Sometime after Lan and Megaman’s encounter with the Nebula Navi (the game probably specified, but I didn’t catch it – it’s likely the same day) he gets a phone call at home from Mayl. Oh right, they were about to talk about what to do with those tickets when the house alarm went off. What Mayl apparently has in mind (we’re only privy to Lan’s side of the conversation) is that the two of them could go to the Castillo theme park together, ostensibly as thanks for saving Roll, but it’s really an invitation to go out on a date. Lan of course is still stuck in the stage where he can’t imagine any sort of non-platonic relationship other than that of his parents, so it takes some prodding from his mother to get him to agree to go. So it looks like Castillo will be our next destination.
A short timeskip later and it’s the weekend, the day of the date, in fact. We get to greet the day with an email from Yuuichiro with more tutorial information, this time on the Navi Customizer which now becomes available. Yes, the Navi Customizer is back, but it’s sadly not as deep as it was in Battle Network 3 since Mod Tools and program compression have been removed. The color frame still exists, but since Styles have been retired instead of showing what color programs that Megaman can currently equip it instead serves to limit the number of types of colors he can equip at once to four. Everything else works the same as it did in the last game, and Yuuichiro once again starts us off with the Undershirt, Attack + 1, and Speed + 1 programs. He also throws in the Extra Folder Xtra Folder, but since I’ve already done the Sparkman scenario the Extra Folder tutorial doesn’t apply to me.
Incidentally, the game actually does justify why Lan didn’t have the Customizer from the start instead of simply going with the general Bag of Spilling trope and leaving it at that. Apparently Haruka took it away from him, and Yuuichiro’s just giving it back.
Before we take the Metroline off to Castillo, checking out Higsby’s reveals that the Number Trader has been set up next to the Chip Trader. The codes in this game are generally found simply by examining certain parts of the environment, so it’s important to stay vigilant if you want to find them and not simply go to Gamefaqs.
Castillo is probably the largest real world area in the game, or at least the one with the most ground to cover. Mayl’s already there, waiting by the ticket machines (which can be jacked in to for a Sub Memory) near the front entrance. The two go in together, after which you cannot freely leave, but it seems that there’s a problem in Castillo’s Center Square already, namely that none of the attractions are running due to, you guessed it, trouble online. Naturally Lan’s just the one to call for sorting these sorts of things out, and we can jack in to a nearby concession stand that connects to Castillo’s homepage, which naturally connects to Park Area. The homepage contains a merchant who’s selling programs:
- HP + 100 – 3400z
- Charge MAX – 4800z
- Shield – 5500z
- Fast Barrier – 6800z
- Mega Folder + 1 – 8000z
- Custom + 1 – 9600z
I’d spring for the Custom + 1 if I had more money at the moment.
Our destination is the very back of Park Area 3, a place that we will be visiting a lot in the future, where there’s a control panel for the park attractions. Some viruses have frozen (as in computer freeze, not ice freeze) the device, and after busting them things go back to normal in the park.
With that taken care of, Lan gets to experience one of the joys of dating: paying for your date, as Mayl suggests that they have some ice cream before going on the rides and Lan, being the guy, is the one who has to go get them. Well, there’s an ice cream stand in Mel Square, the back area of the park, and he’s able to get the ice cream for free since the vendor recognizes him from ACDC. And we can also jack in to the stand for an HP Memory. And there’s also a Sub Chip dealer lurking out of the way here:
- Full Energy – 1000z
- Locate Enemy – 10000z
- Unlocker – 4000z
With their appetites sated Lan and Mayl are shown going on all of the rides, only not really because the series’s “fade to black + sound effects/dialogue” method of storytelling kicks in during these bits. Each of the attractions are themed after storybook characters. Like for example there’s a castle attraction framed around a fairy tale called Princess Halberd (how’s that for a name!) and anyway, there are placards outside of each one detailing the corresponding story. This will be somewhat important in just a bit.
The only attraction that we can actually go into gameplay-wise is the haunted house in Mel Square which is based around the vampire hunter Django the Solar Boy. Yes, the same one from the Boktai series of games. From this point forward Battle Network starts including crossover elements with Boktai, allegedly because Hideo Kojima’s son was a big fan of Battle Network so he and Inafune worked out this little deal. I think Django is supposed to be a manga character in-universe.
