Part 20: Rogue Is A Dumb Character V

Sweet, new page.



From the looks of them, they probably came from Mu.

...What kind of civilization did the Mu have to be able to make something like this?

I bet it wasn't a very cheery one.

Imagine an entire city of Solos.



While they were designing Mu, I think the game developers realized something:











"Oh shit, none of the previous dungeons used the touch screen!"


"There was a tribe of people with the power to see EM waves... The Mu."

So they crammed the entire mechanic into Mu, and to be honest I think they'd have been better off continuing to ignore it.



There are exposition tiles scattered around the area, each with a seal on them. Geo apparently transcribes each of them, theoretically to prevent me from having to write down everything but...

You know, I'm getting ahead of myself with all this whining. I'll wait for the dungeon to finish explaining itself.

FOLLOWING MU'S DESTRUCTION THE MURIAN WARRIORS PROTECTED IT... THEY ARE CONTROLLED BY THE ANCIENT RUNES.

ACCORDING TO THE ANCIENT RUNES OF MU, THE PEOPLE OF MU COULD CONTROL EM WAVES.

I'm not sure if the Hertzes around the area were here all along or not.



If I attempt to actually explore the area, Mega will yell at me to check the exit first.


of Mu inscribed in the 4 stone tablets. Chronology is paramount.

Mu stone tablets...?

Calm down, and let's have a look around.

I was trying to do that, but you wouldn't let me!

The gimmick to this dungeon is that I need to visit each exposition tile, get the story and seal from each, then assemble them all at the door.



Here's the problem. As soon as I step into any of the sidea areas, a green cube seals me in and a ton of Murians spawn.



MegaMan can outrun these guys, so just lke the first dungeon I could theoretically stealth run this,



but it's far more likely that I'll get caught. And unlike those ghosts from way back, this time something silly happens.

??: Inscribe the ancient rune on the chest of the Murian.

What the...? There's a voice inside my head! Inscribe the ancient rune? Like, write it?

??: Murians obey only the ancient rune. Only by obeying the ancient runes of destruction will you defeat the Murians.

B-But I don't know any ancient runes!



??: By causing the ancient runes of destruction to appear on the Murians.

Yeah, so Geo's basically commanding these things to commit suicide.

??: The runes will appear ever so briefly... See, remember, and then inscribe the runes on the Murian's chest... Now, ready your stylus...

W-Who are you?

??: I am from Mu... My physical form has long since vanished... But my spirit lives on as a residual Wave in this land... To watch over it, and to ensure the power of Mu is not abused....

Note that this means Geo, Mr. Link Power, has the support of Ancient Mu. You know who doesn't, and isn't even mentioned? Solo.

You're from Mu...

??: From the wavelengths in your heart I sensed a great Link Power...



You see that? That's Solo's entire philosophy being torn apart. His entire character revolves around worshipping all that Mu stood for, and here's an actual Mu resident saying his philosophy is full of shit. Though that should have been obvious, anyways; surely historians must have agreed that Mu fell for the same reasons Saurian, Ninja, and Zerker did.

Had Solo's backstory actually been done well, you could see it as him desperately clinging to his ideal version of Mu. If the writers had managed to find some decent justification for him being alone all his life, Solo looking up to a civilization full of self-centered assholes and ignoring their downfall might make sense. But nope, the game just has all of these negative portrayals of Mu and Solo seemingly ignoring everything bad about them because he's a complete idiot.

??: My strength for speaking is fading. Blue Warrior... the... light... is...

On a less amusing note, the actual gameplay.



A symbol will flash for about a second.



Then I have about five seconds to draw it myself. How hard this is depends entirely on the symbol (it's random), and naturally it's hell on earth with a mouse. But even with a stylus it's stupidly difficult; the game is very harsh regarding where you have to start moving your stylus to register a line.



So this is going to be the result 50% of the time.



You don't even get a prize for winning, you just have to deal with these laser spamming jerks.



But it's not just as simple as sealing/destroying every single Murian. About halfway through each side area a new cube will spawn, and even more Murians will be summoned.



And if you thought "I'll stealth it!", well fuck you, sometimes you just can't. The Murians are constantly attempting to corner MegaMan, and there are so many of them they usually succeed.



