Part 75: Manly tears.

First of all, the music here is great, very relaxing.

Which is kind of weird, because this is probably one of the least relaxation-worthy dungeons we've had so far.



Not only is all of Cyber City at the mercy of Ito's security robot army, there's something to keep in mind here. Remember how Ito mentioned a very powerful Navi in the system along with JudgeMan?



Well, that Navi actually lives up to the reputation. A voice calls out to MegaMan, demanding to know why he fights the organization.



The answer shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.



MegaMan recognizes the aforementioned Navi's voice.



Can you guess who it is? You shouldn't be able to, because this has had no foreshadowing...in MMBN6 anyway.



Ooh, that little hint might be enough for some of the cleverer readers to figure things out!



Speaking of cleverness, as one goon put it, this dungeon is either going to be easy or it'll drive you insane. Thankfully, this LP is a perfectly functional visual walkthrough for it. Pressing L in this dungeon lets you look around, and I recommend you use that often.



Here's the dungeon gimmick. You want to make a single path to the door and step on all the switches to unlock it. I like this, it's a fun spatial reasoning puzzle.



Wherever you walk, grass and flowers spring up. You can't retrace your steps, or bad things happen. We'll see the consequences later.



There's a ton of great swag in the JudgeTree, I'm just going to get that out of the way now. Plenty of mystery data all over the place that has useful stuff, but don't let it tempt you off your path!



Apologies for not taking more detailed screenshots in the first area. Though, really, the first few puzzles are simple enough that you shouldn't need much assistance if you have trouble here.



And right in the second area, I screw up the path. The correct path is marked in red, you can see the mistake I made by stepping on the wrong tile.



Woops, got interrupted by a new virus!

Cragger: First of all, they take half damage from all non-breaking attacks. They don't do anything most of the time, but about every 8 seconds or so (once a turn) they'll swing a GolemPunch at MegaMan's panel, which will damage and crack it as well as the two panels above and below it.



And here's the actually kind of funny result for stepping on the grass.




The game, for added humiliation, keeps track of how many times you've screwed up. I'm not sure if it punishes you more severely if you're a "repeat offender", as this was the only mistake I made in this playthrough of the dungeon.



Big Gavel?



Wow, that just took off 100 HP. Talk about a severe punishment, considering previous dungeons that have HP penalties would usually only take a trivial amount off.



You also get thrown back to the beginning of the area. Moral of the story? Use the L button to plan your route out ahead of time!



Really, a forum goon said it best. Depending on how you think, this dungeon is going to be really easy or it'll annoy you to no end. Kind of like a watered-down version of the GargoyleComp.



Mmmh, delicious randomly-generated prizes. A bunch of * code chips, it's my lucky day!



Aw great, now they're getting so big I can't draw a guide easily. Okay, step 1 is heading right from the start.



Loop around to hit this switch, then keep walking next to the path you just took.



You'll walk straight into the second switch, and from there it's easy to make another loop around to hit the third one. You'll even be able to snag that BMD.



Which, speaking of, contains a free HPMemory! That's all for area 2.



Area 3 requires you to look ahead of what you're doing. Three branching pathways at the start, and the middle one leads into a dead end.



If you take the lower/right path, you can just follow the path I've drawn out for you.



I took the upper/left path instead, which has a very slightly different route, to snag a green mystery data.



The puzzle immediately afterwards is, thankfully, compact and simple.



More asterisk chips, yes! Users of HeatCross in Gregar would have found this useful. The (Element)Seed chips cause MegaMan to throw a seed 3 panels ahead of himself. The 3x3 area around the panel of impact then become either Grass, Sea, Ice, or Lava panels. I prefer IceSeed because it ups electrical damage and allows for other nasty combos later on.



The final puzzle of the dungeon is once again too large to show with a simple line guide. Hang a hard left immediately from the start and hug the perimeter.



You'll circle around to the first switch, and from there you only have one path to the second switch.



This blue mystery data contains one of the game's ExpandMemory items! So it's directly in your path and you can't miss it. Ahh, NaviCust grid expansion.