The Boktai content is probably at its most pervasive in this game (you’ll see why later on) but it’s most long-standing contribution to the remainder of the series is the introduction of the Gun del Sol series of chips, the first of which can be found by examining a display of Django himself in the mansion. Based off of Django’s solar gun, the Gun del Sol chips are somewhat unique in their usage. By holding down the A button they’ll shine a three-panel-wide ray of sunlight two panels ahead of Megaman that rapidly drain away enemy HP. What really makes them useful is that if Megaman is jacked in from an outdoor location, the sunlight will drain HP twice as quickly. So to illustrate, Gun del Sol 1 by itself can drain away a maximum of 120 HP, but that number will be doubled to 240 if Lan is outside, and the later versions of the chip last longer to deal even more damage. This series can be very potent under the right circumstances, but they do have a downside in that Megaman has to be immobile while the light is shining, leaving him a sitting duck as the light does not cause an enemy to recoil. Still, they’re pretty useful overall, though I’ve admittedly never used them outside of Battle Network 4.
Now of course in Battle Network since we’ve visited a location that means that something bad is about to happen, and happen it does. Once out of the haunted house Lan finds the place in a panic – this time the animatronic character robots have all gone berserk, and the one of Princess Halberd (who’s wielding a giant axe, not a halberd) is currently terrorizing some kids in Mel Square, while the ones for the others characters are doing their mischief in the Central Square area. So Lan has to jack in to each one of them and set things right.
The way that each of these areas of the Toy Robot Computer work is that Megaman will ride a raft down a waterway to the end of the area where the control panel for the robot is located. Along the way the path will be blocked by giant tablets containing snippets of the story surrounding each character, and we have to go down side paths to retrieve data that fills in missing keywords to complete the story and have the tablets disappear so that we can move on.
The story for Princess Halberd is essentially a gender flip of the classic damsel in distress fairy tale with Halberd’s beloved, Prince Tomahawk, getting himself trapped inside a giant tree and her saving him. The second character’s story, Wiz Dog, is about a magician dog who gets his magic sealed by an evil mage but he’s still able to defeat him thanks to his animal instincts. The third character is called Tinman, and just like the Wizard of Oz character he wants something to give him humanity, in this case emotions.
The robot that goes out of control is of Dracky, the vampire from Django’s story. His area of the Toy Robot Computer is rather different from the others. Instead of the background depicting balloons and confetti, instead it displays bricks and bats. The music’s creepier, and the raft seems to be on a river of blood instead of just water. The story here has Django and his master, the sunflower being Otenko, break into the manor of the vampire Dracky in order to defeat him and save the vampire’s victims. Amusingly enough, the story ends not with Django saving the day, but with Dracky emerging victorious. Ending aside, I kinda doubt that’s how Boktai 1 went…
At the end of the Cyberworld there is no control panel waiting for Megaman. Why? Because the raft operator removed it, that’s why! In fact, he’s really Shademan, come to retrieve the Dark Chip personally. He also screwed around with the Boktai story so that the vampire won, the dastard! He says that his leader will be most displeased if he doesn’t get the Dark Chip, and he even reveals that, thanks to the fact that like a moron the two opted to hold on to the thing instead of getting rid of it something called a Dark Soul is beginning to form inside of Megaman. So Megaman tosses the chip towards Shademan…and destroys it with a shot from his buster. Infuriated, Shademan attacks.
Shademan
HP: 500
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Red Wing – Shademan summons three small bats that behave like slow-moving Rattons, traveling down the row and making a right angle turn to strike Megaman for 20 damage.
- Crush Noise – Shademan fires a sonic beam that hits the panel in front of him and the following column for 20 damage as well as either paralyzing or confusing Megaman.
Shademan is still invincible so this battle starts out just as futilely as the last one did. However, instead of ending after several turns a black chip identified as Dark Sword will appear on the Custom Screen, and look, it does 500 damage, exactly what we need to win, and it has Life Sword range too. So despite the creepy noises the cursor makes when hovering over it and the movement bug that it inflicts, using this is the only way to defeat the vampiric Navi.
