Let's Play Battle Network 6 (Falzar version)!

So, despite being new, I’m doing an LP. Why? Because I feel like it I guess. Should be a nice experience.

Anyways, I’m sure you guys have all heard of Megaman. There are just that many games. But I’m focusing on one of the non-platformer ones: Battle Network 6.



Why Battle Network 6? Well, to be honest, it’s the easiest one. BN 1 is both annoying and… different, I suppose is the best word, BN 2 is probably one of the harder ones (if you don’t abuse Gater anyways), BN 3 is just way too long, BCC is just too slow, BN 4 is… BN 4, and BN 5 is just a pain in the ass.

BN 6 is short, and ridiculously easy. I’ll be playing Cybeast Falzar version, mainly because it’s the one I actually own and because I‘ve replayed it enough to know it like the back of my hand.

Incidentally, I’m going to be hacking max money and bug frags. Why? Because the one part about BN 6, about all BN games actually, that I despise is the part at the end where you have to run around raising money and bug frags to be able to progress. Hell, on my cartridge I’m actually busy grinding bug frags so I can finish up my library.

Anyways, since this is the sixth game, I’m going to have to run through a basic summarization of the BN series before I actually start playing. Mind you, this is all based off of my memory, so some parts may be a little off but this is the gist of it.

EDIT: Since I'm starting a complete BN series playthrough soon, I'm going to have to spoiler this whole thing just in case.

Actually, before we do anything, I should probably mention something: the BN series is an alternate universe to the Classic series.

How it works is that sometime before both, Dr. Light and Dr. Wily were competing for an important grant. If Dr. Wily gets it, the Classic series starts and everything goes to hell. If Dr. Light gets it, the BN series starts and aside from the world nearly ending every few months or so, things are pretty good. Hell, Dr. Light even starts an actual family.

Anyways, what Dr. Light was working on was an all new type of Internet. Codenamed “Alpha”, it basically revolutionized the world. Unfortunately, something really weird happened. See, Alpha… came to life. Kind of. Basically, a huge cyber amoeba just popped up and started absorbing everything. See, Alpha was so impressive that literally everything was connected to it in some fashion. So, naturally, this cyber amoeba caused all sorts of destruction. To make a long story short, Alpha gets sealed away, and a new Internet was created (they had to make a new one since if they worked with Alpha a new amoeba would eventually pop up, and it’s not like they could continually monitor the entire Internet). The only reason I mentioned this is that it comes up later. Kind of.

Anyhow, Dr. Light (or Tadashi Hikari in this universe) had a son, Yuichiro, who eventually got married to a girl named Haruka (these two actually don’t get names till BN 5 if I recall, and they didn’t even bother changing them in the English release). They had two kids, who they cleverly named Netto and Saito. Okay, that was in Japan, their English names were Lan and Hub, which kind of preserves the joke. Anyways, unfortunately enough, Hub had an extremely rare disease and he died soon. However, Yuichiro was able to somehow turn him into a NetNavi (short for Net Navigator; basically, the net is so huge now that humans can’t navigate it on their own, so everybody has their own program to do it for them. Most of the ones you’ll see are either the standard model or the punk model, but some have been customized extensively. These guys are also the anti virus system of the future by the way). Something about encoding his DNA or whatever, I don’t remember. This essentially makes Hub (or MegaMan.EXE) the god of the internet… somehow. You can see what I mean at the end of BN 5. Incidentally, this is a major plot point of BN 1, and while I normally wouldn’t say such a spoilerific thing, literally every BN game after 1 expects you to already know this.

Now then, Dr. Wily was pretty damn bitter about how robotics got skipped over for the internet, and plotted revenge. He resurfaced years later as the head of WWW, which stands for something but I can’t remember for my life. (Edit: Turns out it stands for World Three. They just wanted to make a www joke) To make a long story short, Lan and Hub stopped him from destroying the internet, something they got credit for a whopping once (three times total if you count the gaiden games). I blame government cover ups to be honest.

I should probably mention this: the entire BN series happens over the course of a year or so. Why? Lan is in 5th grade in BN 1, and 6th in BN 6. Yeah.

After this, a new vir- actually, I can’t really say anything about Network Transmission. It’s all spoilers, and though nobody cares, none of that game’s plot really affects anything so there’s no point to me typing it out.

Anyways, a few months(?) later, a new net terrorist syndicate, Grave, pops up and they do some evil stuff. It all culminates in the formation of Gospel, a fusion of various bugs, who Megaman has to stop from destroying the internet. I’m pretty sure he never gets any credit for this.

Once again, a few months(?) later, WWW rises again and that’s all I can say since spoilers. Please note that BN 3 was the last part of the actual story arc the BN series had going on. Because despite all the sequel hooks they put in, BN 4 threw it all out and gave us a piece of crap instead.

Some time later, a bunch of tournaments happened. I don’t even know if Battle Chip Challenge is canonical or not, since there’s six possible stories. But like Network Transmission, the story doesn’t really affect anything.

Another few months(?) later, BN 4 did not happen. Nope. Nuh-uh. In fact, there was never a BN 4. BN 6 tries to put up a connection in Falzar version, but there’s an easy way to explain around that. And if it did, surely the world wouldn’t suddenly forget about the planet almost being destroyed, or the kid who stopped it right? Right? No, because seriously BN 4 NEVER HAPPENED. While we’re at it, neither did the Stream season of the anime.

Sometime later BN 4.5 happened... I guess. I don't really know what much about its plot.

Another few months(?) later, a totally new crime syndicate, Nebula, rises and actually manages to corrupt most of the internet. Lan is recruited to be part of a liberation team (which, as far as I can tell, is canonically Team Colonel for reasons I‘ll explain later), and in the end Nebula is destroyed and the stupid as hell Double Soul system dies with it.

And somewhere in all of this, the two BN cell phone games and that one wonderswan game happened. I’ve never played them, so I don’t really know that much about them, but they happened I guess.


And with that, BN 6 begins!



In any case, BN 6 starts off with a pretty big plot twist for people who have played through the series.



OH SNAP.

And you know what, I think I’ll end things there.

Next time: MANDATORY TUTORIAL!

Oh, and to the people who actually care about this sort of thing, I’ll be using the absurdly game breaking A coded folder you can quickly assemble the majority of as soon as you start the game.

Welcome! You might want to look over here.

Huh, there's a queue.

You know, I probably should have expected that.

In any case, I'm unable to delete this thread for some reason, so I guess I'll just have to wait for a mod.

Oh well, gives me more time to actually write most of this stuff up.

Hah, or not.

......

Well, I guess I've been greenlighted.

Alright, now where were we? Oh, right, Lan’s moving cause his Dad got a new job. Anyways, his classmates are naturally shocked about this, though Mayl alrea-

Huh, I guess I have to introduce the characters.



Alright, this is Dex, operator of Gutsman.EXE. He’s Lan’s rival (though, to be honest, that’s a position Chaud, an ace kid net battler like Lan and operator of Protoman.EXE fills better) and one of his friends. He has a little brother named Chisao, but we don’t see him in this game.



This is Yai. She has a last name, but it’s really long and incomprehensible, so who cares about that. She’s the heir of an extremely rich family. She’s also really short and has a huge forehead. She’s the operator of Glyde.EXE, famous for both not having “man” in his name while still being male, and not actually doing anything really significant, ever. Yai is an absolute female dog in the anime.



This is Mayl. Not Maylu, as far as I can tell anyways, since it’s supposed to be a pun on “mail”. She’s Lan’s love interest and his neighbor. Or she would be if Lan actually cared about stuff like that/even noticed. Yeah, Lan’s pretty clueless. She’s the operator of Roll.EXE. Incidentally, she’s apparently half Netopian (in other words, half American. The major countries of the world are Electopia (Japan), Sharo (Russia?), Netopia (America.), and Netfrica (take a wild guess). There’s also the continent NAXA was on, which I imagine to be Europe)



This is Lan’s teacher, Ms. Mari. Finally makes a reappearance (actually, she might have been in BN5 but I’m not so sure).

Now, where was I? Oh, right. Mayl already knew that Lan was moving (she heard from his mom), and Lan just couldn’t work up the guts to tell everyone beforehand. Everyone decides to see Lan off though.



To sum things up, Yuichiro got invited over to Cyber City, a model next generation net society, so he could help prepare the internet for all the traffic it’s going to get due to Cyber City’s soon to come Expo. And since Cyber City is, again, a model next generation net society, Yuichiro intends to stay and observe.

Incidentally, here’s something I never really got.



