Part 46: I fucking hate Dr. Regal.

Exposition-heavy endgame buildup! My favorite part of these games to LP!



Regal sends out a broadcast and hijacks the TV signals or something. Villainous groups never settle with press releases or sending videos to the news, no, it always has to be a direct signal hijack. Hell, in an internet-centric society, they could just-Wait no, this is Nebula we're talking about.



Declaring himself ruler of the world, much like MMBN4, Dr. Regal's objective isn't clear because he's an idiot. You'll see shortly that his plans for the game are entirely incompatible with him ruling the world. Adding insult to injury, slight modification would fix that, but nope...it's just like the asteroid all over again.



And of course, self-contradiction ensues anyway. I skipped a blurb about how Electopia was going to be part of his experiment, but his message more or less takes the form of "I am the ruler of this world! Now, you are all free to do as you please!" I hate this stupid fucking villain!

Regal:

• Has "plans" that are slapshod, self-contradicting, incoherent messes.
  
• Has all the personality and character depth of a pistachio shell.
  
• Speaks almost exclusively in Generic Villain Mad Libs.
  
• Lacks anything resembling a solid motive.
  
• Is a magnet for horrible text-spacing issues akin to MMBN4.
  

Lan rushes off to do...something, presumably, about this situation, but Haruka stops him. Time for some hamfisted foreshadowing!



Let the magic begin. How far the series has fallen, we've gone from protective gear consisting of a RadSuit to a shiny amulet. And the sad part is, when it later comes into play, Capcom Science gets applied anyhow. Attempting to justify and pseudo-explain the magic results in the writing shooting itself in the foot, just be patient.



It's just like that stupid breakfast joke! Literally every single thing that can be associated with Dr. Tadashi Hikari is plot-relevant! I mean everything, there isn't a single thing in the series he made, did, or was involved in that wasn't important.



Immediately after this, Haruka complains that her head hurts if you talk to her again. Now, behold Regal's plan:



Making everyone act like dicks.



No, I'm not joking, manipulating which screenshots are shown, anything. That's literally it. And somehow, this was supposed to be something he could be ruler of.



Dr. Regal's plan is to make the world EEEEEVIIIL! So this is essentially a scaled-down experiment of what he'd use SoulNet for. I really can't say much more about this.



The alternative explanation is that everybody just decided to be a jackass today. It's arguably just as valid an explanation.



We get an anonymous email! Just like how ChaosUnison was explained by an omniscient, unknown sender. Do you expect to ever be told who sent them? Nope. There will never be any explanation.



The source of the "everyone's acting like a jerk" thriller is that there are microservers planted around in certain Cyberworld areas. Which, um...You know, even for a series that more or less opened with computer malfunctions causing the oven to shoot fire, this is fucking ridiculous.

Nebula installed miniature servers! As SOFTWARE! And they emit what I will dub Dickification Rays!



Now it all comes flooding back, this is why I remembered the writing for MMBN5 being shoddy, because from here to the end of the game we delve into the dark depths of idiocy courtesy of Regal.



There's one microserver for every not-Oran Island real world area. ACDC Town's is in this tree, which to be fair is actually a disguised air quality monitoring system.

And if you're wondering why Lan is protected from the Dickification Rays, it's because of the amulet. Yes, that's all the explanation you get until later, which as mentioned winds up being even more inane.



And yes, the Dickification Rays affect programs and Navis as well. It works through the soul, why MegaMan isn't bothered by them at all is never once addressed.



I'll be including some of the more laughable Dickification Ray results throughout the update, but I'll mercifully spare you most of the dialogue, which has dropped in quality correspondingly.



Most of the dialogue.



Anyway, Higsby and NumberMan have been affected by the Dickification Rays, so they'll be interrupting us with a NumberMan V2 fight. As you can imagine, this becomes formula, each microserver will require a similar fight for each teammate save for Colonel and ToadMan.



Time for the once-a-game show of "The MegaBuster actually does something"! While I don't mind a good boss rematch, what's annoying is that MegaMan never shoots the microservers until after the teammate has been dealt with.



Victims of D-Rays are unable to remember whatever they did while under the influence.



Yes, Lan actually goes to Baryl and asks him what to do next, and yes, you have to go along with it rather than getting a move on.



And yeah, valid point, Oran Isle is kind of pointless to put any microservers on. Presumably there's no ToadMan and Colonel rematch fights because of how recently in the game they were both just fought.



Dr. Regal's brilliant plan, everybody!



Truly, video game history has never seen such diabolical schemes being laid forth.



The SciLab microserver is in this little information terminal.



Next verse, same as the first.



Well, I aim to please!



The justification for why Team Colonel happens to be assembling for the sake of attacking Lan is that they tried to disable the microservers themselves, but without an anti-science field (it's a lot like an anti-magic field in D&D) projected by the amulet, they wound up being taken over by the D-Rays.



You didn't drink the punch, did you?



"YOU'RE HUGE! THAT MEANS YOU HAVE HUGE GUTS! RIP AND TEAR! BUT ONLY WITH YOUR EXPRESS CONSENT!"



See the WaterGod, maybe greet the local psychopath, get your NetBattling techniques sealed...plenty of reasons to go to NetFrica. I'm pretty sure you need immunizations for Malaria or something before you go though.



Yeah.



The microserver here is pretty much impossible to miss because the cutscene (and battle) starts in the real world rather than Cyberworld.



For the record, it takes any villainous character until the end of MMBN6 (i.e., the end of the entire freaking series) to actually come up with the idea of just beating Lan up.



And now for the last of the microservers, which is in an annoying spot.



One less worthless NPC in the world would be an improvement.



Yes, the stupid thing is all the way in the back of GargComp4. Thankfully, no NinjaProgs this time around, but it's still irritating to have to haul ass through an entire empty dungeon.



