The weekend rolls around and we start the day off with Luna, who's decided that if her parents are indeed going to transfer her she should at least try to spend her final weekend at Echo Ridge with her friends. But calling Zack and Bud doesn't lead to anything as they both have plans of their own, so Luna figures that she might as well contact Geo since not only does he not seem to ever do anything, but she thinks he'll be quite surprised at her personally inviting him since she can't simply call him up like the other two. But before she can bring herself to ring his house's doorbell she witnesses him leaving for his shopping trip/date in Time Square and wonders what he's up to. So, Luna basically decides to stalk him and see what's up.
Time Square isn't as bustling as its Big Apple namesake Times Square but it's still a nice little outdoor shopping venue. The theme of the place seems to revolve around a character called Mowai, a rounded moai statue whose countenance we can see on signs, statues, and the Moaian viruses that inhabit the wave roads. Sonia's waiting for us by a statue of a dog, but since there's a wavehole right next to her might as well pulse in first and explore the place. We can enter a revolving Mowa statue, a snack stand, and a signboard on the Nacy's building for two HP Memory 10's and 1100z. Speaking with Sonia gets things moving, and we're taken inside Nacy's, the only store that we can actually enter. It's a clothing/jewelry store with the floor we can visit containing clothes and accessories aimed at young women. And there's an igloo and penguin display for some reason. There Sonia introduces Geo to the classic male vs. female shopping attitude conflict of buying what you need versus buying what strikes your fancy, though she's not really much of a shopaholic herself, preferring to just window shop for now. There is something there to strike our fancy at least, and that's a new Card Trader, the Card Trader 5, which as the name indicates hands out one battle card for five.
Meanwhile Luna's followed the two inside and as you can imagine is rather taken aback at Geo being out on a date with the Sonia Strumm. When the PA announces the opening of a “Subtropical Zone” exhibit on the roof of the store she thinks to leave in case she runs into her parents (they're apparently the managers of the store, and that was the exhibit they were discussing before) but changes her mind when Sonia expresses interest in checking it out.
The roof is one elevator ride away, and though there are two small waveholes to find by examining some carnival-esque tumbler rides we can't pulse in here just yet because Geo doesn't want to literally disappear on Sonia. The Subtropical Zone exhibition is being held in a tropical hothouse towards the back of the area and going inside shows that it's pretty much a zoo exhibit. But there's only one kind of animal on display: snakes. Some of which are quite large. And poisonous. Did I mention that there's no safety glass or partitions between the trees and the walkways of any sort? This place is authentic sure, but certainly walking the legal safety line.
Sonia's at the back, looking at a robotic replica of a massive anaconda, and here's where things take a turn for the ugly. Not because the snakes get loose (that's still a few minutes away), but because Geo and Sonia encounter Luna, who's run into both of her parents. They're surprised to see her at first, but upon Geo acknowledging her they turn on him for being one of the “friends” that are supposedly dragging their daughter down. Not content with just that, Vaughn sticks his nose into his private affairs by saying that children have no business at pretending to be adults by going out on “date” together and the whole transfer thing comes out. Luna storms off in anger, her parents tell Geo to stay away from their daughter and depart, and Sonia and Lyra are justifiably upset at how they were treated. Omega tells Geo that he might have a bad feeling about this, and given past events neither Geo nor Sonia need this explained to them.
Outside Luna's declaring that she hates her parents, and right on cue the FM-ian Ophiuca
◊ (from Ophiuchus the Serpent-Bearer) appears to offer her power. Since she's seen this sort of thing happen several times already Luna insists that she won't fall for this, so Ophiuca jumps straight to the end of things by claiming that if she lets her inside, she'll be able to show her parents that she isn't simply a toy and stop them from transferring her by showing them her will in a crystal-clear manner. Geo and Sonia burst out on to the roof to stop her but they're too late. She Wave Changes into the lamia wave being Queen Ophiuca and enters the hothouse's Wave World. Omega and Lyra discuss that this is bad since Ophiuca can control snakes and naturally the hothouse's alarm begins to ring. Back inside we go.
Only to find a bunch of loose snakes blocking the way. There's an alternate entrance in the form of the antenna outside, so it's time to pulse in and do a bit of exploring. First of all we can now access those two rides on the roof for a Jet Attack 3 and Moai Fall 1, and a new Mega Weapon, Paralyzer, is within a BMW on the wave roads. Entering the hothouse through the antenna lets us bypass the snakes at the entrance and exit through a large wavehole that's further in.
At the back of the exhibit we see that Queen Ophiuca has two boa constrictors busy crushing her parents. When Geo calls out to Luna she declares that she's thrown away that identity to show her parents that she is not their toy to play with. When Valerie manages to gasp out a demand for an explanation Queen Ophiuca says that the pain she's feeling now is nothing compared to her own, being seen only as a toy to play with and being forced to live as a stranger in her own house. Geo tries calling out again, so Queen Ophiuca charms a venomous snake to attack him. Geo's Plot Armor sees him through, but Sonia isn't quite as lucky and gets bitten and immobilized by its poison so that she can't participate in this scenario any more. By now the snakes are starting to escape the hothouse and getting into Nacy's, so we need to figure out a way to stop them so that we can prevent any more injuries. Well, talking to Professor Snake (a kooky guy in safari gear who's supposedly overseeing the exhibit) yields the suggestion to lower the temperature to take advantage of the creatures' cold-blooded nature. To do that we have to find the worker who's in charge of the hothouse's maintenance, who's supposedly hiding somewhere that snakes won't go.
