Video Game / Shanghai.EXE: Genso Network

Shanghai.EXE: Genso Network is a PC fangame which crosses the gameplay of the Mega Man Battle Network series with the cast of Touhou Project and that was developed by Technodot.

It follows the adventures of ordinary student Alice Shinki and her delinquent NetNavi Shanghai.EXE as they fight the evil ROM organization in a world where Everything Is Online. Its story borrows from multiple scenarios from the entire Battle Network saga.

The game was shut down by Capcom on December 2018 just before it was completed due to using a donor-wall for betas but its leaked source code was built upon and translated to English by SHNecro, without Technodot's blessing. Capcom took the project down a second time while it was on GitHub, but once it was hosted at GitGud the admin of that site was able to talk with them and get a list of art assets that were directly lifted from the Battle Network games. Once those were changed to generic placeholders, Capcom finally let the game be.

See Dream Force Hartmann 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).

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This game contains the following tropes:

• Adaptation Name Change: Alice's surname is changed from Margatroid to Shinki, who is her mother in this universe.
  • Rika from the PC-98 games gets the surname Shikuma.
  • Schoolteacher Ms. Kumako Koa and her sister Kumami Koa are renamed form Koakuma, one of the Scarlet Mansion's librarians in the original Touhou.
  • Mari's surname is Morichika. Given her mother is also Marisa, it's likely that it's from marriage to Rinnosuke.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Several Touhou characters are put in the roles of Mega Man Battle Network characters that contrast with their canon portrayal or barely fit it at all, such as the level-headed, down-to-earth Reisen assuming the personality of the aloof rival Chaud while her former master Yorihime stands in for ProtoMan and becomes her Navi.
• Adaptational Relationship Change: Besides Shinki being Alice's mother (and thus sharing her surname), Renko and Sumireko are direct siblings in this universe rather than one being the descendant of the other.
• Age Lift: Most characters are younger, due to Youkai generally being much older than humans, but one of the biggest examples is Reimu, who goes from being in her 20s to being younger than middle-schooler Alice.
• All Just a Dream: Played for Laughs in one of the Humor skits, in which Shanghai begs Alice to wake up but she refuses to "go back". In another one, Shanghai tells a brief story about an old couple who were visited by a friend only for it to turn out they were mere delusions. "What a twist!"
• Alternate Dimension: When Beyondard is revealed as a dimension unknown to most people.
• Alternate Universe: When Beyondard is revealed, a woman has questions about it:
  Woman: A dimension? Like an alternate universe? A parallel world?
• Always in Class One: Inverted. Alice and her friends are in Class 2-2. Going to Class 2-1 shows that many of 2-2's students have custom Navis and harbor some jealousy over it.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The game has a fast-forward function, as if it was being run on a GBA emulator.
  • The RunSoul AddOn that lets Shanghai run from every random battle can be easily obtained from the Quiz Kid at school after Tsubaki arrives.
  • Chip prizes for battles depend on which enemy was defeated last instead of being random. Style elements can also be chosen at will be equipping the AddOns that lure viruses of a given element.
• Anti-Regeneration: Using Recovery Chips while standing on Poison tiles will instead take away HP equal to what you would've healed. HP Restored from multi-kills while in a Happy state is not affected by this.
• Backtracking: Mentioned in the fourth segment of tracking a man in a suit down to delivery a package, if the Navi / Operator is talked to about it:
  Shanghai: Back to the plaza in Central City again!? I hate backtracking!
  Alice: The Central City plaza...? Don't tell me this was all just a waste of time!
• Badass Normal: Alice gets frostbite during the fridge incident and barely noticed, and managed to deal with fire so hot it put Tenshi in the hospital by just dousing herself in water and got out without a scratch. Oh, and the meter-high vertical jump she makes every time she jacks in Shanghai into a system.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: A lonely Reimu says her mom went above the sky and can't return home. Shanghai and Alice do a Double Take once she adds her mother does call her on the phone from her workplace at space.
• Become a Real Boy: In the sidequest "Becoming A Navi", A Sprite in the Flowerbed Comp (in Alice's house, no less), desires to become a Navi for Mama Shinki in order to serve the family better and posted this on the quest board. Her only clue to this is the Reincarnation Program... which is found at the Bonus Dungeon Sunken Ship Comp. After locating the program and using it on the Sprite, she successfully becomes a NetNavi, and is christened with the name Yumeko by Shinki.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • When Medicine is about to drown Shanghai in poison clouds after their boss battle, Marisa's Magic Missiles blow them up before she arrives herself.
  • While not necessary, when a trio of Punk Navis try to gang up on Alice's Shanghai and Nekku Tsubaki's SpannerMan after a two-on-two, Reisen's Yorihime comes in from behind and deletes the Punks in an instant.
  • 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 withdraw Yorihime for the time being.
  • When Yorihime refuses to believe Medicine has reformed and tries to execute her, Shanghai blocks her blade in the nick of time.
  • Reisen comes to Alice and Wriggle's aid after Tarakhan was about to execute the latter via gunshot, and is revealed to have climbed the tower from the outside, thus avoiding the security systems.
  • The final dungeon is an endless cascade of these. After Alice decides to go to the ROM base alone due to not wanting to endanger her friends, her friends come anyways to save her and Shanghai from several successive obstacles.
• Blinded by the Light: Shanghai rescues Alice from a thug named Tarakhan who cornered her by using the Shining Browser Crasher (i.e. overloading the backlight of Alice's PET) to blind Tarakhan and allow her to escape. It does come at the cost of the backlight breaking, but it can be repaired. It also doubles as a reference to Flash Man's attack in Battle Network 3.
• Bonus Dungeon:
  • The Sunken Ship Computer, which is infested with undead Sprites that attack Shanghai when talked to. The still-living ones that carry keys can be identified by how they look away into the distance. A souped-up Autoroid-like being called Zoanroid (a.k.a. NetNavis from Beyondard who got corrupted by Gregar or Falzar into being their footsoldiers) awaits as the area's boss.
  • The overheated Hospital Computer in which Shanghai must race between healing spots while losing HP to save Satori's life. Unlike the previous bonus dungeon, it does have a proper unique boss in Utsuho.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: One time, Shanghai gets so pissed at ROM Navi Murasa, whose flooding almost wiped out all the cyber-food her gang was stockpiling from the banquet, that after she declares she's deleting her foe, she starts off with "Battle Routine, set!", with Alice automatically replying, "Execute!" before realizing what just happened.