Also, every time I destroy a Murian,



I have to wait about three seconds for the damn thing to finish blowing up.


Their search led them to Earth's End. And there they found the Great Being, the source of all EM waves.

Thankfully, reaching an exposition tile will cause the last green cube to lower, and all of the Murians said cube spawned with it.



Oh and of course there are dead ends with BMWs down them, duh.

Once I get all four seals, I'll be allowed to solve the door.



So now I need to look at all four messages, figure out the order, then write down the corresponding symbols.



No I can't just look at what patterns I have from the puzzle screen, that would make too much sense.

For those interested in the lore:
So these guys could see EM waves, but not actually do anything with them. And this made people despise them for... some... reason.



Once the puzzle's done, the door unlocks,

OK, just a bit further!

...! Hold up! I think someone is there!

What!?

Get back, kid!



Is that...



and I can fight the boss of the area. It wouldn't be a MegaMan game if I didn't have to refight all of the bosses, after all.



Anyways, the yeti explains that he's just one of the many EM yetis being created by Le Mu. He has no relation to the one trapped in Richie's Star Carrier beyond looks.

Le Mu...? Mu...

This is actually a massive translation mistake, by the way. The final boss' name is Ra Mu, a mash up of Ra and Mu. Seeing how that name isn't copyrighted, I can only assume the translator was completely drunk and somehow misread a basic japanese character. To put that in an english perspective, it's like reading "Bob" as "Mob".



The yeti summons a Murian,



and fuses with it. Because they can do that. The new Yeti Blizzard proclaims that all trespasses will be destroyed, but Geo and Mega aren't fazed.



And for good reason, it's just Yeti Blizzard EX.

Warning: If you somehow haven't beaten all of the Murian EX ghosts yet, defeating them here will remove said ghosts and introduce the SP forms into the random encounter pool. Since the fights in the boss rush don't give you rewards, this is a huge dick move that necessitates fighting the SP form at least three times for all the Mega cards.



Boss blows up,



Geo and Mega have a short chat,



and Vega and Hollow have a scene in an attempt to make the player give a crap about the "main antagonists" (who we still know barely anything about).

But you need not worry... Lady Vega... I will not allow anyone to approach you...

Thank you... But what about your wounds from your last battle with him?

They are of no concern.

......Before all our plans come to fruition, I must ask you again.



You know quite well that I don't... I'm just an empty husk of a man... That is why you call me Hollow...

Hollow's japanese name was Empty, actually.

Yes... That is true...

My apologies.

Woah, a line without an ellipse.

I must go face him...

Hollow warps away, leaving Vega to ellipse in solitude.



An EM space opens up once that's all over. Inside is a Deluxe Energy and a Hertz.

THIS PLACE IN MU IS WHERE IT ALL BEGAN, AND WHERE IT WILL ALL END... BE CAREFUL AS YOU PROCEED... WARRIOR OF THE FALLEN STAR...

In the original japanese, MegaMan Star Force was called "Shooting Star RockMan". Because of this, every single game's final scenario has a couple NPCs reference shooting stars. It's silly and forced every time, but it's particularly bad here since SF2 doesn't feature space at all.

Think about it: Kung Foo Kid is the only new interstellar presence in this game. Everything else is earth-based, which makes the entire game all the sillier because it's all small potatoes to Geo! In SF1 he confronted and defeated a devourer of worlds. What the hell's a measly EM being generator to him?



Next area is the same as the last one. Let's talk about the two new viruses.



First are Grabities. These assholes can only be damaged by Sword attribute attacks, and will spend the entire battle trying to line up with MegaMan.



Their attacks are rather basic, so no gifs. They either shoot a planet out or start sucking up MegaMan's health. Grabities drop Black Hole cards, whcih instantly kills enemies under a certain level of HP. Bosses excluded, of course.



Annoyingly enough, neither Zerker nor Tribe King's charge shots count as swords, so I need to rely on these and Gemini Spark to get me through the battles.



Or I could just run. As far as I can tell, the success rate for running depends on MegaMan's "level". This is determined by his maximum HP, so since I have over 1000 I can easily run from any battle where it's an option.