Now, this could just be a Japanese thing, but as far as I can tell Lan is in 6th grade in this game. Yet he’s moving on to junior high. Which, as far as I know anyways, is 6-8th grade.

By the way, Mayl is as subtle as not at all.



But enough about that, the game truly begins after Lan’s made it to Cyber City. Now it’s time to take a look at our folder (your folder is… huh, kind of hard to explain. Okay, imagine virus busting was a trading card game. Your folder would be your deck.)



Okay, let’s start the explanations. Over there, in the top right? That’s your memory, As you can see, it’s at 4 MB right now, but it can be upgraded by grabbing items called RegUps. Alright, remember my deck allegory? What your memory does is essentially allow you to top deck. Basically, if one of your chips’ memory is less than or equal to your memory, you can set is as your Regular chip, letting you start every battle with it. By the way, BN 6 introduced a new feature based on chip memory: you can insert 5 of a chip with 0-19 MB, 4 of a chip with 20-29 MB, 3 of a chip with 30-39 MB, and… I think you can see where I’m going with this. This gave them an excuse to cannibalize the Mega chip library though.

Next, the letters.

Every chip has a set of chip codes it can be in. Chip codes determine how many chips you can use per turn, something that will be explained better once we get to the tutorial.

Next up, the library.






There are 4 (technically 3) classes of chips. Standard, Mega, Giga, and Secret. Secret chips are essentially Mega chips by the way. Anyways, you can use an unlimited amount of standard chips in your folder (well, aside from the whole memory restriction thing), up to 5 mega chips, and only 1 giga chip. You can change the latter two restrictions with something we can get later, but I’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Now, the Program Advance memo just lists whatever Program Advances you’ve unlocked. Program Advances are basically chip fusions: if you select a certain trio of chips in the right order, with the right codes, you can fire off a more powerful attack.
Next up, Megaman.



Megaman has a new battle pose in this game incidentally. Anyways, what’s really important are the stats next to him. They determine how good his buster is, and can be modified later on. Attack is self explanatory, Speed is how fast the cool down for each shot is, and Charge is how fast you can charge up the buster. Pwr just tells you what your charge shot is; the only way to change it is to use an E-Reader or a link navi. Above Megaman is his HP, something I should not have to explain. It can be upgraded in 20 HP increments by getting an item called HPMemory, which you usually have to buy for outrageous prices.



Last are sub chips. These are basically the items of this game and you buy them from sub chip dealers; at this point I can only carry four of each, but an item called SubMemory will increase the amount. What do they do?

MiniEnergy heals 50 HP, FullEnergy heals all HP, SneakRun reduces virus encounters, Untrap gets rid of viruses in trapped green mystery datas (I’ll explain mystery datas later on in this post), LocEnemy makes it more likely you’ll face your last random encounter again, and Unlocker unlocks purple mystery data.

Okay, now that that’s over it, let’s go check out town! Not like anything bad could be happening ri-



Grand. This RoboDog has been infected by viruses and Lan, being the person that he is, is going to help out a random girl he’s never seen before. Alright, it’s time to explain the battle system.

As you can see, battles take place on a 3 x 6 field. Your side is red, the enemy side is blue. The goal is to deplete the HP of all of the targets, and how well you do determines your busting rank. But my buster only does 1 damage (10 if I charge it). How am I going to beat these Mets fast? With chips of course.



Chips are your main damage dealers. You use them with the A button (the buster is the B button). However, you can only select more than one if the second (and third, fourth and fifth) chip is either the same chip as the first one (like the two Cannons in this picture), or if they share chip codes. So naturally, you’ll want to aim for a folder with only one chip code for speedy victories. Incidentally, if a chip has a * code, it can be used with anything. So try for those as well.

Now then, this tutorial requires you to pick both Cannons and blast the Mettaurs. So let’s do that.



Now what did I do here? I countered, that’s what. Every enemy in the game has a stance where if you hit them with a non time freeze chip causes them to become stunned and, from BN 5 and onwards, for Megaman and Lan to enter Full Synchro. Full Synchro doubles the damage of your next chip and lets you see when you need to hit an enemy to counter it. However, if you get hit you lose it. If you maintain it for the whole battle though, you’ll start the next battle with it (unless it’s a boss, or if you jack out). Finally, Counters increase your busting rank, along with deleting more than one enemy at the same time.

Now, do you see that picture of Megaman under the HP? That’s his emotion. In BN 6, there are 5 total emotions: Normal, Tired, Exhausted, Full Synchro, and Angry. Tired and Exhausted only happen if you use something you’ll get later in the game, and Angry happens if Megaman takes too much damage in one single blow (I think it was 300 or 400 damage). Angry doubles the next chip’s attack power, and doesn’t fade away if you get hit, but it does fade away pretty quickly.

Finally, on the top you can see the Custom Gauge. It fills over time, and once it fills you can press L or R to bring up the Custom screen, letting you select new chips.

Now, with all that done, let’s just get through the tutorial.



Lan asks the girl is she’s alright, then introduces himself. The girl thanks him and then leaves in a hurry. She doesn’t give her name, but you can tell she‘s really embarassed. Now you have to talk to everyone.

But next is a crash course on jacking in and mystery data!

All over the game in the real world are areas you can jack in to. Some lead to the Net, while most just lead to an offline area. To jack in, stand right next to one of these and press R.



Offline areas like this Robodog generally share the same basic structure, with the exception being the, er, “dungeons” of the game, and all have at least one Blue Mystery Data. Some have Purple Mystery Data, and the “dungeons” have Green Mystery Data.

Online areas have all four kinds of Mystery Data though.

But what is Mystery Data?

It’s this stuff.



Think of this stuff as chests. They give you either Zenny (money), Bug Frags (a different kind of money), Sub chips, or just plain old chips. BMD only spawn once, and every area has at least one. PMD are basically BMD, only they’re locked and require and Unlocker Subchip. GMD spawn every time you jack into an area with them, but some of them are trapped with viruses. Finally, Gold Mystery Data spawns every time you jack in, but they’re only in one area of the net. Thanks to a little programming mess up though, it’s possible they’ll spawn in one of the Japan only areas. Gold Mystery Data gives you some really rare chips though, so it works out.

Interestingly enough, some random encounters will have a GMD on the field. If they are hit by anything they are destroyed, but if they survive the battle you get its contents, which, like normal GMDs, are determined by the area you’re in.

Now then, I’m burned out from typing all of this, so I’ll end this part here.

Next: Constructing a game breaking folder, school and the most pathetic boss ever.

Also, what should I name my folder? LanFldr just sounds stupid, and my normal name (FldrOne) just doesn’t sound right. There’s only eight spaces, and no numbers or symbols mind you.

school in japan is 1-6 (elementary), 7-9 (jr), 10-12 (high).

Call it "LEETHAXX" because that is technically what it is.

Knew it was a japan thing.

Sure, why not. Won't show up till part 4 though.

Well it's a new day already and I've got nothing to do. So here's part 3, where the game truly begins.

Now, once you talk to everyone you’ll get an e-mail from your dad telling you that your computer is now connected to the net. So jack in and go explore Central Area 1!



So I guess I should start describing viruses huh. These are Mettaurs. They have low HP and attack by firing off a shockwave at you if they line up with you. All viruses have stronger forms, and in general these stronger forms move faster, have higher HP, and do more damage. Stronger Mets also gain the ability to duck under their hardhats if there is another Met on the field trying to attack.

In any case, you’ll want to S rank these guys (do that by countering all of them; it‘s not hard, hit them when they‘re swinging back their pickaxe). Why? So you can get this.



You want 5 of these, pronto. Unlike the Guard chips of the past game, Reflectors are worth using. Why? Let me list the ways.

-Blocks all attacks that don’t freeze time or have a breaking element.
-If it blocks an attack it fires off a fast moving laser down the row that pierces through all enemies. It also does great damage.
-It’s pretty much the easiest way to counter stuff; in general, if you’re standing right next to an enemy when you reflect your attack, you’ll get a counter.
-All of the Reflectors come in * code, though it’s really rare.
-Reflector1 comes in A. You know what else comes in A? What you can get from these guys.



These are Gunners. If you line up with them, they fire off a cursor. If the cursor hits you, they fire off a series of shots at the panel you were on. Reflector absolutely trashes them, and is pretty much a guaranteed counter on them. If you S rank them, you get MachGun1 A. MachGuns hit the closest enemy’s entire row repeatedly, for decent amount of Cursor damage. More importantly, if the enemy dies the shots will trail over to the next enemy.

