The next chapter picks up with Yuuichiro and a fellow scientist discussing the need to locating Gospel’s HQ. Their conversation is interrupted by an earthquake, which seems to be a rare occurrence thanks to something called the Environment System. And the two are soon informed that Electopia isn’t the only country currently getting hit by natural disasters. Yumland is experiencing flooding while Netopia’s ozone is thinning. And the earthquakes continue to hit…
So begins the longest, most backtrack-heavy scenario in the game. Lan and Megaman are shown discussing the earthquakes when they receive an email from Mayl asking us to help find Roll, whom she’s lost contact with. We also get an email from NAL Airlines, awarding Lan with the Free Pass as thanks for resolving the Magnetman incident, which will allow us to travel to Netopia whenever we want. Yep, a ten-hour flight whenever we want, no matter what’s going down. Gotta love Take Your Time.
Now, to finding Roll. Mayl’s email says that Roll should be in Yumland, so onto the Net we go. However, various parts of the pathway turn out to be blocked by ice. There are various colors of ice – white, red, yellow, and blue. At the moment we can only break white ice. Whenever the ice is broken, we have to fight a virus battle before we can proceed.
The problem with this scenario, aside from the general nonsensical premise, is the lack of direction. See, we’re actually not supposed to go make a beeline to Yumland in order to find Roll, despite that being the objective. In order to advance the plot, we have to instead head to Koto Area, and the only indication that this is what we’re supposed to do is by talking to an NPC in Den Area 2 who’s worried about what’s going on and asks if someone can go check it out. I habitually talk to NP Cs whenever I can, so it’s not so much a problem for me, but I imagine that the average player is trained to tune them out after a while unless explicitly ordered to speak to them, so it can be a problem. Once we get to Koto Area and free a Navi trapped behind a chunk of white ice, he’ll give us something he found as thanks, a Red Frag. Megaman notes that it’s emitting some sort of signal, and suggests that we go see Yuuichiro, since after all he’s our go-to guy for this sort of stuff.
To the Center! But not to Yuuichiro just yet, I’m gonna do some more jobs first.
Job 10: Detective job
The client is a man in ACDC park who wants us to find a certain black man. We can find him acting oh-so-suspiciously at Okuden’s dam. Returning to the client who reveals himself to be a detective and the man a fugitive, gets us a Twister Y chip.
Job 11: Sell me a chip!
This one’s as simple as they come. There’s a man in the Departure lobby of Den Airport who wants us to sell him a Catcher N. Catcher N’s can be easily obtained from the Red UFO viruses in the Airplane Computer. We’ll get 50000z in return. How generous!
While we’re here, going to the departure terminal reveals a familiar face: Mr. Match
◊, the WWW operator who set Lan’s home’s oven ablaze in the first game in order to get the Fire Program. What’s he doing around here? Absolutely nothing suspicious or wrong, of course! Despite the implied distrust on Lan and Megaman’s part, we can freely battle him and his new Navi, Heatman.
Heatman
◊
HP: 900
Element: Fire
Attacks:
- Fire Tower – Heatman sends a stream of fire down the field for 80 Fire damage.
- Heat Press – Heatman withdraws into his case to smash down on Megaman’s current location, dealing 100 Fire damage and turning the point of impact into a lava panel.
- Grand Burner – Heatman withdraws into his case and pillars of fire will shoot up from three random panels on Megaman’s field for 100 Fire damage.
Sadly I had to switch from my beloved Wood Style for this battle. Heatman’s not really that bad of a boss at the moment, but the lava panels that he creates can be a bit of a hazard if you’re not using a Fire Style. They will definitely cut down on your area of movement otherwise, and that can lead to difficulty dodging Fire Tower and Grand Burner. One thing to keep in mind is that whenever Heatman withdraws, he’s protected from non-breaking attacks. Fortunately he doesn’t stay inside his case for very long.
Winning gives us 500z.
After the battle Mr. Match gives us an HP Memory. He sure treats his past with Lan quite cavalierly, I must say.
We can also visit the plane too, since it’s been grounded ever since the hijacking, but there’s nothing really there to do at the moment.
Job 12: Help reconcile us
A boy in ACDC has had an argument with his Navi who then went off on his own, and we have to track him down and convince him to come back. We’re told that he has an A License, which is the game’s subtle way of telling us that he’s somewhere in Yumland. The Navi’s all the way in Yum Square. After finding him, talking to the boy yields an HP Memory.
