Mega Man’s third RPG trilogy asks if you can have too much of a just-fine thing.
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To consider the Mega Man Star Force series without comparing it to the Mega Man Battle Network series is impossible for anyone familiar with both. It seems to have been just as difficult a distinction to make for the developers. Star Force is at once a sequel, a reboot, and oblivious to what came before.
For context, Battle Network imagined a world where everyone was addicted to their phones that hooked into every appliance. Users could control an AI buddy to run around the internet and battle viruses. The main character’s AI buddy, Mega Man, was very special for extremely anime plot reasons. Battle Network could be considered a minor phenomenon with annual GBA releases, tons of toys, and a localized anime series.
Instead of continuing Battle Network on DS, Capcom released Mega Man Star Force in three flavors: Leo, Pegasus, and Dragon. The biggest difference seems to be which sky NPC grants you a special battle ability, but all share the same story. Geo Stelar, a sad boy, partners with Omega-Xis, a gruff alien warrior no one else can see, to fight wi-fi aliens bent on destroying Earth. When merged, they become Mega Man, the only human capable of traversing the wave world.
Geo and Mega both struggle to open up, Geo stunted by the loss of his astronaut father and Mega obsessed with revenge against the aliens pursuing him. They slowly learn to trust each other – and others – as each scenario unfolds. Instead of making friends, people in the Star Force universe make Brother Bands, something between a platonic marriage and a phone contact. Brothers give Mega Man passive abilities in battle and occasionally trigger special attacks. Although Brother Bands are a driving force in the story, including being the life’s work that got Geo’s dad killed in space, Geo only becomes Brothers with two girls and no boys until the very end of the first game.
Battle Network’s leads seem to make friends effortlessly and are closer than brothers. The internet they explore is full of people, but Star Force’s wave world is a disconnected, empty loneliness. The wave world is overlayed on the physical world, removing the abstraction of Battle Network’s web and mirroring the emotional barrier between Geo and the world. He can’t start a conversation without first looking through a person’s phone to learn about them. Mega Man as a secret alter ego becomes the mask for his depression and the conduit for his rehabilitation. Geo is the one sad about his dad. Mega Man is here to help. By the start of Star Force 3, everyone can see the wave world, and everyone has a little AI buddy on their phone.
To imply the story has much depth would be misleading, but it does offer a comforting cadence to those of the era and an episodic narrative alternative to modern ongoing service games. Story arcs play out like a Saturday morning cartoon, and you can guess who the next boss will be as soon as they appear onscreen. Geo probably befriends them. Nearly every object in the world has a description, and game mechanics fit the internal world logic no matter how contrived. Here is a fully realized world you can stop in to stay a while, if you’d like. As long as you can withstand the camp.
However, Star Force’s battle system is probably a much bigger factor in whether you’d like to stay. Mega Man dazzles in a new behind-the-back perspective, thanks to the increased power of the Nintendo DS, as he dodges left and right for the opportunity to strike. Every few seconds, the player can choose moves from a hand of six cards, then time their use with the A button. B fires off a little blaster, Down jumps you forward to an enemy, and Y puts up a simple shield. Countering an enemy just as it attacks stuns that enemy and gives Mega Man a bonus attack.
Geo has hundreds of cards to collect in each game, and the Legacy Collection adds long-lost cards from Japanese toys and events. The huge variety of attacks and different form changes in each entry keep battles from getting stale, especially as enemy attacks get harder to dodge. The chip-code system and secret combos from Battle Network are gone, so cards work in any combinations, simplifying deck-building. Battle cards, health power-ups, and weapons litter the wave world’s mazes and dungeons, and nearly every NPC gets a sidequest.
The series looks nice on Switch with multiple viewing options to juggle the DS’s screens and toggleable high-res options. Paired with the optional new music, Star Force could pass for a modern indie, although the pixel smoothing looks a bit smeary. Unfortunately, the text and a few other UI elements are trapped in ultra-smooth HD, so the perfect retro look is out of reach. A built-in cheat menu can unstick some stubbornness, like turning down encounters when a puzzle asks you to memorize a combination from the other side of the map.
Other bonus stuff includes a gallery, a jukebox where you can replace the battle music with other tracks (but not the omnipresent crisis music), and an achievement menu. Achievements were mostly things like “beat the game” or “collect every card” and didn’t seem to unlock anything. There’s also a robust menu for online multiplayer, but no one seemed to be online during the review period.
This being a Legacy Collection brings up the question of Star Force’s legacy. While not bad games, the series is more continuation than evolution of the previous series, especially in presentation, story, and age range. Star Force 3 was also the direct predecessor to the somewhat ongoing Mega Man drought. While the perfect cure for a shonen anime friendship speech craving, Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection feels a bit interchangeable with what came before.
Topic: Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection (Switch) Review (Read 21 times)