Also around are Raids, who crawl up and slam a giant hammer down for a 3x3 square of damage. Only the actual hammer is Breaking, though, so avoiding is easy enough. They drop Buki cards, which have MegaMan pull out the exact same hammer.


Okay so Le Mu invented language? Also doesn't this mean that the Mu didn't actually create anything, it was all their God?



Up ahead is an Ancient Star Carrier. Now that our heroes can finally get a close look at it, they discuss how it's identical to what they saw Hyde and co. use as well as to the museum exhibit's relics.

When I see this, I can't help thinking the people of Mu were just like us... They used an EM wave interface everyday like we do.



Geo's chatter wakes up the Plesio inside the Star Carrier, and Geo immediately recognizes it as "Messie". Mega takes this as proof that the villains the duo have fought so far have been using the Murian EM beings to further their own agendas.

Plesio asks MegaMan if he knows why the Murians are fearless.



The answer is kind of creepy.



Another Murian appears, another wave change. Let's not ask why changing half of the EM Wave Change equation led to the exact same result, including Gerry's goatee.



Let's also not ask how the hell Plesio is swimming in land.

Gyaaaaargh!

Alright!

These guys keep going on about being eternal and whatnot. What does that mean?

I don't know, but we can worry about that later. Right now, we gotta stop Mu!

They've spelled it out for you. What don't you get?



Another Blank Card and an HP Memory 10 are inside.

I'M AMAZED ONE SO SMALL COULD FIND HIS WAY TO MU... WARRIOR OF THE FALLEN STAR... YOU MUST REMEMBER TO BE BRAVE...

As soon as Geo walks into the next area, he's stunned by what he sees:



hundreds of EM Beings, sealed beneath him.

Yup, they're all alive, just sleeping.

...Like some cyro sleep...

What's cyro sleep?



Oh look at the game trying to shoehorn in space references.

If you lower a human's temperature, it'll keep them from aging. They use it on space ships that travel to distant planets.

EM Beings don't age, though? One of the bonus bosses in SF1 was a ghost from the Middle Ages who was still around because he found an FM-ian all the way back then.

Upon hearing that, Mega comes up with a theory: the people of Mu found a way to mass produce EM bodies, then preserved them in either this room or the Ancient Star Carriers.

Preserved them? What for?

You know what happened to everyone we met who had a Mu Star Carrier. They got a lot of power to control, right?

*Gulp!*

They were all made for fighting. The people of Mu used EM bodies as weapons to fight with.

Which makes yet another facet of Solo's character ("I don't need an EM being to fight") ridiculous.



Yeah, not like the last two bosses told you.



Lying around in a random BMW is MegaMan's ultimate weapon in the first game. Literally the only difference between SF Power and this is that SF2's ultimate weapon has an extra point of Attack.


Alright so now you're saying that Solo's a descendant of the peace-loving earthbound Mu, but he looks up to the asshole sky Mu because he has no idea about his heritage? Or are you saying that actually everyone is a descendant of the Mu that stayed on the ground and thus Solo is just an idiot?



This time, Geo tries to talk with his enemy.

Mu was destroyed a long time ago. There are no more inhabitants now.

Condor furiously responds that the people of Mu still exist, and that one day Mu will be populated again. Assuming it's not making everything up, presumably this means thare are more "last survivors of Mu" around and that Solo is a complete doofus.

Mega joins in with a couple questions of his own:

Hey bub! What the heck are you EM bodies of Mu? And why were you created?

This time Condor says he has one purpose: to destroy all enemies. And you know, if all the EM beings had been this tight-lipped maybe Geo and Mega's repeated chats wouldn't have been completely pointless.



Exactly how I feel.



To Terra Condor's credit, he lasted two turns. Twice as long as everyone else!



They were created just to be used as weapons. And there are so many of them... Such a waste.

Mega, you actually feel for them?

I suppose so... Let's just go, kid! We're not done yet!

That's pretty much the only scene in the game where Mega has an actual character moment. So of course it's quickly glossed over.



But first a hidden HP boost.



Unlike all the other ES's, this one won't open till I beat the game. Which is a real shame since inside is a Giga Class +1!



Welcome to the penultimate area.

Geo approaches the stairs, but a voice commands him to stop.



