FlashMan Race Guide Commentary

Hello and welcome to Tterraj42's FlashMan race guide. We'll be going over the basic route, along with a couple of backup strats.

Hold start to skip the intro cutscene.

Ok, first off is your typical talk to everyone to progress scenario. When you talk to the last person, your teacher Ms. Mari will start to say something, that's when you press Start to skip the cutscene.

So, right.. there.

After that Mega will tell you to press R. If you spam B too much, that text box will keep popping up.

For the tutorials, alternate mashing A and B, this gets through the text and arrows the fastest. Also, you can press start to move the cursor to [OK] on the chip select screen. This saves a few frames :)

The tutorial fights are very straightforward. For the first one, just take the two cannons.

Second fight. Area grab, wide sword takes care of the middle mettaurs, then we just wait and use a cannon on the last mettaur. You'll see that I make the mettaur move twice, that sets his attack cycle up so that when the custom gague fills you can take the cannon and get a counter hit. All that matters is that your cannon isn't interrupted, the counter hit is just for swag.

Ok, third fight is a little more specific, so watch closely. The main thing here is to get the front and back mettaurs health to 30. Then when the custom gauge fills, you can delete all three with just two shotguns.

Moving back and forth like that is called step buffering and allows you to fire the buster faster against viruses in the back row.

If things go wrong, just take the three cannons instead of the two shotguns, it's barely slower.

After the fight is over, hold start to skip the next few cutscenes.

Once in the classroom, talk to your three friends (Dex, Yai, and Mayl) then head to the park. Watch out for kids in orange shirts, they're really troll and like to get in your way.

When you step on the sand, the cutscene triggers, hold start to skip it. After that, go home and TalkToMom.

You don't have to be standing right next to your computer to jack in. Another small frame saving trick.

Once on the net, our main priority is to collect 3000 zenny from green and blue mystery data (aka GMD, and BMD).

The GMD in ACDC Area 1 is always in one of the corners of these two squares.

Press L to run from fights.

Each area always has 2 GMDs, though you won't always be able to get to both of them.

There are 8 possible spawn locations for the GMD in ACDC 2. Pay close attention to where I walk, as it passes by all of the spawn points.

There is only one BMD we pick up, and it has 800 of the 3k zenny that we need.

The contents of GMDs are random, while BMDs give the same thing every time. The GMDs in ACDC 2 will always give zenny, though often only 100 or 300.

There's a net dealer in ACDC 2 that sells an HPMemory for 1000 zenny. If you get all the mystery datas, you will ALWAYS be able to buy it.

We still need 1800 zenny from GMDs.

Your ability to run from battles in based solely on your max HP. You only need 100 HP to run from random encounters in ACDC Areas 1 & 2, but 140 HP to run from random encounters in ACDC Area 3.

Since we only have 120 HP, it takes two turns to escape from battle. Which wastes around 10 additional seconds per fight.

With that last GMD, we now have exactly 2000 zenny, allowing us to buy a second HPMemory from the net dealer in ACDC Square. With that, we will be able to one turn escape from all random encounters up to FlashMan.

We now have 140 Max HP.

When talking to this guy, make sure to answer "YES!". Otherwise you can't continue.

The preliminaries are made up of 3 true or false questions. For each question, you collect either the O data if the question is true, or the X data if the question is false.

The O and X data are in the same location every time, so just take note of where I pick them up.

It can help to make use of reference points like that squirrel or the elephant slide.

Now, most of the time you won't collect enough zenny from the GMDs to buy the second HPMemory. So what do you do?

Let's go back to the start of the prelims.

Backup strat #1 is to jack out (press R) after agreeing to participate in the preliminaries.

This respawns all the GMDs in the ACDC Areas.

I skip some of the possible GMD spawn locations. It's a small risk to save a few seconds. Fortunately I don't end up regretting it, as the second GMD gave me just enough :)

The viruses here do very little damage. Whether you dodge their attacks or not is up to you. Just don't accidentally get deleted :)

And now we have 140 Max HP with backup strat #1.

The X data for question 2 is in the large open area in ACDC 2.

The X data for question 3 is near Lan's HP (or home page). So it's quickest to jack out and back in.

The path between Lan's HP and ACDC square is colored yellow. The blue paths are all side paths. So just follow the yellow road to get back to ACDC Square.

After turning in the X data, hold start to skip the cutscene. Mega Man is automatically jacked out. Now go downstairs and TalkToMom. Hold start to skip the cutscene. Then run back upstairs and jack in.

Head straight to Yai's HP. It's behind a security cube in ACDC 2, but you have the Pass Code to open it.

Talk to Glyde, Roll, and GutsMan to trigger the cutscene.

Again, Mega Man will be auto jacked out. Head outside and go towards your friends by the school gate. Skip the cutscene when you get there.

You have to unlock the school gate on the net. It's in ACDC 2, so Yai's HP is the closest. Go to her house and jack in.

The key is in the large open area where the X data was.

Skip the cutscene, then jack out and head to the school.

Once at the school, go to your classroom and skip the cutscene.

After the cutscene, hold left and talk to the container with the green lid. Skip the cutscene.

Now head towards the exit, skipping the cutscene when you get there.

Head towards the staff lounge, skipping the cutscene when you get there.

Sense a theme yet? ;)

Now, if you had really bad zenny RNG and couldn't buy a second HPMemory, here is backup strat #2.

When you get to the staff lounge, first go to the far left and jack into the school's server.

There is an HPMemory in a BMD on the left.

Now, you could jack out here, but since you're probably already behind, if you're feeling saucy, there's a BMD on the right with a Rock Cube * in it.

Go pick it up and swap it in for a Recov 10 A, then set Atk+10 * as your regular chip (press select on it). Then carry on as usual.

Your friends get hypnotized, so go talk to each of them, then pick up an umbrella.

Be mindful not to bonk into many desks.

Skip the cutscene after talking to Dex.

Pick the umbrella up in the other classroom. Then head back to the principle's office.

Skip 2 cutscenes, then talk to the Mr. Prog.

Head back to the classroom where you got the umbrella and turn on the light. The lightswitch has a deviously small hit box.

There are 3 barriers, the key to each is hidden inside a BMD. These are the only BMDs we collect, so make note of their locations.

Once in area 2, talk to the green navi, then use Lan to turn on the lights in the staff lounge.

There is only 1 barrier, but you need 3 passwords. Each password is in a BMD. These are the only BMDs we collect, make note of their locations.

And finally, FlashMan.

FlashMan has only 3 attacks.

The first, and most common, he sends out a homing wave of lights. Best way to dodge it is by moving up / down then forward just before it gets to you.

For his second attack, he comes to the front row and hits several panels with an electric attack. This is a great oppotrunity to hit him with a sword.

For His third attack, he summons 2 towers on your side of the field with 5 HP each that will stun you after a few seconds.

In general, you want to draw as many chips as you can each turn. If you can only pick one, or if you have a bunch of non damaging chips, just add them and take more chips next turn.

And that's it. Good times are anywhere between 15 minutes and 20 minutes. First attempts should be around 30 minutes.

If you have any questions, ask below.

Subscribe to my channel for more Mega Man Battle Network speed runs and race guides.

Also, if you want to watch speed runs live, follow my twitch channel. Link is in the description below.

Lastly, you'll remember we pick up a Rock Cube * in one of the backup strats. Let's see how FlashMan likes that...

MissedASword.

Heheh, thanks for watching, and I look forward to racing.

Till next time.