The next morning while Luna's presumably dealing with the joys of air travel Geo gets to sleep in a little bit before it's his turn to leave. So once pulsing in and taking the wave roads over to the condo roof we can see that there's now a purple wave doodad coming out of the satellite dish. Examining it brings us to the Sky Wave, a sort of wave road highway above the clouds that connects the entire world. After marveling at how high they are and saying that he feels closer to his father now, Geo has to ask a nearby Sky Hertz (a white Hertz with an angel's wings and halo) how to get to Loch Mess. We're currently on Echo Ridge's section of the Sky Wave, and thanks to convenient Wave World geography the Sky Wave for Mess Village is only the next section over. We're also notified that if you try to pulse out while on the Sky Wave you won't return to the real world, instead you'll just end up back on the ground where you accessed the Sky Wave, in this case the satellite dish.
Traveling the Sky Wave is no different that traveling the regular wave roads, though there are large gaps that require dash panels to traverse. At the back is a teleporter that whisks us away, halfway across the globe to Mess Village's Sky Wave. It's Sky Wave continues on to a new area, but naturally it's closed off by a security door because we're not at that point in the plot yet. Stepping into its exit teleporter brings us down to a TV van down on the ground, and there's a wavehole a few steps away to pulse out with. (Don't do what I've done in the past and just hit R as normal; I ended up back in Echo Ridge)
So, Mess Village. According to one of the Sky Hertzes it used to be a virtual ghost town. Now? The village is a bustling place, full of people hoping to catch a glimpse of Messie the lake monster and numerous tourist trap food and souvenir stands. It also seems to be floating (as in hovering) over the loch itself. Luna must've flown here in a supersonic jet or, since this is the future, a spaceplane since she's already here to greet Geo, who starts to feel rather anxious now that he's in a foreign country on his own. Neither of them can understand Netopian (which has gone from being depicted as wingdings to a string of “blah blah blah”s) so the first order of business is to find someone who they can understand.
The search doesn't take long, for there's a unique NPC in future-safari gear standing a little ways down the road. At first he ignores Geo's and Luna's solicitations for help, but it's not because he can't understand them, it's because he was deep in thought and they ruined his concentration. The man, Gerry Romero
◊, is more than a little divaish and refuses to help them with their language troubles but then does an about-face, sensing opportunity. Gerry's a TV director, and he literally makes a production out of handing Geo a translator program, complete with a cameraman and a trumped-up facade of magnanimity to make himself look good. Once he's done he promptly leaves the two kids who are predictably put-out, but at least we can understand the locals now.
And talking to everything doesn't turn up anything about Zack, though Copper's turned up now, tasked with investigating the Messie sightings as the Satella Police have classified it as another UMA. Though Zack is still nowhere to be found, there're two other sections of Loch Mess to search: Mess Cove, which we can't access yet, and an observation deck, which is where Luna wants to search next. And then she refuses to cross the bridge leading to the deck because of a buzzing sound making her fear for its stability. Omega says that she's actually on to something, so Wave Change time it is. Since we're in the Wave World now we can access ES's coming out of a corn dog stand and a...rotisserie chicken for a PMW with a White Meteor card inside, the Float Shoes ability, and our third Blank Card. The corn dog stand ES also has a Merchant Hertz who's selling the Charge Paralyze ability, which generates a paralyze panel beneath an enemy when hit with a Charge Shot. Useful for setup, as getting hit by an attack on top of one of those automatically paralyzes them.
Getting back to the bridge, the culprit behind the buzzing is an oversized, fat Hertz type called a Large Capacity Hertz. He's so large he can't move thanks to an HP + ability, so we're sent off to find a Hertz friend of his that has another Float Shoes that he can use. We do get an HP + 100 ability for this little errand though, so I guess it's not totally a waste of time. On the other side of the bridge is a man who recognizes Zack but doesn't know where he currently is either. And talking to him immediately throws us into another cutscene so I can't take the elevator up to the observation deck itself. Back in Mess Village Gerry is filming again, his show being the World Mysteries one from earlier, and we finally see Zack. Zack's being interviewed again on his Messie sighting. Once the crew is done our protagonists have their not-so-touching reunion: after getting dumped out of the Un-Dimension at Loch Mess, Zack was about to call for help with his Star Carrier when he supposedly saw Messie and I guess completely forgot about both his predicament and his friends once he got caught up in his newly found fame.
So in short: Zack's realized that his entire character revolves around being a follower to other people, and he now wants to accomplish something on his own. Perfectly fine material for a character arc when looked at in a vacuum. However...well, this really isn't the time, nor the place, and the setup is rather absurd. For what it's worth though, Zack finally does grow a backbone and straight-up tells Luna that he's not going to go back with them. Actually, scratch what I just said about complimenting Zack on growing a backbone; that's invalidated by him making an ass of himself about it.
