Mega Man Battle Network 6
From The Cutting Room Floor
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| Megaman Battle Network 6 Cybeast Falzar/Cybeast Gregar |
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Also known as: Rockman EXE 6
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Megaman Battle Network 6 is the sixth and final installment to the Battle Network series. The game finally introduces freely playable Navis, removes the EX-virus system, and adds a second elemental cycle. The US and EU versions of the game also removed content from the game, including Crossover Battle 2.
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Unused Sprites
This early screenshot shows Elecman casting blue-colored thunder from his charge attack. There is no way to trigger blue thunder in the final game and it is unknown whether it had any special effect since it was introduced in this game. Apparently blue thunder was supposed to appear in the horizontal thunderbolt sprite which also remained unused. This cosmetic feature was simply dropped.
Tomahawk Cross also faced layering issues. Megaman himself is layered over the Cross's sprite. Normally, Crosses are busts layered over the regular Megaman sprites. Attacks that require animations unique to the Cross are normally flattened, but for this case, the sprite on Megaman was kept and still exists in the final version. One detail that didn't carry over was the detail. It's kind of hard to see but the early screenshot had more detailed arms than seen in the sprites below.
In the final version, though the sprite still exists, the Cross bust appears over Megaman properly, but the incomplete details can't normally be seen. The sprite is also very incomplete and offers insight as to how Capcom's sprite artists worked on sprites. The arms are notably flatter. The emblem is sloppily made. The backpack object is missing. And the shoulder pads are still blue.
Chip-charging was added in Megaman Battle Network 4. In this game, there are alternate colors for elemental chips. Apparently when an elemental chip was charged, the charge animation would be colored the matching color. However, there is no known way to trigger this behavior in the game.
The flamethrower sprites were updated in this game, but it apparently copied over old colors. There are elemental flame colors and a dark color. Perhaps there would have been elemental flames of some sort in the game, but these aren't used.
The Pulse Bulb enemy also has an unused animation. It seems that it was supposed to open up and perform a scan of some sort. While this sprite exists, there is no known way to trigger this behavior or know what it did.
The Shrubby virus has one unused animation. Being one of the more animate viruses, it has different animations for different situations. Its first animation is the idle animation. The second animation is the enemy panicking, trying to hide behind an object. The third animation is it preparing to attack. This animated GIF is the sixth animation is has it squatting to the point where legs can't be seen. This animation isn't used but its behavior is similar to the Ratton enemy from the first 3 games where it would act faster when its HP was lower.
Beast Overs were also supposed to use their own color. In the game, after Beast Out time runs out, Beast Over can be enabled. However, the same colors are used and the sprite simply cycles through green colors for Gregar and red colors for Falzar. These unused palettes suggest that Beast Over would have changed the sprite's palette completely. This would match the colors used in the official artwork for the Beast Overs. However, Falzar Beast's wings don't have a matching Beast Over palette which might imply that there were programming/time issues in implementing this feature. Note that Falzar Beast's wings has 2 palettes for all 5 Crosses, a lighter movement color, and a Full Sync color with a lighter version of that used for movement.
Unused Enemies
Megaman Battle Network 6 also introduced the Virus Battler. The player may find "Rare" viruses and defeating them registers them for use in the Virus Battler.
The Rare Fan enemy can't normally be encountered in the game. All Virus Battler viruses normally have 2 versions of their Rare version. The WindBox family is a notable exception since it contains pulling and pushing versions of the enemy. Technically the Rare Fan would have had a different effect from Rare Box and therefore the selectable enemy in the Virus Battler list would not match. The Virus Battler allowed for only one versions from the virus family and the Fan wasn't chosen.
The Rare Kettle, called Kettle SP in the game, is presumably the Rare-colored version of the Kettle enemy. However, Kettle is not selectable in the Virus Battler. It was probably excluded due to the way it handles HP which would not function properly with standard enemies and accumulated HP. Also note that the color was made specifically for this version. Because the Kettle family adds one extra version used exclusively in Heatman's sidequest, the other Rare version could not be included.
Unused Virus Battler Enemies
When the Virus Battler list is debugged, 2 unused enemies appear on the list: Trumpy and Kettle. All other enemies are accounted for. The Kettle may not have been included due to the reasons above. The Trumpy may have also been excluded since a Rare version wouldn't fit in the maximum allowed 6 versions per enemy.
Unknown Scenario Attack
Buried in the game's attack list, there is a very non-standard attack. Once hacked in, the attack will cause a message box to appear (never done during a battle, mind you) and Judgeman saying "MegaMan, thou must not move." After the attack, the enemy's panels are highlighted blue (an effect never done anywhere in the series) and a placeholder sprite appears which floats a couple panels before freezing the game.
Additional lines of text follow this which appear exactly as seen in the game:
One way to interpret this is that Judgeman could punish MegaMan if he fails to follow his orders (browser game Tower of Heaven has an example of such a mechanic), though the placeholder effect on the battlefield is quite indecipherable.
