Booting the game back up, a gold star has been placed next to the “continue” option on the title screen, signifying that we’ve beaten the final boss. Future games have more stars for further accomplishments, but this game only has the one.
So now that we’ve beaten the Life Virus, what else is there to do? Well, there’s a large swath of Internet yet to be explored, and that’s what the postgame consists of.
Internet Area 9 is the first area that needs looking at. As I mentioned way back, it can be accessed from Internet Area 2 through a secret pathway two steps away from Yuuichiro’s access point. Most of the path is hidden by the platform where Stoneman’s ghost was, but the exit is unmistakable. Internet Area 9 isn’t that notable save for one thing – Colorman’s ghost is located near the exit to the next area. His Navi chip has him use Aqua Tower on one row, and Fire Tower on the other. Neat, but it leaves the middle row untouched, and there’s no way to “lead” the attacks like you can with regular Tower chips.
Starting from Internet Area 10, we need to fulfill some sort of requirement to pass on to the next area. Luckily there’s a Navi at the start who’ll tell us that we can’t “show our backs” to the enemy. This means that we can’t run from battles. Well, given that the only way to do so in this game is via the Escape chip, that’s not hard. Should you use one, you’ll be booted back to the start of the area to try again. This area also has a merchant with the following:
- HP Memory – 12000z
- HP Memory – 15000z
- HP Memory – 20000z
- HP Memory – 25000z
- Power UP – 25000z
- Aqua Armor – 30000z
- Long Sword E – 5000z
- Mega Cannon L – 10000z
- Steal A – 10000z
Now past the merchant this area has two exits. One leads to Internet Areas 11 and 12, while the other to 13-16. For now, 11 and 12 is where I want to go. Everything in the proper order, right? On the way to this exit there’s a skull door guarding an HP Memory.
In order to get through Internet Area 11, our busting rank has to maintain an average of at least 6, I believe, meaning no running from battle. Bombman’s ghost also awaits just past the area’s exit, so make sure to take him out after you unlock the exit. His chip has him kicking a bomb three panels ahead and it exploding in a plus shape. Internet Area 12 is nominally a dead end, but it does have a few points of interest to us. The first is a merchant with the following:
- HP Memory – 12000z
- HP Memory – 15000z
- HP Memory – 20000z
- HP Memory – 25000z
- Power UP – 25000z
- Power UP – 50000z
- Ice Punch M – 5000z
- Geddon 1 L – 5000z
- Geddon 2 A – 8000z
The second point is that once Megaman is at at least level 70, one of the game’s three bonus bosses is unlocked in this area. At the very back of the area is a square platform, and stepping on it triggers…
Pharaohman
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HP: 800
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Sarcophagus Laser – A laser beam shoots out of a coffin down one row for 200 damage.
- Ratton – Three ratton projectiles shoot out of a coffin for 100 damage.
- Pharaoh Cube – A stone cube is shot out of a coffin down one row for 200 damage.
- Pharaoh Trap – Pharaohman sets a switch in Megaman’s area. When it’s stepped on the following can occur:
- Anubis – A jackal statue falls on Pharaohman’s field and begins poisoning Megaman’s, causing him to lose HP as long as it is intact.
- Arrows – Spears randomly fly down the field for 100 damage.
- Snake Egg 3 – Two snakes meander around Megaman’s field for 100 damage. Two rings of fire are also generated on two panels for 100 Fire damage.
Pharaohman’s unique in that he has no outright offensive capabilities of his own, it is his obstacles and traps that do the fighting for him. Unless you’re trying to get all the damage values down like I was, he’s really not too terribly hard. He doesn’t move all that swiftly, and none of his coffins’ attacks except maybe Ratton 3 go out of their way to make you step on the Pharaoh Traps. Be wary of Anubis though. If it appears, make it priority one, as Megaman’s HP will drop rapidly with it active, and it’s pretty sturdy.
Winning gives us Pharaohman P. It has him use Sarcophagus Laser on all three rows. With Pharaohman defeated he’s naturally added to the area’s random encounter pool. He’s a little unique among Navi bosses in that not only does he drop his three Navi chips, but also the Anubis chip. You need a high busting rank to get it – I could never get him to drop it with anything under an S, but I don’t know the time differential that you need to shoot for in order to get that and not simply Pharaohman 3.
With Pharaohman defeated we can now go back to Internet Area 10 and start exploring the other areas through its other exit.
The goal for getting through Internet Area 13 is to get as many battle chips from battles as one can. This is easier than it sounds because I think the odds are skewed in your favor for this area, and the viruses aren’t as strong as they could be.
Getting through Internet Area 14 is a matter of fighting as few battles as possible. Now this may sound difficult as there’s no way to avoid battles on the overworld, but just heading straight for the exit while taking as few detours as possible seems to do the trick. Magicman’s ghost is located right by the entrance. His chip has him use Magic Fire down one row, and it has the chance of instantly deleting the enemy. I doubt it works on bosses, though. There’s a skull door guarding a Power UP that should be visited once the exit is open.