• Broken Bridge: The warp in Undernet 8 that eventually leads to the Deep Undernet, is disabled until the plot needs Shanghai to get there.
• The Cameo:
  • There are two more Mega Man Zero chips other than the usual Z-Saber, all portraying a vaguely obscured Zero. Capcom sent takedown notices to the game over stuff like this, and the chips' art was changed to placeholder scribbles in a later update to avoid them.
  • MegaMan.EXE, Bass.EXE and Serenade.EXE appear in posters at the Game Center. The latter two are next to cabinets of actual Battle Network arcade games that aren't mentioned by name.
  • The Dark Program Advances are supposed to have icons that depict the final bosses of each main Battle Network installment, and the attacks themselves portray them in silhouette. The Dark Aura chip also depicts the Life Virus.
• The Caper: Once Alice goes to sleep in the cruise liner, Shanghai rounds up up to as many as two hundred of her goons at the Guest Room TV Comp, with more already carrying out their mission on-site to explain their mission. While she's drawing everyone's attention at the Exhibition NetBattle, her goons are to enact Operation Fill Containers With High-Class Food: pack as much cyber-food from the banquet tables as they can carry in "plastic" containers. She even ends it with an Evil Laugh. By the end of it, they were able to haul a year's worth of cyber-food for their own banquets, but it was washed away when Murasa starts messing with cruise liner's systems to crash the ship into a reef, which risks sinking all its passengers. Thankfully, the goons were able to salvage it all and reported as such as soon as Shanghai was through with the perpetrator.
• Card Cycling: Cards are "Chips" and manual activation is the only way to use the "Custom Screen", which allows choosing more of them, but discarding any that haven't been used. It has the "Add" function to discard loaded chips and fight one turn without any chips so that the Custom Screen's chip selection expands by the same amount of previously loaded chips, on the next turn.
• Catchphrase Interruptus: During the battle to help Ms. Koa handle the viruses messing with the book data, as Alice begins her line, Patchouli says "Mukyu", prompting Shanghai to claim that's her line, implying this.
• Chekhov's Skill:
  • In School Comp 2, 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, if they don't check the Undernet Boards.
  • Shanghai's experience with Dark Chips lets her realize Utsuho turned evil from being corrupted by one.
• Coat Cape: Mokou wears her jacket like this to look cool. Concept art also claims another reason is because she's too endowed for it to fit her comfortably.
• Cool Starship: While never actually seen on-screen and only as models, the world of Genso Network is already at this point of technology level in terms of warfare and exploration.
• Counter-Attack: Counters stun enemies and trigger Full Synchro, a mode that reveals the time each virus is vulnerable and lets Shanghai's next attack deal double damage.
• Crazy-Prepared: Reisen carries things like a shaped plastic explosive charge, which she uses to blast open an electronically locked door when ROM attacks the cruise liner, and a disassembled ATM-78 Personal Rocket Artillery, for dealing with Shikigami robots that wish to apprehend her and Alice. That said, the latter is one-upped by Yukari's electromagnetic barrier in her office desk. Reisen one-ups that by having an armor-piercing round ready (despite rockets being armor-piercing by default), only for Yukari to proclaim that she has a lot of Shikigami headed their way, and Reisen surely doesn't have enough ammo to deal with them all, thus requiring Reisen to Hold the Line against them while Shanghai finds a way to disable the barrier. And when it's revealed that Reisen can deal with all of Yukari's Shikigami, turns out Yukari also has teleportation technology.
  • After a Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure, 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 while travelling, with Henchie serving as a healing spot at the starting point of the incident.
  • Maribel Hearn, Yukari Yakumo's niece and company successor, has always anticipated that her aunt would suddenly up and leave, forcing Maribel to take the reins, and was already studying business before finding herself as CEO. That said, she isn't prepared enough to pierce through her aunt's ROM-derived protections locking access to the company's secretary Navi, so she posts on the Request Board for help in this matter.
• Crippling Overspecialization: Kumami's Navi Patchouli is extremely good at data processing, but is useless in NetBattle to the point that she can't use Battle Chips. She's also small enough data-wise (just 6.9 Megabytes) to be able to be sent via email. For reference, her leitmotif in WAV form is three times larger.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The usual Sword chips are not Sword, Wide Sword and Long Sword but instead Knife, Sword, and Lance.
• Dead All Along: Played for Laughs in one of the Humor skits. Shanghai claims a picture of a young Alice was taken 6 years before in her funeral, then says "Just kidding"! Alice's dialogue portrait goes monochrome after hearing this and Shanghai starts freaking out.
• Deadly Gas: Downplayed. When Medicine starts tampering with the ventilation system, Alice and Mari think this is played straight, but Marisa corrects them by identifying it as merely dirty air, though that's not exactly healthy either. Inside the air purifier COMPs however, are clouds of Knockout Gas.
• Debt Detester: When Alice gives Remilia a souvenir of sweets from Engelles, Remilia says that it's the thought that counts, and that she doesn't like being in debt:
  Alice: ... You were born in Engelles, so it might not be much.
  Remilia: It's the thought that makes the gift.
  Even the most familiar sweets would be special if you got them just for me, Alice.
  Alice: Aww....
  Thanks for putting it that way, Remilia.
  Remilia: It's the truth.
  You must have spent spent a lot on souvenirs....
  I dislike being in debt.
  Here.
  Game: Alice got:
  "25000 Zenny"!
  Alice: What?!
  That's....!
  Remilia: I insist. A gift for a gift.
  Alice: Thank you!
• Decomposite Character: Marisa Kirisame is used for the setting as Mari Morichika, her Navi Marisa.EXE and her actual mother Marisa, who works overseas and doesn't appear in the story at all.
  • Then there's Koakuma's derivatives Ms. Kumako Koa the schoolteacher, and her elder sister Kumami Koa the "rich adventurer" and Battle Chip shop merchant.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • Shanghai defeats Iku and Tenshi but realizes they were tricked and pressured by ROM to sabotage the school so Tenshi wouldn't also be bullied by her new classmates, so she defends the two from Reisen and Yorihime.