Unused Text
The game also has a couple of unused text and debug commands.
Unused Map Names
There are a few unused maps. The only evidence of their existence is their name on the map name list: Stg6Dungeon1, Stg6Dungeon2, Stg6Dungeon3. These are presumably placeholder names for boss maps. The term "Stage" describes the boss map and "Dungeon" describes the room. Assuming there was a sixth stage, there would have been 2 more storyline bosses in the game than the 4 bosses there are in the final. There is no other data available on these maps so it is impossible to know how quickly the concept of 6 bosses was dropped. The rest of the unused entries are all labelled "Extra"; these are presumably placeholders for the Home Pages only meant to pad the list for the accessible HPs.
Missing Chip Order Text
An extra line of dialog exists for the Chip Order shop in the game. Normally when buying chips from that shop, the same line asking the player if they would want to buy that chip appears. This more specialized line of dialog would fit the Chip Order system more appropriately but for some reason never actually shows up. The text also seems to suggests multiple purchases could have been possible.
I've got some of that chip in code: [list chip codes]! It will be [show price]Z Is that ok?
Wireless Test
At 0x6DAE68 in the US Falzar game, there is a compressed text archive which appears to be some kind of Wireless connection test or tutorial. There is no pointer for this data and therefore no known method to get it to appear during the game. In this test, the player can choose either Host or Client right off the message box (never done in game). A connection is then initiated with another player named "Mike". It is worth noting none of the text appears in the game and everything written in the archive was written for the use of the archive only. Placeholder names for the client, host and their comments are present in the archive. Mega Man also speaks all the dialog. Here is the full archive dialog.
Please choose to be the Host or Client. [Host][Client] This is the host. Please wait for Client transmission. Mike applied to play wirelessly! Play with Mike? [Yes][No] Connected to play with Mike. Seems like wireless initialization has failed... Communication error. Please reset the system... There was a link error. Your partner cancelled the transmission. I cancelled the transmission. Bob Bob Mike Let's play!
No Rush Coil!
For some inexplicable reason, when a certain flag is enabled and the player is in any of the school maps, Mega Man will suddenly say "No Rush Coil!" Curiously, Rush Coil is a power up from the classic Mega Man games but the reference is still random. Also, the way the line of dialog is set up, if the player has Ground Man, he will say his own thing while every other Navi will default to Megaman mentioning Rush Coil. Ground Man's full line of dialog is:
Hey! It's no time to be doing that sort of thing! You need to be concentratin'!
Debug Text
The game also has normally inaccessible debug text. They perform the effects described and were used for testing purposes in the game. Two of the commands actually have the word "Cheater" written in parentheses for whatever reason.
47= Cannot Converse 65= All mail sent 6F= Seaside HP Banner AB= Green HP Banner AC= Sky HP Banner AD= ACDCTown HP Banner AE= All mail received AF= BOKTAI TRADER DISPLAY B5= Green Town Chip Trader SP Display B6= Navi Change Box Display B7= Japanese text B8= BBS Entry BF= Request BBS entry C0= 1 Point Acquired C1= Request Complete C2= All Requests Complete C3= Got Rush Food C5= Go to underground from Set 2 C9= Operate Partner Navi (CHEATER) CA= Virus Battle Set (CHEATER) CB= Max Virus MAX CC= Recheck Gold Mystery Data D1= 1 HP Memory D3= Reg Up 1 D4= Reg Up 2 D5= Reg Up 3 D6= 0 Zennys Cleared D7= 0 Bug Frags Cleared D8= Extra Deck D9= Folder2 DA= Extra Deck DC= Start Fishing Game DD= Evil Spirit Game DE= Cooking Game DF= Roll mini Game E0= Blackout Game E1= Erasure Game E2= Rock Crusher Game E3= Check Real Megaman E5= Check Mystery Data E6= Change to Megaman E7= Change to Elecman E8= Change to Heatman E9= Change to Eraseman EA= Change to Slashman EB= Change to Chargeman EC= Change to Spoutman ED= Change to Tomahawkman EE= Change to Groundman EF= Change to Dustman F0= Change to Tenguman F1= Beast Change OK/Cross Change OK F2= Change to Protoman F3= BOKTAI POINT GET F4= Hidden Gate Display F5= EX Memory F6= You got PA F7= Reality World Tour F8= Cyberworld Tour F9= Got Navi Cust FB= New Mail FC= Very Wealthy FD= Sub Chip FE= all chips
Version Differences
Tornado Damage Glitch
In the Japanese version of the game, there is a glitch with the Tornado chip that makes it deal more damage. If Tornado is used over an elemental panel like grass or crater panels and has a White Capsule chip on it, instead of the attack paralyzing, it will actually do more damage. This glitch was fixed in the US and EU versions of the game.
 Tornado's full glitched damage in the Japanese version subtracting from 1700. |
 Tornado's full damage in US and EU versions after the glitch was fixed. |
The behavior can be explained by this ASM routine.
