So, with the school-jacking incident resolved, school life continues as normal. At the end of the day Lan wonders what he should do next, and Megaman remembers that today is when the Metroline subway is scheduled to open. He suggests that we take it to Yuuichiro’s workplace to see if we can get that Power UP from him. It’ll give us a good chance to explore more of the overworld and stretch our legs, so why not?
There are still a few points of interest in the school before we leave though. Namely, there’s a boy in one of the first floor classrooms that wants to trade a Dash G which can be gotten from Fishy viruses with a high busting rank, and another boy in the AV room who’ll trade us a Buster Guard chip for thirty Met Guard A chips. That’s a lot, but they are farmable from Mettaurs and Mystery Data in the first Internet area. Finally, there’s a girl in the nurse’s office that’ll trade a Shotgun K for three Invisible 1 I’s. A rather poor trade, though she also throws in more Program Advance info to soften the blow a bit. Outside in the school’s courtyard we can jack in to a parked car to find an HP Memory.
Back in ACDC, it’s time to go to the Metroline station near Dex’s house, but first it’s important to notice a flyer stuck to one of the buildings near the school advertising a soon-to-open chip shop. There’s also a boy on the far side of town who wants to trade a Dyna Wave R chip for a Fire Tower F from the Volgear virus. Unfortunately, once we get inside ACDC Station, we’re told that the trains can’t run. Apparently the safety mechanism has been disabled, but since the control center’s fine someone must have infected it from the general Net. Well, if you want something done right…
We need to get to Internet Area 2 to fix the Metroline issue, so off to Lan’s house we go. There’s a Navi right outside Lan’s network that introduces us to the concept of ‘’Navi ghosts’’. Whenever a boss is defeated in the story, an invisible copy of them will appear in a set location in the Cyber World, usually at a dead end. They have more HP, more attack power, and in some cases even have new attacks or variants on old ones. Defeating them will give us their Navi chip, and afterwards an even stronger version can be found through random encounters in the same area. Getting a good busting rank on these versions will give you the second version of their chip, and getting an S rank will give you their chip’s final version (you can also sneak by with a 10 in most cases). For now Fireman is the only Navi that we can do this with, and he’s located on a dead end in the west side of Internet Area 1. His chip has him shoot fire down one row for a flat 100 damage, so it’s pretty useful. Before taking him on though, I made sure to buy some HP Memories and a Power UP from the merchant nearby.
Power U Ps can be equipped by going to Megaman’s status screen. Power U Ps are used to enhance the Mega Buster. There are three catagories, Power which is self-explanatory, Rapid which determines how fast Megaman can fire, and Charge which enables Megaman to fire a single charged shot that deals 10x his Power after the B button is held down for a time. You can’t use a Charge Shot at all in this game until powering that stat up, and there are two levels of charge in this game, one obviously being stronger than the other. With each HP Memory and Power UP one equips, Megaman’s level will increase, though that doesn’t have a huge amount of bearing on the game until much later when it’ll have to be at a certain level to progress.
Anyway, the entrance to Internet Area 2 is still blocked off by Dex, so we have to go see him. Luckily, he’s finally returned to his home. His room’s a bit of a pigsty, though he does have a Game Cube that we can jack in to to get a Cross Gun K. We can also access his personal network via his PC which contains the item @Dex so we can access his network from the Net and a chip for X-Panel 3 B.
With his house looted, time to confront Dex over the access rights. Naturally, we have to beat him in another Net Battle before he’ll fork them over. But in order to do that, first he wants us to give him a Recovery 50 L. Luckily, he tells us that Gutsman saw one in one of Mayl’s electronics, so it’s off to her house, which curiously has both a kitchen/living area and bedroom on another floor unlike the others’ homes. Mayl’s network is located in her piano downstairs, and indeed it contains the chip Dex wants, as well as @Mayl. Her bedroom has a Serve Bot doll that can be jacked in to, and it has an HP Memory inside. Once we leave we get an email from Dex saying that he’s ready to battle. But first let’s swing by Yai’s mansion while we’re busy plundering our friends and yowza, she has a Pikachu-skin rug on her floor! Yikes, but we can still jack in to a phone for 1000z and an Escape J. Since we’ve already accessed her network we don’t need to do so again. It’s time to finally fight Dex.
Gutsman
HP: 400
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Shockwave – Gutsman smashes the ground, unleashing a shockwave that travels down one row for 20 damage
- Guts Hammer – Gutsman smashes the ground, cracking one row of panels.
- Guts Punch – Gutsman moves up to his front column and punches the panel in front of him, knocking the target back a panel for 30 damage.
Gutsman may have more HP, but he still doesn’t get a boss theme. The same tactics used to beat him before work just as well now.
Much to Lan and Megaman’s surprise, Dex takes his second defeat pretty well. He drops his classroom bully persona and hands over the /Dex item without a fuss, and throws in Gutsman G as well. Gutsman’s chip has him send a shockwave attack that covers the entire field before him and cracks all of those panels as well. Dex tells the two to go make him proud and the pair reflect that Dex really isn’t that bad a guy.
With /Dex we can finally access Internet Area 2. There are basically two sections to this area, and they split right at the start. The right path eventually leads to where the Metroline bug is and an exit that we can’t get through yet, while the left path leads to another exit that’s blocked off. At the Metroline platform we find a large golem of a Navi named Stoneman, who appears to communicate solely through the word “gok”. Megaman (and the player thanks to subtitles in the text box) can understand him just fine, though. He’s another WWW Navi, and the reason he’s stopped the Metroline is…well there’s really no reason, he’s just being a dick. Time to take him down.
Stoneman
◊
HP: 600
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Stone Drop – Stoneman smashes the ground, causing three rocks to fall on random panels on Megaman’s side of the field for 30 damage.
- Totem Finish – A stone totem statue rises from the field and fires a laser down one row for 70 damage.
- Rock Cube – A rock cube will appear on Megaman’s side of the field, occupying one random panel. It’ll eventually break, but not before Stoneman has created another one.
Like Numberman, Stoneman remains immobile in his back column, so he’s a piece of cake to take down as long as you have strong chips with range like Quake 1 and Fire Tower. Don’t get hit by Totem Finish though, it packs quite a punch for this stage of the game.
Winning gives us 2000z.
With Stoneman turned to gravel, Megaman uses his buster to destroy a boulder that’s blocking some sort of track beyond. This is enough to get the Metroline running again. Buying a ticket (which is free since Lan is a student) allows us to travel to the only other place available right now, the Government Complex.
Virus Listing
- Twisty
- These viruses remain immobile, but they operate a remote-control drone that hovers above Megaman's field which moves from panel to panel, breaking them with a bolt of lightning.
- Minelayer
- These viruses also remain immobile. Every so often they will place a hidden landmine on one of Megaman's panels, which damages him should he step on it. If one has good eyes it's possible to spy which panel the mine is hidden in.
- Hardhead
- Yet another immobile virus. These viruses are immune to all attacks when their mouths are closed. Every five seconds or so they will open and fire a cannonball at Megaman which breaks whichever panel it may happen to land on. This is the only opportunity to damage them.
- Swordy
- These knights have two attack patterns - close range and long range. If Megaman is in the column in front of them, they will swing their sword in a Wide Sword-range slash. If Megaman is not directly in front of them, they will attack with a slash that has a range of three horizontal. Should Megaman persist in dodging their attacks, they will use the Steal chip to close in on him. Swordys are Normal element, while Swordy 2's and Swordy 3's are Fire and Aqua respectively.
