Let's Play Megaman Battle Network 3

ACDC Mystery Inc. and the Psycho Hypnotist

Night has fallen on ACDC, meaning that there’s no music playing while Lan skates through the darkened streets and a man reprimands us for staying out late. Dex, Mayl, and Yai are already at the school gates, and it seems our break in misadventure is over before it can even begin because they are naturally locked. Rather than do the sensible thing and give up, Lan decides to go on the Net to where the lock program is and undo it. Committing felonies are all in a night’s work. The lock is at an open area in ACDC 2, and the Navi standing guard is napping on the job, so Megaman’s able to open the lock without a hitch. Upon doing so we get an email from Mayl saying the school’s front doors seem to already be unlocked. Hm…

Once inside the school we head straight to classroom 5-A. Dex’s disk ends up being by the animal terrariums by the windows for some reason. Just when everyone’s about to leave, Yai claims that she hears a noise, and by the time the group gets back to the school’s lobby they hear some sort of disturbance coming from the direction of the teacher’s lounge. Dex thinks it’s a ghost but the girls remind him that it’s probably just a teacher. Megaman, however, thinks that it could be a burglar, and Lan, being the hero, decides to go check it out. The door to the teacher’s lounge is even unlocked. We can jack in to the server at the back of the room to find a Rock Cube * and an HP Memory. Interestingly, examining a stack of books reveals that Lan’s father Yuuichiro used to attend this school. When Lan approaches the door that leads to the principal’s office, he hears a voice gloating about how he’s managed to obtain something called a Tetra Code. Dex, Mayl, and Yai decide to go ahead and confront this would-be robber, on the grounds that Lan doesn’t have to always be the only one sticking his neck out. Everyone rushes in.

At the principal’s desk inside is a man dressed like a Shaolin monk. His name’s Rei Saiko◊, though it’s never mentioned in the game itself. When Lan enters Rei says that this must be his lucky day, since apparently Lan’s gotten a price put on his head after taking down not one but two criminal organizations, something that is never mentioned again after this scene. Lan’s friends step forward to protect him, but Rei orders his Navi, Flashman, to handle them. A beam of light, Flashman’s Hypno Flash attack, it projected from the laptop sitting on the desk, striking all three of them. Each of them wander off, hypnotized by the light. Dex thinks he’s a train, Yai a swan, and Mayl a zombie. Lan decides to beat a hasty retreat and see if everyone’s okay.

The three haven’t gotten far. Yai’s pirouetting around the classroom hallway, Dex is chugging away inside 5-A, and interrupting Mayl’s search for human brains in the lobby causes the Roll R chip to fall out of her pocket. As usual, Roll’s chip has her attack the nearest enemy and then heal Megaman by a small amount.

About battle chips, starting from this game forward chips get grouped into three categories. There’re Standard chips, Mega chips, and Giga chips. Standard chips are generally just your garden-variety battle chips that can be bought or found anywhere in the game. Mega chips are colored blue and are generally more powerful and rare. All Navi chips from this point forward in the series are Mega-class. Only five Mega chips can be used in a folder. Giga chips are red and are generally very powerful, and each game version has an exclusive set. Only one Giga chip can be put into a folder.

With everyone accounted for, Lan and Megaman decide that the only way to undo their friends’ hypnotism is by defeating Flashman, however they’ll need something in order to block the Hypno Flash so that Lan can jack in to the laptop. Well, if you recall one of the students from 5-B mentioned that they went to an umbrella factory for their fieldtrip (I still can’t get over how lame of a trip that would be), and one of them has left a parasol by their desk. Well, I’m sure that they won’t mind if it goes missing. Upon returning to the principal’s office, Rei is gone but Flashman is still inside the laptop. Lan uses the parasol to block the beam and charges. He’s able to successfully jack in.

The innards of the Principal’s PC are just as dark as the school is in the real world. It’s design is pretty simple compared to other networks that we’ve encountered in the series – it’s laid out in a manner that resembles a bunch of interconnected classrooms, complete with little desks. Now that I think of it, it’s sort of like the school network from the first game but on a much, much smaller scale. However, we can’t get to the next area because there’s a security door in the way. A Program in front of it explains that we need Keydata to open the door, but it’s too dark to search. Luckily though, by turning on the lights in the real world we can brighten the network area up (huh?). The Program finishes by providing a hint, he’s seen a doodle of “Cleaners 1”.

