Our final opponent for the Red Sun Tournament is Coldman, from Sharo. Lan isn’t accosted by Coldman’s operator directly, but he soon overhears him, a large man wearing a massive parka named Ivan Chillski
◊, complaining about how hot the place is. Instead of just taking his parka off he says that he’s going to cool the place down himself and walks off. Soon enough Lan notices that the temperature inside the Coliseum is beginning to drop and a scientist hurries over to him to ask for help. Coldman seems to be generating snowmen in Netopia Area, thereby cooling the Coliseum down. The tournament staff is too intimidated to do anything, so like always it’s up to us to set things straight. Coldman is pretty easy to find, he’s near the exit to Sharo Area, fittingly. Surprisingly he agrees to stop chilling the Net without a fuss, though Chillski comments that he’d like some “natural cold.” Anyway, that was the shortest tournament scenario ever, back to the –
Oh for crying out loud, as soon as Lan steps outside of the hotel we see that a freak blizzard has suddenly descended upon Netopia! He gets a news bulletin on his PET saying that the culprit behind the blizzard is a cold front from Sharo, and that the weather satellite put up by Sharo’s Space Center seems to be malfunctioning. Oh when will the denizens of the Battle Network universe realize that artificially controlling the weather is a bad idea? For what it’s worth Lan puts two and two together and figures that Chillski and Coldman are behind this and declares that they need to do something lest the tournament get cancelled. Which means it’s another instantaneous plane flight to Mother Sharo.
The area of Sharo that we can visit consists of a quaint, snow-locked village and the giant Sharo Space Center. Right inside Lan finds a scientist lying on the floor, and he explains what’s going on: Chillski used sleeping gas to knock out all of the employees so that he could send an unauthorized signal to the satellite. To set things straight, the heating systems of four antennas outside must be activated, but there are several hoops that we have to jump through to do so. First we have to shovel away snow to actually reach each antenna, necessitating borrowing a snow shovel from a native and mashing buttons in front of the snow. Then once we jack in, we have to destroy snowmen that are scattered about, and they are of course animated by viruses. Finally we have to sacrifice a Fire chip to light up some torches, but each antenna requires a specific chip, namely Heat Shot C, Black Bomb Z, Heath Breath K, and Flame Line F. All of them can be farmed from viruses (or bought at the Netopia Area shop in Heat Breath’s case), but Black Bomb Z can only be found in a PMD in Sharo Area (and Higsby’s chip ordering system afterwards).
Now while all this is happening, Lan’s internal body temperature will be falling, as shown by a counter in the top right corner of the screen. Once it gets too low, he’ll no longer be able to send Megaman battle chips, and if it gets even lower, he’ll pass out and die from hypothermia. Well, no, he’ll magically reappear back in the lobby of the Space Center, but you get the idea. Going inside like that will bring his temperature back up to normal. Fun stuff.
Elsewhere in the Center we can jack in to a console on the ground floor to access Sharo Area, and a Navi will give us Sharo Code for free so that we can open the security cube. Up on a higher level is a display of the Earth and Moon that can be jacked in to to access the Space Center’s homepage. This connects to the Undernet, of all places, but we can’t open the security cube yet. Anyway, after all of the torches are lit we get a phone call from the scientist guy saying that things are a-okay, though it’ll take a little bit for the blizzard around Netopia to dissipate. His call is quickly followed by an angry one from Chillski, who promises to flatten us at the tournament. Yeah yeah, what a bag off hot air. Back to the Coliseum we go.
Coldman
◊
HP: 800
Element: Aqua
Attacks:
- Ice Shooter – Coldman creates three ice cubes on the column in front of him and pushes them into Megaman’s area for 50 Aqua damage.
- White Breath – Coldman opens the refrigerator on his chest and expels three puffs of cold air that drift into Megaman’s area and deal 30 Aqua damage on contact.
- Iceberg Press – Coldman leaps into the air and comes down on Megaman’s current panel, cracking it and dealing 50 damage.
Coldman is a lot easier to fight in Blue Moon than in Red Sun since there one can just spam Junk Soul’s charge attack to hit him with his ice cubes for lots o’ damage. Can’t really do that here, so I just choose to be cheap and execute the Area Grab + Life Sword combo as he sticks to the back column. The ice cubes, much like Burnerman’s gas cylinders, provide a handy target for the Hyper Burst, Heat Spread, and Bubble Spread Program Advances.
Chillski naturally gets pissed when he loses and attempts to storm off, complaining that Net Battles are just games and that people shouldn’t take them so seriously. Attempts to, because an Official shows up to arrest him for messing around with the satellite. Whew, given the game’s track record with the Red Sun opponents up until now I was expecting him to get off virtually scot-free. And they’re going to hold him in Netfrica, to boot!
So yay, Lan’s now the world champ. That’s cool I guess, but I also get the feeling that something’s been missing for some time now…what could it be…? Instead of being awarded with yet another trophy, a helicopter, or at least its shadow, appears over the arena and drops down a rope ladder for Lan to grab on to. The tournament staff explains that they’re from NAXA, and that they need his help.
Oh, that’s it! The plot!
Comments