What’s Cursor damage? BN 6 decided to set up a secondary elementary cycle. So besides the standard Fire > Wood > Elec > Aqua > Fire, there’s now Cursor > Breaking > Sword > Wind > Cursor. And wouldn’t you know it, there are two Falzar version specific navis that are Breaking type.

What’s really important though is that since they’re both under 20 MB, you can fit five of each in your folder. So that means that, counting the A and * code chips you start with, you can build a folder with only 8 non A or * coded chips (even less if you get lucky with the GMDs of Central Area 1 and 2). At the beginning of the game. That’s the sound of the game breaking right there.

In any case, Gunners are a pretty rare encounter in Central 1, so let’s go to Central 2. However, Cyber City is ran by some seriously paranoid people, so to advance to Central 2 (and, indeed, to advance to any new area), you have to pass a test of sorts, which is usually either having a certain chip, battling viruses, or a story thing.



Not much of a requirement, huh. In any case, there are some things I should probably show before I go to Central 2.



This is a Net Café. You can pay the guy in orange 10 Zenny to get some coffee that restores 10 HP. You also get to hear a rumor; the farther in the game you progress, the more rumors you can hear. Once you hear all the rumors, you become a valued customer and get a very good item. There are three Net Cafes, and they all have different rumors. They all have the same prices though. Next to the guy is a Sub Chip merchant. As you might expect, they sell Sub Chips. However, ever dealer only sells three kind of Sub Chips; this one has Full Energy, Lock Enemy, and Sneak Run.



This is a security cube. You can’t pass them unless you have the corresponding P-Code. Further down, there’s a barrier blocking the way to a BMD.



You can’t pass this and future doors like it until much later.

Now then, on to Central 2! Literally the first thing you see is a Net Merchant.



These’s one of these guys in each area of the net. They each have 4 HPMemories, and some other chips for sale. In a normal game, you should prioritize buying the HPMemories, which get steadily more expensive as you buy them (this shop’s first one costs 1000 Z, and it’s last one costs 8000 Z. All four combined cost 15,000 Z). This, of course, will eventually necessitate in some kind of money grinding. Well, unless you know about the two tricks that will get you 100,000 Z each, but those can’t be done until the end of the game (and even if you do that you’ll still need to money grind) so it doesn’t really matter now.

However, this is not a normal game. I’m hacking, remember?



You know, doing this feels much better then it really should. In any case, nearby this shop is a BMD containing a RegUp2.

Anyways, Gunners are more common in this area, so start scrounging up 5 MachGun1s. It’ll probably take a while though, since Reflectors, while ridiculously useful, are ridiculously common.

If you’re wondering how I made room for this stuff (as well as the Attack + 10 * (adds 10 damage to the chip selected before it; works better with multi hit attacks) I found in a GMD in Central 2), I’m kicking out my Cannon Bs (wrong chip code), Vulcan1s (wrong chip code and not that good in this game anyways), MiniBomb1s (just suck), and three of my Recover 10s (Recovers are useless when you know the game as well as I do). This leaves me with a dual coded folder, A and S.

While I was running around though, I got my first In Battle Mystery Data:



I just need to make sure I don’t destroy it by accident, and at the end of the battle I get:



It’s not much to me since I’m hacking, but in a normal game this might have been enough to afford a second HPMemory with all of the chip grinding I’m doing. Seriously, it took me twice as long as usual to get my 5 MachGun1 As.



In any case, I finish eventually, so it’s time to get on with the story. You can’t enter Central 3 because someone stole the KeyData to the firewall (which, incidentally, is kind of a serious design flaw if you ask me), so talk to everyone, jack out, and go to bed.



Naturally, Megaman has to yell Lan awake so he doesn’t miss his first day at the new school. In any case, it’s time to rush over to school.

By the way, remember when I said Cyber City was ran by some seriously paranoid people?



I wasn’t joking. These robots rush Lan because he doesn’t have a Student ID. Lan doesn’t have one since he just transferred though, so the robots take that as a sign to attack.



Of course, Lan has dealt with much worse than this before, and isn’t really fazed. As it turns out though, one of the robots is being controlled by one of the teachers, who quickly recognizes that Lan isn’t an intruder and commands the rest of the robots to leave. He then sends Lan over to the Teacher’s room to get his Student ID.

Now then, this is just one of those WTF moments. If the only way for Lan to get his Student ID is to go to the Teacher’s room, but he can’t even enter the school without a Student ID. So how is he even supposed to legally go to school? Really, this stinks of bad management.



Lan is left with a very odd first impression of his new school, which just get weirder when he notices something very odd on the top floor.



In any case, Lan gets his Student ID from his new teacher, Mr. Mach, who, in his own words, is the “cool, energetic teacher in the bright red warm-up suit“.

Now you have to get over to Class 6-1. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but the first time I played this game I spent half an hour looking for it. I honestly didn’t realize you were supposed to go through here:



To get to the second floor, where 6-1 is located. Ah, memories. Moving on, Lan, incredibly nervous, introduces himself to his new class, and Mr. Mach gives him an enthusiastic introduction.



Of course, wouldn’t you know it, the guy sitting in front of Lan is a di-, er, named Mick! And he hates Lan at first for no adequately explained reason (far as I can tell it’s because Mr. Mach gave that glowing approval of Lan, something Mick wants, or because as the new kid Lan‘s got the attention of the class). He’s a good guy deep inside though. In any case, the period ends soon and you have to go talk to everyone.

The next period is Virus Busting, and the teacher navi is… enthusiastic.



In any case, Mick’s navi proves to be a jerk as well, and volunteers Megaman to go take down the virus.



Huh, viruses on the class’s level huh? Well, I assume we’re not counting Lan into the equation (or else we’d be against Life Viruses), but these guys are sixth graders and this is near the end of the year. I wonder what it could be?



Really?

Either this class sucks or I’ve just found the reason why the general populace can’t do anything about most of the threats to the Net.



In any case, things don’t go as planned, since Mick’s changed the viruses. Unfortunately for Mick, he changed the viruses from something pathetic to something slightly less pathetic: Old Stoves.



These guys travel around their side of the field, and if they line up with you they release a three panel long stream of fire. Later versions also crack the ground the fire is over. In any case, since this is a story battle you don’t get anything from this sadly.



Apparently that was an advanced virus or something. Well, this is going to be an easy A+. What’s the final exam? Busting Gunners? …Do elementary schools even have finals? I don’t really remember. Anyways, Mr. Mach isn’t stupid and recognizes what Mick did, so Mick has to walk over to the Teacher’s room to get yelled at. Then you get to run around for a bit, so make sure to grab the Thunder * in the BMD above.



Thunder is a chip from a previous BN game, so you’ll notice the virus on it is grayed out. Anyways, it releases a slow moving ball of lightning that paralyzes the first thing it touches (note that, as far as I can tell anyways, Wood type navis can’t get paralyzed.) It’s not the best chip, but it’s better than nothing. Now you should start replacing your S coded chips, starting with Sword, which is just 80 flinching damage to the panel in front of you. Since a lot of bosses and viruses hang around the back two rows, you can see how Sword might be kind of bad. There’s not much else to do (besides grab a second BMD with 700 Z, but money isn’t an issue for me) so just jack out.

Afterwards, Mick fumes at the sink. As it turns out, Mick and his navi have a hate-hate relationship.




Anyways, Mick eventually drives off his own navi, much to his surprise.



Yeah, how dare he not go along with your plan to get his navi deleted? But then…

And our first boss navi appears! And all but one of them have annoying verbal tics. Anyways, Blastman suddenly turns up in Mick’s PET, much to the latter’s surprise, and tells Mick that he has the power to help Mick crush Lan (he doesn’t).



Mick agrees after being pressured a little bit, and then Blastman says something really creepy.



In any case, we cut back to class.



Alright, turns out that doll thing Lan saw earlier is Central City’s specialty: Copy Bots. What do they do?



Mind you, there are restrictions. Navis in Copy Bots can not use their built in weapons or chips, and have the strength of an average adult. Not only that, but they don’t have much of a battery life. In any case, Lan gets the offer to bring Megaman into the real world. He takes it of course. And it works. Lan thinks he might be dreaming though, so he tells Megaman to pinch him. Then we get to see this.



In any case, once again you have to talk to everyone. They note that Megaman both looks just like Lan, and has been heavily customized, so apparently Hub chose his wardrobe. Can’t really tell if that means his fashion sense is terrible or not.



Also, behind this is a RegUp1. All over the real world are places like this, where if you examine them, you’ll get some free stuff.

Of course, all good things must end, and Megaman goes back into Lan’s PET. Then Mick springs his plan! I wonder what good natured tomfoolery he’s got planned.

