A week passes and we find Lan wandering through ACDC, preoccupied about the Dark Chip now that the tournament is over with. He and Megaman talk about getting rid of it again, even mentioning how they could hand it off to Chaud, but once again decide to hang on to it since it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. You can practically see the hole getting deeper and deeper with each passing minute.
Well, Mayl then walks up to him, inviting him to check something out with her in Town Area to give us something to do, and then insists that he jack in from her house. Very well then, Lan’s been well established as being whipped when it comes to things being asked of him. And while it’s not part of the cutscene, we also get an email inviting us to participate in the game’s next tournament, the Eagle Tournament. This one will determine the strongest Net Battler in all of Electopia. Fun.
Speaking of fun, Higsby is now actually selling chips out of his shop again.
- Spreader L – 3800z
- Panel Return * - 4500z
- Life Synch Q – 5500z
- Geddon 2 N – 6800z
- Hi-Cannon C – 8400z
- Recovery 120 J – 10000z
- Long Blade G – 12000z
- Super Vulcan V – 21000z
Super Vulcan is a Mega chip member of the Vulcan series that shoots twelve shots, making it ripe for abuse. Panel Return is simply the Repair chip renamed, as this game has another chip called Repair that does something different (heals obstacles rather than restore panels).
So upon entering Mayl’s house she gives us Mayl Code so that we can access the Net from her homepage. We can get her shortcut link too, though there’s not much point in it since her homepage is always in the same area that Lan’s is.
Along the way to Town Area we can challenge the preset Alpha forms of Gutsman and Sparkman, found in the corner of the main plaza of ACDC Area 2 and the far dead end corner of ACDC Area 3 respectively. Gutsman’s chip has a different effect now that Guts Hammer is no longer part of his regular arsenal, though it’s not that much different. He smashes the ground, cracking random panels in front of him and dropping three rocks on top of enemies, at least one of which is guaranteed to hit. If you use the chip with an enemy directly in front of where Gutsman appears they’ll be hit twice, once by the hammer and once by the rubble. Sparkman’s chip has him hit the entire field with Spark Wave, and additionally blinds enemies, meaning that they won’t attack with any degree of precision.
Of course battling Alpha bosses this early can be dangerous as that then unleashes an even stronger version into the area’s random encounter pool as always, but Battle Network 4 takes this a step further, as beating them unleashes a boss’s Omega form instead of their Beta form, so one unlucky step and you can be screwed. In this game Omega bosses get a slight palette swap for some reason, like Sparkman Omega becomes green-tinted instead of his usual yellow and orange.
Anyway, we meet Roll along with a couple other Navis in Town Area 3 waiting for a promotion to begin. An amusement park, Den City’s first ever apparently, named Castillo is about to open and the park’s giving away a pair of free tickets to anyone who can survive a three-round virus battle. Roll gently prods Megaman into accepting the challenge, and of course we win.
Back in the real world Lan starts to ask Mayl what she’s going to do with the tickets when he’s interrupted by the sound of a dog barking. Only it isn’t a dog, it’s the house alarm next door (the doghouse doubles as a security system, as you may recall). Lan hurries home and finds Haruka lying on the floor in his room. Apparently someone broke in, gassed her, and left a threatening message telling Lan to bring the Dark Chip to Park Area 2 or else something worse will happen. Since Lan and Megaman are itching to get back at the perpetrator, in we go.
Park Area is the part of the Net that corresponds to Castillo, and it’s located just beyond Town Area. Once Megaman reaches the exit in Town Area 3 he finds a giant door blocking the way, since the Park Area is currently closed and off limits to non-employees. He tries to shoot down the door to no avail, only succeeding in attracting the attention of one of said employees, who understandably thinks Megaman’s an intruder and attacks him. After beating the guy Megaman finds the code for the door on him (RAEJDUK in case you were wondering) and strolls on in.
Park Area is gaudily-colored and has twisty pathways but it’s not all that interesting save for new viruses and a section of the path that doubles back to connect to a large area below the main path in Town Area 3. We can find a Navi hiding down there who’ll sell us something called Jet Parts for 3000z. We’ll need these things later in the game, so might as well buy ‘em now. Off another side path back in Park Area 2 is a Sub Chip dealer:
- Full Energy – 1000z
- Locate Enemy – 10000z
- Unlocker – 4000z
I’ve never understood why Locate Enemies always have to cost an arm and a leg…
The guy that we’re after is a Heel Navi that you can’t miss just past the beginning of Park Area 2. Once we defeat him we learn the name of the evil organization that’s after us – the Dark Chip Syndicate Nebula, and their plan, as par the course for this game, is to spread darkness around the world and plunge it into evil. Whatever that means. Instead of insisting on the Dark Chip again, the Navi promptly jacks out. And Lan once again resolves to not get rid of the Dark Chip, despite having even more incentive to do so.
As a final note, it appears that running away a was poor life decision for the Heel Navi and his operator, for the next scene depicts Shademan toasting the two with his sonic beams for their failure. Heh.
Virus Listing
- Gaia
- Returning from Battle Network 1, these immobile stone statue viruses are normally colored gray and block all non-breaking attacks. Eventually they will drop this form to smash the ground with a hammer, cracking random panels and dropping debris on the field.
- Moloko
- Molokos are cute little sheep that perpetually charge ahead. Their thick wool protects them from attacks but it can be sheered off with a few points of damage, exposing the sheep underneath to damage.
- Dharma
- Dharma's shoot air hockey pucks that bounce around the field, ricocheting off of corners as it flies.
- Weather
- Weathers look like Japanese teru teru bozu dolls. They drop down from above an unleash an elemental breath attack on the panel before them and the following column. Their breath can leave behind lava, grass, ice, or cracked panels depending on which element they used.
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