Now that we finally have all six Souls and the Soul Complete icon we can open the door in Undernet 4 and access Undernet 5. Three points of interest in Undernet 5, the first being the final merchant of the game:
- HP Memory – 30000z
- HP Memory – 50000z
- Meta Gel K – 14000z
- Anti-Navi M – 16000z
- Bug Chain C – 22000z
- Attack + 30 * - 28000z
Secondly, this is where Laserman Beta can be found, towards the northwestern corner of the area. His chip has him fire a laser down one row that has the same anti-Navi Customizer effect that his Disruption Beam attack does.
Finally, there is a door blocking off a ramp that can only be opened if we have the “S-ID.” Obviously this means that we have to collect all one-hundred-and-fifty Standard battle chips, upon which the Standard Complete icon (abbreviated to the rather unfortunate “STD Comp”) will be added to the title screen. At the top of the ramp is a statue, one of a very familiar adversary, Bass. The series might have undergone something of a retooling, but Bass will always remain a postgame super-boss. The statue starts to glow, reacting to the darkness inside of Megaman, and Bass himself awakens. Once more, it's time to do battle with him.
Bass
◊
HP: 2000
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Buster Rake – Bass shoots an extended, rapid-fire volley of shots that hit random panels on Megaman's area for 100 damage per hit.
- Hell's Rolling – Bass sends two wheels of energy down the field towards Megaman for 200 damage.
- Dark Arm Blade – Bass appears either in front of or behind Megaman and slashes him several times with dark energy for 100 damage per hit. If he appears in front of Megaman he'll attack with a Long Sword-ranged slash and if he appears behind him it'll be a Wide Sword-ranged attack.
- Darkness Overload – Bass moves into Megaman's area and fires a massive blast of energy that hits and cracks the back two columns for 300 damage.
Bass has been completely revamped for the latter half of the series. He's much faster and his attacks are more vicious. Gone are the old standbys like Airburst, Shooting Buster, and Earthbreaker. Buster Rake is his new main attack, and it is definitely the most deadly addition to his arsenal as it packs a punch and is very difficult to dodge, even if you resort to spamming pause to see where it's about to hit. You pretty much have to plan your defense around it. Dark Arm Blade is similarly fast and I've never been good at dodging sequential attacks that hit from usual angles. Darkness Overload by comparison is easy to dodge as long as you see Bass's charge-up, but the cracked panels make the Air Shoes program mandatory for this battle. Hell's Rolling is probably his least-deadly attack since it can easily be stopped by obstacles or broken panels.
He no longer has Life Aura, but that really doesn't matter, as now he cannot be damaged at all when he moves, and his movement pattern is much more erratic than it used to be. About the only mercy the new Bass gives is that it's relatively easy to knock him out of attacks and to score counters.
Winning gives us our third Giga chip, Bass X. Bass appears and uses Buster Rake, meaning that attack multipliers are the way to go with this chip. Or even just using Area Grab to shrink the enemy area so that they get hit by more shots. Blue Moon players get Bass Anly X (don't ask me what “Anly” is supposed to mean) which has him shoot four Hell's Rolling wheels for 160 damage apiece.
Afterwards Bass notes that Megaman's Dark Soul has given him an idea as to how he can become stronger: by immersing himself in even greater darkness. After giving us this hint on how to have an eventual rematch with him, he vanishes with a swish of his cloak.
Now that Bass has been defeated we can get to the postgame area, accessed via the giant dark portal in Undernet 6. To be able to get in, we need to collect the five “Evil” Chips: Element Dark, Anubis, Muramasa, Black Wing, and Bug Charge. The first one is the simplest one to obtain, as it's simply dropped by the Elamperor EX virus.
The next three are held by Heel Navis who'll appear in Undernet 5 following Bass's defeat. All of them have a ten-round survival battle waiting for us, all of which can turn into complete clusterfucks due to the imbalance that I complained about in the previous update. But by persevering through we obtain three more Mega chips.
