploding around a human with sufficient force to maim isn't going to just deduct HP. This was pointed out by Jack himself when he called it a life or death sport, only, it's still idiotic because anyone stupid enough to participate will be killed or crippled by losing. It's like a bizarre fusion of a sport and a suicide cult.

There's zero learning curve, one mistake would be life-threatening. Navis, naturally, are going to fare a whole lot better.



So let's have a go at it!



For whatever gamelength-padding reason, we need to grab a pair of BombShoes so we can play. MegaMan has armored boots. Fucking fine, Capcom, whatever.



Fuckup Tally: 123

Fetch quest, away! At least we're told where to find them.



This will fuck you up on later playthroughs. Guard1 As are in abundance now. I almost stuffed all of mine into the Chip Trader Special, though. If you do that, you can just head to ACDC Area.

However, on playthroughs 2 and 3, those will be replaced by Mettaur2/3, which obviously will not drop a Guard1 chip. What you have to do in that case is fly back to Electopia and find a generic Jack-In spot, as those viruses don't upgrade on subsequent playthroughs. Sometimes. I wound up having this issue in my original game, and irate hunting ensued. Remember Mettaur Village from the City Battle preliminaries? That spot always has basic Mettaurs.



Yes, yes it is.



Agreed. Horrible minigame time!



The blink animation once again hits it out of the park. MegaMan's face more or less is identical to mine at the moment.

So, here's how FootBomb works. You press A and left/up/right depending on where you want to kick the ball. The other Navi will jump randomly and try to intercept it. Goal or block, they switch places and it's your turn to try and guess where the AI is going to kick the FootBomb. Each goal costs you 100 HP.

Notice how the opponent has nearly triple my HP. Seeing a problem with this? You can buy HPMemories and use HP+ NaviCust programs, but those aren't exactly readily available because I don't have a fountain of zenny, let alone any shops with significant HP+ programs for sale.

So you have a 2 in 3 chance of scoring a goal, but a 1 in 3 chance of blocking one. "Luck-based minigame" doesn't really cover it, considering the odds are stacked against you so absurdly.

Even more fun? The controls are about as effective as you'd expect from this game. It's more or less a crapshoot of whether or not the ball will go in any direction aside from the default straight. Hell, I still don't even know how to control the fucking ball, the timing of pressing a direction and the A button is an utter mystery to me.



One mountain of save-state abuse later, it still isn't over. No, losing doesn't get you a Game Over, it results in a rematch until you win. Which is arguably worse.



Tool abuse and the strange "Victory only counts if it's the protagonist" thing that these stupid things tend to have.



Lan insults FootBomb some more for no real reason. Hey, he'd have a justified reason to be angry if he was the one actually playing the game.



Fuck. Out of sheer boredom, I deem it time to go exploring.



Well, it probably wouldn't be THAT difficult to reconfigure a Navi into the opposite gender...aesthetics only, after all.

What she actually means is that various key items have been hidden across the Cyberworld. We need to bring them all to her inevitably, might as well get a head start.



Kilby: Harmless if you stay in the top row. Because you likely won't, having to dodge other viruses, whenever the top row panel of MegaMan's current column is empty, a Kilby virus will teleport into it and stab down the rest of the column with a bamboo spear.



Calling your merchandise junk isn't the best of market strategies. The only one of these parts I could find was this guy, they're hidden well. I vaguely remember the locations though. What are you supposed to do if you're playing this for the first time blind? Go fuck yourself, that's what, have fun scouring the entire fucking Internet.



And yes, you need the complete damned thing to access the UnderNet, as well as all the other goodies hidden behind the tiny paths.



Well, I'm stumped about the parts for now, so whatever, I'll get them when I need them, there's no point in it yet.



FUCK. THIS.



On second thought, let's keep wandering around for a while...



Hunting for the parts is about as fun as you'd expect, and I soon decide to just get the rest of this scenario over with.



EVERY OPTION LEADS ONLY TO FUCKING WORSE THINGS.



The second battle is counter-intuitively easier than the first. The FootBomb deals 400 damage now, and while that will kill me instantly, it also means I only have to succeed twice. Much better overall odds than the first time.



Our victory proceeds to drive the Navi insane. Insisting that this must be a nightmare, he breaks down into hysterics. A window into my future.



Playing with explosives can damage things? I never would have thought!



After this, time for the match. I recorded it in case anything interesting happened, but it's the same exact match as with Flave, just with more HP. Why bother uploading?



It's the weirdest damned thing. NetBattling is simultaneously a major facet of life, surely out of necessity given how viruses are everywhere, it's even included in elementary school education. Hell, this tournament was organized for the sole sake of finding the best NetBattler in order to save the world somehow.

And yet, everyone in this game keeps treating it like a popular novelty. Recently legalized by the government!



Jack's reward for losing and having his idiotic dream crushed is for this TV Producer to offer him a contract.



There's some sort of...oh who fucking cares? I need to cut down on the amount of junk pictures in my updates, these are starting to take insane amounts of time.



You'll miss this very easily, and you don't get many chances, but after the match, jacking into the NetBattle Machine yields a SpinPink for the NaviCust.



Fuuuuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK.

FUCK! The final round of this is going to SUCK.