A security bot then busts into the room. Mr. Mach is surprised, but decides to fight it off.




Yeah. Anyways, more security bots bust in, and Lan immediately takes charge.



Mick then reveals he’s behind this and then commands the robots to shoot fire at his classmates.



Wow, seriously? All this because Lan didn’t want his navi to get deleted?



And that’s why you’re shooting FIRE at them. Anyways, Mick just wants to see Lan squirm and yet, amusingly enough, Lan is the only one in the class to stay calm. Boy has balls of steel.

In any case, you need to stop the security bots. To do this, jack Megaman into the Copy Bot and run out past the flame into the hallway. There was a sink right?



Crap. Anyways, what you need is on floor one.

Rush back and watch Megaman defy physics (or whatever science governs this kind of thing) by putting out all of those fires with that tiny amount of water.



Yeah. Anyways, the Copy Bot is out of power now, so talk to Mr. Mach to get a Teacher’s ID and run over to the Teacher’s room, where the control system for the security bots is. When we get there, we find Mick realizing that shooting fire at the people annoying him is kind of an extreme thing to do.



Unfortunately, Blastman isn’t going to follow along, and he leaves Mick‘s PET. At this point the teachers are almost passing out from the heat, so Lan pressures Mick to tell him where Blastman is. Mick tells Lan that it doesn’t matter how much experience Lan has; he can’t beat Blastman. Excuse me while I laugh for a bit.

In any case, Lan’s response?

Lan: “And I don’t care how strong he is!”



Yup, that’s Lan for you folks. Screw reason, if someone is in danger help them. Anyways, Mick directs Lan to the Security bot control system. Welcome to the first “dungeon”!

Anyways, it turns out that all that fire has caused some of the Mr. Programs to overheat, preventing us from reaching Robot Control Computer 2, where Blastman is. So we’re going to have to find them and put them out with some Water Data that a helpful Mr. Prog gives us. However, it’s not going to be that easy; Blastman will periodically (and by that, I mean he fires it once you reach a certain spot. It’s not dependent on time or anything) shoot out a wave of flame that deals 10 damage. To avoid it, you have to hide behind the conveniently placed blocks. There are cinders before hand that will even tell you which side of the block to hide behind, so there’s no excuse to getting hit except to see the hilarious animation or, like me, you have so much HP it doesn’t matter.



Don’t miss the HPMemory here by the way.



Anyways, once you find a Mr. Prog, Megaman will put it out, no minigames involved.



There are three Mr. Progs in area one that need rescuing, so get to it. Area 2 is the same, just with four Mr. Progs instead.

Once you get to Area 2 though…



Yeah, that’s bad. The fire is getting worse in the real world, and it appears this is what happens when a computer overheats. To continue, you need to activate the fire extinguisher, but it turns out only navis can use it. Which seems awfully stupid if you ask me. Anyways, Megaman is trapped inside the computer, so we’ll need another navi.

Talk to Mick repeatedly. Lan asks where Mick’s navi is, and eventually Mick tells him that his navi is actually a worrywart; he’s probably watching all of this. Then examine the orange computer.



Unfortunately, Mick’s navi doesn’t want to help. He got ditched after all. However, when Mick gets some fire on him, Mick’s navi rushes to the rescue and breaks into the fire extinguisher program (because apparently there’s security on that) to save him. They then reconcile. How sweet. In any case, you can move on to rescue those Mr. Progs now.



Oh, right, new virus. Champys come from BN 5, and they haven’t changed at all. Line up with them and they’ll pop up in front of you (unless there’s a hole anyways) and punch you. Later versions punch more then once. Reflectors slaughter them, and beating one will get you a FireHit chip, which attacks the first column with enemies on it. It’s a little slow though, so you might miss. In any case, it comes in D, E, and F codes and you’ll probably want to spend the effort to get all three. Why? So you can do a Program Advance.

There are three possible Program Advances you can assemble in this area. One of them requires some luck with the GMDs to get a Cannon * (this will allow you to do Giga Cannon1 by inserting Cannon A, Cannon B, and Cannon * in that order. Normally you’d need Cannon C, but a * coded chip can replace one of the codes), the other two require you to grind Champy and OldStove viruses to get FireHit1 D, E, and F, and FireBurn1 F, G, and H. Put them in alphabetical order, and you’ll get Flame Hook 1 and Wide Burn 1. Yes, 1. There three varieties of some Program Advances, with each one being constructed by different leveled chips. For example, Flame Hook 3 would be Fire Hit 3 A, B, and C.

Mind you, you’re not going to ever use these in an actual folder. The fact that they require three chip codes to use (there are Program Advances that just need one chip code though. Those are pretty decent) just makes them worthless. Aside from that, like in BN 5 you can now only use a certain Program Advance once per fight, limiting their usefulness.

However, you’ll still have to use each Program Advance once to complete your P.A. Memo, which you have to do to fight the final secret boss.

In any case, we reach Blastman.



As I’ve said before, Blastman is absolutely pathetic. He’s slow, only got 400 HP, and his attacks (he’s only got three) are heavily telegraphed and slow.



This one releases a slow blast of fire down a row. It’s about as fast as a Met’s shockwave, and can be Reflectored. It deals 20 damage, which I did not know since I’ve never gotten hit by it before. I was curious though.



This one has Blastman go into the first row, charge up, and release a three panel long tornado of fire. It can also be Reflectored, and this one will get you a Counter.



This is Blastman’s ultimate move. He will raise up his hands, and cinders will fill the screen. The cinders will be moving in a certain direction, and that’ll tell you where you need to hide to avoid the move. Alternatively, just hit Blastman while he’s charging. Not hard at all. It can also be Reflectored.

Blastman’s pattern is simple: two flame waves, then either fire tornado or his ultimate move. Repeat.. With only 400 HP, there’s no excuse to not S rank this fight. Mind you, I had to reset, but that’s because I wasted time actually getting these pictures. Hell, the second time? I got a tremendously unlucky first hand (and unlucky draws as well) and I still got a S rank.



Story bosses do not give you navi chips. However, S Ranking them gives you a nice amount of money, which steadily increases as you go along in the game. I think the last one give you like 7000 Z.

In any case, Blastman retreats, promising revenge, the game treats beating him like an accomplishment, and everything goes back to normal, though Mick gets chewed out a bit for almost killing everyone in the school. I guess it happens a lot.

More importantly, Mick and Lan become friends! Er, I mean, Mick becomes a guy who wants to Netbattle Lan a lot. Totally not friends or anything, nope. Yeah, Mick is basically Dex.



Oh, right, Tab! This guy’s family runs the local chip shop, Aster land. It isn’t open yet, but yeah. Anyway, this entire incident has earned Lan a lot of respect apparently: nothing like staying calm while the school gets set on fire and then saving the school right? So Tab calls Lan Mr. Hikari, much to his embarrassment.

As an apology, Mick gives Lan some graffiti. As it turns out, Mick is the one who hid the key data to Central 3, and on that graffiti is where he hid the key.

In Central 3 anyways, are the Cybeast statues. The Cybeasts are apparently pretty infamous in Cyber City, even though Lan has never heard of them before.

But I think I’ll stop here.

Next time: Bad foreshadowing! And penguins!

Nice LP so far! I liked the Battle Network series a lot - I've played through 2 and 3 multiple times. Then 4 came out and filled me with barely suppressed rage. Thus, I gave 5 and 6 a pass. I'd kind of hoped that then StarForce games would be a nice blast from the past, but they simplified combat almost to the point of absurdity, so yeah.

And, as always, it's nice to know that despite SAVING THE WORLD FIVE DISTINCT TIMES, Lan is still treated like an idiot at NetBattling.

I like this game. MMBN6 took a razor to all the interesting but unfun gameplay mechanics from MMBN5 and ended up with an enjoyable experience. Too bad about the story, which is the same old crap minus the familiar characters. Nice way to close a series... Reminds me of the last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise.

Like I said, I blame government cover ups.

Actually, all they really did was cut out Souls if we're going to be honest.

But that's all they needed to do.

Yeah, the guys writing the story apparently got a note saying that this was the last BN game and tried to make it more "final" then the others. They failed IMO.

Ah well, two of the new characters are probably one of the best characters in the series if you ask me.

Well, once again I'm up at an ungodly hour.

So I'll upload the next part I guess.

Where we last left off, we were supposed to go to Central 3. But we’re not doing that. Instead, we’re going to explore.



There are four classrooms you can enter, and all but one (1-2) allow you to jack in to the blackboard. The ones in 6-1 and 1-1 don’t give much, but 6-2 has a RegUp2 and a PMD.