Obtaining the final Evil Chip is a little different. Bug Charge is the fourth Giga chip of the game, and it can only be found inside Mystery Data that'll appear in-battle when fighting Shademan Omega or Laserman Omega. As always with in-battle GM Ds you just gotta win without it being destroyed. I find this much easier to do with Laserman than with Shademan. Like the other Evil Chips, Bug Charge can only be used by a tainted Megaman, and it has Megaman fire a blast into the enemy area that does more damage for each bug he's infected with. Blue Moon players get Bug Curse instead, which I think just transfers any bug Megaman's inflicted with over to the enemy.
So with these five new chips in our possession the portal sucks Megaman down with a gurgle. Welcome to Battle Network 4's postgame area, Black Earth, and just like all other aspects of Battle Network 4 it's pretty underwhelming. The WWW Area and the Secret Area all had a lot of stuff to do and find – Black Earth does not, and it's textures are recolored and copy-pasted from the regular Undernet. It doesn't even have a single unique enemy. The closest it gets are Navi Shadow and Navi Black enemies, which are just nerfed shadow versions of Normal Navis and Heel Navis that can only be hurt by sword chips.
Some of the Mystery Data is at least okay. The GMDs contain the DS Navi chips of the shared-version bosses, and there's a BMD with Life Aura D, the final non-Navi Mega chip that I need in the library. The layout is a maze, but the only obstacle is a gate that seems to require all Navi chips to open. “Seems to” because while the wording implies such I'm able to open it without the version-exclusive DS Navi chips, so I don't know if you need both the regular and SP chips, which I have, or just any one of each Navi's chip, regardless of version. Well, either way the path beyond the door leads to Black Earth 2.
Black Earth 2 is a giant spiral. Barring the way are a series of six mirrors. Each of them throws us into a battle against one of the DS versions of each version-exclusive boss. Battle Network 4 finally gets around to including the boss rush.
Gutsman DS
HP: 1300
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Guts Machine Gun – Gutsman fires a rapid volley of buster shots down a three-panel-long range for 150 damage.
- Guts Quake – Gutsman smashes the ground with his hammer, cracking one random panel and dropping three rocks onto Megaman’s area for 200 damage.
- Guts Punch – Gutsman moves up to his front column and punches the panel in front of him, knocking the target back a panel for 200 damage.
- Rocket Guts Punch – Gutsman shoots one of his fists down a two-panel range for 200 damage.
This rematch goes by swiftly because now I'm using the folder that I used to S-rank the Omega Navis, which is built around the Air Hockey series. The Air Hockey series can be very powerful (and cheap, but who cares at this point?) when set up correctly and with Light Megaman's penchant for easy Full Synchro.
Winning gives us Gutsman DS G.
Fireman DS
HP: 1400
Element: Fire
Attacks:
- Fire Arm – Fireman shoots a sustained blast of fire down one row for 200 Fire damage.
- Fire Tower – Fireman creates a series of flame bursts that travel down one row while tracking Megaman’s movements for 200 Fire damage.
- Fire Bomb – Fireman fires two bombs into Megaman’s area. They explode upon impact, leaving behind rings of flame that deal 100 Fire damage.
Air Hockey.
Winning gives us Fireman DS F.
Roll DS
HP: 1300
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Roll Flash – Roll appears in front of Megaman and smacks him with the antennae on her helmet several times for 40 damage per hit.
- Roll Arrow – Roll fires an arrow down one row that deals 120 damage and destroys any chips or Program Advances that are in Megaman’s queue.
- Roll Dance – Roll quickly teleports to another panel, taking no damage from an incoming attack.
- Roll Charm – Roll summons a Mettaur 3, Vulgear, Gaia Mega, or Killy virus to the field.
Air Hockey.
Winning gives us Roll DS R.
Windman DS
HP: 1300
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Bird Rush – A flock of birds swoop down the field for 200 damage per hit.
