With the use of the Study Wave retired and the commotion with Libra behind them Geo continues going to school, with Luna and her group making sure to drop by his house every morning just in case. But you can see that Geo's actually starting to enjoy school, as his mugshot's expression has been tweaked a bit to appear less surly than it did before. After the scene of the gang walking to school control is returned to us in the entrance foyer so that we can check out some new email. One of them is from Sonia, wondering if we're all right after the Libra Scales scenario, while the other is from Dragon Sky detailing a new mechanic: the Best Combo system.
Back when we were going over the personal page at the beginning of the game I compared Best Combos to Program Advances. They follow similar structures: high-powered attacks made up of multiple components. However, while Program Advances were preset, Best Combos are freely assembled by the player. If you manage to pull off at least three-hundred damage on an EX or SP boss in a single turn Dragon Sky will save the combo of cards used (excluding Mega and Giga cards) and it can then be named. Then, if we go to AMAKEN's roof we'll see a fellow named Legendary Master Shin
◊ (Though we never get to fight him he's basically Mr. Famous as far as role goes, down to being based off of one of the staff members. In the first and second games you could become Brothers with him by downloading his Brotherband data from the Nintendo WFC) who will convert a registered Best Combo into a special battle card for 3000z. When used in battle these “Legend” cards will fire off whatever the recorded combo is. You can only have a few Best Combos registered at once and only one Legend card in a folder at one time, so it's important to have ones in mind for different scenarios. It's a feature that deserves plenty of experimentation for they can get very powerful if employed correctly. One Best Combo I remember having in the past was to first use Sticky Rain 3 to deal damage, then Freeze Knuckle to freeze them, and then following up with Break Sabre for double (400) damage, and then repeating those two attacks. That's over 1100 damage, not even taking the Sticky Rain 3 into account, and then factor in the double damage if you use it on a Fire boss and well, you get the idea what kind of potential Best Combos have. Since SP bosses in this series tend to have a lot of HP, figuring out how to get the most out of stuff like this is essential if you want good busting ranks. The only downside is that each Legend card is one-use-only.
Oh, and you also get to come up with a name and one-liner for each combo which can be fun. Real Brothers can register one to give their Brothers the option of using it when their Brother card comes up.
Before heading to class we can find a small wavehole on the piano on the gym stage now that the play set is taken down. Inside is a Power Song card. Meanwhile, Libra Scales EX is found on 5-A's wave roads, and his card attack is Libra Swing, dealing a hit of Fire and a hit of Aqua each.
The school day proceeds without incident, though at the end of the day Mr. Shepar asks Geo to see him in the studio, but he insists that it's not for anything bad. When we get there we see that Mr. Shepar's meeting with Copper, who's still on the trail of Z waves. He's started to notice the trend of Z wave-related incidents cropping up in Geo's wake but when he still denies knowing anything Copper decides to tell him the truth: Z waves are really invisible aliens composed of EM waves that take people over! Naturally Geo's the last person who needs to be told this, but of course he has to play dumb while Mr. Shepar laughs the detective's bombshell off. Unlike Bud I guess he couldn't even remember being taken over by the scale-alien. Realizing he kind of blew it there Copper allows Geo to run along, with Omega commenting that the stubborn detective's likely going to tail them even more from now on. Great, says Geo.
We're free to leave, but the game doesn't tell you until you try leaving the school that Geo's supposed to go back to his classroom first. There, Luna asks what Mr. Shepar wanted with him, and upon being told that it isn't her business her rebuke is that he won't be making many friends with that attitude. Bud and Zack enter the classroom, uncharacteristically silent. Why? Because they're not Bud and Zack at all, just guises for these weird energy monster things. Geo and Luna run to the other side of the classroom where a voice calls out to them, and putting on the Visualizer reveals our friend the persistent Jammer, using these “EM humans” to extort the Andromeda Key from Omega. Since Geo can't Wave Change with Luna in the room (who by the way can't see or hear the Jammer, obviously) he decides it's best to flee the school. There's an EM human at the entrance too, so that plan's also a bust. Eventually Geo stashes the confused Luna in one of the first floor classrooms, freeing him up to find a wavehole.
