Unsurprisingly, when Lan and Megaman finally arrive at the WWW base we can see that it’s got a skull motif to it. It also has some pretty putrid-looking water flowing out of it. Megaman spots the rocket that Wily intends to launch up on one of the upper levels. There’s no time to waste, so let’s go.
Once inside, we immediately find Higsby, Ms. Yuri, and even the old man bound and gagged in the main corridor. They’re none the worse for wear once freed, and they urge us onward to stop Wily. We can refight Higsby and Numberman if we wish, but our goal is forward. At the end of the hallway we run into a locked exit, so Lan jacks Megaman in to get the door unlocked.
The network within revisits the Oven Computer from the very beginning of the game. Each dungeon in the WWW base copies one of the dungeon networks seen throughout the game. For this one there’s even a Navi who’ll give us Ice Blocks so we can put out the flames that are blocking the path, just like before. As we did back then we must clear a path through the area until we reach the lock program, represented by a holographic key. Unfortunately there’s no boss rush in this game like the future ones have. We don’t have enough Ice Blocks to get through the flames before it, but Glyde suddenly jacks in and disperses the flames, allowing Megaman to get through and destroy the program, unlocking the door in the real world. Yes, it appears that everyone has followed us to the WWW base. Talking to Yai once jacked-out, she’ll give us Roll 3 R on behalf of Mayl.
The path takes us outside and to another locked door. The network inside here is based off of ACDC school’s network, only all of the doors lack password hints. After brute-forcing our way through we reach the lock program, guarded by a heavy-duty password. Luckily Higsby and Numberman come to our aid and crack the code in a second.
Afterwards there’s a brief little scene of Wily commanding Yahoot to go get rid of us.
The third network is based off of the Waterworks’ network, and unsurprisingly Iceman comes in to destroy a giant chunk of ice blocking the way to the key. Yep, when I said that everyone came, I meant everyone, even Froid.
The fourth network is a copy of the traffic light system from Dentown, and this time we have Gutsman and Dex showing up to destroy a randomly-placed boulder that’s blocking the key. Dex reveals that Mayl saw Lan back when he was investigating the school pond and gathered everyone up.
Anyway, we’ve finally gotten past all of the locked doors and reached a different part of the base, namely the room where we’ve seen Wily addressing his minions. It seems to be a dead end though, until examining a portrait of Wily at the back of the room reveals that it’s actually a locked door. Jacking in to this door brings us to a replica of the power plant network. Thankfully there are no batteries that we have to muck around with, just invisible pathways. At the end there’s a Program that warns us that we won’t be able to save past this point. This is the point of no return, once we start this next cutscene, we can’t save at all until after the credits roll. Every game in the series has them, and thankfully you’re given ample warning. Heck, the Star Force games literally force you to save at these points.
Before the key is a break in the path, but this time Roll comes to help out, using her helmet antennae to generate a platform so that Megaman to get across. After he destroys the key, Lan and Mayl have a little moment over the fact that she brought everyone to follow him, and he ends up thanking her for helping out and wishing him luck. Little scenes like these are traditional for Battle Network endgames, and they honestly would be a little more effective if Lan’s friends didn’t have a habit of disappearing for good chunks of the games.
But then Yahoot and his Navi Magicman crash their little reunion. One last WWW Navi to take down!
Magicman
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HP: 700
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Magic Fire – Magicman sends a ball of blue fire down the center row for 160 Fire damage.
- Virus Summon – Magicman summons viruses atop the sigils on his side of the field. The viruses that he can summon are: Mettaur 2, Billy, Swordy 3, Cloudy 3, Spooky 3, Hurricane 3, and Megalian Aqua.
Magicman’s design has undergone a bit of a paradigm shift compared to his Megaman and Bass incarnation. The way his beard and hat look on his battle sprite reminds me of the spies from Spy Vs Spy.
Viruses are this guy’s entire gimmick. The viruses he summons behave exactly like viruses do in regular battles, HP values and all. While by themselves they’re not too too bad, some of the combinations, most notably a Cloudy 3 with a Swordy 3, can really make the battle hectic and lose you a lot of HP if you’re sloppy. Magicman himself is immobile, fortunately, so do not hesitate to let him have it.
Winning gives us 5000z.
At Magicman’s defeat Wily himself chimes up in incredulity that even Yahoot has lost. He decides to power up Magicman with energy from the Life Virus as a last resort. The newly revived and juiced up Magicman is able to blow Megaman away with one hit, but he has little time to savor his victory as Protoman jacks in and cuts him down. Magicman is deleted, but Megaman lays motionless on the Cyberworld floor.
Back in the real world, Lan is trying and failing to revive Megaman as Mayl and Chaud look on. Chaud hands Lan an item called Hub.bat (bat as in a batch file, for the unaware) on what I assume is an old floppy disk given when the game was originally made and the aesthetic of the PET used in this game. As soon as he starts to wonder what it is, he gets a call from his father, who had apparently tasked Chaud with handing him the file. With it, Lan can still revive Megaman, but there’s a terrible risk involved. What follows is probably the most important cutscene in the entire series. While some of the Battle Network games are better at spacing the exposition out than others, they generally all wait until the endgame to drop a huge infodump that explains pretty much everything. So I hope you’re comfy, because the remainder of the story is 90% exposition.