This is the first PMD we’ve found. As I said, you need an Unlocker to open these. And since an Unlocker is 4000 Z each, that’s a bit pricey. However, I’m loaded, so I can go get some. Where? From this guy!



So, let’s go see what was in that PMD!



…Well that sucks. Snake basically fires a snake that out of every hole on your side of the field. It can do a lot of damage if you know what you’re doing, but right now it’s pretty useless.

Oh, right, I should probably talk about special panels.

Off the top of my head, there are a total of 8 special panels in this game: Cracked, Hole, Empty, Ice, Grass, Poison, Volcano, and Coming/Going.

Cracked panels turn into holes if you step over them. Holes are simply panels you can not step on, though they eventually regenerate into normal panels. Empty panels are essentially permanent holes.

Ice panels are, as you might expect, slippery. If you step on to one from the left, you’ll slip off it on to the panel to the right. Same if you go from above; you’ll slip down. Of course, if an ice panel is in the corner it doesn’t matter. If you get hit with an Aqua attack on an ice panel though, you’ll be frozen, and when you‘re frozen you take twice as much damage from breaking attacks.

Grass panels regenerate the HP of any wood navi on them, but they also cause an enemy standing on them to take twice as much damage from a Fire chip. They burn if they get hit with anything Fire related mind you.

Poison panels slowly drain the HP of anything standing on it. It can stack with HP decreasing bugs.

Volcano panels periodically shoot out a pillar of magma, damaging whoever is on them. They only appear in one area though, so don’t worry about that.

Finally, Coming/Going panels act like Ice panels, only they slide you off to a pre-determined direction.

Note that you can get something later on the allows you to walk on Holes or ignore the effects of all of these panels (besides Volcano), but that’s later.

Now then, let’s get to Central 3! However, as soon as you step in to Lan’s room, you’ll get an e-mail alerting you that you’ve got mail in your mailbox. See, like I said, Cyber City is paranoid. So you can only get e-mails on your PET from people in it. For places outside, you’ll have to set up something on your PC.



Mayl gives us our first Navi chip, and one the most useful: Roll R.

Roll is a multipurpose chip. It hits three times (so despite what it says, it does 60 damage, not 20), and it heals Megaman for the exact amount of damage it did. So if you were to use Roll1 in full synchro and with four Attack +10s, you’d heal 360 HP, not just 60. Also, if there are no enemies on the field Roll just skips straight to the healing. It may be R coded, but it’s definitely worth putting in our folder.

By the way, interesting thing about bosses; they all have Navi chips (which, incidentally, are the only Mega chips in this game). But, as you might recall, story bosses only drop money. So how do you get their Navi chips?

Ghosts of course!

No, seriously.




In the corners of certain areas (Central 2, Central 3, Seaside 1, Green 2, Sky 1, and Underground 2 if you were wondering), you can encounter the EX Navis. Beating them gets you a guaranteed drop of their normal chip last I checked. Also, once you beat them you can randomly encounter that Navi’s SP form in that area, which will drop the stronger versions of that Navi’s chip. In general, for the SPs, 1-5 gets you the normal chip, 6-10 get you the EX, and S gets you an SP chip. Mind you, the borders are a little blurred: you can get an SP from a 10 rank, and a normal from a 6 rank.

Normal and EX deal a set amount of damage, but SP chips deal more damage the faster you delete the SP Navi. They max out at deletions under 10 seconds. The only exceptions are Roll (who comes in Roll1, Roll2, and Roll3 and does a set amount of damage) and Django, who is Japan only so it doesn’t matter.

In any case, Blastman EX may have twice as much HP, but he’s still Blastman.



Blastman’s chip is actually pretty good. Blastman will do his ultimate move, and essentially deal 120 fire damage to the whole screen, making it a pretty decent random encounter destroyer. Mind you, it isn’t perfect (the fireballs won’t go through things, so if there are enemies on the same row one of them is safe, and obstacles still block it) and there’s a much better random encounter clearer we can get way later. Still, I’ll throw it in, giving us a quad coded folder (though it’s still mainly A and *)

Anyways, according to the graffiti the Key Data is “on a wide green road where a shadow falls”. It’s right here:



and pretty hard to miss since you can’t walk over it. Seriously, the Officials couldn’t find this? I’m really not seeing the next generation net society thing here.

There are three notable things in Central 3. First off, this huge hole.



Second, its status as a hub. Central 3 links to Sky area, Green area, Seaside area, ACDC area, and the Underground. You can go to none of these places yet though, since there’s a tree blocking the way to Green area, a cloud doing the same to Sky area, and a leak blocking the way to Seaside area.



This really isn’t saying “Next-generation Net Society” to me. It’s saying “Godawful Mess”.

And you can’t go to ACDC without an AreaPass. Because, like I said, Cyber City is damn paranoid.

The final attraction is what we came here to see: the Cybeast statues. But before that, the PMD here contains an ElecSword E, which is pretty decent (120 damage, wide sword radius, paralyzing) if you want to use it. I wouldn’t recommend it though. The GMD on the other hand, can give you Spreader Ns (or was it M?), which, if you bought that Spreader L from that shop earlier for whatever reason, should be the last one you need to do the P.A. involving it: Hyper Burst. It might be worth doing now since Spreader L is pretty cheap. Anyways, Hyper Burst is a Spreader on crack. Spreaders normally damage everything around whatever it hits, making it kind of annoying if there’s an in-battle GMD. H-Burst basically repeats the spread 5 times or so, dealing 100 damage each time. It can be done with all three versions of Spreader as well. It still uses three chip codes though, so I wouldn’t bother.

And these are the Cybeast statues!



“These 2 beasts were not friendly to each other, rather they fought each other again and again. They fought fiercely and greatly changed the face of the Net. People feared these 2 beasts and called them… Cybeasts… One of the Cybeasts was shaped like a giant wolf…… Cybeast Gregar. Its roar was enough to cause the whole net to shake, and it devoured many Navis with its sharp fangs… The other Cybeast was a giant bird-like beast…… Cybeast Falzar. With its huge wings it scattered objects all over the Net, and with its razor-sharp claws, it shredded many programs… This [Central Area 3] is where the 2 Cybeasts’ reign of terror ended -- where they fought each other to the end… The chasm in this area was born from their clash, and the bottom of this pit is known as the Underground. It is said that even now the Cybeasts are sleeping there…”

Now then, I ask you this: when exactly did this actually happen? It couldn’t have been before Alpha, because then the Cybeasts wouldn’t even be here in the new internet. And it couldn’t have been after Alpha, because then you’d think Lan would know about something this big. The answer? It’s a lame attempt by Capcom to make a final final boss for the series. How exactly two beasts are better than a virus composed of four ultimate elemental programs, an accidentally created gigantic mass of bugs and radiation, the internet itself, or the digital representation of all humanity’s negative emotions is completely unknown. In other words, retcons!

Anyways, after that exposition that is totally not foreshadowing, jack out and go to bed.

As is customary in the BN series, while Lan sleeps cut scenes play.




Lan’s dad meets with the mayor of the city, Cain. As it turns out, Cain is both the Mayor and the Principal of the school. Busy guy (actually, no, Cain‘s dumping Principal responsibilities on the Vice Principal while the Expo is being set up). Anyway, Cain called Lan’s dad over to ask for a program. A program that he shouldn’t even know the existence of, but apparently he’s got friends in SciLab (where Yuichiro works). Yuichiro only brought half of the program though, but according to him it’s more than enough.

If you’re wondering, the program greatly expands memory capacity. I assume the reason Lan’s dad didn’t just send the program over and save Lan the emotional problems was because it was supposed to be top secret.

On the next day, school starts without any problems. But where’s Mick?



And then Mick busts in, Kool-Aid man style.

Okay, not really, he just ran in.



…





Have these people never seen a penguin before? What, did people stop watching movies or something?

Anyways, Mick tries to shoo away the penguin but it comes back every time (Oh god now I have “The Cat Came Back” stuck in my head make it stop). Why?



…This is a 6th grader? Anyways, it turns out Mr. Mach did know what a penguin is. Thank God, I was half expecting to have to go on a fetch quest to get an encyclopedia. On the other hand, Mick still doesn’t seem to get it (or he’s just being a jerk. Hard to tell) and calls it a pelican instead.

And then we get this gem.

Megaman: There’s something strange about that penguin, Lan!
Lan: …Hm… Maybe it IS a pelican…
Megaman: L-Lan!!?

Eventually school ends and Mick gets cornered.



Apparently it’s hungry. And in an astoundingly display of intelligence, Lan decides to ask the Biology teacher to find out what penguins eat. The Japanese school system at its finest here folks.