  • After Yorihime is defeated by Shanghai, Reisen acknowledges both Alice and Shanghai as equals. Eirin asks Alice to befriend Reisen during the trip on the cruise ship, and Reisen doesn't mind hanging out or trusting Alice to help her fight ROM afterwards.
• Defusing The Tykebomb: Eirin explains to Alice that Reisen was a child soldier who she saved and adopted during the war at Arabstan, having been a field medic there. Eirin asks Alice and Shanghai to make amends with Reisen after all the conflict they've had and be her first friends.
• Delicate and Sickly: On top of being blind, Satori is suffering from Congenital Weakness Factor Disorder, where her body's organs just give up over time. Eventually, by taking a certain sidequest, Eirin, in the process of remedying Satori's eyesight, cures CWFD entirely, partly in thanks to the sweltering heat as a result of Utsuho rendering the AC haywire.
• Discount Card: Completing the early-game side quest "Data Delivery" grants you a discount at the SubChip store you delivered to, especially helpful for the 30% discount on CrakTools needed for unlocking Purple Mystery Data.
• Disk One Nuke:
  • The Program Advances for the basic cannon and sword chips can be acquired very early as usual.
  • The Number Trader can yield very nice stuff as soon as it's available if you already know the codes or look them up.
  • In this game, Dark Chips replace Giga Chips and don't have their usual drawbacks other than disabling double damage from Full Synchro and Anger. You get one, Dark RayGun, surprisingly early into the story. Dark RayGun deals 250 damage plus a boost equal to Shanghai's lost health.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: The leader of ROM? Your schoolteacher, Ms. Asakura. And her Navi, seemingly just a palette swap of a generic Navi? He's DruidMan.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: While getting a high Busting Rank is usually preferred, there are some chips that only drop when you get a Busting Rank of 4 or lower! ...and some of those codes are the ones needed for Program Advances.
• Dual Boss: Yukari operates both Ran and Chen at once in the Border Concern scenario. They fight like Bass and Punk, respectively. While she boasts about her ability to do this, Chen's simple attack pattern proves that just because you can doesn't mean you can do it well. As Shanghai says, she's only got two hands. Both of them can be fought in rematches later solo, and with better movesets without Yukari having to split her focus between the two of them.
• Easy Level Trick: To get 100 bug frags for the "Need Bug Frags" requesting 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 on the school newspaper listing, 00004600.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: The game adds Earth and Poison to Battle Network's usual Fire/Aqua/Elec/Wood setup. It goes as follows: Fire over Poison and Wood, Aqua over Earth and Fire, Elec over Aqua and Poison, Wood over Elec and Earth, Poison over Aqua and Wood, and Earth over Fire and Elec. Further details here.
• Elite Mooks: SP Viruses are much powerful versions of their counterparts. Even the Kedama bounty will end with Shanghai deleted in seconds without proper preparation.
• Encounter Bait: In addition to the usual Encounter Repellant 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 VirusScn to get specifically the last enemy seen.
• Everyone Has Standards: The Fujiwara branch of the Yakuza offered leads to ROM's location. Before, they had some sort of nonaggression pact, as long as nothing hurt their interests. But the Black Navi incident caused a lot of upheaval, and threw many of their operations into chaos. They took that as a betrayal, and tipped off a NetAgent. And given that Yakuza is all about organized crime, random chaos naturally wasn't in their best interests.
• Expy:
  • In this universe, Remilia serves as a stand-in for Yai as the rich snobby kid with a responsible Navi and joins the heroes later on.
  • Kedamas serve as the stand-in for Mettaurs, but they don't protect themselves when not attacking.
  • The Koakuma expies are clear parallels to Ms. Mari(ko) and Ms. Yuri(ko). While Kumami Koa is certainly not villainous, she has a more criminal-esque life compared to her straight-laced younger sister.
• Famous, Famous, Fictional: The battleship exhibit in the cruise ship contains several examples of Japanese battleships, starting with the real-life warships Yamato and JS Kongou, before showing that Japan has built space battleships.
• Fan Community Nicknames: In-Universe: Fans of the Yamaze Nadu novels are called Yamazians.
• Alternate History: The battleship exhibit on the cruise ship reveals this. The plaque that talks about the Destroyer "Kongou", notes that America later became "Eurica", and that Japan started constructing a Cool Starship in 1999 and launched it in 2004. It's expanded on later in the game, in Tamezou's Genso Square Chat Board post on "Re:Eurica Travel":
  Tamezou: To know why there's East and West, you need to know the origins of Eurica.
  In the twentieth century the eastern coast of the Atlantic was called Europe.
  After two world wars, the area became unstable.
  The United States and Europe joined as one, and Eurica was born.
  The United States is what West Eurica used to be called.
  And Europe became what we know as East Eurica.
• Finishing Move: Like Colonel in Battle Network 6, ScissorMan has a move where he traps Shanghai and insta-kills her, but only uses it when she's at low health.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: In contrast to the Foolish Lan and Responsible MegaMan, Shanghai is the Irresponsible one, while her Operator Alice is the one trying to keep her in line. That said, given the risks Alice put herself in (risking frostbite, and dousing herself in water in order to take the heat while the Hakurei Shrine is on fire), Alice might be a tad reckless herself. By the way, the siblings trope isn't just used here for comparing the canon BN cast; in this setting, Shanghai is Alice's half-sister.
• For the Evulz: Yukari is portrayed as a bored Corrupt Corporate Executive who supports the ROM organization just so they can wreak havoc upon the world.
  "ROM — just by existing! — throws the world into chaos! Beautiful, brand-new chaos!"
• From the Mouths of Babes: Sagume invokes this trope as the reason she's asking Alice, a middle schooler, for help with finding a way to break into ROM's HQ, which is heavily defended with artillery support, radar systems, and air coverage. Sagume and the rest of the NetAgents are stuck, so she's just blindly, offhandedly hoping Alice knows a way to get in (thankfully, she does eventually find a way in).
• Fun with Acronyms: PET in this game means Program Enable Terminal.
• Gender Scoff: When TankMan and SpannerMan are arguing over who gets to help her, Shanghai says "Men." as a short criticism.
• Geo Effects: If wind from a Storm Chip touches a sand panel, it'll pick up the sand and double the damage. When they attack, the tornado goes down the row and then back, and it'll keep the sand buff if any of the panels it crosses are sand.
