To no surprise, the boss of the End Area 2
◊ liberation mission is Megaman himself. Knightman and Shadowman are rather surprised to see this when they join Colonel and Tomahawkman, but Colonel's more concerned about the field, since the dark panels are much more dense then they've been up until this point.
That's where Tomahawkman comes in. His skill is Tomahawk Swing, which allows him to liberate a 2 x 3 area of panels in front of him. Any items that were in those panels will be destroyed, but luckily the keys for the barrier panels will be okay.
In battle Tomahawkman will not recoil and he's as immune to paralysis as he was when we fought him. Since he's Wood, he'll regenerate HP on grass panels but the regeneration rate has been slowed way, way down, likely in response to how easy it was to exploit the effect in previous games. His charge attack is Tomahawk Air Raid, which does decent damage and is very good at hitting multiple enemies. His chip is Tomahawk Swing T, which is the basic Life Sword-ranged slash that he had before. Definitely a nice addition to the team.
This mission introduces the third and final Dark Guardian, the Bladia. Bladias are the old Swordy viruses on steroids, and they can be pretty nasty opponents. They stay in the back row and attack with sword strikes that damage and crack entire columns, and they'll even block attacks sometimes. Unless you have the Float or Air Shoes programs installed (which we don't because we're operating Colonel) these things are downright deadly if you're surrounded or cornered. On the field, they can attack any panel around them, and they can even generate dark panels of their own.
First order of business is to take out that Dark Hole at the start, a simple task with Knightman flailing away, and then to send Shadowman off to get the first key up in the corner. The mission actually ends up going by pretty quickly thanks to some strategic one-turn liberations. The damn Bladia in the final Dark Hole battles makes me run out of time once, but over all things go pretty smoothly once the second set of barriers is down.
One thing you have to absolutely keep in mind is to never, ever, leave anyone sitting right in front of Megaman unprotected. His field skill has him pelt anyone in range with buster shots for 150 damage each. That's a lot, needless to say.
Dark Megaman
HP: 800
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Mega Buster – Megaman fires a buster shot that deals 1 point of damage.
- Charge Shot – Megaman fires a buster shot that deals 10 damage.
- Cannon – Megaman fires a cannon blast for 40 damage.
- Wide Sword – Megaman slashes the column in front of him with a sword.
- Quake – Megaman throws a projectile that turns into a giant statue that crashes down three panels ahead, cracking it and dealing 100 damage.
- Dark Sword – Megaman charges up before swinging a 2 x 3 sword for 200 damage.
Just like the fights with Megaman DS in Battle Network 4, Megaman can, in addition to his own arsenal of basic chips, use any chip or Program Advance that the player has used in the game. Though, bizarrely enough I saw him use Air Hockey on me, which I'm pretty sure I haven't touched so far. Aside from sucker-punching the player with Dark Sword he's really a pushover since he has no defensive gimmicks unless he uses Barrier, or Invisible, or a Recovery chip by chance. With my very first Navi I was able to deplete over half of his HP.
Prize time:
- Under 9: Full Custom *
- 9-10: Anti-Navi M
- 10+: 4000z
After the liberation things go about the way you'd expect. Megaman tries to fight the darkness possessing him off, it tries to pull a Hail Mary, but with The Power of Friendship he drives it off for good and is returned to Lan's PET. Tomahawkman is so impressed with the display that we get Tomahawk Soul.
- Activated by sacrificing a Wood chip
- Megaman becomes Wood element
- Charge Shot becomes Tomahawk Swing
- If used atop a grass panel, a Wood chip deals double damage by absorbing it
- Upon activation all panels on the field will become grass panels
- Megaman cannot be paralyzed or confused.
Not too shabby a Soul, but since it relies so much on Wood chips I don't use it very often.
That is a wrap.
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