What do you want, Hollow?

You cannot pass...

Careful now. We don't know what he is.

Yeah, I hear you. Even Sonia told me I had to watch out for him.

"Just ignore how I easily defeated him last time."



By the way, considering that Geo knew this, wasn't it kind of silly of him to act so outraged at Hollow abandoning a "friend" last update?

I will protect Lady Vega... I will not let anyone come close to her!!

Hollow shouts, causing the screen to tremble. Geo winces that Hollow's seriously strong.

You gonna stand around and admire him all day?



Suddenly, a different voice screams that Hollow is his fight.



And then Solo shows up and shoves MegaMan aside. Considering he probably didn't have to fight through Mu, and that he went in before Geo, what the hell was he doing all this time?

What do I want? You've got a lot of nerve asking me that. You think I'd just sit back while some uppity humans made something called the Neo Mu Empire? My ancestors would never have allowed it, and I won't either!

Well he wasn't learning about Mu, that's for certain.

Why...? Did you not want to see Mu restored to glory? Your goal... our goal... is about to be realized. How could you not be happy with that?

Good lord, it's like Rogue just makes everyone around him stupider. Hollow, you tried to kill Rogue.

I'm not like you. I just wanted to know the truth.



up being destroyed. To discover why was it destroyed!

Oh, so the reason Solo didn't bother to actually learn about Mu was because he thought all of the historians were lying. Okay then.

There must be some reason for it. And that's what I wanted to find out for myself.

Wow, that motivation sure doesn't sound like "defending the sanctity of the concept of loneliness." Because, you know, that's what Rogue's been doing up to now.

To what end? To find the ones responsible and then destroy them?

......



You want to know why?



What a surprise that could certainly not been predicted from the fact that three other super-civilizations fell apart for the exact same reason.

What!?

Though now that I think about it, how did archaeologists manage to unearth relics from the Saurian proving how they fell apart, and not from Mu?

Rogue... You must have noticed when you stepped foot here... All is not well with the land of Mu... And I know why... Mu was wiped out by your ancestors!

Using EM waves as weapons, they destroyed each other!

Anyways, how will Rogue react to this stunning reveal?

......

And now you are the last of them... It was your ancestors who brought war upon themselves and then sank this continent into the ocean. And that was the end of the great people of Mu.

(They fought... each other? Was that the Precursor to Ruin?)

......Hollow... Are you blind?

What...?

If you're not blind then you're just stupid.

You doubt my words?



He plugs his ears and angrily denies it. God fucking damn it Rogue, you are the worst character ever.

In fact... Mu is still present! Can't you see it? I'm standing right in front of you!

And now he's changing the subject!



Yeah, pretty much.

The blood that courses through my veins has not lost its pride!

That Murian ghost sure did, though! Or should I say they gained a brain?

I won't let you people get your hands on it!

You're too late... It's already ours!

Hollow decides to just drop the subject. I guess Rogue's insane rant was supposed to be ironclad logic?

Then I'll just have to take it away from you!



Spoilers: it hasn't.

I'm gonna finish what I started!

......Very well... However!

Hollow summons an eyeball.



Dude, the Un-dimension has an exit.

You rotten little...

I'll be waiting...

Hollow sinks in.

Ack...!

......









Don't try and help. You'll just get in my way! This is my fight!

Rogue sinks in, and the portal closes beneath him. As far as ways to escape death traps go that was ham-fisted and completely contrary to Rogue's established character, but whatever, I'll take it.

That dime-store wizard thought he could trap all of us together and slow us down.

But he saved us...

If you wanna think so... I don't think he had any intention of helping us.

Yes, that's why he helped us.



And that two-bit magician is probably with Vega already... Which means we'll probably have both of them to deal with.

Yeah, things aren't looking good for us.

You both just saw him sink into the Un-dimension!

There's no going back now Geo. You'd better gear up for battle!

Roger that!

-------


Concept art of the Ancient Murians. They all have white hair to match Solo.


Concept art of various Ancient Mu relics.


A selection of letters from the language of Mu. There are 997 characters total.

Due to IRL events, there will be no update next week. Sorry guys, but you're going to have to wait an extra week for this godforsaken game to end.