History VideoGame / ShanghaiEXEGensoNetwork

* SweetPollyOliver: Wriggle Nightbug from the Insector Kingdom (which has advanced insect-derived technology), whom Alice first meets at the cruise ship. During the hostage situation at the Engelles Clock Tower Balcony, Lord Tarakhan reveals that Wriggle is actually [[spoiler:''Wrigelle'' Nightsburg Insector, and next in line to the throne]], revealing Alice's new friend not only to be female, which is obvious in version 0.503e2, if you talk to her and pick the non-battle option at the hotel, [[spoiler:but a ''princess'' to boot]]. As Alice is straight (in an aversion of Touhou fanworks' typical CastFullOfGay policy), she's massively disappointed after getting over the shock.

** Another one comes in the form of Wriggle's pendant, when, in pre-0503e2 version, it was accidentally dropped and retrieved by Alice, which lands her in trouble with a thug named Tarakhan who wants it. Shanghai comes to her [=NetOp=]'s rescue, but he returns with a vengeance the next day by holding Wriggle ransom in exchange for the pendant, setting the meeting place at the Engelles Clock Tower, ''and'' activating security to further stall Alice. Fortunately, with timely help from Reisen, Wriggle and the pendant are recovered, but not only does Tarakhan manage to get away, [[spoiler:the pendant turns out to be a storage device for the Earth program, and Tarakhan's managed to download it and later hand it over to ROM.]]

* PaperThinDisguise: [[spoiler:"Sue", Yamame's Navi, can plainly be seen as Medicine upon Shanghai spotting her at the Eien Area after qualifying for the N1 League]].

* RandomlyDrops: The Crimson Noise [=AddOn=], in reference to ''Mega Man Star Force 3'', changes chip rewards from S ranks to be completely random. Bosses have their own table of rewards, and Crimson Noise may even drop navi chips from bosses the player hasn't even encountered yet, even outside of boss battles, like getting Ran in Engelles. And of course, this mechanic is the only way to obtain the delicious [[RareRandomDrop Illegal]] versions of various chips.

* SweetPollyOliver: Wriggle Nightbug from the Insector Kingdom (which has advanced insect-derived technology), whom Alice first meets at the cruise ship. During the hostage situation at the Engelles Clock Tower Balcony, Lord Tarakhan reveals that Wriggle is actually [[spoiler:''Wrigelle'' Nightsburg Insector, and next in line to the throne]], revealing Alice's new friend not only to be female, which is obvious in version 0503e2, if you talk to her and pick the non-battle option at the hotel, [[spoiler:but a ''princess'' to boot]]. As Alice is straight (in an aversion of Touhou fanworks' typical CastFullOfGay policy), she's massively disappointed after getting over the shock.

* RandomlyDrops: The Crimson Noise [=AddOn=], in reference to ''Mega Man Star Force 3'', changes chip rewards from S ranks to be completely random. Bosses have their own table of rewards, and may even drop navi chips from bosses the player hasn't even encountered yet. And of course, this mechanic is the only way to obtain the delicious [[RareRandomDrop Illegal]] versions of various chips.

** Another one comes in the form of Wriggle's pendant, when it was accidentally dropped and retrieved by Alice, which lands her in trouble with a thug named Tarakhan who wants it. Shanghai comes to her [=NetOp=]'s rescue, but he returns with a vengeance the next day by holding Wriggle ransom in exchange for the pendant, setting the meeting place at the Engelles Clock Tower, ''and'' activating security to further stall Alice. Fortunately, with timely help from Reisen, Wriggle and the pendant are recovered, but not only does Tarakhan manage to get away, [[spoiler:the pendant turns out to be a storage device for the Earth program, and Tarakhan's managed to download it and later hand it over to ROM.]]

* PunnyName: Bouda Sukima, the founder of Border Concern, is a play on "border" and "sukima", the Japanese name for the boundaries/gaps that Yukari can manipulate in Touhou canon.

** After a PlotMandatedFriendshipFailure, when Shanghai hears that Alice is in physical trouble, on top of having goons to locate her, Shanghai copied her folder to her memory data, allowing her to use Chips, though [=SubChips=] and folder editing will be unavailable as those things require Alice's input, thus making you rely on Happy status multi-kill healing (or Recovery chips).

