Our next chapter opens in the observation room of Electopia's national space agency, WAZA, where the scientists there are pouring over some unsettling news. That strange red star, designated as Meteor G, has been observed to change course and there's now a 67% chance that it will impact the Earth. This is all sounding horribly, horribly familiar... One of the Wizards reports that an amount of “Crimson” was observed during the Noise Wizard incident at Spica Mall and the WAZA chief◊ (he's not really an important character but since he has a unique design might as well show off his art) observes that whenever Crimson is detected the probability of Meteor G's collision rises. The Wizard notes that Crimson should be cause for alarm but the chief assures him that WAZA's Netopia branch is carrying out an operation designed to redirect this strange shooting star.
He shouldn't have even bothered opening his mouth because of course klaxons begin to sound and another scientist in the room frantically reports that the WAZA branches in Netopia, Sharo, and Netfrica have been destroyed after their plan (which was apparently the old “shoot missiles at it to deflect its course” gambit) failed and a bunch of Noise emanating from Meteor G fried all their networks. The chief says that they we lucky that Electopia's currently on the side of the planet facing away from the meteor but now everything is on their shoulders. He gets everyone in the room on reevaluating Meteor G's course and studying it's composition before having one of those “this is the worst I've ever seen” old man inner monologues.
So yeah, if anyone got deja vu from reading that there's a reason. See, the funny thing about the plot that I alluded to in the introduction is that the premise for this game is the exact same as the one from the much-maligned Battle Network 4. Both games have an object from outer space threatening Earth, both games feature a corrupting force in the form of dark power/Noise, and both games have villains with royal names. But here's the thing: Star Force 3's execution of the concept is actually good. The main conflict doesn't get smothered by randomly-generated tournaments (Ace saw to that!), the corruption of Noise is actually tied directly to the Meteor G plot, and while King certainly isn't any more complex than Regal as a villain, there are other aspects surrounding him and his organization that pick up the slack. The whole Noise/Meteor G stuff also has the advantage of fitting the Star Force setting a hell of a lot better than the meteor and “man's evil soul” or whatever spawned the dark power did in Battle Network. The lead of the scenario team was even Hiroshi Yamashita, the same guy whose only writing credit in Battle Network was the fourth game. I don't know if this game is the writers implicitly admitting that Battle Network 4's story was an Old Shame or not, but it's really poetic justice that the final game in the Megaman network universe is essentially a redo of its worst game. And it's one of the better ones in the whole thing to boot! The WAZA control room scene certainly paid more attention to astrophysics than the corresponding NAXA scene did!
Back to the Stelar residence, where Omega's apparently training himself to be ready to go buck wild on something again. The Spade Magnes incident got him all pumped up. Geo's more interested in learning about why Wizards are going berserk, so to that end he's watching an interview on TV with Legendary Master Shin on Noise. Master Shin defines Noise by comparing it to a car's exhaust (I thought everyone would have like, solar-powered cars in the 23rd century). All forms of EM technology emit a trace amount of Noise that, in large quantities, can interfere with their operation and even attract viruses. Noise has always been omnipresent but since the surge in popularity of Wizards, a much more complex form of EM technology, the amount of Noise has skyrocketed all over the world. When a massive amount of Noise is released in one place, such as whenever a Wizard goes berserk, it coalesces into red crystals known as Crimson, whose properties are still poorly understood. Master Shin concludes the interview by urging people to be mindful of the excess effects of their lifestyles. Then Hope warns Geo that he needs to get going to school.
Before we're able to get out the door Woody calls us up. He reports that the rocket successfully made it into orbit and Magnes is even on the line, thanking Geo for his help and asking him to pass some thanks along to Megaman too. He's become a Megaman fanboy. The purpose of this call is to reintroduce us to Ability Waves, as Magnes sends us an HP + 50 ability as thanks. They work the same way they did in Star Force 2, though the abilities themselves are more expensive Link Power-wise as you can get twice as much in-game than you ever could before.