Yuuchiro begins his tale with how, a decade ago, he was trying to figure out how to create a Navi that had true sentience. Navis could follow orders, but couldn’t truly act on their own. He felt that a Navi that could respond to and register its operator’s emotions could therefore create its own. The solution, he decided, was to make a Navi with human DNA.
No, the series never really specifies exactly what human DNA entails in this case, but given how I’ve seen other works liken the genetic sequence to computer code I assume he’s just replicating the sequence as electronic code rather than using DNA itself…if that were even possible. I do wonder if this is supposed to be a reference to the “reploid DNA” from the X series. Anyway, Yuuchiro goes on to explain that it was of course incredibly difficult to write a program with human DNA. In fact, he could only complete 95% of the program, which is still pretty impressive, all things considered. Around this time, Yuuchiro continues, he had a son named Hub. However Hub had heart trouble and eventually passed away at a very young age.
So there’s the first big reveal of this scene – Lan has a dead twin brother named Hub. This was what Madd was referring to about Lan losing his loved ones. I do have to wonder though why his existence was apparently kept hidden from Lan. A later game shows that the existence of the Hikari twins was not something that was kept secret, nor would there be any reason for it to be. Heck, if you examine the framed picture in Yuuchiro’s cubicle at SciLab it mentions multiple children. I remember it making me scratch my scratch my head a little bit way back when I first played this game, and it still makes me now.
This next part, however, is far more justified as far as being kept a secret goes. Yuuchiro decided to use Hub’s DNA as the basis for this new type of Navi, and that Navi came to be known as Megaman.
So there’s the second big reveal of this scene – Megaman is essentially Lan’s dead twin brother Hub Hikari reborn. This is what that Navi inside the monitor in Yuuchiro’s lab was hinting at. Lan was purposefully kept in the dark by those who knew, including by Megaman himself, since it was assumed that if he knew the truth he’s be too afraid to use him as a Navi. Megaman’s unique nature is presumably the reason why he can’t be restored through backup data if deleted unlike how regular Navis can.
Now there are no doubt a ton of moral and ethical dilemmas here that are being sidestepped, but continuing on with the tale, Yuuchiro brings up the usage of Hub.bat. If Hub.bat is applied to Megaman, he’ll be revived. However, the missing parts of Hub’s DNA within his program will be restored and since he and Lan would then share the same DNA, they would fall into a state of pure synchronization, able to operate together at levels far beyond normal operator-Navi thresholds. This would also mean that anything that affects Megaman, such as battle damage, would also affect Lan as well.
Now that part is obviously pure science-fiction, and can be neatly filed under Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything. In later games this state is referred to as Full Synchro, and even becomes a gameplay mechanic in the second half of the series. Strangely enough though, despite the fact that this revelation is the crux of the series, the Hub Hikari backstory is completely omitted from all of the adaptations. In the anime Megaman’s unique nature instead came from a nebulously-defined “Ultimate Program” that he shared with Protoman and Bass while the manga, despite heavily featuring Full Synchro and a transformation named for him, did not mention Hub at all.
Anyway, after hearing all of this Lan decides to go through with using Hub.bat, and sure enough Megaman is revived, with his program rewritten and stronger than ever. Now while the whole “damage to the Navi damages the operator” obviously never comes up (perhaps it can be assumed that “canonically” Lan/Megaman are too strong to get hit while Hub.bat is active) in gameplay, the power boost that Full Synchro provides definitely does. While it’s not shown on the status screen, all of Megaman’s buster stats are doubled for the remainder of the main story, which allows you to rip through viruses in battle. Heck, you can freely challenge Chaud now during the brief segment that we’re in control of in between cutscenes to see for yourself. When we’re done kicking around Protoman, it’s time to head through the final door to confront Wily, and I believe that I shall save that for the next update.
Virus Listing
- Anaconda
- These multi-segmented snake viruses have two methods of attack. The first is to shoot out a protectile from their mouths (a shockwave from the first version, a ball of electricity from the second, and a ball of fire from the third) as well as summon snakes to briefly wander Megaman's area.
- Megalian
- These floating statue heads attack by launching themselves down one row. They use elemental auras to protect themselves and come in three varieties - Aqua, Heat, and Wood. These auras can be stripped away by using an attack that deals at least as much damage as the indicated number (10, 40, and 80 respectively). Hitting an aura with its elemental weakness will not only remove it regardless of power, but will also damage the virus as normal.
- Satellite
- These stationary satellites will send out a crosshair to sweep Megaman's area, and upon locking on will fire a series of machine gun shots at him.
Soundtrack
- Void
- The theme for the WWW network. This one's much slower than all of the other final area themes in the series.
- Hour of Fate
- Played during Yuuichiro's denouement. This is the only time this plays in the entire game.
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