Anyways, fetch quest time.

> Ask Biology teacher what penguins eat.
> Go to Biology teacher’s aide in 6-2 to get fish.
> Got to Biology teacher’s aide’s grandfather near the LevBus to get fish.
> Bust the viruses in the Biology teacher’s aide’s grandfather’s Icebox.



Great, a three for one deal. The fish thing in the front with 70 HP is a Piranha. They move around, but only in one column. Once they move they fire off a cursor. If the cursor hits anything, they fire off an arrow. The puffer fish thing is a Puffy. It periodically fires off a needle at you. Hitting it causes it to puff up and fire more needles more rapidly at you. Finally, there’s the Starfish. It fires off bubbles, and if you get hit by one you get trapped in a bubble. You can just pop the bubbles with your buster though.

Piranhas drop Train Arrow chips. This, incidentally, is the third chip we’re looking for to complete our broken A coded folder (only one left after it, and again you get it fairly early). Train Arrows fire off a string of arrows down a row, with more arrows (maxing out at five I believe) coming out the more distance there is between you and your enemy. So if both you and your opponent are in your corresponding back rows, arrow rape ensues. Arrow rape that doesn’t give the opponent mercy invincibility, but still makes them recoil. Also, since it’s multi-hit it can get a lot of benefits from Full Synchro and Attack + 10s. It also does Aqua damage, so you can own Blastman even harder.

Puffys drop Aqua Needles. This drops three needles from the sky on the enemy area to deal Aqua damage. It’s decent I guess.

Starfish drop Bubble Stars. This sends out a starfish virus that slowly twists through the area in front of you (mind you, it only hits two rows). Anything it hits takes Aqua damage and is caught in a bubble and unable to move. They also take double damage from electric attacks. This is also something awesome, though I won’t be using it.

Anyways, sadly this is a story battle, so no chips for me.

By the way, in Class 1-2 you can start the trading side quest.



You need to trade an EnergyBomb K (you can get one from a BMD in one of the blackboards) for a DoubleShot C. Later on in the game, you’ll find someone asking for a DoubleShot C, and so on until you get JusticeOne J.

The string of chips and the codes you need however, are incredibly rare and as such it’s extremely unlikely you’ll ever find another one. So if you lose one of the chips part way through the quest, you’re screwed.

In any case, we have our fish, so let’s get back to Mick.



The penguin takes our fish and chows down. Now Lan and Mick are wondering where it came from though. Megaman suggests we check the BBSs (I have no idea what that stands for, but they’re basically message boards). And wouldn’t you know it, the closest one is in Seaside area, which happens to be where Piranha viruses live! AWAY.

However, looks like we got more mail.



As soon as we get online, we get an e-mail telling us that some navis have been attacked recently, and a nearby navi tells us there have been a lot of net quakes(?) lately. I’m really, really not seeing a next generation net society here.

While you’re on the way you’ll see a navi spazzing out in the net café. He says he lost something, though he won’t tell you what. Ah well, probably not important.

By the way, guess who‘s back for round 3? (This is actually some pretty bad luck on my part.)



Yeah, more health this time. Still doesn’t matter.



As you can see, I took things pretty slowly and took no damage from the entire fight. Ironically, I finished him off with my Blastman chip. For my trouble, I get Blastman EX, which I promptly replace my Blastman with.



The only difference is an extra 20 damage. Anyways, there’s a new face in Central 2.

This is the new Punk navi design for this game. Talk to him and he’ll ask if you want to battle him. Accept, kick the crap out of his viruses, and earn yourself your first SubMemory!



Here we see the level 2 forms of the Mettaur, Gunner, and Quaker viruses. Quaker viruses jump around the screen trying to line up with Megaman. When they land, Megaman temporarily can not move and a shockwave is sent forward. As always, Reflector it. They drop Wave Arm chips, which fire off a shockwave in front of you as well. The Wave Arm chips have their own trio of Program Advances by the way, so you’ll want to grind them I guess.

Now, off to Seaside Area!

Only not because like I said, there’s a leak blocking the path.



According to the navi next to us, a repairman was called, but he hasn’t showed up yet. Guess we should go find him.

So now jack out and jack back in again to skip to Central 1. Then, talk to the navi that was spazzing out earlier.

As it turns out, the repair guy lost his Tool Program and so he can’t work.



The repair navi says he went to several homes in Central Town today, so I guess we’ll have to jack out and search through the houses.

Only not, since it’s in your toilet.



Really.

Oh yeah, we have a toilet now, forgot to mention that. Now, jack in and go deal with the viruses that are preventing your mom from answering nature’s call.



…Yeah… Anyways, at this point everyone is embarrassed. Haruka because she needs to go, Megaman because he’s going to fight this, and Lan… actually, Lan seems to not really care. We get another gem though.

Megaman: I really don’t want to fight this guy… I mean, that doesn’t look like a tool to me! Looks more like that thing you use when the toilet is stuck!
Lan: Battle routine, set!
Megaman: L-Lan!! Are you even listening…?
Lan: Battle routine, set!
Megaman: …Argh! …Execute…



Oh hey look a Mettaur 3. As you can see, high level viruses occasionally have their own chips. This one has Invisible, a staple in any folders. It turns its user translucent, and most attacks pass through them. Mind you, there are attacks that can pierce it (these attacks also pierce mercy invincibility BTW).

After you’re done, the repairman’s operator calls you up and tells you to bring the program to Central 3. But before that, jack back in to the toilet, because Piranhas live here! Who cares about your mom. Oh, and there’s also a free Unlocker.

You need to S rank a Piranha to get a TrainArrow1 A. This can be hard, but if you start with Blastman or with a Full Synchro and a Reflector, it’s pretty easy, though Blastman will require some serious button mashing skills to fire it off before the Piranhas move. Note that Mettaurs are here as well, so you might end up with more Relfector1 As. How long this takes depends on how much the RNG loves you but fortunately you only need 3 TrainArrow1 As since its 30 MB.

Naturally it took me almost 20 minutes during which I seriously considered hacking, since despite the numerous S ranks I got I kept getting Reflectors or Zenny and despite the theoretical 1/6 odds I only got Blastman seven times.



DO YOU FEEL MY DESPAIR. (In a normal game though, I would have been very pleased with the almost 10k Z I raised). In any case, I replaced my Wide Swords and now I have an all A code folder besides Areagrab S, Roll and Blastman EX.

Now, on to Seaside! On the way I get lucky with GMDs and snag another Attack +10 *, which I promptly swap out Areagrab S for.





There are no words.



Then a net quake occurs. What exactly is a net quake? Hell if I know. Turns out they’re the reason these pipes broke though. Nice save Capcom, nice save, but I doubt they’re why a tree grew or why a cloud formed.

Anyways, Seaside area 1 is fairly easy to get lost in, and what we’re looking for (the BBS) is in it. But I don’t really care about that. I‘m intent on getting to Seaside 3, where the next Netdealer and my next 80 HP are.

By the way, the very first virus encounter I had in Seaside 1 gave me a Train Arrow1 A. I think the game is just angry that I’m hacking it and is therefore screwing with me.

Anyhow, to get to Seaside 2 you need to “capture all the fish in the area”. This translates to having Train Arrow1 somehow. Yeah.



Seaside 2 is interesting. You can either pay 100 Z to open up this Security Cube, or you can take the long way around this wave (not a pun there; the navis of this area call moving on one of these one way panels cyber surfing) of one way panels. I recommend the latter, since the GMD in this area can give Invisible *s. Do note that you can’t use Reflectors while invisible though, which is kind of annoying.

Along the way you can skip into the Aquarium HP. There’s a point to this place that we’ll find out later, but for now all it has for me is a BMD with a HPMemory and a PMD containing a Tornado L. Tornado chips fire off a 6 or 8 hit tornado two panels ahead of you. Naturally it can do some crazy damage fully boosted, especially to Cursor type enemies, but it’s actually better off used in a combo with another wind chip that we don’t have yet. Not that I’m going to use it either way of course.

The Aquarium HP also has a fellow asking for a Panel Return * in exchange for a Geddon A. This is part of a different side quest than the trading side quest, and you can find a Panel Return * (which, if you’re wondering, resets the whole field back into normal panels) in a BMD in Seaside 2.



This here is one of the game’s gimmicks. All over the place are these special obstacles you can’t clear (they are, from the top of my head, a pillar of water, a huge fire, a tree, a tornado, and a cloud). So how do you pass them? With yet another feature we haven’t seen yet.