So he goes off, leaving Luna to stew. So Geo steps up to the plate and says that he'll go talk to Zack himself. Now I can enter Mess Cove, a grassy area with a windmill at the center and grazing, multicolored sheep, one of which apparently has an HP Memory 10 stuck in its wool. Zack's standing at the far end, and when Geo tries striking up conversation he reiterates what I said above, at least in a slightly less assholish way. When talking to him you can see that his Link Power, which was always the lowest of the group – no doubt reflective of his follower ways – has dropped down to only ten. Then we go back to where Luna is, and apparently Geo doesn't bother trying to explain Zack's motives. Well I guess he wouldn't have much success anyway, given how stubborn she's being about the whole thing. Both of them I guess.
Cut back to Zack, who's swearing to himself that he'll find Messie, because since, in his own words, he's short, wears glasses, is terrible at sports, and while he gets good grades they're not as good as Luna's, that's all he feels that he can do. I'll throw some more rain on his pity party by pointing out that not even that really makes him special: anyone at all could find the lake monster if they tried.
But Zack does indeed find Messie. Or rather, he witnesses Gerry materializing a plesiosaur-shaped submarine Matter Wave. Surprise! It's all a hoax for the sake of driving up the director's TV show ratings. Gerry quickly realizes that he's being spied on and ends up stuffing Zack inside the submarine to contain him, while going on his Motive Rant. He's basically just Prosecutor Ito from Battle Network 6, only pettier and involved in the TV biz instead of the legal world. He shouts about having deadlines to meet and that's when a new voice says that if he were in Gerry's shoes he'd find the real Messie. Hyde strolls up to the cove and introduces himself as Gerry's new sponsor, holder of a script and power that will guarantee the man's success.
One fade to black later and Gerry's testing out the Ancient Star Carrier that Hyde gave him. Out of it comes the plesiosaur EM being Plesio, who goes on about destroying everything. I've always thought Plesio had a rather cute aspect about his design, in a plush toy sort of way, so I was rather bemused how in the anime he had a very deep, grizzled voice. He was a much more benevolent character there, too. Gerry Wave Changes with his new EM being to form Plesio Surf
◊, who rants about he'll deliver the world never-before-seen footage before diving underwater.
Back to Geo. He's just getting through telling Luna that he's going to try to talk to Zack again when the screen starts to shake and a village starts yelling about an approaching tsunami and for everyone to head to the observation deck. Once we relocate over there it's shown that Mess Village is now entirely underwater (represented by slapping a shimmering blue filter over the village) and the people start making a fuss over the appearance of Messie, as Plesio Surf is shown parading himself around in full view of anyone who'll look. Omega immediately recognizes that “Messie” is just a wave being, and Luna exclaims that Zack is nowhere to be found.
It's at this point that Zack finally remembers that he has a Star Carrier and calls his friends for help, informing them that he's now stuck at the bottom of the loch in the submarine. Geo of course is all set to do something to help, but Omega chimes up by saying that he can't go underwater. Why not? It's not like Geo has to breathe while he's Megaman, nor does the presence of water exclude the presence of EM waves. So we have to borrow a diving machine Matter Wave called Divey Jones (looks sort of like a miniature underwater robot) from a Messie enthusiast, pulse in, materialize the diving machine at the bottom of a wave road ramp that heads straight down into the loch, and into the drink we go.
While underwater Geo is depicted holding on to the rear of the diving machine while kicking his legs to move, but that's only a cosmetic change – the movement controls are the same as always. The issue here is that Plesio Surf apparently set off some “sluice security systems”, whatever that means, which just translates to the entrance to the next area being blocked off by a security door. We have to collect golden Hertzes to open the door, but since they're buried we're given a series of documents that provide hints as to where to dig with the diving machine to find them. So the puzzle here is a giant scavenger hunt.
Remember how I mentioned during Star Force 1 that there was a dungeon in this game that was like the Scrap Computer but even worse? Well, here it is. This dungeon is complete pants. The two areas that make up Loch Mess are pretty huge, the encounter rate seems higher than normal, and if you don't dig in precisely the right spot you either get nothing, or a virus. We need to find three Hertzes, so let's look at the hints:
- One sleeps at that which carries people beyond the two darknesses...
- One sleeps at the two stars overlooked by the red tree...
- One sleeps at the proof of the king who is no more...
The latter two aren't too hard to figure out, the second referring to two starfish located beneath some coral that's on a cliff and the third at a king's crown (there are underwater ruins down here, and even a sunken ship), but the first is very vague, and it turns out to be referring to a raft that's reached by swimming through an off screen cave, the “two darknesses” referring to their entrances. The distance you have to cover combined with the encounter rate makes this a very tedious dungeon, but at least you can get the useful Elec Slash cards from the Mono Sword viruses found here.
