Megaman Battle Network 7: Sigma Factor & Cache Hierarchy

Megaman Battle Network 7: Sigma Factor & Cache Hierarchy is a pair of games released for the 3DS by Nintendo, Capcom and Simple Studios as the seventh entry in the Battle Network series.
==Story==
===Plot Summary===
Lan Hikari is living a great life without too many problems and no threat has arisen since the defeat of the Cybeasts, that's until a big tournament comes up and he's called by his dad to fix an eror that's making Navis buffer, which turns out to be cache that's spreading from a rift in the internet's fabric that leads to "Cache Servers" controlled by "Cache.EXE", who is plotting a revolution for NetNavis. Not only that, but a new Navi named "Sigma.EXE" being contructed by the world's experts to fight off crime eventually BECOMES the crime and starts making an army to rule the world.....Things are not looking too bright for Lan and Megaman.
===Scenario 1 - TurboMan's Gone Haywire!===
The game starts with Lan Hikari waking up just in time for high school, Megaman is surprised at this only to learn he was woken up due to a "Breaking News" report airing in his new TV, talking about a brand new breed of Navis being produced known as ".RARs" along with the announcement that soon Navis will get the ability to be upgraded into .RARs easily. Lan is amazed at this new info and keeps listening on the details, forgetting that he has to go to school until Megaman snaps him out directly by going into the CopyBot and slapping some sense into him.
Lan finally enters his high school where everyone is debating about the new .RARs until the teacher of his class arrives and asks Lan to demonstrate a class on Virus Busting, if you say yes, a tutorial will begin, if you say no then you'll be given the chance to skip the class while an expert gives the class to the rest. Once the class ends he talks about a brand new mechanic that has been added to Virus Busting, the ability to jump and slide, and asks you if you know about this mechanic, once again you can choose to skip the tutorial or go through it.
Once the class is over, Lan reunites with Dex, Mayl and Yai who tell him about a tournament similar to the N1, except that only the big hotshots of NetBattling are allowed to enter, Megaman included since he defeated the Cybeasts. Megaman is nervous about his new fame but Lan is too busy being excited for the tournament, so he enters the Net to pass the first few challenges and meet the other contestants.
The Navi hosting the challenges gives Megaman 3 missions, the first is delivering a mystery package to a Navi in CentralArea 1, the second is grabbing some "beacons" and planting them near every Patrol Navi in CentralArea 2 and the third is fighting a group of Viruses. Megaman passes all the challenges and tells the Navi that he's done, which surprises the Navi and makes him reveal his true identity: A criminal that had recently stolen a big amount of Zenny, which were hidden inside the mystery package, Megaman tells him that the Patrol Navis will stop him until he reveals that the beacons were bombs that knock out the Patrol Navis. 
The Navi starts running away until being stopped by a mysterious Navi who destroys him with his "Neo Claws" in one slice and reveals himself as "Sigma.EXE", a new Navi made by the world's experts to fight off crime and stop any more criminal organizations. Megaman thanks Sigma for his help and Sigma leaves right before a strange wave starts making Navis buffer and stay paralyzed, Lan's dad, Yuuichiro Hikari, calls him over to his new workplace, "Area Scientral", to tell him that this is affecting Navis around CentralArea and its outskirts, which is why he sends Megaman to explore the cause and finds out quickly that it's because of a rift in the fabric of the Net that makes the cache from the Cache Server spread into the real Net.
Yuuichiro calls Sigma to explore the area but finds out he's too busy exploring the Undernet for signs of criminals, so Yuuichiro sends Megaman instead who finds a lost and confused TurboMan, one of the contestants for the upcoming tournament, who explains that the cache had made his engines go haywire and start up randomly, leading him there. Megaman tries to lead him out before patching up the rift but his engines start up again and Megaman winds up chasing him until he manages to corner him in a single spot.....Until his engines start up again and he drives off the floor and into the Metroline's system.
Megaman runs to see that the Metroline has crashed and that the passengers are stuck, so he jacks in and enters the Metroline's systems, where he passes through the conveyor belts and gears and meets with TurboMan, who buffers once more before turning into pure static and gaining weird glowing yellow eyes. Megaman asks TurboMan if he's okay but he instead respondes by attacking without reason, however, Megaman fights back and TurboMan ends up passing out before his owner, "Mike Karappitz" finally arrives from a race and jacks him out.