Japanese
080CD8B4 8DA8 ldrh r0,[r5,#0x2C] 080CD8B6 0040 lsl r0,r0,#0x1 080CD8B8 85A8 strh r0,[r5,#0x2C]
US/EU
080C9FB4 8DA8 ldrh r0,[r5,#0x2C] 080C9FB6 49AC ldr r1,=#0xF800 080C9FB8 1C0A mov r2,r1 080C9FBA 4002 and r2,r0 080C9FBC 4388 bic r0,r1 080C9FBE 0040 lsl r0,r0,#0x1 080C9FC0 4310 orr r0,r2 080C9FC2 85A8 strh r0,[r5,#0x2C]
In the Japanese version, the routine for calculating the damage of Tornado over an elemental panel simply doubles the halfword that contains Tornado's attack. Attack power doesn't use the 0xF800 bits since those are reserved for special attack attributes like the White Capsule, which is 0x4000. When the routine doubles the halfword, it doubles White Capsule's effect value to 0x8000 which is a double damage effect as well as the original damage doubled. This was fixed for the US and EU versions by a routine that separates the 0xF800 bits, doubles the attack value, then returns the 0xF800 bits so that the Tornado doubles damage and keeps the paralysis effect.
Removed Maps
US and EU versions removed 3 maps from the game: Undernet 3, Graveyard 1, and Immortal Area. Removing Undernet 3 and Graveyard 1 makes the post-game much shorter and forces a relocation of the Bug Frag trader to Undernet Zero. Perhaps due to cartridge limitations, the removal of these maps also meant all their dialog was removed. Graveyard 1, in particular had text for many tombstones in the area, which could have led to more space the cartridge didn't have. Because the Immortal Area was removed, the item Bass drops in Undernet Zero is instead used on a door in Graveyard 2 which was not there in the Japanese version.
Also in the US and EU versions, map previews were removed. Each map had a place where the player could check for a preview of the current map. The text is still translated and in the game, but the map graphics were removed along with the post used to check them.
Crossover Features
Like Mega Man Battle Network 4 and 5, this game has references from the Boktai series. Unfortunately, the US and EU versions removed most of that content from the game likely because Boktai 3 was never released outside of Japan. All the events, dialog, maps, and Crossover features were removed in localized releases. Furthermore, the Crossover Program Advance, Otenko and GunSolEX chips was tampered with and the Django and Count chips were broken completely. It is also not possible to fight the Count in the US and EU versions as the boss data was also removed. An idle Mega Man replace the Count's boss appearance in battle. If the Crossover Battle menu is hacked into from the Star Screen, it is still possible to establish a connection with a Japanese Boktai 3 on any version Battle Network 6. Nothing will happen in the battle because the Count can't fight.
The Crossover event when the player first fights the Count and afterwards was broken for the localized releases. This means it is not possible to trigger the event normally during battle. However, this text is still entirely intact and translated.
[MegaMan] The attack... It didn't work... [Count] There is no way you can hurt me with your puny attacks! Let's end this game! C'mon! Show me what you've got! [MegaMan] Yahhhhhhhh!! [Django] That's enough,Zap! [Count] What was that!? Gwwwahhhh!! [MegaMan] You...You...! (After the first battle) [Count] Gwwaaahhhh!! You can never stop me!! Waaaaaaaaahh! [MegaMan] He's still got some fight left! [Count] Gwwahhhhhh!! I'll never lose! [Django] MegaMan!! MegaMan,let's do this together! [MegaMan] OK!! [Count] Grrrrrrrghh!
Beast Link Gate
Because the hardware never caught on in the states, the US and EU versions do not work with the Beast Link Gate and had its features removed. This means it is not possible to get the Beast Link Gate icon on the title screen and the player can't use leveled up Link Navis. This also means there is no legitimate way to play as Proto Man in non-Japan versions. The Navi Change Machine in Tab's shop can still be triggered in the game through a cheat though. To get the Beast Link Gate icon on the title screen, the player has to defeat Bass SP with all of their version-specific SP-leveled Navis. Through cheats, it is still possible to obtain it this way and each character even had all their dialog translated for their encounter and defeat of Bass.
E-Reader Cards
For the same reasons as above, the E-Reader features were removed and unlike in the previous game, the cards can't be re-activated through cheats. Anything related to the E-cards were removed in localized versions and the Request BBS has all the requests available to the player without the need of the E-cards. Also, because E-Reader features were removed, it is not possible to obtain the Gregar and Falzar chips normally. Unlike every other game in the series, these chips were also broken meaning even if they're hacked into a folder, they freeze the game because all the data about the chips was removed, including graphics.
Games > E-Reader compatible games
Games > Game Boy Advance games
Games > Games by content > Games with debugging functions
Games > Games by content > Games with hidden development-related text
Games > Games by content > Games with regional differences
Games > Games by content > Games with unused graphics
Games > Games by release date > Games released in 2005
Games > Games by series > Mega Man series