In his dying moments Shademan reveals that that was a Dark Chip that Megaman just used. He says that it’s time for Megaman to embrace his inner darkness and then he dissolves into deletion, borrowing the effect from the anime. Megaman expresses concern over what he just did, but Lan expresses confidence that since they destroyed the Dark Chip they don’t have anything to worry about, despite the fact that the Dark Sword showed up after Megaman shot the chip handily disprove that.
Anyway back in the real world a member of the park staff expresses relief that everything was settled without causing too much commotion. Just as Mayl asks him if Castillo’s called the Officials, Chaud walks up, making one of his two short cameos in this game. He basically just here to exposit on what happened. Long story short, Nebula was behind this incident and the spread of Dark Chips, no one knows who their leader is, yadda yadda. He also provides a rather abridged explanation on Dark Chips-as-a-gameplay-element, which I will expand upon now.
So, whenever Megaman gets into the Worried state in battle from now on two Dark Chips will automatically appear at the bottom of the Custom Screen. Like Dark Sword, they’re basically all massively-beefed up versions of basic chips like Cannon and Minibomb. Whenever Megaman uses a Dark Chip in battle he will not only be inflicted with a bug of some sort, but he’ll also lose one point of HP. Permanently. He’ll also automatically enter the Evil state, in which he will be unable to use Souls and Dark Chips will continue to show up in the Custom Screen. Also, when Evil he’ll briefly go berserk and use random chip attacks for a brief time whenever he gets hit by an attack that would normally delete him, leaving him with only 1 HP afterwards, and this state only works once per battle. The more Dark Chips Megaman uses, the darker his body will become until it turns almost pitch black.
Now, what happens if you don’t use Dark Chips? If you don’t use Dark Chips after a lot of battles (usually around the endgame) Megaman will turn a lighter shade of blue. In this state he basically has the ability to enter Full Synchro more easily, which is downright deadly when combined with chips like the Vulcan and Air Hockey series. The point of this burgeoning karma system is that there are certain chips that Megaman can only use when his body is tainted, and ones that he can only use if he’s clean. On the surface, this is a pretty good karma system, instant gratification vs. long-term benefits, but there’s really no reason to go dark, since the light side perks are much better.
Speaking of the karma system, the way that Navi chips work in both this game and Battle Network 5 has been changed a bit. Instead of the V2 and V3 versions getting gradually more powerful on a linear scale they’re instead split into DS and SP versions. SP Navi chips an only be used by light Megaman and are gotten by S-ranking Navis as usual, but they get more powerful the faster the boss was deleted. The player’s fastest time for each boss and how much damage the chips deal can be seen via Megaman’s status screen on the main menu. DS Navi chips on the other hand, can only be used by dark Megaman. They can only be obtained through battle by either defeating the Navi while in the Evil state, or by S-ranking them with a dark hole on the field thanks to the Hole and Dark Line chips. They get more powerful the more open dark holes there are on the field. They can also be found via GMDs in the postgame area, nicely enough, so if you’re patient you don’t have to mess around with Dark Chips to fill out the Mega chip library.
Once Chaud’s explanation (which was considerably shorter than mine) is done he goes off to inspect the park with the staff, while Lan and Mayl decide to head home. Once they leave the screen fades to black and someone, presumably Nebula’s leader, is heard commenting to himself that while Shademan’s loss is pretty serious, the potential of Megaman’s Dark Soul was a fine discovery…
Virus Listing
- Trumpy
- Viruses in the Trumpy family stick to the back row and don't attack Megaman directly. Instead, they play a song that has a variety of side-effects depending on the version. Trumpys make allied viruses invincible. Tubys confuse Megaman, wreaking havoc on the directional controls, Trombys' songs immobilize him, while Mute Ants bind him and Xyloses heal allied viruses.
- MagTect
- These viruses flit back and forth before attempting to draw Megaman forward with a magnet and then whacking him.
Soundtrack
- Navi Customizer (Battle Network 4 ver.)
- I wonder if that indistinct "voice"in the background is supposed to be saying something? Subliminal messaging and all.
- Cielo Castillo
- They never actually use "Cielo" in the game.
- Dracky's Manor
- Creative song-titling strikes again.
- Story of Wonder
- This is the part where you throw up all that sugary candy and junk food you just ate.
- Vampire
- The exact same song as above, just with a slowed-down tempo to make it sound creepy.
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