In the second area we have to find five Hertzes:
- One sleeps at the old, shiny, blue box of air.
- One sleeps in darkness beneath something which is red...
- One sleeps at the place overlooking that which is neither man nor fish.
- One sleeps at the place which is surrounded by five stones.
- One sleeps where the king who is no more should be...
We're looking for a crumpled submarine, an (artificial) octopus, a Hertz (the game misleads you by having an animatronic mermaid in the area), a circle of rocks, and a toppled throne. Collecting them all opens another security door which leads to a rock shelf where the Matter Wave submarine is resting. Geo and Zack start talking to each other (presumably through their Star Carriers I hope) but the rescue is cut short by Plesio Surf's arrival. Like with Yeti Blizzard Geo and Omega quickly figure out Plesio Surf's true identity and recognize Hyde's involvement. Before the battle can begin however, the director inside Plesio Surf decides that they should fight in a more lively venue – aka on the lake surface, and visible to the crowd on the observation deck. Since Zack isn't going anywhere Geo ascends to the surface (standing atop the diving machine) and the battle begins.
Plesio Surf
HP: 1200
Element: Aqua
Attacks:
- Thunder Breath – Plesio Surf breathes electricity down one row, dealing 45 Elec damage and paralyzing Geo.
- Aqua Fang – Plesio Surf dives beneath the stage and tries to repeatedly bite Geo from below, dealing 45 Aqua damage per hit.
- Torrent Wave – Plesio Surf sends a tsunami down the field that deals 80 Aqua damage. It will pick up any obstacle on the field and those parts of the wave will gain the break attribute.
Plesio Surf's difficulty comes more from being annoying than being overly-difficult himself. He moves pretty quickly despite his size, and there are always two rocks on the field for him to hide behind. One is stationary while the other moves from side to side, and if they either get destroyed or swept away by Torrent Wave they'll respawn. Since he has a fairly high amount of HP compared to what we've been fighting thus far I find it prudent to equip Lightning Sword before going into battle, as if you can counter him and land all three hits of Thunderbolt Blade that's half his HP gone right there. Even without Thunder Zerker, Elec Slash cards help a lot too.
Plesio Surf explodes, leaving Gerry flailing helplessly in the loch, shouting for help. The townspeople witness this and immediately realize that Messie was a giant hoax all along. So a few hours later, after the waters have somehow receded leaving the village in immaculate condition, the crooked director has to face the music. On the observation deck Luna and Zack make up and Luna's a bit surprised to see how stubborn Zack could be, but says that he didn't need to pull the stunts he did to be proud of himself, after all isn't being one of her closest friends something to be proud of?
Wait what? Okay, I get what Luna was trying to convey and that it came out looking wrong, but as Zack's okay with that it means the resolution to his character arc is to continue to be known as a follower, and I'll let that speak for itself. So then after Zack gushes over Geo coming to save him for a bit the two reform their own Brotherband, giving me another fifty points of Link Power to play with. His secret isn't as interesting/disturbing as Bud's or the girls', it's just that he tries using that high bar contraption in his room to try to get taller (3'10'' or a tiny 117cm for you metric folks).
Back to Vega's hideout for another villain powwow. The whole gang's here this time, and Vega's most displeased that Hyde's latest harebrained attempt to stop Megaman failed. Solo calls them all pathetic but Hollow shoots him down by claiming that now that Megaman's awakened the OOPArt not even he has the power to win, though he suggests that they're “evenly matched” at least (didn't I already disprove that?). Vega though, offers Solo an object called the Indie Proof before she convinces him to investigate a group of people who still believe in the power of Mu.
Virus Listing
- Flit
- These hummingbird viruses move quickly around the field and attack by shooting a needle down their column at Geo.
- Puff
- These puffball viruses can only take one hit at a time as they briefly scatter and then reform when struck, though a Wind attribute attack will delete them in a single hit. They attack by dropping burrs on Geo.
- Stream Cancero
- Like their boss cousin Cancer Bubble, these crab viruses scuttle back and forth on one row and shoot bubbles at Geo.
- Fokx
- Despite their name these viruses are actually tanukis. As tanukis are often depicted to do they will occasionally vanish in a puff of smoke, appear before Geo disguised as him, and attack him with a sword slash.
- Mono Sword
- These statues remain immobile and invulnerable until Geo steps into their column, upon which they'll appear in front of him and try to slash him with a sword. They're normally only vulnerable when attacking, but when still a breaking attack will delete them in a single hit.
- Piran
- Pirans attack Geo by leaping out of the "water" to lunge at him from either the front or the side.
Soundtrack
- Mess Village
- I'm reminded of Yoka's theme, even though they don't sound very similar.
- Lake Investigation
- This is the only dungeon track that continues to play after the boss is defeated. You'll be hearing it a lot too.
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