Like I said, the path from the first to second button is kind of obvious.



And you're done!



Time to confront JudgeMan and the other Navi.



Hi Colonel. You manly, manly man.



I even dedicated a video to your voice.



For crying out loud, you even got fanart of how awesome you are!



We all admired you and looked up to you as the leader of the previous game!




What happened to beating up Nebula idiots, hating CloudMan, and liberating the internet together!?



This isn't a fake-out, Colonel isn't a double agent or anything. He's really our enemy now, and a very high-ranking individual in the organization we've been fighting against.



By the way, Colonel's a whole lot stronger than he let on in MMBN5. Yes, Colonel was effectively holding back the entire fight against Nebula.



Just before Colonel attacks MegaMan, however, the screen flashes white and Colonel is damaged.



Can you guess who that might be?



The screen flashes again, and Colonel even sparks to show how much damage he took.



Colonel resolves to deal with this certain other Navi personally. JudgeMan, who's kind of just been standing there the whole time, is going to deal with us.



As someone in the thread mentioned before, all the new Navis in this game without original-series counterparts were designed in one last massive create-a-Navi contest.



....

Well, the game's just had its "Masters of Science" moment, I guess. For the sake of sanity, let's just pretend Ito's being sarcastic here.



Getting back on track, Ito questions why Lan is fighting against the organization.



Well, the organization seems to have "the ends justify the means" firmly kept in mind. That doesn't sit well with Lan.



And here we have a nice Shut Up from Lan. Committing crime, hurting people, and destroying the world to remake it into something better is ridiculous.



Interchangeable with "naive", to Ito.



Surprising how something so simple can be an effective statement of defiance.



And if there's one thing you don't do in this series, that's hurt a friend. Mick, Iris, Mr. Mach, these are all people actually worthwhile giving a darn about.



Likewise, if there's one thing Navis shouldn't do, that's get into a boss fight with MegaMan.



Electric Whip: JudgeMan's simplest attack is to swing an electrical whip down 3 panels. He always comes right up to the front of your side of the field to use this attack, even if you're also standing there, so this is the perfect time to use a sword attack. Incidentally, this is also the attack his NaviChip uses, and that NaviChip is one of the best in the game because the attack paralyzes and pierces invisibility. Thankfully, that isn't the case when JudgeMan himself uses the attack against you.



Big Boo's Haunt Books: Raising his hands, JudgeMan summons a pair of books onto your side of the field, and they'll chase MegaMan by always trying to move into his row while they move to the left of the field. Best to just destroy them, dodging this attack is difficult. These also have relation to JudgeMan's NaviChip, in that if you have any panels missing from your side of the field due to an opponent's AreaGrab, these books will appear in the stolen panels, damage your enemy, and give you your panels back. Handy!



Throw the Book at Them: BubbleStar At low HP, JudgeMan summons a book onto the field to block your attacks, reminiscent of GateMan from MMBN2. If shot, the book has several attacks. The first is identical to the attack Starfish viruses use, spitting out 3 bubbles that will trap MegaMan. Remember what I said about those bubbles doubling electrical damage if you get caught in them? Yeah. Combined with the Electric Whip, this can be very dangerous.



Throw the Book at Them: GolemHit The second attack is identical to a Cragger virus' punch move, detailed earlier in this update.



Throw the Book at Them: FireBurn What you see if what you get, 3 panels of fire. Unlike the chip, this fire doesn't crack panels.



Despite his arsenal of attacks, JudgeMan provides a great pyrotechnics display much like CircusMan did.



So here you go, and knowing the goons, this is what'll be commented on even more than the massive plot twist that Colonel's our enemy now. Yes, the Emergency Override is at the very back of the JudgeTree, protected by layers and layers of security puzzles.





There you have it!



You've lost, Ito! All your scheming and warped justice comes to you getting your plans ruined by an 11 year old.



That means Yuuichiro is okay.



And Shady is as enigmatic and curt as ever.