Unlike the others, ShadowMan actually destroys the microserver himself after being defeated.



"What happened to that genocidal assassin we all used to know and love?"



Yeah, in another "no explanation given, suck it up" moment, Dusk and ShadowMan weren't affected by the D-Rays. The same applies to Charlie and GyroMan in Team ProtoMan. Sensible, consistent writing is for fags.



You know, up until now, the teammates have been helpful once the Liberation Mission that first features them gets underway. Now this. "We", Baryl? This was a rare situation of NPCs not only being useless, but outright antagonistic.



At least the NPCs aren't under the influence of the D-Rays anymore. A marginal improvement?



The HeelNavis and the UnderNet dwellers think all of this has been hilarious of course.



Incidentally, right about here was where MegaMan went to full light status, which is even displayed by lower screen's fuzzy 3D model.



Oh boy, consistency! So Black Earth wasn't Murkland, but the Nebula Area is? Yeah, this will be the postgame areas, but there's a problem. DeSmuMe apparently can't make and load in-game save data, and as usual one of the requirements for accessing the postgame area is of course beating the game.

Annoyingly, because this gold program has to actually open the way and it's not a question of a gate in the way, I can't just use a walk-through-walls cheat to get into the Nebula Area. Looks like I'll have to track down a save file and work with what I can. Thankfully, the nature of the Nebula Area's contents means that I'll be able to show off pretty much everything except several cutscenes.

Which, yes, means there is inevitable MS Paint in the future and I get to let my inner 5-year old out and doodle again.



The signal transmitter is of course in the very back of UnderNet4, fulfilling the series tradition of making you backtrack to the furthest area from the starting point you have available over and over.



Despite our meddling, Nebula got what they wanted anyway. Don't you just love that feeling of accomplishment?



It's like the DarkProtoMan tournament scenario from MMBN4 all over again. What I don't get is how all the Dark___ Navis like DarkProtoMan, DarkMegaMan, and DarkColonel are always shown as being far too powerful to be defeated normally. The message is apparently "DarkPower is almighty, but the Power of Friendship/Heart/Soul/Fuck Regal will always triumph!"



Case in point. DarkPower is almighty...



But the power of Deus Ex Machina (Ex Machina, given this is in Cyberworld) will always triumph!



Yes, this is when ProtoMan shows up for his one appearance in this version of the game. Colonel likewise shows up in Team ProtoMan.



Remember how ToadMan's healing croaking could bring down that door made of pure DarkPower? Same concept is being applied here. But a special plan needs to be taken into consideration, because blah.



Step 1: Have ToadMan croak at DarkColonel until every single bit of DarkPower conveniently leaves Colonel's body.



Step 2: Rather than attack the condensed DarkPower, which is strangely reminiscent of a Castlevania HoD boss, get ProtoMan to knock Colonel over.



Step 3: Shoot DarkPower. COLONEL IS FREEEEEEE!



ColonelSoul is thankfully awesome. The big feature of it is that you can select any null affinity, non time-stopping chip on the custom screen to become your charge shot for the next turn. TankCannon? Fair game. SuperVulcan? Fair game. Very very nice.



And ProtoMan isn't sticking around just because. See you in MMBN6, it'll be a while. Yes, that's all there is for ProtoMan. Chaud doesn't even get a single line.



A team meeting is hastily called. We're entering the endgame, folks.



Plot Hole: Why didn't MegaMan's?



Oh well, at least we're going into the home stretch of MMBN5.



Woop, slip of the tongue there. There's one last set of things to take care of before the assault on Nebula HQ though.



Firstly, here's what kept tripping me up trying to find the semi-secret passageway to UnderNet1. It's in EndArea1, not where I was looking before.



Behind a Nebula ID door is the DarkPlus * DarkChip! It functions like an Attack+50, and provides NumberChaos. For a look at the astronomical power this results in, we just need a battle.



Ain't that convenient!



Alright, now for the really last thing before the endgame.



Isn't this nice and shoehorned? The other two VisionBursts had riddles related to them, and had to be fetched from a heavily encrypted computer no less.



Now it's just "Hey Lan, I found this thing! It has some obvious instructions for you!"



Haruka's kind of caught on that Lan is going to be off to an evil syndicate HQ yet again.



So emotional!



ACDC Area's VisionBurst had ACDC Town. The drill had Oran Island. So SciLab will have...no prizes for guessing.



But yeah, MegaMan himself is somehow the key to this VisionBurst, despite it being made at least 11 years previously, when Hub Hikari was alive.



It's the two scientists who created SoulNet! Or in other words...Dr. Tadashi Hikari and Dr. Wily in their youth! Ooh, and that makes MegaMan being the key to this VisionBurst make even less sense because given how old both of them are, this has to be decades ago.



Given how Dr. Hikari and Dr. Wily are basically identical to their original series counterparts, here you go. Ever wondered what they'd look like younger? Wonder no more.



Kinda dopey, but a good guy. Why does that face on the lower-left look familiar?



I wonder when Wily got his glass eye. But hey, even in the MMBN series, he still has his amazing freaking eyebrows. Oh yes.



The game actually opens with a few lines of this part of the conversation, wholly devoid of context, as a bit of lazy foreshadowing.



And so Wily finally explains what SoulNet, Regal's entire 'plan' for this game actually is.



It's a...Soul Internet. SoulNet. Well, at least they gave it an indicative name.



I'm almost curious how in the hell any applicable form of science, let alone robotics, could be used to produce this.



Yes, you knew that already! Ugh!



Well, at least they had good intentions going into the thing.



The endgame cometh. Oh, by the way, one last thing in here. MegaMan automatically jacks out, but if you return and check the boxes in the bottom corner, there's a RegUp1 hidden there.