Part 20: Lan the Potty Mouth?
Well, the vote was to do MMBN1 first and then handle Chrono X, so after a long period of LPing a fairly mediocre start to the series, we're jumping back into fangame territory.
Haruka found the briefcase while we were off fighting GutsMan.
The map system seems to be made from new cloth. So far, to the surprise of the goons, I'm actually quite impressed with this game. Which reminds me, shortly after I posted the first update, the programmer of this game himself contacted me on YouTube:
EPM posted:
MaxRock posted:
Someone today linked me to the BN1's LP topic at SA. I readed through all the posts related to Chrono X. The "how much material can we rip straight from the games" title is quite out of place. People should try to gather more info before cricitizing. We posted it many times, that because our team is very small( 2 spriters, 1 programmer, 1 musician and 1 writer(status for today)) we use old sprites as placeholders and within time update them. It is to not cause any slowdowns by waiting for the spriters to do their work.
It makes as much sense to judge by first impression as it does to use placeholder graphics. In defense of the goons, the most well-known fangames and romhacks here tend to be utter trainwrecks like Pokemon Quartz or Kaizo Mario World. (Both of which, incidentally, made hilarious Let's Plays!) You can't fault people for judging the game at first glance, because that's what people are always going to do, even once the game is fully released.
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Next thing. BlitzBlast said the cutscenes are not skipable. Ekhm, the game uses controls like VBA emu. Select = Backspace, and note with which button cutscenes were skipped in bn4-6. "Exit" button exists the menu, "Quit" button quits the game. I got impression he is a person that first talks then thinks/checks. "CyberSword" chip is now called "Sword" as it was previously. It was stupid idea, based on how AreaGrab at first was called "Steal" then got changed. Chips managing (folder/pack/buying/winning) was temporary; got changed for 4th demo, so new chips goes to the top of the list. We pointed that out in few updates too. Tutorial is skipable in 4th demo, in MMSF2 style. "He requests that we bring it to him. This means we'll be visiting a non-ACDC area sooner than usual." well, nope. Remember BN4 and BN5?
I'll come to BlitzBlast's defense here, the game does not include a readme.txt or other explanation of the controls, which in subsequent releases you might want to include. You put in the classic tutorial, after all, so if this indeed is someone's first shot at a MMBN game, or just they haven't used emulators before, they'd find that helpful. Also, related to what I said before, any indie game/romhack/Game Maker project like this is basically like throwing a chunk of meat into a piranha tank. I think everyone, myself included, was hoping that the game would be bad so we could all have a great time making fun of it, but from what I've seen so far the game is at least decent, and I don't really have anything negative to say about it that you haven't addressed as being fixed in the 4th demo.
I appreciate the controls made to simulate VBA, trust me. I just wish there was a fast-forward button simply because I'm used to being able to speed things up using that.
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Now, the grammar. Again, if people would check for more info, they would know that english is not my main language, so it is logical the game will have grammar mistakes. The script in 4th demo got checked by our writer and fixed, so hope all gonna be okay,
To see how the things got changed since relase of 3rd demo, check the screenshots: Here.
I did not look at the screenshots in great detail to avoid spoiling things for myself. But what I did see was that a variety of cosmetic changes took place in addition to some modifications to what we've seen so far. And if it's any consolation about English being your second language, you did a better job than Capcom of America did for MMBN4. To put that in perspective because you likely haven't read the LP of it I did, I kept track of the game's numerous typos, glitches, etc. to stay motivated. There was even a contest to guess the final Fuckup Tally. The end result was just shy of 300.
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On the other hand, thanks for the review, we appreciate any kind of advertising/critism. We're doing this whole thing for the few remaining BN fans worldwide and we're doing what we can in our free time to progress, so you all should accept at least the effort we put into our game. For more info about the game you can visit our temporary site: http://mmbnchronox.0fees.net and/or check our videos at youtube under the username RockFlor. Thanks for your time.
Given that they intend to release the 4th demo soonish, I figure I'll pull the brakes on the LP of the 3rd demo and pick up the 4th later on once I've concluded the LP of MMBN1. I'm thrilled that you guys are doing this, and Goons seem to have been surprised by my sympathy towards your intentions. For all the grief I give the games, I love Battle Network, and seeing a real effort to continue an underrated series makes me happy.
It's been just under a month since that post, and my take on this fangame is mostly unchanged. I'm Epee Em, and I approve of this game.
Arriving at MMBN5's SciLab, MegaMan and Lan have a brief conversation before entering.
I continue to enjoy the effort the game puts into connecting various concepts from the epilogue of MMBN6.
Pissed Off Blink Animation MegaMan continues to be hilarious, incidentally.
: "Godfucking shitdammit, pay attention in your fucking classroom, Lan!"
*CRASH* would be a better sound effect for people slamming into each other, if you ask me.
I spy our first original character! And they even bothered to give him a variety of sprites rather than just standing up, unlike most of the characters from MMBN4 like Tetsu.