Mike apologizes to everyone and Lan pardons him before being called to Area Scientral by Tadashi where Lan explains everything that happened as Yuuichiro calls in an expedition team led by Sigma.EXE to check on the Cache Server and see if it can be patched up.
A few days later, Sigma comes back weakened and tells Yuuichiro that a being created by all of the cache combined had created the rift and killed the other memebers of the team, Yuuichiro is worried and asks if the rift can be patched up, Sigma says yes but explains that the being made out of cache will eventually return and make even more rifts. Yuuichiro sends Sigma to patch up the rift but first asks Megaman to go check on the bodies of the Navis to see how they were killed, however, once Megaman arrives he is interrupted by the same being Sigma was talking about earlier, "Cache.EXE", who warps the bodies away and escapes to a locked area of the Cache Server before promising to come back with an army of Navis to get his revenge on the cruel humans.
===Transition 1 - Crazy for the Superstar! (Cache Hierarchy)/Ring Ring, Lost Girl! (Sigma Factor)===
Lan visits his dad and informs him about Cache.EXE before telling Lan that Sigma told him already and that they're working on stopping him, so Lan goes back home and is called by Mick, who is in Tab's shop and wants to battle him. Lan goes to Tab's shop and tries to NetBattle him right away until he finds out his Navi went to run an errand on CentralNexus, so Megaman goes to look for him until finding out that the area has been taken hostage by a group of hostile Navis. Megaman is about to fight them until Sigma appears out of nowhere and takes them all out.
Everyone is celebrating and congratulating Sigma until Protoman.EXE and Chaud show up and get angry at Sigma, since he was heavily injured and was supposed to be under Area Scientral's custody, Sigma apologizes and leaves before Megaman confronts Protoman about it, after that Protoman leaves and Megaman goes to Area Scientral to see Sigma, who asks him to tell Yuuichiro that he escaped. Lan does so and as he exits the lab to check on Sigma with Yuuichiro they notice something happening outside...
====Cache Hierarchy====
They see a crowd surrounding a girl who's revealed to be a famous NAXA member-in-training known as "Kayla Starr" who is showing off her Navi to the crowd of fans, which she reveals has been one of the few Navis to be upgraded to a .RAR model. After Kayla reveals this, a kid overhears and runs into the crowd, accidentally bumping into Kayla and making her drop her PET and break it. Kayla tries to calm down the kid but the crowd gets angry at him and chases him all the way to the Aquarium as Lan is called by Yuuichiro to look for him and make sure he isn't harmed.
Lan goes to the Aquarium and takes the kid out sneakily while avoiding the crazed fans and takes him back to Area Scientral so he can apologize to Kayla, but she has gone to ACDC so they take the Metroline there and he apologizes to her, who says it's fine, Lan is happy and decides to take a walk around ACDC before going back home until he bumps into a medic girl called "Jasmine".
====Sigma Factor====
They see a scientist holding a little girl asking if anyone is that girl's parents until she runs away and gets to the Metroline, Yuuichiro asks what's going on and the scientist reveals that he found the lost girl trying to pick up money from the ground to go to the Aquarium. Yuuichiro asks Lan to look for the girl and make sure she doesn't hurt herself and ends up having to chase her around Aquarium until she finally promises to go with him if he sneaks her out to Central Town.
Once there, the girl reveals her name, "Mary Towa" and reveals that she stowed away and fleed from her home in Netopia since her family had low wealth and had promised to come back with money to get a better life, Lan is mad at Mary and tells her that wasn't the right thing to do and asks Megaman if they know anyone she could stay with in the mean time and he suggests Yai since her dad was planning to start a program to help poor citizens in Netopia, so they go to ACDC and present Mary to Yai before revealing she had a PET gifted by the government that she had customized, as the commercial version she had very little options in terms of customization, but reveals that it's broken as soon as Lan asks about battling her. After Yai goes to show Mary her house, Lan decides to take a walk around ACDC before going back home and bumps into a medic girl called "Jasmine".
