Live Blogs Let's Play Megaman Battle Network 4

ComicX62013-07-12 19:52:05

Time for the final tournament scenario of the game: Searchman’s. Upon seeing who their opponent is Megaman mentions that he tried to do some info-gathering on him and came up with nothing. Not through lack of trying mind you, everyone was just too scared when the subject came up. Searchman’s operator doesn’t show up, so Lan decides to leave the Coliseum for now.

Once outside it is now finally Lan’s turn to be psychic as he suddenly senses a “threat.” This threat, malicious aura, what-have-you is coming from the operator, Raika◊ (probably supposed to be Laika after the dog) who soon shows up. He and Searchman are part of Sharo’s army, and they reappear in the Team Protoman version of Battle Network 5 as allies. In the anime he got the Ascended Extra treatment and became part of the show’s Power Trio alongside Lan, Chaud, and their Navis. Here he’s a dick who believes that Net Battles are equivocal to war and then punches Lan in the stomach for no reason.

While Lan’s on his knees Raika gets a phone call from the president of Sharo about an investigation of a Nebula hideout in the Undernet. He leaves and Lan decides to follow him back to Sharo for…some reason. I think this and Protoman’s scenario in Blue Moon are the only tournament scenarios that have anything to do with Nebula.

So e have to go to the Sharo Space Center where there’s an Official who’ll let us join the mission and even give us a key to where Nebula’s hideout supposedly is. Raika, oddly enough, even consents to Lan’s presence (at least over the phone). Annoyingly, despite the Space Center’s homepage connecting directly to the Undernet we have to go the long way around via Netfrica Area, meaning that we have to buy and assemble the parts for the C-Slider again. Once we do finally reach the Undernet we’re confronted with the scenario’s main gimmick: some unseen sniper is taking potshots at Megaman. Every few seconds a crosshair will lock on to him and you have about a second to press the indicated direction on the D-pad to dodge, otherwise Megaman takes a boatload of damage. We have to put up with this all the way to our destination, Undernet 6.

Man I hate Undernet 6. It always has viruses that are for some reason stronger than they should be for whatever playthrough you’re on, and they tend to have absolutely brutal formations, like Elamperor EXes and Cirsmash EXes, or Arachy EXes and Gaia Megas. What’s worse is at this point in Super Hard Mode every enemy attack deals two-hundred damage, no questions asked. The difficulty on some of these battle thus goes through the roof because these battles are horribly unbalanced and were in no way play-tested to check if they were.

Enough ranting. We have to use the key we got from the Official to open a door in Undernet 6. Beyond it await a group of Heel Navis and after a survival battle they all get shot by the mysterious sniper. The camera pans over to a pathway on higher ground to reveal that it’s…Searchman. He was using Megaman for target practice because…I dunno, because Raika’s a dick in this game. Also, man is Searchman big. His sprite uses proportions that are more in line with the first three games’ graphic style, so he appears to be twice Megaman’s height when he’s canonically only about a head taller. This is of course fixed when he was resprited for Team Protoman. Sigh, back to Netopia for the battle…

Searchman Beta

HP: 1500

Element: Normal

Attacks:

• Scope Gun – Searchman locks on to Megaman with his rifle and fires a series of shots at his current panel for a total of 200 damage. These shots can pierce through invisibility.
• Search Grenade – Searchman hides in a foxhole and lobs two grenades into Megaman’s area that explode in a plus shape for 120 damage.
• Satellite Ray – A crosshair sweeps Megaman’s area. Should it lock on to him a satellite will fire a laser at that panel, cracking it and sending shockwaves up and down the adjacent row and column for 120 damage.

Searchman’s pretty fast, or at least he is in Beta form. Aside from Scope Gun his attacks aren’t too threatening as long as the grenades don’t box the player in, but he plays a decent defensive game what with hiding in foxholes and there being two boulders on the field to provide cover. That aspect certainly makes the battle last longer than it would otherwise at this point in the game.

Search Soul◊

• Activated by sacrificing Invisible-attribute chips
• Charge Shot becomes the Scope Gun attack
• An option appears on the Custom Screen to “shuffle” the chip selection three times per turn

It’s nice that the final Soul of the game is actually usable. The shuffle option is great, making it very easy to put together Program Advances as long as you already have at least one of the components. Since this our final Soul, the Soul Complete icon is added to the title screen.

Searchman can be refought in Undernet 1. His chip attack is Satellite Ray.

That’s it, that’s the end of the tournaments. Farewell tournament scenarios, I won’t miss you. I can finally start working on the postgame.

Comments

Mysterion Since: Dec, 1969

Jul 13th 2013 at 11:22:55 AM

If this is how the officials treat Lan, it's no wonder he usually doesn't bother investigating Nebula in this game.

I'm beginning to think that Regal was supposed to refer back to scenarios like this when giving examples of mankind's evil, but this was removed when they put together enough scenarios that they had to randomly shuffle them.