Observation I forgot from last time.

In the promotional materials for Psychonauts 2 it was mentioned that part of the game would be Raz learning what terms like "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" really mean... But his relationship with Lilli kind of takes a back seat. Most of her scenes in the game are optional and easily misible.

So you'd think they lied... Until you recall that pretty much all of Ford's mental world's are representations of the high points and low points of his relationship with Lucy. The love they feel for each other, the turmoil within Ford when Lucy was in trouble, and the extreme lengths he was willing to go to to help her, and guilt that he couldn't do more or do better.

And Helmut's mind and Bob's mind both have a great deal of focus on the romance between Bob and Helmut as well...

Between those minds, Raz probably learned quite a lot about how that kind of relationship works.
So... When it comes to battle NEtwork I've only ever seen the Anime. I legitly don't know what form that is from what specific game in this subseries, but I know that "your vpet is literally alive and fully sapient" is a cool concept. I also knowsome major lore stuff from assimilation.

And as far as I know literally the only difference between this timeline and the orignal Megaman timeline is "Doctor Light's AI research was done for its own sake rather than the sake of better robots which led to a boom in computers and internet technology."

And yes, two LaZodiacs... The question is, which one is the Western LaZodiac and which one the Eastern LaZodiac?

...Zodi, do you have any knights? You know, Knights of LaZodiac?

Oh God, the first thing you have to do in the game is get up and go to school... Gonna be honest, while some games with a "school" plot can be fun video games are about escapism.

And comments made the zodiac joke already.

My Eastern zodiac sign is the Rooster. It's very easy to look up since it corresponds to years instead of the position of the sun in relation to constellations on a vaguely monthly basis

Though, bit of side trivia: The Eastern zodiac doesn't just cycle through the 12 animals, but also five elements—wood, fire, earth, metal, water every two years Not only was I born in the year of the Rooster, I was born in the year of the Water Rooster.

I'm a sea chicken...

My eastern zodiac sign is tuna.

By sheer confidence, my Western Zodiac Sign, Cancer, is also a water sign by the western zodiac's internal logic, and Water signs in the Eastern Zodiac are described as being the same was as cancers are commonly described. The actual base Rooster description is way the hell off for me though.

Lan hid test answers in his room? Wow, Lan's kind of a twerp.

And yes, right after you get up in the morning is a little early to go to bed. You've got to at least eat breakfast and take a bath first.

You know how in Terminator 2 teenage Punk John Conor had that thing he could pug into machines and it hacked them for him? He used it to rob an ATM and then much later to bust through a door? That. That's Lan's secret tool.

...Someday, Zodi... Someday, when the stars align just right, MegaMan Volnutt will be released from his orbiting Lunar Prison and we will finally get Legends 3.

Also, MegaMan 11 was basically just "a bunch of calls forwards to X and Zero" so...

MegaMan.Exe is especially like a person becuase as one of the main characters he actually gets development instead of being a satellite for someone else and that's the only reason.

In the original series Light and Wily both did Robots, they just had different goals: Light wanted to make robots with humanlike intelligence—the capacity for free will, the ability to learn and grow beyond their programming. Becuase the Terminator Franchise doesn't exist in this universe, Light's research was funded but Wiley's was passed over.

Note: Doctor Light in the main timeline technically never actually fulfilled his goal while alive—Protoman possessed true free will and ability to grow, but only becuase of a defect that was slowly killing him and that Light couldn't replicate. All of the other Robot Masters could learn and make decisions, but their personalities were hardcoded and they couldn't act against their programming even if they tried(see Megaman just up and trying to execute Wiley at the end of one game and physically being unable to becuase Light programmed all of his robots to never hurt humans.)

X had true free will, including being able to act against programmed behaviors and grow as a person... He even has a soul, but Light was long dead by the time that X activated so he never saw if X was a success or not.