That somewhere is the igloo display inside the store, but of course it's not that simple. No, for some reason Geo can't simply step up on to the display stage. No, instead we have to pulse in from the roof, enter the store's Wave World via another antenna, traverse the wave road until we find an exit wavehole that dumps us on the stage, and then talk to the guy. He hands over the card that controls the hothouse's thermostat, and it contains yet another Navi: Thermoman. Cool beans.
Of course now Geo has to pulse back in any walk all the way back to the hothouse's wavehole due to the mechanics of the Wave World. Do wave beings get blisters?
So back at where Queen Ophiuca is busy having her parents constricted we can activate Thermoman, and his little minigame just consists of touching the button of the desired temperature, hot or cold. Dialing down the temperature lulls the snakes to sleep, though the ones constricting Vaughn and Valerie still hang on. But we can now access another wavehole so that we can reach and pulse in to the giant robotic anaconda in order to pursue Queen Ophiuca.
The Robo Snake Computer is designed to resemble a jungle and it's pretty simple. Each area is blocked off by iron gates, and the Hertzes tasked with opening them are currently incapacitated with poison. So we have to explore branch pathways to find the antidote. While on these pathways giant snakes will burst out of the bushes lining the path and chase Geo for a little bit, so these side paths turn into Corridor Cubbyhole Runs. If Geo does get hit by the snakes he'll be poisoned too and gradually lose HP until the gates are opened. It's a pretty quick dungeon.
At the end's Queen Ophiuca, and she's pulled Vaughn and Valerie into the cyberworld too. Ophiuca says that she took over Luna in order to draw out Omega, but instead of demanding the Andromeda Key like all the other FM-ians she instead suggests that they work together to steal Andromeda away from the FM King. Nope, ain't happening. Fighting time instead!
Queen Ophiuca
◊
HP: 1200
Element: Wood
Attacks:
- Snake Legion – A nest of snakes swarm down random columns of the field for 50 Wood damage per hit.
- Quick Serpent – Queen Ophiuca swiftly slithers down two columns for 50 Wood damage.
- Gorgon Eye – Queen Ophiuca fires a piercing laser beam down one column that deals 50 Wood damage and paralyzes.
Queen Ophiuca is the first real example of the HP Power Creep that I've been mentioning. In Battle Network the only normal bosses fought during the story with that much HP were Blizzardman Alpha and Colonel, but here we're pitted against one with that much before we've even reached the endgame. However, her relative mountain of HP doesn't help her much because of her somewhat-mediocre damage output. Seriously, the bosses attacks only going up by 10 points is really killing much of the difficulty.
That being said, Snake Legion is probably her most dangerous attack it's one of those randomly-hitting ones in the same vein as Bass's Explosion and Wood attacks don't inflict Mercy Invincibility. Gorgon Eye is very fast, is barely telegraphed, and can't be blocked at all, but it's low damage takes a lot of its bite away unless she immediately follows up with her other two attacks while Geo's paralyzed.
Winning gives us 5000z.
Even though she's been defeated, Ophiuca doesn't want to let Luna go. Well too bad for her as a voice says that someone who can't except their loss is pathetic and Queen Ophiuca is struck by a bolt of lightning, destroying Ophiuca and freeing her host. Omega exclaims that the voice belongs to Gemini, but Gemini says that he's not interested in fighting Megaman just yet. The time will come.
Freed from the FM-ian's influence Luna awakens and Geo assures her that her parents are okay but as he tries to leave Luna suddenly latches onto him, crying over what she can do to make up for the incident. Geo starts visibly freaking out and with good reason as when everyone returns to the real world Luna finds herself hugging not her hero Megaman, but her classmate Geo Stelar. That must certainly be awkward.
Her parents regain consciousness and it seems that they only remember the incident as a dream. However as that dream apparently entailed watching their daughter cry as the chains of her sadness crushed them, they say that they've changed their minds about transferring her and ask for their daughter's forgiveness for how they've treated her. So a happy ending there, and a later reveals that it does stick. Solving personal crises by beating up invisible space aliens, all in a day's work for Megaman.
Geo tries to take his leave again, but Luna catches him and has him stay behind. Naturally she's more than a little taken aback at Megaman's true identity and insists that while she likes Megaman she has zero feelings for Geo, but still offers to form a Brotherband with him. Geo figures that since she already knows his secret, why not? The Link Ability that Luna's Brotherband imparts is Float so that panel types no longer have any effect on us. Unfortunately it also means that Green Dragon will no longer regenerate HP on grass, but the HP bonus makes up for it.
With that done Luna asks Geo, Brother to Brother, if he and Sonia are going out, leading to the flusteredness that you'd expect. Satisfied with his denial Luna says that she'll see him at school tomorrow and leaves. Then Sonia returns, a little miffed that Geo seemed to have forgotten about her (the snake professor guy gave her an antidote so she's okay), but promises to forgive him if he treats her to a sundae. Finally, we can say that everything's been smoothed over...
But the following scene shows a new source of trouble, and from an unexpected source at that. Under the cover of darkness Pat is shown beating a man up in Echo Ridge, and he's not looking like his usual cheerful self...
Virus Listing
- Moaian
- These immobile moai statues attack by rolling their heads down the field, randomly bouncing from column to column.
- Private Mop
- These little guys stay immobile until Geo steps into their column, upon which they'll advance and attempt to stab him with a spear thrust.
- Rhino Horn
- This rhinoceros beetle viruses attack by thrusting their horn at Geo.
- Lampis
- These fireflies will either try to blind Geo with a flash of light or simply kick him in the face.
Soundtrack
- Time Square
- Not exactly hopping, but catchy enough.
- Anaconda
- I personally find this one headache-inducing.
Comments
