Leaving the school allows us to explore Lan’s hometown, ACDC. Before though, we get two emails. The first is from Yuuichiro, who says he’s made a Power Up program for Megaman, but since he can’t send it to us by mail he’ll bring it home sometime soon. Being one of the foremost scientists in the world, he naturally doesn’t spend a whole lot of time at home. The second email is from Ms. Mari, who explains that whenever Megaman is on the Net or in a device, pressing the R button will allow him to immediately return to the PET via ‘’jacking out’’.
All right, now we can explore ACDC. It’ll be our main hub for nearly the entire series. At the moment its main landmarks consist of a park and playground, a subway station at the far end, and Lan and his friends’ houses. Mayl lives right next door to Lan, while Dex lives next to the subway, and Yai is in a mansion close to the school entrance. Yai herself is standing right outside of her mansion, and talking to her will have her exposit a bit on the nature of Navis and how their programs allow them to feel emotions just like humans do.
Talking to various NP Cs scattered around gives us some minor exposition, namely that ACDC is a suburb of Den City, and that by examining objects we can find items and jack-in ports as I alluded to earlier. Whenever we find a device that can be jacked-in to hitting the R button will send Megaman into it. Whenever we do that Lan makes a show with whipping out his PET and leaping into the air whilst shouting: ‘’Jack-in, Megaman.EXE!! Transmit!’’ (later shortened to ‘’Jack-in, Megaman, execute!’’). Pretty over-the-top considering he’s just taking a USB jack and sticking it into a port. In fact, we can jack in to the dog house in front of Lan’s house, given that it’s really a security system. Inside we can find a Blue Mystery Data (basically the series’ version of treasure chests) containing Shotgun K.
Back at home we find that Haruka has hired a technician to inspect the home’s electronics as a safeguard against the recent rash of arson cases. A technician with a sinister look, red hair, and even a pointed goatee. Yep, nothing suspicious there. Haruka tells Lan to stay in his room until the man is done, and Megaman suggests that we go on the Net. Which we can do so by jacking in to his ancient-looking computer.
Once we leave the innards of Lan’s computer we’re on the Internet proper. I’ll be frank, the visual design of the Internet in this game is really bland and ill-thought out. Every area looks exactly the same and has nothing in the way of landmarks or labels, and while the first area’s layout isn’t that bad, future ones become incredibly convoluted. There’s no map, so it’s really easy to get lost. Net areas in future games are much more distinct and traversable, but for now we’re stuck with Web 0.1.
While we’re here though, I might as well explain Mystery Data and one more point in further detail. Mystery Data comes in three flavors in this game: green (GMD), blue (BMD), and purple (PMD). For now, green and blue are functionally identical – they appear at set locations on the Net, disappear once accessed, and regenerate upon jacking back in to an area. PM Ds only appear in separate “dungeon” networks, and are gone forever once accessed (in later games only GM Ds regenerate, and PM Ds appeared only in the general Net, and needed another item to be unlocked).
The second point are battle results and busting rank. At the end of every battle, a result screen will pop up showing how long you took to delete all enemies, your rank (1-10, with S being the highest), and your reward. The reward consists of either zenny, the game’s currency, or a battle chip taken from the enemy’s data. The higher your rank the higher the likelihood that you get a better and rarer prize. Getting a high busting rank is a matter of deleting enemies quickly and/or simultaneously.
Oh, and did I mention that you can’t run from battles? Because you can’t run from battles. The only way to flee battles is through the use of the Escape battle chip. Luckily Lan’s folder has one right off the bat, but seriously, who thought that that was a good idea?
Whew, that should finally be the end of most of the mechanics’ explanation for the time being. Quite a lot of it huh? Well, now that we’re finally on the Net, it’s time to do some exploring.
Just up ahead is Yai’s Navi Glyde who, in another one of those mentions to the Legends series that I mentioned before, shares his name with the loan shark Glyde introduced in The Misadventures of Tron Bonne. In what will set the tone for a good chunk of the series, he asks us to go on a fetch-quest, namely tracking down a program of Yai’s that has gotten itself lost. How can a program get itself lost? You’ll see. He gives us the @Yai item, which will allow us to access Yai’s personal network from the Net. Nearby is an access portal to Mayl’s network, but since we don’t have her address, we can’t access it yet. Further up the path is a platform that’s blocked off by a skull-faced energy gate that says we need an item called the WWW PIN to unlock. A number of these doors are scattered around Cyber World, and each of them guard goodies, but we can’t get to them until about three-quarters of the way through the game, unfortunately.
Not far past that the path splits, one way goes to Yai’s access portal, the other to Dex’s and the area’s exit, though it’s blocked off with a notification that says we need Dex’s permission to go through. Who made him all high and mighty to restrict Internet access, huh? There’s also a merchant nearby who sells the following:
- HP Memory - 500z
- HP Memory - 1000z
- HP Memory - 2000z
- HP Memory - 3000z
- HP Memory - 5000z
- Power UP – 2000z
- Power UP - 5000z
- Wide Sword K – 1000z
- Spreader I – 1000z
- Hammer A – 2000z
- Recovery 50 C – 2000z
- Cannon C – 3000z
Nothing that we can really afford yet. HP Memory items boost Megaman’s max HP by twenty. In each game there are always exactly enough to get him to an even 1000. Power UP items can be used to buff the Mega Buster, but we’ll get to that later.
The lost Program (basically a little green robot that handles miscellaneous operations) is just past the merchant. All we have to do is talk to it, and then double back and use the @Yai address at the appropriate place to gain access to Yai’s network. Glyde is just inside, and talking to him completes the little quest. He gives us a Spreader I for our troubles. Afterwards, we can head down the network’s spiral path to find a GMD containing Recovery 30 L. There’s nothing else to do now, so time to jack out and see if things are cleared up downstairs.
Virus Listing
- Cannodumb
- These viruses are immobile cannon turrets. They send a red cursor down one row and should they lock onto Megaman they fire a blast that hits the panel he's currently on and only that panel, so so they're easily dodged.
- Fishy
- These viruses rocket down the row when they align with Megaman. It's evolved form, Fishy 2, is Fire element and leaves a burning trail in its wake, making it much more deadly than a normal virus.
Soundtrack
- Boundless Network
- The music that plays when in the Cyber World. I personally find it just as beige as the rest of the Internet in this game.
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