** RayCanns are cannons that send out a crosshair whenever Shanghai on the same row as them, but the shot can be dodged when it goes off by moving onto any other tile, even if it stays on the same row as the cannon.

* InvisibleBlock: The path to some locked Mystery Data are invisible, and only discoverable by walking on it:
** City Area 2
** Undernet 6
** Engelles Hotel HP

** In fact, the [=NetAgents=] have seeral of these, and when [[spoiler:ROM openly declares war on the world]], you see several of them stationed at each real world area in case the Internet Armageddon is repeated.

* InventoryManagementPuzzle: The [=AddOn=] Manager is the game's equivalent of the Navi Customizer for powering up Shanghai. Each program costs [=GHz=] and a colored Core. Only one of each color can be used at once. And unlike the [=NaviCust=], one cannot break the rules and result in bugs. Interestingly, there are also purple Cores that raise the inventory's limits at the cost of inflicting debuffs on you, ranging from manageable ones like reducing your HP by 100 or causing your buster to not work sometimes to ridiculous ones such as being ''unable to move at all''.

See ''VideoGame/DreamForceHartman'' for another ''MMBN'' + ''Touhou'' game... which was ''also'' targeted by Capcom in 2021 when its developer announced it was to be released on Steam for free (and this one didn't even have any lifted assets).

* LeaveNoWitnesses: Sometime after the NetAgents meeting Alice and Shanghai attended, Henchie called them over to the Undernet area where they first met and reveals to them that back when he had been looking for Key.bat, he had received a request from [[spoiler:Border Concern]] as an under-the-table deal that they didn't want anybody to know about. When he went to turn in the file, he had seen [[spoiler:a gate a lot like the Beyondard gate Shanghai ordered her goons to destroy]]. He had only been allowed to see it because they were going to delete him anyway and sicced viruses on him.

* SweetPollyOliver: Wriggle Nightbug from the Insector Kingdom (which has advanced insect-derived technology), whom Alice first meets at the cruise ship. During the hostage situation at the Engelles Clock Tower Balcony, Lord Tarakhan reveals that Wriggle is actually [[spoiler:''Wrigelle'' Nightsburg Insector, and next in line to the throne]], revealing Alice's new friend not only to be female[[spoiler:, but a ''princess'' to boot]]. As Alice is straight (in an aversion of Touhou fanworks' typical CastFullOfGay policy), she's massively disappointed after getting over the shock.
* {{Synchronization}}: Just like in ''Battle Network'', Alice and Shanghai can achieve this. [[spoiler:And like Lan and [=MegaMan.EXE=], it's because they're actually sisters (well, half-sisters, but still counts)]]. And like in ''Battle Network'', it runs the risk of both dying if one of them bites it,and Rinnosuke calls Lloyd out for not revealing that.

* PunnyName: Bouda Sukima, the founder of Border Concern, is a play on "border" and "sukima", the Lapanese name for the boundaries/gaps that Yukari can manipulate in Touhou canon.

** The third dungeon (the Blackboard COMP) has this as a gimmick when Alice and her friends jack in their Navis. Due to their access rights as students being scrambled by the ROM Agent of this arc, Shanghai (and the player by extension), Sakuya, TankMan, and [=SpannerMan=] are seeing different paths, and have to fix everyone's access rights separately.

* FamousFamousFictional: The battleship exhibit in the cruise ship contains several examples of Japanese battleships, starting with the real-life warships [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamato Yamato]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JS_Kongō JS Kongou]], before revealing that Japan has built ''space'' battleships.

* NoodleIncident: Shanghai surprisingly understands what it's like to be bullied, not only because ''she'' is a bully to scumbags and her own goons, but one job she had involved destroying dozens of bullying ringleaders' social lives... and that's apparently where the money for her being able to have Link Gates established for Alice came from.

* NoOSHACompliance: Upon Mari and Alice finding Rinnosuke unconscious as a result of Medicine's bad air, they soon find themselves trapped due to the fire shutter locking them due to the emergency.
** The Engelles Clock Tower top balcony has no railings whatsoever, putting more tension bewteen Alice, Wriggle, and Lord Tarakhan.