The mugshot is a little derpy, but passable. If I had to take a wild guess, this is going to be some child prodigy character, based on his shorter-than-Lan height.
I'll be very impressed if he turns out to be Netopian though, "my bad" is an American or Canadian phrase, based on British friends teasing me about it.
I would never have guessed!
Glitch alert! This thing is not Lan's Doghouse! Although I'm fully aware that this is the 3rd version of the demo and the 4th version is expected to be released soon. I assume that most of the occasional errors I found while playing this will be fixed, but I will still point them out as I go along just in case nobody else has come across them.
When I found this, I suspected that they brought the JobBBS back. As it turns out, I was right, and we'll see it in action in just a bit!
The elevator up to Yuuichiro's office isn't working, and we also run into the second original character. This mugshot is much more well made than the others so far, I have to admit. Whatever spriter is responsible for it should be given a bigger share of the work!
...Of course, it'll be hilarious if it turns out this is an edited mugshot from StarForce or something.
Whoever he is, he's on first name terms with Yuuichiro.
And before anyone comments on how I spell it with two Us and the game spells it with one, remember that both translations are correct based on the original Japanese.
Might as well show off what we can do!
The HeelNavi inside is bullying the operation program.
You can guess where this leads. Note to the writer/programmer, "HeelNavi" is the correct term, not HellNavi. A Heel is a performance term for someone the audience is not supposed to like, basically a villain, in contrast to the Face. The term originates from wrestling, to my knowledge.
Once again though, this is still better than the Bowne Global Solutions trainwreck translation of MMBN4. And English isn't even the programmer's first language.
Although hey, they brought back generic Navi battles from MMBN4, speaking of! One of the few positive things I could say about that game.
Uh oh, I do not like the sound of that foreshadowing. The CyBeasts were a bit on the magic side already, don't tell me we're going to have a similar case of "MegaMan has a super-powerful evil thing inside him"! That's what the entire second half of the series did! I guess it remains to see how well or poorly this will be written. Due to the good performance so far, I will give the game the benefit of the doubt.
Anyway, the elevator is fixed, so time to meet Yuuichiro.
Ain't Stellar the last name of the protagonist from StarForce, who is apparently descended from Lan and Mayl? That makes it somewhat odd that we're meeting someone named Stellar, that means that the only way for the families to work out would be that Lan's future son Patch has a daughter, and that daughter marries a Stellar, giving the family Lan's genes (vaguely) and the Stellar name. That would be the most immediate option, at least.
Anyway, let's see what Yuuichiro's working on, it has to be something relevant to the storyline, after all!
So much for that.
I knew it! Although the game is a bit inconsistent about calling it the HelpBBS or JobBBS.
Case in point.
There all pretty uneventful, standard fare. Beat a virus, find a Mr. Prog NPC, chase a HeelNavi. Although I have to say, I'm getting a bit tired of the same viruses over and over, hopefully future releases will include more than just Mettaurs and Canodumbs in the introductory portion of the game. Even the scripted battles are just...Mettaurs and Canodumbs.
By the way, minor glitch with the Reflector chip. Using it on a line of Mettaurs only deleted the last one in the back row.
Once the 3 fairly trivial jobs are completed, it's time to head back to the office and see if the meeting is over.
He's still not back yet.
He's still not back yet.
Oh, goody, our first dungeon is coming up, it would seem! It's been a bit of a longer intro for this game, it seems.
Goons familiar with the game (or at least moreso than I am) criticized it for having characters swear more. MMBN2 had its fair share of profanities, so it isn't completely out of character for the series. And Lan is hitting Jr. High, I would assume he's just trying to feel more teenager-y by cussing.
Speaking of MMBN2, I'm having serious flashbacks to the AirMan scenario where Arashi gassed Yai's house and tried to hold her ransom.
Thankfully, there's a window in the room, but it has an electronic lock.
Guess what that means! At least they aren't basic Mettaurs.
Sweet air!
Yuuichiro calls up, says that the vent system has been filled with some kind of gas, and promptly gets disconnected.
An original Navi by the look of that faded mugshot is responsible for this! I can't readily tell who that is, the face doesn't remind me of any of the original series robots.
Before you ask, no, there's no actual timer. At least not up to the point I stopped playing.
Nice to know that the token evil organization of this game is being proactive about dealing with Lan and MegaMan, at least. Yay, we're being taken seriously for a change!
He's calling us out, even. Thankfully, Lan doesn't have to jump out the window, there's an emergency ladder.
More mild cussing from Lan. Okay, if it's going to be this frequent, then yeah, it'll get grating. Hopefully there will be more restraint.
Pink gas clouds? Now I'm really having flashbacks to MMBN2.
Lan, stop being such a potty mouth!
Yuuichiro mails us the StaffKey item, which presumably opens up the way to the ventilation computer.
Indeedly-doodly. Well, the first dungeon is clearly coming up, so I'll stop here for now.