And we still can't get to school because the school gates are somehow locked. The Elder Wizard in charge of it stubbornly refuses to open as he hasn't gotten any instructions to do so from his teacher operator, even though there's a queue of students waiting to get in the building. Geo proposes finding the teacher in charge, and luckily Luna knows that he lives in the same building she does. Inputting his room number on the condo complex's front door keypad connects us to the apartment and it turns out that there's no sinister cause as to the man's absence from school, he's just sick. He transmits a key pop-up to our Hunter so that we can get in. I dunno what the point of that short errand was. I think it creates a passage on the wave road between Echo Ridge and the inside of the school but meh.
Once we get to class everyone's talking about a new student who's transferring in as the class is one student short as Pat hasn't come back from his journey to find himself and suppress his split personality. Once Mr. Shepar calls homeroom to order he tells everyone that not only are they getting a new student, but a new student teacher will be joining as well. He introduces...Jack and Queen Tia. After a rather awkward introduction where Tia has to prod her brother into acknowledging the class the scene cuts to sometime later when a number of the students are trying to chat him up. There's a comment on how his name is unusual in these parts which certainly held true for the Japanese version but not here where the classroom has people named Zack, Bud, and Mitch in the room. Jack has no interest in them or in Luna's welcoming speech and storms from the classroom after flipping his lid. Luna, Zack, and Bud are ready to throw their hands up and forget about the surly kid but Geo says that he'll try to find and talk to their new classmate. After all, he says, didn't he act the same way back when Luna was trying to get him to come to school?
Searching for Jack inside the school bears no fruit (BTW, the science club apparently built a second rocket when no one was looking – for there's one identical to Magnes's in the lab now in case you need to access it for card grinding or whatnot) but if you speak to Mr. Shepar he tells us that he saw Jack heading out to Echo Ridge. Outside we trigger a scene by approaching Big Wave where Geo asks a passing Wizard if he saw a short kid with black hair come by this way. Good thing for Jack that Geo doesn't brother craning his neck, for the kid's standing in plain sight on the roof of Big Wave. He mutters that investigating's as boring as he thought and again expresses the desire to just take Geo out. Here his Wizard, whose mugshot is also obscured like Acid's was when he first spoke, tells him that while he wants to see how strong Megaman is too, they shouldn't disobey King. So Jack compromises by chucking another Noise Card at the Wizard in the park. The resulting battle against the Noise Wizard Red (the last one was Blue) is the same as the last one: it just has a little bit more HP. Afterwards Geo bemoans this sort of thing always happening to him and Jack takes his leave when he hears Geo's name being called. Someone comes up behind Geo and covers his eyes but he spoils their fun by identifying Sonia right off the bat.
Sonia's here to say hi since they apparently haven't seen each other in a month. The game still feels the need to inform us that Sonia was Geo's first Brother, which is really unnecessary since this is the third game; I think we know how the characters relate to each by now. Of course Lyra's with her too, making playful jabs at Omega as she tends to do. It's then that a boy happens to spot Sonia, and like zombies the entire town suddenly knows that there's a celebrity in their midst. Fortunately for our heroes they just Wave Change and escape to the wave road away from the crowd. During this Sonia's Harp Note form gets registered by the Satella Police as well, with her designation being Transcode 004, though her appearance doesn't change like Megaman's does. He's just a special snowflake in that regard. Geo suggests they head to the school roof, and we gotta do that on foot.
Which is actually a good opportunity, as we can find Spade Magnes V2 (after eight games we're back to the V2-V3 designations) at a dead end towards the northwest corner of Echo Ridge's wave roads. V2 bosses are back to being invisible until you run into them. Their V3 forms work differently than in all the other games for instead of them simply being added to the area's random encounter pool, in Star Force 3 they can appear in multiple areas. According to the FAQ I'm looking at, Spade Magnes V3 can be found in at least three different areas: Echo Ridge, the school roof, and one area that we haven't gotten to yet. These can sometimes overlap with other bosses too, so hunting them can be a little more irritating than usual depending on where you decide to stake out.