Wily's research wasn't originally elaborated on but 11 eventually clarified that Wily originally wanted to create a world wherein an emergency, any robot could step in and be a hero and so created the "Duel Gear" system that would allow a robot that had it installed in it to overclock their own systems to either massively increase their speed or the amount of power the could output, or if absolutely necessary both, in order to deal with an emergency.

However,this puts a lot of strain on the system of the robot and could lead to damage, which resulted in the board providing funding dismissing Wily's creation out of hand becuase they apparently ignored the "for emergencies" part.

Afterward, Wily smashed his prototype and stewed in his anger so long that... Well, I don't think I need to explain the rest. He didn't touch the duel gear system for years until MM11.

And... No, turns out that the Duel Gear system is much better tech than Robot Masters if you put it in a bot that can handle the strain. Dr. Light needs to repair Wily's prototype(which he saved becuase he felt bad that Wily was overlooked... Which is also why he keeps falling for it when Wily pretends to be reformed) and install it in Rock just to have a chance and when Wily points out that he only lost this time becuase light used his tech against him... Light fully admits it. "I could only bring out MegaMan's full potential by using your Duel Gear system... Or inventions complement each other well... We can still work together if you still beleive in your dream of robot heroes" and at this point, Wily is too far gone to take the chance at genuine redemption when t's freely offered.

(Of note, the way the overclock features manifest in Rock are virtually identical to abilities that X has by default, and simply having the duel gear system installed seems to upgrade Rock's Weapon Generation system—in addition to copying an enemy's primary weapon, he also copies their secondary weapons and to an extent their armor. The implication is that X's infinite capacity to improve his hardware and software is the result of Light continuing to experiment with the Duel Gear system on his own and further integrating it with his own technology.)

It makes the entire classic series really sad... But at the same time makes the fact that Zero, Wily's ultimate creation, and not X, Light's, was the ultimate Hero of the X-Era timeline sort of... Heartwarming in hindsight. Wily achieved his orignal dream of creating robotic heroes despite turning against it.

You've never had sink pie, Zodi?

Gonna be honest, if what I've heard of this subseries is accurate, WarGreymon is probably drastically underselling what .Exe is capable of. He'd maybe be Omnimon Mercy Mode. You know, the only good thing to come out of Tri.

...so Lan's mom cooks with battle chips?

Lan, you always have to walk to school together because Mayl wants you.

...So Mayl's Navi is this game's version of Roll... Who in the anime at least is presented as a love interest for Megaman... But the original Rock and Roll were siblings. Like, everything other than the classic series makes the Rock and Roll analogs romantic partners instead of siblings and I think that's weird.

Also, how does MegaMan.Exe know so much about... Like, he was literally just installed. Did he come preprogrammed with all the information about Lan's life?

You know, if the ovens can spit fire... The fact that that's physically possible in the first place tells me that that's more of a hardware problem than a software problem.

I see that their school is just an open set of cubicles floating in the ocean.

...Wait, this is elementary school?

All that invisible graffiti on the blackboard.

Is the living forehead supposed to be angry and arrogant or does she just have resting bitch face? Like, I vaguely remember that character design from the anime but she didn't look super angry all the time.

...That cellphone line aged very poorly. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the next iPhone doesn't actually have a phone in it becuase you can just use the internet connection to video call people on your contacts list.

...How does Ego the Living Foforehead know about Megaman. He was literally just installed like a few minutes ago. Did an automatically generated status update go to everyone in Lan's contact list? Lan installed a custom NetNavi: Megaman.Exe

Like, in the anime at least a point was made that Lan was kind of well known for using a generic sentient starter Navi becuase he promised he woulnd't make one till his father sent him the data for a custom one but... Here there's nothing like that.

So like... This is elementary school, they're fifth grade... So like, ten or eleven?

So why is the army automatized through the internet? Why don't they like... Have a private network for exactly this reason.

Also, I don't think viruses work that way.

He's not a muppet man Zodi. A Muppet man is three Muppets standing on top of each other in a trenchcoat. He's just a Muppet.

