Part 67: And so the torment begins.

As usual, when fighting something doesn't work, it's time to pay Yuuichiro a visit. Alternatively, Lan is completely stupefied by what to do in this situation and is defaulting to the old childhood standby of "ask a parent". It's just that Lan's father happens to both be a parent (redundant, I know) and the major authority figure on the subject that runs the entire setting.



"Well, no, I was just kind of wondering..."



This happens every time, of course. Let me see, exploding dam, berserk zoo animals, idiotic imminent asteroid apocalypse, erupting evil volcano lair...

Lan's been through more than your average action movie hero. I think he qualifies for the Marines by this point or something. I swear, MegaMan's fought off more ultra-powerful cyberthings than I have fingers to count them on. And Yuuichiro still insists this is too dangerous.

Given that he's said that every time, we can only assume that the danger level Lan's been in has been rising at a steady rate per game.



Yeah.



Right. As if we'll do any such thing. Hey, it's not like Yuuichiro is trying very hard. Sending Lan to his room means sending him directly to the one place he can jack directly into the local problem and confront the Cybeast.



"Listen to your dad", eh Yuuichiro? Sounds like a plan.



Ooh, eavesdropped information is always the best kind! It's amazing how informative the things people don't want you to hear are.



Is there a fast-forward button on this thing? We already know that! Pay attention to his wording, however. The keyphrase here is that the Cybeasts were hidden in the area.

Under fairly worthless security, I might add. What is this!? No TetraCodes? No SuperPrograms? No NOTHING for a villainous group to go on an Easter egg hunt for?



And because this is a Japanese game, the focus is on sealing and re-sealing the things, never destroying them. Although I explained that one before, at least. Nobody ever tried because they were afraid of waking the Cybeasts back up if the attempt failed.

Mind you, this doesn't explain why nobody ever just disconnected the power for the server they were on or something. Heck, if they were on somebody's hard drive network area at one point or another, a single magnet would have solved all this.

The Super MultiBug Organism (Gospel) was fueled by an apartment building's worth of reality-warping radioactive computers.

Alpha WAS the internet prototype, isolating it like that was almost impossible. Once it was locked up, it was left alone to serve as a foundation for more modern networks.

Duo was in a ridiculous asteroid that was compatible with earth networks...

And NebulaGrey basically ran on magic, given the soul context of the game.

This is one of my big criticisms about MMBN6: the story. Don't get me wrong, the game dialogue is written well, some of the best in the series. But in my opinion, MMBN3's story is just better. I mean, the Cybeasts are just kind of...there. Even when they do get explained. Contrast with Alpha.



The thing is, the Cybeasts were sealed in CentralArea3, and because they're both just...well, a metric lottabytes, they need a really beefy system to seal them back up in.

So, er, use another area? Maybe one that isn't widely open to the public this time? So that the Cybeast's seal doesn't become a TOURIST ATTRACTION this time!?

You know what, I bet the same idiot scientist responsible for hiding keys to unlocking the Cyberapocalypse in a zoo, hospital, school, and SciLab was responsible for sealing the Cybeasts as well.



In a psychotic evil flying clown that can suck your energy out just by dancing, no less.



You know, I'll be amazed if the MMBN world has surge protectors. All the safeguards in the world are run by computers that themselves have no safeguards. This is what passes for security.



By the way, what did we hear about recently that had to do with managing and storing massive amounts of data?



"That program", surprise, was installed into CircusMan.



You said 11 years before!



And hold the phone! Okay, the game is invoking the power of backstory. Things are serious now.



As you might expect, stuffing an entire person's genetic information into a computer program and using it as a basis for a Navi takes up a lot of space. ExaMem is responsible for making Hub Hikari into MegaMan, the central plot point of the whole series.

Since this is being brought up, you can imagine that the situation is especially serious. And, naturally, since ExaMem was named, it'll be used.



And yeah, everyone should be rightly suspicious of that mayor at this point. CircusMan had to get his hands on ExaMem somehow, and the only person it's been given to is the mayor! This isn't hard to figure out!



The problem with that idea? Mayor Cain has an alibi here. The ExaMem he was given wouldn't even work with a Navi.



Well, no time to think about any of that, let's go charging right back to Falzar!



What could possibly go wrong?



And you're doing a fantastic job.



And so we get introduced to a wretched minigame. I find it a fun puzzle, those who hated the GargComp in the last game will be in for Purgatory Round 2.

It will, however, be utter and complete misery for me to depict in screenshots. I have been dreading this.

To the point where I'll be splitting the update here for it. We're in for a long haul, everybody. I predict 3 ensuing updates.

1: Round 1 of Evil Spirit Fun

2: Massive Cutscene Exposition

3: Round 2 of Evil Spirit Fun

All this represents about half an hour of actual gameplay. Sigh.