• Good Morning, Crono: After the story introduction, we start with Shanghai trying to wake up her Operator Alice. And it turns out Shanghai turned off the alarm clock because it was too loud.
• Grade Skipper: Remilia is supposed to be grade-school, but is in the same class as Alice, much like Yai from Battle Network.
• Great Offscreen War: Before the story began, most world superpowers such as Eurica and Biet operated drone control systems, which ended up hacked and taken over by evil scientists, who used them to ravage the world. They also engaged in cyber warfare, resulting in the Cyber Wars, which crippled many great nations, though Japan got out of it mostly unscathed thanks to not using drones at the time. In the end, the Cyber Wars destroyed all computer networks, which sparked a series of riots later called the Internet Armageddon. Humanity realized its reliance on networks, as the pain of losing them was too much to bear, and thus they sought new networks. Their wish was granted by Dr. Rinnosuke Morichika, who had proposed the Cyberworld Theory as a solution, and he eventually created a new network, the one in the present.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: After coming home from Engelles to Japan, Alice receives a message from Genso Tourism stating that the cruise ship is out of service after revealing a security breach. What makes it this trope is that the ship is open to the public while security upgrades are being implemented. This is mainly just to ensure that the Comps there aren't a case of One-Time Dungeon.
• Heal Thyself: In addition to the usual default, Anxious, and Full Synchro states, Shanghai has the Happy state that she enters after scoring a double or triple kill, which makes the next chip she uses restore one-third of her max HP. This means healing subchips aren't really needed as much - as long as you play well, they should be for emergencies only, or for immediately before boss fights. It also renders Recovery chips unnecessary if you're good enough.
  • Your reward for the "Becoming A Navi" sidequest is the ChipCure AddOn, which heals 30 HP each time you use a BattleChip, but takes up 3 Cores and 4 GHz.
• Hologram: Border Concern helped develop the NetBattle Machine, which projects Navis duking it out inside to the audience.
• Hopeless with Tech: Downplayed, but an NPC in Class 2-1 mentions that a lot of the teachers are old, and thus, aren't very good with technology. During the attack on the school's systems, Ms. Koa asks for Alice and her friends (by this point, Mari, Rika, Remilia, and Tsubaki) to help out at the PC Room and Staff Room to protect the school's important backup files. While there are some younger teachers (Ms. Koa aside, who had been borrowing her sister's Navi before returning her), they're nowhere near as proficient in Virus Busting despite it being a subject taught in the school.
• Hot Teacher: Kumako Koa is regarded by the students as gorgeous and one NPC envies Class 2-2 for having her as their homeroom teacher.
• Humongous Mecha: Reisen owns a G7-Curtis, a new mobile weapon from the West Eurica army, and uses it in her debut appearance to chase down a trio of punks under the assumption they were ROM agents. It even comes with optical camouflage.
  • In fact, the NetAgents have several of these, and when 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.
• An Ice Person: Cirno, as par for the course, who is a Navi here. She's powerful enough to render an entire house frozen solid through their fridge systems.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: The AddOn Manager is the game's equivalent of the Navi Customizer for powering up Shanghai. Each program costs GHz and possibly 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. The purple Cores are special because they 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 "Statue" where Shanghai can't move at all.
• An Interior Designer Is You: Alice's Home Page has a private room for Shanghai, which she can customize with Interiors she buys from various stores on the Web.
• The Internet Is an Ocean: The Data Sea, a torrent of countless data whose raging currents will tear most Navis to bits, which is literally underlying the digital networks that Navis walk upon.
• Intrepid Reporter: In this universe, this is what Sanae Kochiya is. And her GRN remote anti-gravity camera houses her Navi clearly based on Suwako, though we never get to meet her.
• Invisible Block:
  • The path to some locked Mystery Data are invisible, and only discoverable by walking on it:
    • City Area 2
    • Undernet 6
    • Engelles Hotel HP
  • Engelles Area 2 has a pink Navi looking at some Blue Mystery Data that's only reachable by an invisible path.
• Invisible Wall: We get a justification for these in the Cyber World after the School Comp electric incident when 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. 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.
• Just a Kid: Upon meeting Alice again at the NetAgent Center and being addressed by her, Reisen claims that children have no right calling her by her first name. Alice immediately points out that they're the same age. This is also a Mythology Gag to Lan and Chaud's first meeting, minus Lan calling out the hypocrisy.
• Labcoat of Science and Medicine: Yamame Kurodani, a research student under Dr. Morichika, is noted to be wearing one by Shanghai, given that she find it odd that a network specialist is wearing. Yamame explains that she used to be in the Pharmacy Department before getting transferred.
• Last Lousy Point: Due to what's most likely an oversight in the latest build, one of the Dark Program Advances requires a DanmaGun coded P which doesn't exist within the game world. The only way to obtain one is via the Crimson Noise mechanic, but that's extremely unlikely to happen. ​
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One Sprite directs Shanghai to go up from their current position... Up on the NetOp's screen, that is (i.e. the game window).
• Leave No Witnesses: 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 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 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.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Remilia, just like in canon, hidden by an air of haughtiness.
• Lost Food Grievance: When Murasa ends up washing away all the cyber-food her goons looted from the banquet while she distracted everybody in the Exhibition NetBattle against BeetleMan during her mission to sink the ship, Shanghai is extremely pissed, and Murasa ends up being the third ROM Navi to be outright deleted by her. That said, her "remains" haunt Engelles Area 1, so she can have payback on Shanghai in a way, and she's monstrously hard.
• Love Triangle: TankMan starts competing with SpannerMan for Shanghai's attention as soon as the former heard of the latter's aid at the Game Center. Shanghai isn't as interested with either of them as they are of her.
• MacGuffin: Shanghai finds some special compressed data early on, but she couldn't decompress it herself, so she held onto it. During a data checkup by Ms. Asakura after she heard of Alice's NetBattle against Cirno, she finds this data on Shanghai, and recommends bringing it to Dr. Morichika to find out what it is. From what he discovered, it seems to be data meant to be installed in a Navi, but there's a final step that requires being near some sort of "key" to activate. Upon encountering the Navi who has it, after fighting his viruses, it's revealed that the data is the Style Memory, and the key (proximity was enough) unlocked the means to StyleChange, all the way from Battle Network 3.
