Part 68: Evil Spirit Funhouse.

Evil Spirits? Soul Weapons? Well, I guess MMBN6 couldn't shake off the "soul magic" that permeated MMBN4/5 entirely. Let's get this over with. As has been stated in the thread several times, this minigame can be fun. Describing what's happening via screenshot....not so much.



So begins the Evil Spirit Extermination minigame. I'll show what the individual Soul Weapons do in a bit, first let's know what we're up against.



This is oddly similar to Banjo-Tooie's frequent color-coded minigames. The three varieties of Evil Spirits are Red, Yellow, and Blue. The only difference between them is how many hits they take to destroy.

Red take 1 hit to destroy, Yellow take 2, Blue 3. Hitting a spirit will cause it to degrade into a lower form, until you can eliminate it for good once it has turned red.

All Soul Weapons deal the same amount of damage, they only vary in range.



The exception to this rule is that attacking a spirit from behind is an instant kill.



The Evil Spirits aren't going to just sit there, however. If you don't eliminate all the Evil Spirits around MegaMan's panel, they'll counterattack. Reds deal 10 damage, yellows 20, blues 30. This can add up nastily.



You have only a finite amount of Soul Weapons to destroy all the Evil Spirits in the area with. If you run out, you can recharge them, but that causes the puzzle to reset. This is the core of the puzzle, using the limited supply of Soul Weapons to clear an entire area of Evil Spirits.



Let's get to work. The Soul Knife simply targets the panel directly in front of MegaMan. It should always be saved as a last resort to mop up stragglers or



The Soul Sword attacks both panels directly ahead. It's probably the most versatile of the Soul Weapons, but it leaves MegaMan open to the most counterattacks.



The Soul Ax, by contrast, is probably the best of the Soul Weapons. WideSword range is just so useful, the only drawback to it is that you won't usually get very many of them.



Lastly, the Soul Gun shoots the third panel ahead of MegaMan. This is most often used for trick shots to snipe Evil Spirits in the back to autokill them.



Obviously, it's a waste to use anything but the knife on this first Evil Spirit.



I'll use the sword here, which will leave the yellow spirit to turn into a red spirit. We'll come back to it later. It's better to leave stragglers for the end, in case it turns out that you needed one weapon and already used it. That way you can just use whatever's left on the remaining spirits.



Here's an example of how the gun should be used. You can just barely see MegaMan's head above his mugshot. This will kill the yellow spirit instantly, saving us time and weapon use in the future.



Stabbing these two spirits leaves two reds behind.



Perfect fodder for the ax.



And that leaves the red spirit we left behind earlier.

It's just like Order Points all over again! I guess my style of play is too cautious and conservative. Then again, given that this time around the penalty for failure is having to start all over again, that's probably a good thing.



Clearing an area, as you'd expect, lets you progress on to the next. Mercifully, during these segments, you don't encounter any viruses so long as there are any Evil Spirits around.



Thankfully, each area provides its own batch of Soul Weapons, given to MegaMan by an NPC. No massive back-tracking to get a new set.

Ooh, 4 axes!



First order of business is this cluster here. Amazing how I can be cautious and reckless in the same exact action. For the sake of preserving my precious Soul Weapons, I want to attack the other three Evil Spirits with an ax.



And here we see an example of a counterattack in action. Because there's a leftover red spirit adjacent to MegaMan, it's going to whack him for 10 damage. I'm not going to point out every counterattack, since my HP counter is going to make it obvious anyway.



And yes, this will also result in a counterattack. I'll be left with a red spirit after I ax this cluster due to the yellow one not being killed in one hit.



Much like before, this guy will be left as one of the stragglers.



It's a good thing we have all those axes, but these situations of a yellow flanked by reds mean that MegaMan is getting whacked upside the head with counterattacks very frequently.



And this is officially where I have no idea what to talk about. I've explained the mechanics, and lord help me, I don't want to spend the rest of the update writing "Ax here. Sword this group. Stab the last guy."