- Propeller Bomb – Windman sends out several floating bombs towards Megaman that behave like slow-moving Rattons and deal 200 damage.
- Whirlwind – Windman throws out several small homing tornadoes at Megaman that behave like boomerangs and deal 200 damage per hit.
- Monsoon – Wind will constantly be blowing, either blowing Megaman to the back of his area or pulling him to the front depending on direction.
Pit Hockey.
Winning gives us Windman DS W.
Thunderman DS
HP: 1300
Element: Elec
Attacks:
- Elec Beam – Thunderman fires a bolt of lightning down one row for 200 Elec damage.
- Thunderbolt – Thunderman calls down three bolts of lightning that track Megaman’s movements and deal 200 Elec damage per hit.
- Storm Cloud Thunder – The cloud that circles the field releases a ball of electricity whenever it aligns with Megaman, dealing 80 Elec damage and paralyzing him.
Air Hockey.
Winning gives us Thunderman DS T.
Searchman DS
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 250 damage. These shots can pierce through invisibility.
- Search Grenade – Searchman hides in a foxhole and lobs three grenades into Megaman’s area that explode in a plus shape for 200 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 200 damage.
This asshole managed to hit me with Life Sword, but luckily I still had enough HP left to finish him off before he got me.
Winning gives us Searchman DS S.
With all of that done I now have all of the Mega chips, and thus the Mega Complete icon is added to the title screen. Now that all of the mirrors are destroyed we can access a PMD with the Giga Folder + 1 program and the Bug Frag Trader, which is kind of useless now because Bug Frags can't be farmed like they could in Battle Network 3 and also because at this point I have all but one Giga chip left in the library.
Continuing to follow the main he end of the area, where a giant mirror dubbed The Mirror of Truth, which can reflect the hidden natures of those who gaze into it, resides. Upon looking at it Megaman's Dark Soul is spawned, and so we have one more battle to take care of.
Megaman DS
HP: 940
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Mega Buster – Megaman DS fires a buster shot that deals 4 damage.
- Charge Shot – Megaman DS fires a buster shot that deals 40 damage.
Videoman SP + Attack + 30.
After defeating the Dark Soul again the mirror bestows upon us the Soul Cleanser program, which speeds up the purification process should Megaman be tainted. Meaning that it's useless to me as I still haven't used a single Dark Chip in this entire game so far. Next to it though, a Megaman composed of pure light appears next to the mirror, and it gives us the Hub Batch program.
Only it's basically useless too since all it bestows in this game is Custom + 1, all three of the Shoes, and Fast Barrier. It's enormous as well, and shaped in such a way that it's impossible to rotate it any.
The only thing left to go in Black Earth is to jack out and return, for now Bass Omega can be fought as a random encounter in the second area. If you S-rank him, or simply have Collect equipped, he'll drop the final Giga chip, Black Barrier. Black Barrier is a 500 HP barrier (not aura, mind) chip that'll regenerate if it's taken out. In Blue Moon Bass drops Delta Ray Edge, with Protoman hitting the enemy up to three times, room and button pressing permitting. The Giga Complete icon will be added to the title screen, as well as the Bass icon for defeating Bass Omega.
Afterwards, there's only one thing left to do in the game, and that's to fill out the Program Advance memo for the PA Complete icon in order to unlock the final, super-duper boss. That would be Duo Omega (I made the “Dup” typo again!!), who's been buffed up to 4000 HP. And he's also been blinged-out with gold plating. Probably my favorite of the Omega palette swaps in the game. Beating him gets a "Thank You for Playing" screen with the version-exclusive Navis after the credits, and the knowledge that I probably could've spent these nearly-sixty hours playing a better game.
That's the end of Battle Network 4. It's done. Over with. Finished. The end. Battle Network 5, a much better game thankfully, will be coming in the near future, but Shin Megami Tensei IV's probably going to eat up most of my upcoming gaming time. So I think I'm going to take a little break to recover and recharge my Megaman batteries after this. Until then.
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