  • Another one comes in the form of Wriggle's pendant, when, in pre-0.503e2 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, 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.
• Mercy Invincibility: Pierced by certain attacks and raised by the Damage Ghost AddOn.
• Missing Mission Control: Alice gets separated from Shanghai twice, once by reasons explained in Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure, and once while checking out Border Concern's servers, when they barely even started before a Shikigami stuns and abducts her. This leaves Shanghai having to handle things by herself, though thankfully she can still use BattleChips, what she can't do however is change Chip Folders or use SubChips.
  • Regarding the second one, this turns out to have also applied for Reisen when she came in for questioning, and unlike Shanghai, Yorihime was isolated to the terminal she was in.
• Mon: At the Undernet, Shanghai is taught how to capture viruses with "Virus Balls" after weakening them. Those viruses can then be fed with bugfrags and equipped one at a time within a Virus Ball chip to help her in combat. ​
• Ms. Exposition: Rikako Asakura, another teacher in this universe, explains virus busting, Navi history, and why Battle Chips are used instead of coding powerful weapons into them already like Colonel.EXE (Navis being big enough data-wise, and Battle Chips being reusable and disposable means of attacking).
• My Name Is ???: The ???? enemy when getting some mail-order rice.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Alice retains her hobby of making dolls, though has extended to models as well.
  • Her town is called Genso Town, named after Gensokyo, Touhou's primary setting.
  • Rika does not own any tanks, but she has a Tank-themed Navi.
  • Letty Whiterock, Cirno's Operator, poses as a technican from NineBall Appliances. Nineball is a nickname attributed to Cirno.
  • TinyOni viruses resemble Suika Ibuki.
  • FlaMeow viruses have two tails, likely a reference to the Nekomata Chen, or the Nekomata Rin, who also has a fire affinity. Chen herself appears as one of Yukari's Navis. They're also a reference to Rin Kaenbyou, a cat demon associated with fire.
  • The BibitiBats are a reference to mooks from the PC-98 era.
  • HatFrog resemble Suwako Moriya's hat.
  • Yukari Yakumo is a CEO of the super-huge conglomerate Border Concern, the name being derived from what she serves as in the original Touhou; making sure the Great Barrier remains stable. And just like in canon, she supplies for Dr. Morichika. Ran and Chen serve as her Navis.
  • Watatsuki no Yorihime, a manga-only character, is featured here as Reisen's Navi, another case of role reversal like with Koakuma and Patchouli.
  • GelPak viruses are a form of Marisa's Mini-Hakkero, and their attack is almost identical to Marisa.EXE's NaviChip too.
  • The pose Remilia is assuming during Medicine's attack on Genso University is reminiscent of her memetic "low block" sprite in the fighting games called Charisma Break.
  • The EvilEye and Flower Tank viruses, which are also found in Rika's homepage, are references to her boss fights in Story of Eastern Wonderland. The EvilEyeΣs found over on Engelles's Yamaze Nadu Statue Comp even share the same color scheme as her "tank".
  • Mari's room has a lot of chemistry and black magic books, as well as medicinal herbs, referencing Marisa's life in the Magical Forest.
  • A Sprite in the School Library Database COMP mentions "Forbidden Scrollery", "Samurai Slayer", and "A Misfit Student (Me) Is Popular Online".
  • One of Border Concern's newest products is the helper robot model named Shikigami... named just like how Yukari's familiars are labeled as.
  • One NPC bemoans an idol named Mystia not showing up. This is a reference to Mystia Lorelei, a night sparrow,but she doesn't show up in this game.
  • The Eien Area area is named after Eientei, the mansion where Reisen and Eirin (and some other people) live. Said mansion is right smack in the middle of The Bamboo Forest of the Lost (which a Navi NPC outright calls the place as), and that's where the area's theme comes from. The forest is full of bunnies, which is reflected by the Area's wallpaper.
  • When SpannerMan outs Tsubaki as an anime fan, when Shanghai disses him for it, the NetOp defends "Wave Hero" as a gripping story, and mentions a "timid protagonist and his alien partner battle on EM waves".
  • Keine is a teacher just like her canon iteration, and she's still known for her devastating headbutt against delinquents. Her Hakutaku form appears as Keine's Navi under the name HakuTakuMan.EXE.
  • Instead of being an Optional Boss or a high-ranking Net Agent, Reimu in this universe is tied to her old roots; a shrine maiden. Her shrine also has a yukkuri statue of herself. And her TortoiseMan is a reference to her turtle Genji in the PC-98 games. The Hakurei Shrine Comp's gimmick involves the Yin-Yang Orbs as keys.
    • In one of the yukkuri statue Comps is a Purple Mystery Data holding the SloGauge Chip, as a reference to how laidback Reimu is in Touhou canon.
  • All of Shanghai's Style Changes reference existing Touhou characters in their appearance: Fighter Style looks like Hong Meiling, Doctor Style looks like Eirin Yagokoro, Gaia Style looks like Suwako Moriya, Wing Style looks like Hatate Himekaidou, Shinobi Style looks somewhat like Toyosatomimi no Miko, and Witch Style looks somewhat like Byakuren Hijiri.
  • Murasa is a ROM Navi encountered messing with the cruise liner controls in a bid to sink it, as a reference to her origins in Touhou canon as the Phantom of the Sea and her purpose in sinking ships.
  • On top of being an Expy of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, Engelles's famous detective novel Bifauxnen protagonist Yamaze Nadu and her Japanese partner Komachi are obviously based on Touhou's judge of the dead Eiki Shiki, Yamaxanadu, and the shinigami Komachi Onozuka.
  • Beyondard, the destination of ROM's goal, is a reference to the very same dimension in Rockman.EXE Beast.
  • Yumeko, the strongest of Shinki's subjects in Touhou canon, appears as the Flowerbed Comp Sprite who desires to become Shinki's Navi, and achieves that wish thanks to the Reincarnation Program delivered by Alice and Shanghai. In fact, Shinki intended to use this name for Alice before settling with the Western name.
  • Yuuka Kazami appears as a florist, befitting her connection to flowers in canon. Her workplace, Mugenkan Incense Cafe and Florist, is named after Mugenkan, the mansion she lived in during the PC-98 games.