Internet Area 15 is another “keep your busting rank high” area. There’s also a merchant with the following:
- HP Memory – 15000z
- HP Memory – 20000z
- HP Memory – 25000z
- HP Memory – 40000z
- Power UP – 100000z
- Dash G – 3000z
- Repair G – 3000z
- Wave A – 10000z
- Bubble Wrap 3 R – 10000z
There’s a dead end branching off from the exit that has our second bonus boss hidden at, and he only shows up if you have at least a hundred-and-forty chips recorded in the library. Well at the moment I’m a bit short of that, but luckily I cheated and did my entries both for him and the final bonus boss on a nearly-completed file prior to starting this liveblog.
Shadowman
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HP: 800
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Fire no Jutsu – Shadowman sends a wave of fire down one row for 200 Fire damage. If any copies are on the field, they will use this attack simultaneously.
- Kawarimi – Shadowman jumps into the air and hurls three shurikens at Megaman for 200 damage.
- Kage no Bushin – Shadowman creates two copies of himself. These copies can be destroyed.
Shadowman I found rather tough primarily because he moves fast. One moment you’re launching an attack aimed right at him, the next it’s harmlessly destroying one of his clones. He also seems pretty trigger-happy with Kawarimi, which is bad if you’re trying to S-rank him since it eats up a fair amount of time and he’s invulnerable during the duration of it. On the plus side though, when he comes down from Kawarimi he’s vulnerable for a split second, just long enough to hit him with something heavy.
Winning gives us Shadowman S. His chip has him throw three shurikens at the enemy. If there’re three enemies on the field, each gets hit once. If there are two, Shadowman prioritizes the enemy with the highest HP. If there is only one, they eat all three shurikens. Not bad at all.
Like with Pharaohman, Shadowman becomes a random encounter after this, and like Pharaohman, he possesses an extra chip to snag, Muramasa.
The next area, Internet Area 16, is the final area of the Net. Unlike the twisting pathways prevalent in the rest of the Net, this one is a large, wide open space with only a single upper pathway. Aside from new versions of old viruses there’s not a whole lot here…until you’ve collected every battle chip except for #127. Only then can Megaman encounter the final enemy here in a random encounter.
Bass
◊
HP: 1000
Element: Normal
Attacks:
- Airburst – Bass shoots an energy blast down one row for 200 damage.
- Explosion – Bass briefly charges up his busters before randomly firing shots down all rows for 300 damage per hit.
- Shooting Buster – Bass briefly charges up his busters with blue energy before sweeping Megaman’s field with a buster shot that deals 300 damage.
- Omega Buster – Bass briefly charges up his busters with red energy before firing a series of shots that simultaneously hit random panels on Megaman’s field for 300 damage per hit.
- Life Aura – Bass is protected by a regenerating aura that blocks all attacks that do less than 100 damage.
The ultimate opponent in the game is none other than Bass! While he’s pretty much a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere in this game, his backstory gets covered in later ones. He will always be the strongest opponent that Lan and Megaman face. What’s he doing with the Life Virus’s Life Aura, you may ask? Well one of the emails on the Officials’ mailing list mentioned someone copying the data for it stored in the WWW base, and that someone was Bass. How did he copy it? Well, that’s something left for another game (or two).
For now though…he’s kind of a pushover by this point, I found. Yeah, he has Life Aura and his attacks really hurt, but most of the chips in your folder by now should be able to bring his aura down, as well as take big chunks out of his HP. Like many other bosses in this game, the mighty Bass is hamstrung by the 1000 HP cap. In later games he gets a large HP boost and some really nasty attacks.
If your busting rank is high enough he will drop the final chip, Life Aura…which is near useless in this game thanks to how the damage is balanced. Even the most basic form of a Billy can break it, and unlike when the Life Virus and Bass use it, it doesn’t regenerate.
And that's the end of Megaman Battle Network. Revisiting it after several years I found it to be a game that was somewhat fun but rather flawed. There were times where one felt each and every one of those almost-twelve years since it was first released. Still, it holds up pretty well for a GBA launch title. Future games in the series would go on to emphasis its strengths such as its gameplay, collecting component, and connectivity while fixing its flaws (aesthetics, length, clunky feature implementation). If nothing else it laid down a solid foundation to build off of.
I had fun going back and recording this liveblog. It pushed me to be more mindful and play more thoroughly than I would have just playing on my own. I think that I'll go on to cover the sequel, Megaman Battle Network 2, as it's a much-improved, meatier title. In conclusion I hope everyone who followed this got some sort of enjoyment out of it, and I thank you for following. I will see you again in the near future.
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