So it falls to Lan to find out which part of the school that this refers to. You’d think it would be a reference to the supply closet located right next to the lounge, the one where Ms. Mari was tied up in during Higsby’s short-lived stint as a WWW agent, but nope, it’s locked. It actually refers to class 5-B, where there’s a notice on the wall that group 1 is assigned to clean-up duty. Hitting the light switch causes the lights to flicker on and off in the PC, briefly illuminating the area’s Mystery Data. It’s not ideal, but it’ll do. The Keydata items can be found in them, though some of them contain viruses as part of an intruder repel system. Once we get through the door, it’s on to the next area, which is more of the same. This time Megaman spies an odd-looking statue meaning that this area corresponds to the teacher’s lounge, as there’s a similar statue on one of the shelves. Turning the lights on in there brightens the place up enough to search for the password data for this area’s door. Beyond it awaits Flashman.

Flashman

◊

HP: 300

Element: Elec

Attacks:

Neon Light – Flashman sends a stream of balls of light towards Megaman for 10 Elec damage.
Spark Arm – Flashman puts a hand to the ground, electrifying the column in front of him and one panel beyond in a truncated T shape for 15 Elec damage.
Flash Light – Flashman summons two flashbulbs on Megaman’s field which will flash after a few moments, paralyzing him.

Out of all the intro bosses, Flashman is probably the most difficult. Unlike the others, he’s fast, his main attack is fast and homing, and his movement pattern is rather unusual. Instead of simply moving from panel to panel, he’ll appear on one, and then almost instantly warp to another panel elsewhere on the field. It doesn’t even have to be an adjacent one, he can zip around the field with impunity. He always follows Flash Light up with Spark Arm, so Megaman has to get into the back row if he doesn’t want to get hit by it. Problem is, Flashman's AI is smart enough to counter this strategy by using Neon Light if the player tries this, damaging Megaman anyway. The bulbs can be destroyed, but at this point in the game Megaman doesn’t have enough firepower to take them out fast enough without using chips, and you’d probably want to conserve your chips for Flashman himself. Flashman can definitely be trying to take down this early in the game. Every hit needs to count.

Winning gives us 1000z.

Flashman goes out with a bang, er, flash rather, which doesn’t appear to do anything but dazzle Megaman. Despite this, Rei commends his deleted Navi on a job well done, and says that that flash will become a “beacon for a major catastrophe.” He signs out before Lan and Megaman can get any more information out of him. Well, at least the hypnotism on Lan’s friends have worn off, and Dex found his disk, so I guess this little escapade was somewhat worth it.

Once outside, we get an email from Dex saying that he can’t sleep after what happened and asks us if we want to Net Battle, and he gives us Dex Code as thanks for helping him tonight. He’s waiting in ACDC’s park if one wishes to challenge him.

Gutsman

HP: 300

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.

It’s Gutsman. I can’t really say anything else about him right now, since he’s exactly the same as the last two games. I guess he’s a little more aggressive, but that’s it.

Winning gives us Gutsman G, which has him attack by cracking all panels before him and sending shockwaves down all three rows.

After battling Dex the only thing to do is to go home and go to bed. I guess Lan never ended up doing that homework…

After Lan falls asleep the scene shifts to Rei reporting to his boss who is none other than…Dr. Wily, the head of the WWW criminal organization! Yes, just like Planetman foretold in the previous game the WWW is back, with a brand-new plan for world domination. After receiving the Tetra Code and dismissing Rei, Wily turns to the other WWW operator present, a brutish man named Takeo Inukai◊, who promises to destroy what Wily hates most, human “love.”

I’m getting the heebie-jeebies just imagining it.

Virus Listing

Boomer
- Boomer viruses look like clothespins, amusingly enough. A boomerang is gripped in their "mouth", protecting them from non-breaking attacks. They attack by letting the boomerang fly around the perimeter of the field, during which time they are vulnerable to conventional attacks. Stronger versions will use Panel Grab in an attempt to thwart attempts to dodge the boomerang by slipping into the center of the field.
Eleball
- Eleballs float around the field, and upon entering Megaman's side will generate balls of electricity which will circle around them. If they're in the center of Megaman's field the only way to dodge the electricity is by moving in sequence with it.

Soundtrack