  • Turns out that Lloyd (named Troid in the Japanese version and later English versions), Alice's father used to be married to another woman, and their daughter was named Rebecca Marga. Both reference Margatroid, Alice's surname in Touhou canon. It's also revealed that Mama Shinki's first name is Mayumi, which isn't actually a reference to Mayumi Joutouguu, as this fan game was made before the game Joutouguu debuted was released.
  • After Yukari Yakumo flies the coop in the aftermath of her being discovered as a collaborator with ROM, the substitute president is Maribel Hearn, who in the Touhou fanon is seen to have plenty of visual ties with Yukari. In the game, she's also her niece, and just like in canon, she and Renko are best friends.
  • The ROM base, much like the WWW base in Mega Man Battle Network 3: White and Blue, features a waterfall of toxic sludge, a skull-shaped decoration at the top, and an enemy navi attacking you with a themed tank.
• Nerf:
  • Everyone's beloved Fast Gauge doesn't come in * code.
  • There are no Giga Chips, but in their place are Dark Chips whose only drawback is overriding the Full Synchro and Anger emotions with Dark Mind to disable double damage.
  • The infamous FlashMan and PlantMan chips from Battle Network 3 that both damage and stun enemies exist here, but only as Program Advances.
• New Transfer Student: A day after meeting him at Central City Game Center, Nekku Tsubaki joins Alice's class. He's joined by Tenshi Hinanai.
• Noodle Incident: 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, and Alice's computer, came from.
• Nintendo Hard: The game is kind to provide players with firepower but is clearly designed for people already experienced with the Mega Man Battle Network series. There will be bosses with a ton of HP and major difficulty spikes from out of nowhere as well as optional challenges like the powerful virus bounties, so you'd better learn how to quickly deal loads of damage at any situation.
• No Dress Code: Ubiquitous, but a student NPC lampshades that most schools do, but Genso's doesn't. Tsubaki also points out that Genso Middle School is the only place to have a no-uniform policy.
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • 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 between Alice, Wriggle, and Lord Tarakhan.
• No-Sell: Shanghai isn't corrupted by Dark Chips other than having her Emotion briefly changed to evil to cancel other bonuses. This is one of the hints that she isn't a normal Navi. In fact, she's a denizen from Beyondard, transplanted with the memories and DNA of Rebecca Marga, Alice's deceased half-sister. And because DarkChips are meant to corrupt NetNavi Programs...
• One-Hit-Point Wonder:
  • 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 actually use.
  • According to internet rumor reported on the Undernet board, 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. 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.
• One Hit Poly Kill: Double and Triple Deletes boost the virus busting score and give a healing effect for the next chip you use, making Recovery chips obsolete if you're good enough to pull this off frequently.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: When raising viruses, it's best to upgrade them to Version 3 and then use up the ten remaining frag points on either HP or attack. That way both stats are decently raised on top of improving the viruses' rate of attack.
• One-Winged Angel: 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.
• Open-Ended Boss Battle: The exhibition match against BeetleMan at the cruise ship can be lost without a game over.
• Our Sirens Are Different: Whatever their version of a Siren is, which probably matches our own, since this is an Alternate History, they're connected to water, being used as both the name of a cruise ship and a water-element focused chip folder.
• Palette Swap: Ms. Asakura's Navi is one such of a stock Navi usually associated with NetAgents. Other side characters without custom Navis like Alice have these kinds of Navis too. Asakura's Navi also shows up as an N1 proctor.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: "Sue", Yamame's Navi, can plainly be seen as Medicine upon Shanghai spotting her at the Eien Area after qualifying for the N1 League.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The password to get through the first area of the Bonus Dungeon White Heaven, the all-important navi afterlife, is the incredibly simple 12345. After going through so much trouble trying to learn the password, Shanghai is outraged at how simple it is.
• Perception Filter: All Navis have one set up on themselves to hide from SP Viruses, but they can eventually grow strong enough to overcome it. Accepting SP Virus Missions will disable that filter on Shanghai for a specific SP Virus that needs culling. Also, When unlocking a P-Cube with a P-Code, it doesn't actually disappear altogether, only to the Code possesser; everyone else without the P-Code will still see the P-Cube.
  • 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.
• Playable Epilogue: In an avoidance of the Endgame+ paradigm of Battle Network, the postgame of Shanghai.EXE takes place after defeating ROM. Which, thankfully, means no constant crisis music like in Battle Network.
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: During Alice's hangout session with Wriggle, after having to deal with Shanghai constantly butting, after Wriggle leaves, Alice lashes out at her Navi for not giving her a chance to talk to Wriggle. Shanghai in turn was tired of Alice's lack of assertiveness to butt in, and this results in Alice Jacking In Shanghai to the Net and ditching her PET to blow off steam... just in time to almost get kidnapped and be unable to retrieve her PET.
• Plot Tunnel: Alice and Shanghai's cruise means that they leave Japan for a while, as warned by Shanghai when leaving the house:
  We can't come back to Japan for a while, so make sure you have everything you need.
• Power Copying: Deleting a virus with the Z-Knuckle adds their associated chip to your current hand.
• Production Foreshadowing: The GelPack viruses are the basis of the blob protagonist in Technodot's next game, Nantai Todoroki wa Gel-Tank.
• Punny Name:
  • 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.
  • The AxeHawk virus's Chip drop is called TomaHawk, a play on the Native American throwing axe (actually called tamahaac) and "hawk".
• Purple Is the New Black: The D-colored, a.k.a Minus AddOns have a purple Core color, in contrast to R for Red, G for Green and B for Blue, implying that D actually stands for Dark, since like Dark Chips, they're negative.
• The Queenpin: Shanghai runs a Yakuza-esque gang and has a lot of goons (over 200) under her thumb, as well as their operators, and she does employ their use on occasion. Her influence is wide enough to include her goons' NetOps (though her influence at Eien Town is still small to ask Alice to be careful around Mokou), even all the way at Engelles (though still not enough), and even at various companies, including Border Concern itself, for insider trading. She even has enough resources to buy Alice's current PC as a birthday gift, and set up Link Gates, which are usually expensive. That said, even she's not above reporting criminals to the police if they're beyond her or her gang's capabilities. If the Humor program dialogs can be trusted, she has a total of ten executives, each with 20 guys and a vice-exec, and each of those have... a lot.