This is why I wasn't exactly looking forward to this update. Oh well, I thought the same thing about Liberation Missions, and I somehow got through all of those.



Ax here.

We've almost made it to the Cybeast's residence in CentralArea3! Soldier on, MegaMan!



Double ax action all up in here! At the very least, I can take some consolation from the fact that a step-by-step picture guide to these sections is going to be very useful to players who have a difficult time here.



Mop-up time. First with this red spirit.



Just to be fancy, rather than just walk up to the last red spirit, I opt to snipe it. Extra Soul Weapons you didn't have to use are converted into BugFrags.



Hooo boy. CentralArea3 has a whole lot more to deal with.



Falzar is just ahead, it's been able to move towards SeasideArea. Which is bad because then it could start wreaking havoc with the water supply, and this situation is already enough of a headache.



That same NPC gives MegaMan the last batch of Soul Weapons for this round of Evil Spirit Fun. First order of business is to make like SearchMan and start sniping. I almost always start out a section by looking around for good places to use the gun at, it tends to at least make for a good starting point in an otherwise daunting situation.



Much like GargComp, it's really best to approach this from a bottom-up perspective. Break down each problem into smaller and smaller problems that can be more simply addressed. This breaks down, unfortunately, because eliminating certain spirit clusters lets you have a better vantage point to destroy others.



Case in point, getting rid of these two allows me to snipe the yellow spirit back there.



Like so. I suppose one way to look at each cluster of spirits is to just mentally work out what would happen if you used a certain weapon and comparing it to other expected results to see what's your best option.

...You know, foresight. This really is GargComp all over again, this can be easy or hard all depending on how you think.



I feel sorry for younger players of the game though.



Hey, look, for once I'm doing the simple thing and just getting rid of a red spirit outright!



I accidentally missed the screenshot, but after this comes another use of the knife to finish off the leftover red.



After this knifing, it's time to go on an ax rampage! Due to a lack of any other options. Man, you know a situation is in the toilet when the only option is to go crazy with an ax.



HEEEEEERE'S MEGAMAN!



Oh, right...



Ow. Well, there are few problems that can't be solved with an ax. Ax! Apply directly to the forehead!



Our Mega Ultra Chicken is trying to get away, but we can finally catch up to it now! There's not a moment to waste!



Ooh, shiny.



And now for one of the most important cutscenes in the game.

MegaMan versus Falzar.



Considering that MegaMan has a morphing gun-hand, there's not many other options. All things considered, I do believe I could take down Falzar in a fight this early in the game, it'd just be very boring because I'd quickly run out of chips and be forced to rely on the buster.



MegaMan doesn't move back. Something's wrong.



The same program that was used to integrate Hub Hikari's DNA, ExaMem, is already within our reach.



This is not going to end well.



And with this statement, the majority of the rest of the game is established. You can bet that this decision is going to have plenty of long-reaching consequences.



Nobody else thinks this is a good idea.



As said before, this is Falzar's "spirit form" of a sort. This is not the true power of a Cybeast, this is Falzar at a muchly weakened level of strength.



How Yuuichiro found out about this is anybody's guess, but considering that he was just on the phone talking about it, odds are good that it was something like "Uh, hey Dr. Hikari? A blue Navi just showed up..."



As you can imagine, this is exactly what Yuuichiro didn't want to happen.




Man, you give someone a new digital life, and next thing you know, they're co-opting it into doing something dramatic.



Remember the ending of MMBN3? Horrible things happening to MegaMan tend to turn on the waterworks for the cast.



This scene is drawn-out, but it does manage to convey how emotional the characters are being. It's a real shame that the emotion mugshots from DTDS weren't carried over to MMBN6.







No time for feeling sad about this, there's a giant turkey to be absorbed!



Is this how Bass feels when he absorbs something? It's interesting to think that MegaMan could have done this with other data, not just a Cybeast. Technically, ExaMem is about the same in function as GetAbility.



And with a dramatic flair that will set the scene for the rest of the game...



...MegaMan takes the giant cock into himself.



Success?