** The Dead Body [=AddOn=] reduces Shanghai to 1 HP but boosts the limit on [=GHz=] by 20 and the one on Cores by 5, which are absolutely ''enormous'' boosts and possibly much more than a player can do with.
** According to internet rumor, there was a Navi who was formidable in battle due to his usage of Dead Body, almost as if he had two full sets of attack and utility [=AddOns=]. Unfortunately, he got himself deleted by stepping on a poison panel. [[spoiler:In the White Heaven area, you can meet his deceased soul, where he is stewing in regret over his failure. You can fight him by having your current HP be at 1, and as advertised, he only has one HP in battle, although he's invulnerable until you delete all his viruses. After you defeat him, his regret is eased due to seeing someone perfect his 1 HP strategy, letting him depart to the afterlife and leaving behind the Number Trade number for the Dead Body [=AddOn=] in the process.]]

* OneWingedAngel: At half health, [=HakutakuMan=] uses [=BeastOut=], an ability taken from ''Mega Man Battle Network 6'', to transform into a Cybeast hybrid and upgrade his moveset. %% Cybeasts ar mentioned in the Undernet BBS, but they never made into the game.

* SillinessSwitch: The same sidequest that gives out the keys for skull doors also unlocks the recurring Humor program, which changes the Hint function to little comedy skits.After a certain sidequest involving stopping Utsuho, Eirin gives you the [=EirnCall=] program, which does the same thing, except replace jokes with interesting fluff about viruses, either about local kinds in an area or when you're at your caught virus menagerie.

* EasyLevelTrick: To get 100 bug frags for a pet owner, Shanghai can either farm them herself from counterhits, or find the very easy Number Trader number that gives exactly that amount, which is accessible right when she can take the Request. It's [[spoiler:on the school newspaper listing, 00004600]].

* TankGoodness: Rika has [=TankMan=] as her Navi, and has a papier-mache tank in her house that houses a movie projector. Kumami Koa, Kumako's sister, owns and drives one, though was stuck inside for a bit and needed Alice's help to bust the viruses keeping the hatch closed. After the chip shop was set up, its weapon systems have been disabled, and it became an attractionfor the shop.

* InvisibleWall: We get a justification for these in the Cyber World when [[spoiler:Medicine jumps off to escape the [=NetAgents=], beyond the invisible safety railing is the Data Sea, a torrent of countless data whose raging currents will tear most Navis to bits. [[NoOneCouldSurviveThat That said, she manages to survive it somehow and get washed up at the last place in her access history: Genso University. There, Yamame finds her, treats her, and takes her in as her Navi]].]]

** [=DruidMan=] attempts to use Life Meteor, a ''Dark'' Program Advance, to delete Sakuya and [=TankMan=] so then the player knows that is a mechanic that exists.

See ''Dream Force Hartman'' for another ''MMBN'' + ''Touhou'' game... which was ''also'' targeted by Capcom in 2021 when its developer announced it was to be released on Steam for free (and this one didn't even have any lifted assets).

** An [=AddOn=] that lets Shanghai run from every random battle can be easily obtained from a sidequest.

** While Iku paralyses Shanghai, Sakuya and [=TankMan=] destroy both generators that empower her after they were thought to have been deleted by [=DruidMan=]. The two were saved by Yorihime, who then tries to capture and torture the defeated Iku while the misguided Tenshi pleads for her life. Shanghai, her circle of friends and all the other classmates stand in Iku's defense until Reisen decides to withdrawl Yorihime for the time being.

* DiscountCard: Completing the early-game side quest "Data Delivery" grants you a discount at the [=SubChip=] store you delivered to, especially helpful for discounting the [=CrakTools=] needed for unlocking Purple Mystery Data.

* EncounterBait: In addition to the usual EncounterRepellant [=FireWall=], there's the [=OpenPort=] for this, though it's unnecessary given the already high encounter rate, unless you're using it in tandem with whatever the equivalent of [=LocEnemy=] is.

** Kedamas serve as the stand-in for Mettaurs.

* ForTheEvulz: [[spoiler:Yukari]] is portrayed as a bored CorruptCorporateExecutive who supports the ROM organization just so they can wreak havoc upon the world. %% Which is dumber than the reason Gauss posits in Battle Network 2. Some find it stupid, not because it's unrealistic, but because it's ''Yukari'' being depicted doing that.

* YouAreFat: Alice makes a reference to Shanghai being larger than most other Navis combined (referring to data size), and her Navi interprets it as a "fat joke" and calls out Alice over it.