Dex looks like... Not good. That is... that is peak "fat ugly idiot" character design. Though he does have a point in that netbattling doesn't bother anyone... Unless it causes collateral damage to the school's local portion of the net, which might actually be posisble.

"Class, today we're learning how to deal with viruses. I've deliberately infected the school's mainframe, so plug in your devices and clean my mess."

And the school's mainframe is literally just the classroom but digital and...

This isn't the Digimon of Megaman, it's the Yu-Gi-Oh of Megaman. The entire world revolves around a children's fad.

Gotta use chips, no default Megabuster here... Which means that if your the poor kid who can't afford good chips you're kinda screwed in this school.

"Okay students, in this lesson your fully sapient best friend cold actually ****ing die if you screw up." My god, this school is a nightmare.

Oh, you do have a megabuster it just kind of sucks.

Class is like five minutes of a lesson that, if you fail, will destroy your fully sapient personal property? And I thought American public schools were bad.

No, seriously, why are the ovens physically capable of spitting fire? That seems like an intentional design flaw.

Oh God... Mandatory Manual saves. At least you don't have to find savepoints.

Latest version... Is Gutsman a mass-produced Navi rather than a custom unit? I mean, I noticed that the generic classmates had the same Navi as their same-gendered counterparts but I assumed that was becuase They're generic sprites... Or maybe just the generic nonsapient Navis...

If you can mass-produce the same one that kind of makes the concept less special.

And yeah, you just fricking murdered Gutsman. Deleted him. Now Assimilate his code into your own to become stronger. Becuase this is MegaMan and he has to copy other people's powers somehow.

He's a sore loser, but of course, he is, you just erased his friend that he just bought the latest version of from existence.

...Okay, in all seriousness, maybe he means he downloaded a patch for the base underlying NetNavi program that sort of upgraded Gutsman and he just phrased it wrong? Or the latest version of a combat algorithm? A sort of Gutsman 2.0? Or whatever the version number is are.

And I mean, it would be natural to think that would guarantee a win. Not like MegaMan is built from the ground up to be the best possible Navi by an industry insider or anything. Or any other reasons why he might be better than a normal Navi.*shifty eyes*

And it's been maybe 20 minutes tops since he was installed and your dad already has a massive upgrade for him.

Old Man, if you have to prove that you're not senile, you might be a touch senile.

The man who went to the park instead of work knows what h's talking about Zodi.

The forehead that ate Chicago is eight and skipped a grade...

Which means that... The average fifth grader in this town is 9?

Also, the fact that "I'm still only eight" came immediately after "so you're interested in me" is uh... Yeah. I don't know if that was on purpose but it says bad things about where her thought process was going.

...You can get chips by fighting? So the chips aren't even actual chips, they're just... Data?

Unfortunately, weird generic muppet boy, this isn't the legends era of the classic timeline so people are not machines and this can't be interfaced with.

Why is there a virus in your security system? Why is that connected to the net?

...If you're the watchdog then what's the other guy, random program sitting in the corner?

And that is obviously the guy who somehow makes ovens breathe fire and AND SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FRICK A VIRUS COULD ONLY DO THAT IF THE OVEN COULD DO THAT ALREADY!

Either the people who made this game don't know how the internet works and think that hacking is magic... Which would be really weird for people who make software, or seriously someone made ovens that can breathe fire for some inexplicable reason.

And the fact that he uploads the virus directly into your house in person means that the house is wireless but not connected to the Internet which raises the question of how are their viruses in your security system? Why is that connected to the net when the house isn't and...?

The rich girl's partner is a solid gold bishi. That checks out.

...Okay, you are clearly p to something and Qwerty clearly knows what that is? I swear to god if I get jump scared becuase this is a hacked emulation simulating a Cursed Game CreepyPasta that I will brave the frozen white north to give you a piece of my mind in person.

"Lan sees a hyperlink to the dark web and thinks 'we'll check that out later.'"

So wait, how do you get money from busting viruses?

Stopping an hour and five in because I probably shouldn't stay up all night three weekends in a row. More thoughts when I have them.