It wouldn't be a post-Battle Network 3 game if bosses only had two additional forms. Star Force 3 brings back the Omega boss tier. Omega bosses are also randomly encountered on the overworld and they are the strongest form of each given boss in the game (there are a few that don't have Omega forms, but they do have equivalents power-wise). You can run into them at any time during the game, before you've encountered the boss in the story yet, even. Fortunately you are given ample warning as if when you Wave Change and the background BGM has been replaced with a very distinct, ominous tune your next battle is guaranteed to be against an Omega boss giving you plenty of time to bail. And if you still stick it out but aren't able to beat the boss the game takes mercy on you and doesn't give you a game over. Defeating them earns you Omega Pieces to open certain security doors with, like the one back in the school gate Cyber Core. The chances of an Omega boss spawning seems pretty low, however.
Geo and Sonia pulse out on the roof and Geo calls up his friends so that everyone can see each other again. Bud and Zack are still fanboys and Luna's still measured. In addition to saying hi, Sonia says that she came to Echo Ridge to invite her friends to play extras on a TV show she's filming at WBG Studios tomorrow and to attend a concert she's holding there afterwards. The siren call of TV does its thing and everyone agrees to show up. Sonia Wave Changes to head back to the studio (after Geo has to stop her from accidentally taking the elevator) and the group splits up for the day.
We have some downtime now, which is good since Echo Ridge now opens up; literally. We can now enter our friends' homes and we get an email notification that Big Wave has reopened. Time to swing by and see what Ken Suther's◊ got in stock this time:
- Drill Arm 1 – 1800z
- Attack Panel – 1000z
- Recovery 50 – 1000z
- Big Drop 1 – 3500z
In addition to that rather meager stock, Ken now has an ordering service going, but it's different from Higsby's Chip Order System. Big Wave's ordering service lets us buy cards from other merchants elsewhere in the game, but their wares are a little more expensive (delivery charges, says Ken). Elsewhere in the shop he's got the usual Tri-Trader set up and his sun-shaped Wizard Hang Ten is the fellow who'll take Cipher Codes in this game. He claims he uses the codes to access Noise Waves to surf on. Taking a page out of Higsby's Battle Network 5 book there's a bargain bin to peruse too:
- Unlocker – 800z
- Gravity Plus – 120z
- Sword – 150z
- Plasma Gun – 200z
- Cannon – 200z
The dialogue seems to imply that it's contents change throughout the game, so that'll be something to keep an eye on.
That's all there is in Big Wave for now, to our friends' houses to steal what we can. Bud's room's got a Noise Wave coming out of his bed which has the Undershirt ability inside. Luna and Zack's rooms don't seem to have anything to find other than an overworld virus and the flavor text indicating that Geo finds some drawers in their drawers.
Finally, along with the Big Wave mail we got one from Luna explaining the new HELP pop-ups as they relate to the job system. There's no handy indicator as to whether a person has a request or not on the overworld like in Star Force 2, but at least we don't have to keep jumping in and out of the Wave World to trigger them anymore.
Echo Ridge Job 1: Raida Briz
A little boy on the school roof is in hot water with his mother because she wants to see a test that he did poorly on...the same test that he folded into a paper airplane and threw off the roof. So we need to retrieve it and as it's on the roof of Big Wave we need to Wave Change to get up there. Our reward is an HP Memory 10.
Huh, that's the only one currently available it seems. Oh well, to bed I guess.
After conking out for the day we jump ahead to nighttime and see that Tia and Jack have returned to the school roof beneath the red star of Meteor G. Tia chides Jack for picking fights with the students and going off on his own and making that Wizard go berserk. He insists that this investigating and school business isn't him and his sister retorts that while she doesn't like having to make nice with the other teachers either these are King's orders and they have to follow them. And speaking of following, Tia happened to overhear Geo and his friends discussing their WBG Studios trip...
Soundtrack
- Suspicious Activity
- Hear that? It's the ghost of Battle Network 4 lingering around. Don't worry though, it can't hurt us.
- Noise Wave 2
- A more ravey version of the Noise Wave track that's first used during Master Shin's exposition dump.
- Omega Boss
- Depending on the situation you'll either welcome or dread this music.