• Pun: From one of the Humor skits: "Tell Mari I'm in the ground", meaning "Tell merry I'm go-round".
• Randomly Drops: 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, which is the regular way of getting their chips, but Crimson Noise may give navi chips from regular battles, and from bosses the player hasn't even encountered yet. And of course, this mechanic is the only way to obtain the delicious Illegal versions of various chips.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Sagume Kishin, Reisen's boss, having saw her agent's relentless assault on Medicine after discovering her posing as Yamame's Navi, apologizes to her, Alice, and Shanghai for her subordinate's actions, and announces her probation status, and has Yamame send preiodical reports (with the implication that she's trusting Yamame to be truthful).
• Red Baron: Lord Tarakhan identifies Reisen as the Desert Rabbit, though she's abandoned that identity.
  • Alice also gets a few, like the Golden Temptress of Genso Town
• The Reveal: Not unlike the twist from the original Battle Network, Shanghai is the combination of the DNA and memories of Rebecca Marga, Lloyd's other deceased daughter from his first wife (also deceased, making Mayumi Shinki his second wife, whom he met after wandering aimlessly in the aftermath of the aforementioned deaths by mountain rockfall), and the body of a dying girl from Beyondard who washed up on Earth. Lloyd had asked an acquaintance who had researched the cyberworld to treat the child, and they essentially mixed it all together, and Shanghai was "born". And Shanghai was aware of this, and kept it hidden from Alice.
• Relationship Reboot: After Tenshi's been befriended, she and Alice start "fresh", reintroducing themselves at the end of class after the day's incident.
• Riddle for the Ages: One Sprite in the COMP at Kumami's shop's tank photo frame claims that many monsters were born in Arabstan during the Cyber Wars and that Kumami fought them. Are these monsters metaphorical, literal, or narrative fabrications by Kumami?
• Run the Gauntlet: In the sidequest "To Be President", Shanghai has to fight 45 viruses (in 15 3-virus battles) in order to retrieve Ran for the new Border Concern CEO since the viruses were set up by Yukari before she had to escape.
• Scarf of Asskicking: More like Scarf of Cuteness, given its look on Reimu, but she's still a proficient NetBattler despite being younger than Alice.
• Sherlock Scan: While Alice is trying to figure out how to get a stealth plane for infiltrating ROM's HQ, she runs into Wriggle, who came in an incognito flight since Japan is under national emergency. Thanks to being a Yamazian, Wriggle then deduces that Alice is involved in a very serious incident by way of the following.
  1. Alice has been running hard, but has time to talk to Wriggle, so she isn't being hunted. Therefore she's hunting for something.
  2. Wriggle deduces that it has to be ROM since Alice doesn't seem to be the type to go after regular criminal organizations, her skills lie on NetBattling, and ROM's public declaration of war could not be a coincidence.
  3. Wriggle can see Alice's phone screen showing a list of next-gen stealth jet fighters, but since she's running place-to-place, what she's looking for can't be found in an encyclopedia.
  4. Therefore, Alice is looking for a stealth system not announced to the world. And turns out Wriggle had come to Japan in a stealth plane called the Incognito.
• Schmuck Bait: The Hakurei shrine's stone yukkuri has a Number Trader number carved on it, but if you try to use it, it's already been used.
• Shout-Out:
  • TankMan.EXE originates from the Mega Man Unlimited fan game.
  • During Alice's first encounter with Reisen, she mentions that "a terrorist disguised as a student recently shot a government official", hence her overly brutal behavior against a few punks earlier to the point of wanting to shoot them but not being able to indoors. Combined with her mecha and its optical camouflage, it's all a reference to Full Metal Panic!.
  • SpannerMan.EXE could be a reference to the Genex Ally archetype.
  • Nekku Tsubaki himself turns out to be a reference to the hot-blooded Soul Battler Takeshi, rival to Mr. Famous and host of Capcom's NetBattle tournaments
  • PyroMan.EXE is based on the Chakkaman series of lighters. He even has a "chakakaka" tic. He's also visually reminiscent of Morphtronic Datatron's original look.
  • BeetleMan.EXE is based on Gravity Beetle from Mega Man X3.
  • ScissorMan.EXE is based on Deathtanz Mantisk from Mega Man Zero 3. He happens to be fought in a Clock Tower.
  • There's a Nekodolphin plush in Tenshi's house.
  • The PoisonLily virus family is based on the various Lily enemies from Phantasy Star Online.
  • The DunBeetle family of viruses are based on mecha from Aura Battler Dunbine and its spin-off The Wings of Rean. The AuraSword Battle Chips they drop, in turn, are based on an attack unique to their appearances in Super Robot Wars.
  • The SP variant of the Juraigon viruses is called Ratholas, a reference to the iconic Monster Hunter monster Rathalos.
  • The SP variant of the MasLigr virus has a color scheme reminiscent of EVA Unit-02.
  • Reisen is pretty much a whole plot reference to Full Metal Panic!. The G7-Curtis is a homage to the M6 Bushnell with the M9's camo, Reisen's story takes a lot more from Sousuke Sagara.
  • Eien Town has a statue of "Lord Usa, the Loyal Rabbit", whose tale essentially mimics Hachiko's of having "waited his whole life for his master who died in a war to return."
  • Three PunkNavis you fight in a sidequest are named Rusty, Clay, and Moore, which is a reference to the Rusty Claymore.
  • The cruise liner's ship exhibition has references to several Gundam shows.
  • Engelles's famous detective novel Bifauxnen protagonist Yamaze Nadu, with her Japanese partner Komachi are obvious expies of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. One Sprite in the Nadu statue's Comp even says the author wanted people to read his historical novels despite his detective novels being beloved worldwide, just like Arthur Conan Doyle. There's also an archnemesis named Professor Sylio Kuro, a clear expy of Moriarty with a climax at a waterfall where the protagonist seemingly died.
  • Lord Tarakhan's Navi ScissorMan.EXE is based on Deathtanz Mantisk from Mega Man Zero 3
• Sidequest: The NetBattler's Office provides a few of these such as the Request Board for conventional sidequests, and the SP Virus Missions where you can hunt down Elite Mook versions of certain viruses.
• Silliness Switch: 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.
• Sore Loser: Upon losing to Shanghai and Alice for the first time while using the NetBattle Machine, Remilia runs off crying, inadvertently leaving her Navi Sakuya behind. This gets her in trouble when Medicine starts hacking the air purifiers to spew out dirty air. She manages to be better at handling defeats during rematches, though.