To get to Seaside 3, you have to pass through a 3 round battle. HP and Full Synchro status are kept between the fights, while your folder is reset. It’s pretty easy, but I ended up taking 70 damage when I seriously screwed up on the last battle.

Seaside 3 has another PMD, and this one is essentially an upgraded Widesword. Note the code though; this chip is part of a special P.A. Seaside 3 is also pretty weirdly structured (it‘s basically an entire mass of one way panels; think of the currents near Pacifidilog town in Pokemon R/S/E and you‘ll have a decent idea), and it will play a mildly important part in the plot. Also, at the very bottom there’s a door we can’t unlock yet. However, what I came here for was for the shop. And the BMDs I guess: this area has a RegUp2. It probably has something else, but I could really care less.

Back to Seaside 1!

To get to the area with the BBS, you have to enter a warp. There are two warps in Seaside 1. The bottom one gets you to the Stuffed Toy Computer, which has a Double Shot * and a White Capsule * for you (I guess you can replace your CrackShot *s with it if you really want to but eh. The White Capsule really isn‘t all that necessary either.)

Now enough detours, the BBS.



Megaman initially gets distracted by some battle techniques, but eventually he finds what we’re looking for: turns out the aquarium in seaside has lost some penguins. You then automatically jack out, which is why I did all that side stuff first.

How exactly a penguin got from Seaside to Central (which usually involves riding a LevBus) is never explained, though I imagine that the end of the journey the penguin was so hungry Mick’s act of giving food got him its worship.

Anyhow, run back to Mick to tell him the news.

Apparently the penguin has been following Mick everywhere; even the bathroom. Mick gives us some interesting trivia though: each part of Cyber City is focusing on something different. So while Central works with Copy Bots, Seaside works with, you guessed it, water. Specifically, how to keep water clean. Anyways, time to head to the LevBus station.



I wonder if there’s a Mick x Penguin shipping…



This is a LevBus by the way.

Once we get there, it’s time for the customary “run around the new area mashing R and A to try and find stuff”, You can jack in to the fish fryer and the water machine to find BMDs holding a Barrier 100 H (Barriers give Megaman a protective shield that fades away once a certain amount of damage is dealt to it. Barriers take 1 damage, Barrier 100 takes 100 damage, and so on. There’s a special kind of Barrier called Life Aura that has 200 HP but requires an attack to deal 200 HP at once to break it. However, all Wind chips automatically blow away barriers), an Unlocker, and another White Capsule *.

You can also pay 100 Z in the Fish Stick computer to get a Seaside Key, which will unlock the door in Seaside 3, revealing a warp to Central 2 that will get you to a computer in an area in Seaside Town we can’t reach yet. Yeah.

Meanwhile, Mick shells out his allowance to buy fish sticks for him and his penguin.

After that though, it’s time to head the aquarium. When we get there…



Yeah, so this guy is angry that he’s gotten fired. After screaming the director of the employee doesn’t know a thing about entertainment, he storms off. Seems the penguin is frightened of him though.



Oh, right, did I mention the Aquarium looks like a whale? Because it does. Unfortunately for us though…



Fffffffff-

Anyways, Mick tries to get Lan to take care of the penguin, but the penguin isn’t having any of that. Looks like we’re meeting here tomorrow.

I think I’ll stop here.

Next time: Animal abuse! Overreactions! And a SLIGHTLY less pathetic boss!

EDIT: Hmmm... I guess it's probably a good idea to ask this now.

There's a secret bo- oh I'm not kidding anyone.

I can choose to fight Bass fairly close to where I am in the game right now. There's no real point to doing so (beating him let's you fight Bass SP in the secret area of the game and gets you an item in said secret area, but that's post-game stuff), but should I?

Mind you, like everyone else in this game he's pathetically easy, but he might be a challenge on a keyboard.

Mmm...

I'm going to be busy tomorrow, so I'm going to post tomorrow's update now.

Whelp, time to head back to Seaside.

Only not because we get some e-mail. You know what’s in it? The Navi Customizer, which apparently Lan sent in to get upgraded.



The Navi Customizer is interesting. Think of it like a puzzle; you have various programs (there are all sorts of programs with all sorts of effects. I’ll try to explain what each do when we get them) with various effects, and you want to fit as many as you can while not breaking any of the rules.

The rules?



First off, programs like this Undershirt (if Megaman has more than 1 HP, any attack that would normally kill him leaves him a 1 HP. This is nigh essential) must have at least one part on the Command Line, the little arrow thing you see.



Textured programs (the only textured programs affect your Megabuster and your HP) like this Attack +1 on the other hand, must not touch the Command Line in any way.



You can’t have two programs of the same color touch each other. Likewise, you can not have more than four different program colors.



Finally, and this is something unique to this game, you can’t have programs outside of the Memory Map.

Disobeying any of these rules causes various bugs. There’s a huge list of possible bugs, but I don’t really want to mention anything in particular since aside from one possible (yet very unreliable) game breaker, they‘re naturally all pretty bad.

You might note that there isn’t really that much space for me to work with: that’s because you can upgrade the Navi Customizer with Expansion Upgrades, of which there are two in the game. You can also pick up Spin *insert* Colors, which allow you to rotate pieces of a certain color.

As a final note, it’s possible to compress certain programs (All non-textured ones and three of the textured ones). How? First, make sure they’re off the Memory Map.



Then, hold right while your cursor hovers over the program and input a certain button configuration (find it on GameFAQs). This is much easier to do on an actual GBA mind you. Also, unlike BN 5 the game no longer tells you if the buttons you’re inputting are correct until the very end, so no more brute forcing.



And voila! Compressions are rather dramatic in this game; Undershirt only lost one panels, but some bulky programs become a lot more usable. If for some reason you liked the bulk you can put the code back in again to revert them.



As a side note, we also get out first Extra Folder: Gift Folder. These folders can be equipped, but they can not be modified, making them kind of pointless except for filling in your library. On the other hand, you can transfer over a friend’s folder to become your Extra Folder (you can’t do it if the folder has a Giga chip though), which can be extraordinarily game breaking obviously.

Now enough stalling, we have a penguin to return.



Yeah, Lan’s pretty much perpetually late. Whether it be breaking bad news, figuring stuff out, or meeting up with people, Lan’s likely not going to make it on time.

Meanwhile, Mick complains that the Penguin messed up his night. It followed him in the bath (and splashed), cuddled up with him in bed (keeping him awake), you know, things any child I know would kill for. Lan comments that they’re like family members now. Mick angrily retorts that they’re two different species, but Lan verbally owns him with:



Mick asks for proof, and Lan cryptically replies “You’re mouth”. Yeah, translation mistake there. Mick is mystified.



Inside the aquarium, it seems someone recognizes our penguin.




Turns out Plata ran away because of that guy we saw earlier. Or, as this guy puts it, the “scary trainer”. Lan introduces himself and Mick, and explain how they got here. The man finds it interesting that Plata latched onto Mick though; he normally doesn’t like people. Oh, right, Plata is a guy. Should’ve mentioned that huh. Anyways, the man (he’s the director of the aquarium incidentally) rewards Lan and Mick with a free day at the aquarium. Woo… I saved what, 500 Z? Anyways, Mick is kind of sad that Plata’s going, but who really cares. It’s time to explore.



There are aquatic creatures all over the place, and examining each one gives you some trivia. If you’re utterly retarded, you might want to write them down for later.

Unfortunately, there actually isn’t anything we can really get from the aquarium right now so we may as well watch the show. But first you have to listen to all of the trivia first.

What the- did that seriously get a pass? Anyhow, Lan gets an offer to ride the dolphin:



And the show ends. Mick wants to leave as soon as he can.



Mick denies it, but we know the truth.

But you’ll want to pick up the RegUP1 from the trash.



On the way out, we see Mr. Animal Abuse whining about the show.



That wasn’t suspicious at all.



Lan and Mick are about to leave, but then:




Apparently the Aquarium’s tanks and cages suddenly unlocked themselves.



Oh, right, did I forget to mention that all of Seaside Town’s water is interconnected? Because they are and seriously if it weren’t for the fact the place is dedicated towards keeping water clean I’d consider that fact the stupidest part of this game because why would you connect drinking water to water stuff lives in?

Lan is worried about the alligators escaping, while Mick is worried about Plata, so it’s time to head back to the aquarium because both Lan and Megaman have seen this so many times by now to know that someone is behind this.



Well, my respect for Mick just went up a few pegs. Quick Mick! Channel Stahn’s power and incinerate that alligator! What? Nobody got that reference? Damn.



Oh, right, the director is in danger too. He tells us where we need to go and what we need to do though. Basically, if we head to the computer, normalize it, then broadcast the feeding time sound all the animals should return. You’re now allowed to go into the employee’s only area by the way.



