The team arrives in Oran Area 3
◊, and the boss this time is...ugh, it's Shademan, who says that he's been revived thanks to the dark power. That asshole just can't leave us alone. At least he no longer goes “WHEEEEEE!”
Before we begin, Colonel takes pause to explain the function of the TP Chip that we just got, which is to basically swap one of the teammates for their Team Protoman counterpart (and vice-versa if this were that version), so Colonel to Protoman and Knightman to Magnetman. These swaps can be reverted at any time, and we can only swap once per Navi per liberation mission. We only have one TP Chip at the moment, but there are enough spread throughout the game to cover all six teammates. I don't see myself using this function because as I said in the introduction I prefer the Team Colonel Navis over their counterparts.
Now that we have a new teammate, better cover his skills. Knightman's skill is called Chivalry and it's two-fold. First, he can No-Sell all field attacks, and secondly if a nearby ally is being targeted by a field attack he'll jump in the way and take the blow, also No Selling it. Chivalry is thus very handy, especially since Shademan's field attack, which has him slash a team member for around 60 damage, not an insignificant amount at this stage, has infinite range. He can attack anyone at any time, and always targets whoever has the lowest HP.
Speaking of HP, this mission demonstrates teammates' set gradual HP growth. Colonel had 200 HP in the first mission, and now he has 300 (right now Megaman has 280 for comparison). Knightman, being big and bulky, has 400. The power of Colonel's Colonel Cannon chip has also been increased a bit.
Knightman's very situational combat-wise. For starters, he's slow. Unlike with every other Navi there's a small-but-noticeable delay in moving him around the field. His charge attack is Royal Wrecking Ball and his chip is Kingdom Crusher K, so he doesn't have much range. However, he is powerful and can break guards, so he's great when the enemy is boxed in, surrounding him, or just likes getting up-close-and-personal.
The dark panels are pretty dense at the beginning of the map, so we have to rely on Megaman and Colonel's skills to make headway early on. Thankfully Chivalry doesn't cost any Order Points, thereby freeing Long Sword and Screen Divide up. This is around the time that you'd want to start paying attention to how you want to go about liberating panels in the most efficient manner. Knightman is great for pulling off one-turn liberations when field conditions are favorable for him, and it's actually not too difficult much of the time for anyone to get a one-turn liberation when surrounded since fighting is in close quarters, and my newly-acquired Drill Arm chips tear through viruses at close range.
This mission introduces a new Dark Guardian, the Tin Hawk. Being flying enemies, Tin Hawks have a pretty big movement and attack range. They're pretty weak, and relatively easy to defeat in battle, but you want to be careful nonetheless. It's good to try to keep Megaman and Colonel as close to Knightman's protective armor as much as possible, for the Tin Hawks and Shademan will gleefully pick off stragglers.
Now despite my words above, my own progress through this mission is rather slow at first because I was having poor luck with those one-turn liberations, but after the first Dark Hole things began to go more smoothly. It's possible to get access to both the second and third Dark Holes at once thanks to Long Sword and then getting a one-turn liberation on that Big Brute that's sitting there. After that there're just a few more panels to hack through to reach Shademan. I really want to mash that guy's face in after the hell his Omega form put me through in the last game.
Shademan
◊
HP: 600
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Shade Talon – Shademan slashes the column in front of him for 80 damage.
- Red Wing – Shademan summons a small bat that behaves like a slow-moving ratton, traveling down the row and making a right angle turn to strike the target for 40 damage.
- Crush Noise – Shademan fires a sonic beam that hits the panel in front of him and the following column for 40 damage as well as paralyzing the target.
- Shade Drain – Shademan appears either in front of or behind the target and bites them several times, draining away a total of 60 damage and healing himself by the same amount.
A rather cathartic battle, since Shademan actually lets you fight him this time instead of relying on bullshit gimmickry. And it's not actually a bad boss battle either, as he has a decent variety of techniques and he's pretty speedy. You definitely don't want to get hit by Crush Noise, since being paralyzed during a liberation battle will waste your precious three-turn timer. The same goes for Shade Drain with the obvious additional caveat that he's getting a heal. I won't say that this battle absolves him of his bullshit in Battle Network 4, but it's a big improvement nonetheless.
Shademan satisfyingly goes kaboom and the mission is complete.
- Under 8: Shademan SP S
- 8-9: Shademan S
- 9+: 2000z
Shademan's chip is actually in a useable code now. It has him pull off his Crush Noise attack, just as before. If you combine its SP or DS version with two Pulsar 3's you'll activate the Big Noise Program Advance, which hits the entire field with a massive sonic beam for 400 damage that pierces invincibility and guards. I completed the mission in seven phases, so it's the SP chip for me.
Afterwards Pride and Knightman officially join Team Colonel, and Megaman gets his first Soul of the game, Knight Soul. The Double Soul system returns, and noticeably improved over what it was in the previous game. I'll save the rundown on Knight Soul for next update, since that's where the tutorial is.
After a brief scene of Lan and his friends saying farewell to Pride and departing Oran (right back to the closet of irrelevance for them), the screen goes black and we check in with Regal. He's now fully aware of the existence of Team Colonel and tells a roughed-up Yuuichiro that he better tell him what happened to some secret research, and electrocutes him when he says he doesn't know. Well it is Regal, but credit where credit is due, electric torture is probably one of the nastiest things anyone does in this series aside from attacking a hospital. And apparently our next foe will be Cloudman.
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