• Space People: An old man near the Genso Town metro station on the day of visiting Tenshi at the hospital mentions a space-dwelling people:
  Old Man: When I was young, a war broke out between Earth and the space-dwelling Colony Republic.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: When Alice is at the Net Agent meeting, and the cheery Eien Town soundtrack cuts out suddenly on this line:
  Net Agent: ....Invaders from Beyondard.
• Super Mob Boss: Despite having a lot of goons under her thumb, Shanghai prefers to handle tough problems on her own (read: with Alice as her operator).
• Stalker with a Crush: The female yandere named Carrie who terrorizes some dude in one of the sidequests and has slaughtered every one who has taken this request before Shanghai. She also spams Program Advances, so watch out!
• Stating the Simple Solution: While overhearing Tarakhan's retrieval of the Earth program from Wriggle's pendant, Mokou finds his plans too roundabout (and would've probably just mugged Wriggle, snatch the program from it, and either take it all the way to ROM, or transfer the Program over to her PET and then have it returned to its owner none the wiser).
• Stationary Enemy: Multiple enemies just stand in place unless moved by external forces, such as:
  • 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.
  • Junks: Stay on one tile and fire bombs to wherever Shanghai is.
  • Screwns, that charge up their attack before launching it, no matter where Shanghai is.
• Status Infliction Attack:
  • Each element is associated with statuses like getting blinded, poisoned or slowed down.
  • In the World UnderSquare, there is a hostile HeelNavi named Buyer that specializes on the Blind Leaf chip that is guaranteed to blind the opponent (unless you're on Witch style). Upon defeat, he gets so terrified of Shanghai that he hands out five of them to Shanghai — the only ones that can be obtained in the game, in fact.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite Shanghai being an absolute beast in NetBattle, she can do nothing to help Alice when she sees Wriggle being harassed by an English thug, and neither of them have any reliable means to take him on. Fortunately, Shanghai is also a mob boss, and is able to call up one of her goons' NetOps Richard (a man larger than that thug) to scare him off with his own brand of (gay) harassment.
• Sweet Polly Oliver: 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 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, but a princess to boot. As Alice is straight (in an aversion of Touhou fanworks' typical Cast Full of Gay policy), she's massively disappointed after getting over the shock:
  (Goodbye, my first love...)
• Synchronization: Just like in Battle Network, Alice and Shanghai can achieve this level beyond Full Synchro, called Perfect Synchro. 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 Troid out for not revealing that.
• Takes One to Kill One: Shanghai is key to stopping ROM because, like her, its leader is a Beyondard denizen, and one of great power to boot.
• Tank Goodness:
  • 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 attraction for the shop.
• Theme Music Powerup: The Main Theme plays whenever something heroic happens, like Proof of Courage and its successors in the Battle Network series.
• That Makes Me Feel Angry: Like elcor, Sprites show their emotions very subtly, and so they proclaim them by declaring them as they talk.
• Tournament Arc: The N1 League scenario at the Game Center, where Reimu is the final rival operator, and where you face Tsubaki in the quarter-finals.
• Translator Microbes: Upon first entering the cruise ship, Shanghai offers to run the automatic translation program. If you refuse, Alice states her English will be fine, thanks to Shanghai teaching her, so this choice doesn't actually affect game dialog.
• Trauma Inn: Buying a bed for Shanghai's private area in Alice's home page actually heals her of all HP.
• Turns Red: HakuTakuMan activates BeastOut upon reaching 50% HP, becoming much more aggressive and his attack pattern is altered.
• Uncanny Valley: In-universe, Autoroids are these to NetNavis since the former essentially look like the generic variants of the latter, but without any sapience whatsoever.
• Verbal Tic: Rika always adds extra emphasis when she talks! She does! Her homepage Sprite has the exact same tic.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: After his hostage attempt on Wriggle is foiled by Reisen, Lord Tarakhan uses a flashbang and escapes via hang-glider.
  • When Reisen and Alice confront Yukari and deal with everything she was able to throw at them, the CEO uses her teleportation tech to escape.
• Warm-Up Boss: The first boss is Letty Whiterock's Navi Cirno, who's been on a fridge-freezing spree. Her attacks consist of charging forward (encased in ice), an Ice Tower she spawns in a straight line from herself, and can coat herself in a spiky ball of ice and land on where Shanghai is at, leaving it cracked when evaded, toss an ice seed to convert a panel to Ice, and summon icicles to rain down on your panels. Despite the wide variety of attacks, she's not that tough.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: ROM's boss thinks little of autonomous Navis such as Medicine, ultimately resulting in her Heel–Face Turn.
• When Dimensions Collide: ROM's ultimate plot is to merge Beyondard and Earth together for massive chaos.
• Worldbuilding: This game expands on a lot of things Battle Network mostly glosses over, such as why Navis use Battle Chips for busting, and why viruses exist everywhere.
• Would Hurt a Child: Just for payback for what Shanghai did, Mokou is willing to set PyroMan into the Hakurei Shrine Comp and set it on fire, knowing full well that Reimu might've been there when things started burning. Not to mention that Alice is a kid herself. Even Shanghai is pissed that Mokou didn't just face her straight on, and for that she deletes PyroMan. Turns out she also stole the Holy Program from the Shrine to ROM, though she doesn't officially join them, and hopes for payback against Shanghai.
  • Tarakhan takes things even further. In Engelles, he confronts Alice with a gun and threatens her to give him a pendant, planning to rough her up purely because she ran when he chased her. Once that attempt fails, he opts to instead kidnap Alice's friend Wriggle (actually a princess in disguise) with the intention of using them as a hostage to get the pendant from Alice. And after he successfully obtains it, he intends to try and execute Wriggle anyway.
• You Are Fat: On the second day of the game, when Shanghai's getting analyzed, 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.
• You Have Failed Me: Subverted. Despite Letty losing Cirno to Shanghai, her boss isn't that disappointed since she still succeeded in getting the 30 Ice Programs ROM needed and is willing to let it slide.
  • Played straight however with Medicine, who gets kicked out of ROM after her failure against Shanghai, leaving her on the run from the NetAgents. That is why they didn't just delete her.

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