==Characters==
 BreakMan.EXE 
==Gameplay==
The game still plays like the old games with the addition of new mechanics such as:
===Jumping n' Sliding===
Two new techniques have been added to the NetBattles! Jumping allows your Navi to stay in the air for a brief amount of time before falling, this can help you out if you're trapped in a panel being targetted by projectiles. Not only that, but now you can also slide, which works like a dash that takes you two panels forwards in an instant and can help you avoid airborn projectiles and floating enemies.
===Megaman.RAR?===
There's a new breed of Navis known as ".RARs" that can be found throughout the game, these have more data capability than any Navi and can copy parts of certain Navis compatible with them, and in JammerMan's Scenario Megaman becomes a .RAR Navi himself, allowing him to copy parts of certain Navis.
Once you absorb a Navi's data either by defeating him or by helping them with a task or favor like LinkNavis, you can add that part into your data and fuse it into Megaman to get that part's stats and abilities, for example, equipping SpringMan.EXE's legs allows you to stay in the air for more time when jumping, these parts can be mixed and mashed to change stats and create the Megaman that suits your playing style.
===BugFrag Chips===
Throughou the game you might find Bugsmiths who can craft special Chips for you if you give them BugFrags, these Chips are more powerful than the normal Chip, but once they're used you'll receive a temporary bug symptom (which goes away when its time ends or when the battle ends). However, there's another side effect to these powerful BugFrag Chips, if you use them alot Megaman will turn staticky and you'll have to go to any Square in any Area in order to purify yourself, but if you keep using them without purifying yourself you'll have to fight Glitch Megaman (Boss Fight that always occurs whenever you use too many BugFrag Chips without puryfying yourself), who can use any Chip you have at the moment and has the same amount of HP as you.
===Nexuses===
A new type of area, similar to Squares in Battle Network 2 and 3 is found in this game. Nexuses are found in every area and connect to nearby areas via teleporters, acting as some sort of mini-hubworld. These are helpful since there are no virus attacks while in a Nexus and you can find many NetDealers.
===Undernet and Boktai Content===
In this game, you can access the Undernet much earlier in the game (similar to Megaman Battle Network 6), but you don't get to explore too much as it's mostly blocked off by "UnderGates" which can't be opened until you find the "Key of Darkness" in the postgame. Undernet isn't changed too much but the "Area 1, 2, 3, etc." system is removed and instead it's replaced by a "Floor 1, 2, 3, etc." system, the lower you go, the more powerful enemies you find.
Once you reach Floor 1, you can find a cult of HeelNavis and PunkNavis praising the Chaos King before asking Megaman if he's there to challenge him, if he says yes then you'll go through a challenge where you'll go through a boss rush of all previous bosses fought, if you survive until the end you'll be healed back and the Chaos King will be revealed as Bass who has absorbed part of either Cache's data (Cache Hierarchy) or Sigma's (Sigma Factor) and is protecting a strange giant key. After a fight with Bass he runs away and leaves the key in place for you to grab it, revealing its name, "Bat Key".
However, that's not all, as there's also Floor 0 AKA "Graveyard", where you can find "Ghost Navis" roaming around along with a big orange gate that can only be opened with Bass' Bat Key and lets you pass through unreachable parts of every Area until finally reaching "Dark Chip Syndicate's Secret Hideout" where you can meet Django from the Boktai series and team up in a special mission to kill the remains of ShadeMan, who is slowly regenerating. Completing this mission gives you a TitleScreen Emblem and the Solar Emblem, which lets you transform into "Solar Megaman" temporarily.
===Palm Island===
One more PostGame aspect includes Palm Island, a mysterious island that has been recently found in the middle of the ocean and is about to be explored by tons of expedition teams and scientists, including Yuuichiro Hikari and Lan. The expedition team keeps researching until the island suddenly starts flying above into the skies and the jack-in ports activate, making the palms in the palmtrees suddenly fall and explode. Lan jacks in Megaman and quickly finds out that the island seems to be made out of a being from another world, which has been turned into data and glitched out due to Cache's energy, forcing Megaman to fight the being named "PalmMan" and purify him, PalmMan was added in due to the creator's interest in the character and added him in as a boss battle as a reference to PalmMan.EXE in his old canon before being rebooted.
Category:Mega Man (series)
Category:Fan Games
Category:Games
Category:Nintendo 3DS Games
Category:Megaman Battle Network