This interlude's weird, to say the least. It's implied that the Was Once a Man trope is in play with the EM humans, but no one seems to care or notice. If this were a darker series, the strange, sudden absence of everyone at school would be explained by them being converted but as it is they just randomly disappear and show back up once things are settled as if nothing had ever happened. Anyway, the Jammer's no longer in 5-A, so naturally it turns out that he's found Luna downstairs, where the EM humans' Z waves have brought her into the Wave World too. All things considered she takes her second trip there pretty well, though the arrival of Megaman probably has something to do with that.
The Jammer shows up, but since he's effectively using Luna as a hostage Geo's unwilling to fight despite Omega yelling at him to do so. He gets beaten up a bit and has to be bailed out by Sonia, come to help in her Harp Note form after picking up a HELP signal that I guess Luna must have been broadcasting. She destroys the EM humans, leaving us free to finally destroy the Jammer. He's weaker than he was before since he doesn't go in to his G form for some reason. As he explodes he gasps out an apology to his master, another FM-ian named Gemini. But whatever this new foe is up to will have to wait, for Geo and Sonia have to deal with Luna, who fainted at the sight of her beloved Megaman getting trounced. They take her back to her bed at her home within the condominium complex, where Sonia decides to leave so that things don't get awkward once Luna wakes up and says that she'll talk with Geo after this.
Not that it isn't awkward anyway since Geo still has t explain to Luna what he's doing in her room. Her reaction to him looking at her Transer for her address is familiar to anyone who's watched practically any anime within the last decade, but luckily for him her concern quickly turns to Megaman's well-being. Geo says that he's probably okay since they are too, but even this makes her snap at him, since he's apparently not taking Megaman seriously. When he asks if her parents are going to be home we finally get a little touch of insight on what's made Luna so Luna when she answers that they're always busy and rarely around. She insists that she's used to it and after thanking Geo for his help, or at least the help that she's aware of, she ushers him out and grumbles about getting so flustered.
Control's returned to us, and despite just being shown the door there's nothing stopping us from simply turning right around and going back in to the condo to go over every little nook and cranny for items and stuff. Since Luna lives in a more upscale building than her friends the area we can visit is larger than theirs and everything is well-furnished. Of particular note is a piano in her room and a huge display of recital and other event trophies set in to the wall. Combined with the note that she appears nervous and stiff in a family photograph, the road that this new scenario will take starts to form. Despite the size of the place there's only one object with a wavehole in here, Luna's vanity set. Pulsing in once we reach the place's wave roads nets us an Unlocker. That makes seven and I haven't encountered a single PMW yet. Heck, I'm not even sure if there are that many in the game!
Bud and Zack are naturally at their homes, and Sonia's waiting right outside ours. The reason she's come to Echo Ridge to begin with is to see Geo, actually. Specifically, to ask him out to go shopping with her on the weekend at a place called Nacy's in Time Square. No, we're not going all the way to New York, this Time Square is a shopping venue that we can reach by bus. After some mutual “it's so strange to go shopping alone with someone of the opposite sex” that leaves their FM-ian partners bemused the two agree to meet up there. Once Sonia departs it seems that Hope was listening in from the other side of the door since she comes out to tease her son over scoring a date with a cute girl. Star Force is a lot less “what's an XX chromosome?” than Battle Network was in this department.
After we go to bed the main conflict of this scenario rears its head. Returning to the Platz residence we see Luna's parents, Vaughn and Valerie if I remember right, in conversation over their daughter's future. They're both the snobby, high-powered executive types and are convinced that it's the fault of Echo Elementary and the people she calls friends for getting her involved in the commotion at school. It says enough about them that they don't even seem to care what the details of the incident are, they're just concerned about Luna being dragged down and her prospects suffering. So they make the snap decision to transfer their daughter out of Echo Elementary and into an elite private boarding school and then casually segue into a discussion about the aesthetic layout of an exhibition at their work.
The camera pans to show that their daughter has secretly heard everything.
Virus Listing
- Gooey
- Slime monsters with fountain spouts on their heads. They move low to the ground, out of reach, before erupting forth and shooting a deluge of water at Geo.