Job 13: Fight crime
We have to help a Navi who’s being hounded by a criminal. He says that he’s in a phone somewhere, and the only phone in the game is in Yai’s mansion. Once jacked in, we can see that the client is being harassed by said Navi. Once we delete him the client gives us the Gospel Code item. This will allow us to open the rogue security cubes scattered around the Net, usually guarding goodies or a shortcut. Definitely worth it.
Job 14: Help research
For this we have to help a Navi in Ribitta’s van who’s studying Navi battle data. After several endurance battles, he’ll admit that Megaman’s data isn’t good for establishing a baseline since it’s so amazing, but he’ll still hand out a Power UP.
Job 15: Please help
For this one we have to go all the way to Netopia and meet a girl downtown who wants us to delete four Black Navis that have been stirring things up. They’re all located at Net Square’s entrance. After taking them all out the girl gives a Step Sword M as a reward.
While in Netopia there are two more things to do. The first is the next step of the trading chain: there’s an old woman who’ll give us a Big Bomb * in exchange for our Silver Fist V. The second is another quiz-giver in the Officials’ meeting room at Net Castle.
- Q1: What’s the popular announcer Ribitta’s TV show name? (DNN News)
- Q2: What’s the name of the quick, rat-shaped virus? (Ratty)
- Q3: What advance occurs when Spreaders are in alphabetical order? (Hyper Burst)
- Q4: What shape is Okuden Valley’s air-monitoring system? (Guardian)
- Q5: Where is the statue of the ancient Melpos god of war? (Yai’s house)
- Q6: A rooster stood on the peak of a barn. It laid an egg. Which side did the egg roll down? The left side or the right? (Can’t lay eggs!)
- Q7: Which has a more powerful attack? Lil Bomb or Heat Spread? (The same power.)
- Q8: What’s the name of Snakeman’s operator? (Mrs. Millions)
- Q9: What wood does the bath in ACDC Town’s largest house use? (Cypress)
- Q10: What’s in the trash can in underground Netopia? (Teddy bear)
Answering them all gets us an HP Memory and Gate Key C, which allows us access to the warp to Net Square’s entrance in Den Area 1.
Job 16: Lend me cash!
The client for this job is hiding out from debtors in Yai’s mansion. His company specializes in natural disaster relief and is about to go under and needs 50000z to stay afloat. Upon giving him the money, exiting the mansion and then returning, the man will pay us back 100000z, a 100% profit.
Okay, with all those jobs done it’s finally time to speak to Yuuichiro about what’s going on. He explains that the ice on the Net has apparently frozen the Environment System, which helps to suppress natural disasters. There are several types of ice as mentioned above, and “cure” items are needed to break them. With the Red Frag that Lan has, Yuuichiro is able to make Red Cure, allowing us to break the red (actually pinkish) ice. Too bad we don’t get a flamethrower attachment instead or something. That would be cooler. Yuuichiro tasks his son with going around and breaking as much of the ice as we can, as otherwise nature’s formally suppressed power will destroy the world.
This series has always been really squishy on the Moh’s scale and requires a fair amount of disbelief suspension, but the Environment System really stretches mine to the breaking point. I mean, I can somewhat understand a computer system being able to control rainstorms and stuff given the technology of cloud seeding, but how the heck does a computer control the tectonic movements of the Earth’s crust, or the thickness of the ozone layer? And apparently natural phenomena in the Battle Network universe follows a ying-yang principal given Yuuichiro’s warning that the world could be destroyed because all of the “bad” phenomena has been suppressed for so long. And of course, as the icing on the cake, once everything is resolved things snap right back to how they were before, with no further mention of the long-lasting effects that these natural disasters should be leaving behind.
Anyway, now that we can break the red ice we can now go rescue Roll. She’s at a dead-end trapped by red ice in Yumland 2. After making sure that she’s okay, head over to the nearby platform where Cutman V2 was to free a trapped Program. After talking to it, we’re supposed to go to Okuden and talk to one of the Programs inside the grill. He’ll thank us for helping his coworker and give us Heat Data as a reward. The game doesn’t do a thing to indicate what this object is for or why it’s important at the moment, but getting it now will save on some backtracking later.
To be continued…
Virus Listing
- Brushman
- These aren't Navis but rather viruses that can change panel types. On their side of the field they will create holy panels, while on Megaman's they'll make harmful ones like poison and lava.
- Popper
- These viruses usually stay high above the field before temporarily descending long enough to fire off a Wood Tower at Megaman. Popper 2's and Popper 3's are located very deep in the Internet and drop the rare Leaf Shield and Dropdown battle chips.