Man, I think we still have Mr. Mach’s Teacher ID too. Lan’s gaining some status already!

Unfortunately, it’s time for some BS. See, our path is blocked.



But hey, according to the show this seal will move if we find its favorite ball! Let’s go look for it-



Wha- THOSE THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO FLOAT. Anyways, we can’t reach the ball since there are jellyfish in the tank. Incidentally, Lan is all ready to jump in damn the jellyfish because there are people in trouble, but Megaman isn’t about to let his brother die.



In desperation, Lan rushes back over to the aquarium, but then he sees something extremely interesting.



And then, using some sort of ninja skill, the girl ducks behind the angel fish tank and yet somehow pops up from behind the nautilus tank.



Lan is appropriately confused.



No, we never get a good explanation for that BTW. In any case, Lan follows her outside.



We never get a good explanation for how she does this either. But in any case, something shocking happens.



We actually get some good help for once (by the way, Lan looks away for a second due to a piranha and then the girl disappears again)! Because in the direction the girl is pointing is:



Yup! The school’s CopyBot! I guess this is that girl’s way of thanking us for the whole RoboDog thing. In any case, what you should do now is obvious, so transfer Megaman in and get that damn ball. Turns out we cut it a little close though: the CopyBot is almost out of power.



The seal goes after the ball like it’s an addiction. But no matter, now we can get in and what the fu-



HOW DID HE GET UP THERE HOW IS HE BALANCING WHAT IS EVERYONE IN CYBER CITY A NINJA OR SOMETHING GAHFASIHASFAHSJKD.

Okay, okay, I’m calm now.

Anyhow, Mr. Blackbeard decides he likes Lan for some reason and explains himself: he feels the aquarium’s boring so he wants to spice things up. So he turns the whole thing into the plot of a B movie, only everyone in Seaside is actually in danger.

Lan, naturally enough, is pissed off.

Anyhow, some more back and forth conversation and once again we are told Megaman can not possibly defeat Blackbeard’s navi, Diveman.



You know, I’m going to say this: BN 6’s bosses are all absurdly pathetic. All but four (Bass. Protoman, Colonel, and Falzar/Gregar) have only three moves, and all but two have easily dodged attacks. The only bosses you‘ll have trouble with are the ones with Super Armor (prevents flinching), and even then that‘s just because it‘ll make S Ranking them more annoying; beating them is still easy.

I could honestly say that I could beat every single boss in the game but one (Bass if you were wondering) with just my buster. Hell, I’ve done it before. They’re that easy.

In any case, Lan automatically jacks in, but you’ll want to jack out and grab the HPMemory floating nearby.



Anyhow, this dungeon is three areas long, the standard length of a BN dungeon. In this one you’ll have to find Fish programs in a maze, lead them back to the beginning of the area (while avoiding cyber sharks. Thankfully while you lead a program there are no random encounters), and then use the hints they give you when you find them (you can press L to have Lan run over to the aquarium if you can’t figure it out) to put them in the right tank. If you put the wrong program in the tank, there will be a virus battle. You can save scum, if you’re wondering.

Taking pictures of the whole thing would be pretty annoying with all the running I‘m going to do, (the sharks do not follow a set pattern; they just chase you if you get close) so I’ll just tell you the notable BMDs (the viruses here are all from Seaside).

The first area has another HPMemory in the bottom left corner, the second area has a RegUp1 on a raised platform and a Fast Barrier program (start the battle with a 1 HP barrier, is blue, can be compressed from a 2 x 3 shape to an L) also in the bottom left, and the final area has a HP +50 program (what it does is obvious, its white, and it’s a 2 x 1 shape) in plain sight.

Now then, Diveman!







Guess what his verbal tic is.



Diveman is only slightly harder than Blastman. See, the main thing about him is that he spends the battle mainly in submarine mode.

While he’s in this form, only certain chips can damage him. MachGun1 is one of these chips, so I couldn’t care less about it. More importantly, throughout the battle two torpedoes are constantly being fired down two of the rows. They’re fairly slow though, so no worries. After Diveman moves 3 panels though, he’ll rise up and do one of two attacks.



This one has him firing two… mines? Hell if I know. Anyways, he targets your panel and fires whatever twice at you.



This move is exactly what it looks like. A tidal wave strikes a 3 x 3 area. However, it never hits the back row so don’t worry.

By the way, all three moves but the tidal wave (and I’ve just never checked that one) can be Reflectored.



I get nailed by a torpedo, but I still S rank him. By the way, turns out I was wrong: you don’t have to S rank the boss to get the Zenny award. As you can see here though, I got 2000 Z this time.



Unlike Blastman, Diveman fought to the end and blows up. Megaman will then run up and set the Feeding Time chime to play, saving the day. If you’re wondering, only one person (the director) ever thanks him for this.

It’s not over yet though. Remember the operator?



How exactly did a man as well-built as he sneak past Lan when he was standing right there? Either Lan gets really focused, or Blackbeard really is a ninja. We then hear Mick scream. Run back over to see what’s going on.



Well shoot. Mick is being used as a human shield, and when Lan protests that that’s a dirty move, Blackbeard responds in perhaps the most hypocritical statement yet.

Blackbeard: Shut yer trap! Yer no saint yourself!

Blackbeard: I was goin’ to take over this town’s waterworks, and stop the water in all of Cyber City, but ye ‘ad to come and mess it all up.

You were going to do that and you say Lan stopping you was an act of evil.

I have no possible word to explain this man. Do any of you?

In any case, Blackbeard tells us that in order for him to do all of this, he had to ask for some favors from an “organization” (I have no idea why the game puts that in quotes), and Lan’s interruption has ruined his standing with them. Blackbeard then gives Lan a command:



Lan wants to know more about this “organization” but Blackbeard cuts him off by… punching Mick I guess?



Never fear though; the penguin brigade is here.




Oh Christ did he just get hit by an elephant seal? Is he okay? I mean, he was an ass and karma’s a fast female dog but that doesn’t mean it’s right to just ram a god damn elephant seal into him jeez.



Oh, wait, he’s okay. Guess things worked out.

Mick asks Plata is the latter came to save him and gets an affirmative. Needless to say, he responds with an insult.

Mick: “You stupid bird…”

I like to think he’s hugging the penguin.

In any case, afterwards Blackbeard is turned into the Net Police (who are late, as usual). Lan notes that this “organization” sounds suspicious, but he decides to let the Net Police handle it. Lan and Mick then spend the rest of the day helping to clean up the mess at the aquarium, with Plata spending the entire time at Mick’s side.



This is the only person who thanks us for saving Seaside Town IIRC. The Director tells us more about Blackbeard: he was the original animal trainer, but he wasn’t very good to the animals, which is probably what caused Plata to run away. Naturally, the Director fired him, but he didn’t expect the scale of the revenge to be so high. He then apologizes for dragging Lan and Mick into the mess, but they’re both okay with it.



Unfortunately, Plata refuses to let go of Mick.



So Mick pulls a dirty move.






Plata either throws a fit or starts crying (if penguins can do that). You decide.

Lan consoles Mick at Central park.



Lan then uses his brain for once and states the obvious solution.



This satisfies Mick.

Punk: I’ve received some new information…



Punk: have failed in their attack on Seaside Town.



???: It was just some crazy stunt he wanted to pull. A simple sideshow, so to speak… Tell me about the other unit members.

Punk: … Yes, boss. In order to revive “those things”, Yuika is currently out gathering NaviEnergy. She’s laying low now due to NetPolice activity. But once they’re gone, we’ll get all we need… Yuika will be able to revive and control “them” for sure.

???: I see… Yuika’s Navi’s body has been customized by the good Doctor. It might be possible to absorb “them” as well… Tell Yuika to press on no matter what happens…

Punk: Yes, boss!

After that ends, head back to bed and sleep.

Next time: Crosses! Name changes to avoid lawsuits! And the final part of LEETHAX!

Baryl is hot.

Also: Baryl is hot.

...

I have no idea how to respond to that statement.

The best thing about this game is how they finally upped the power of your Battle Chips after continually gimping them for the past two or three games. Heck you can put together a pretty good folder consisting of a single chip code before you even fight BlastMan!

Yeah, I like how you can get a lot of really strong *-code chips in this one, too. There's a lot of little tweaks like that that make MMBN6 interesting, like the variable restrictions on how many copies of a chip you can use, which makes the MB rating a lot more meaningful. Revamping the panel-breaking chips into actual attacks(and very effective ones) was a great idea, too.