We’re closing in on the fortieth anniversary of the Mega Man franchise happening next year. We have the next mainline entry in the series coming next year to celebrate. In the lead up to that, and for the past few years, Capcom has been celebrating the Blue Bomber and his many iterations in the form of collections of all the spinoff series from the franchise. One of the last to come is the most recent version of Mega Man in the form of the Star Force iteration. Now, with this being the twenty year anniversary of the Star Force series, The Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection brings the entire series to modern platforms for fans who played years ago or new fans, like myself, to experience.
The Mega Man Star Force games first debuted on the Nintendo DS back in late 2006 in Japan and late 2007 for the rest of the world. These games are spiritual successors to the Game Boy Advance era Battle Network series. Capcom even followed the formula of splitting the games up into different versions. The first game actually has three separate versions, and both the second and third games reverted back to the classic two version set up. The Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection brings all seven of the games together along with an art gallery to explore as well as an online battle mode for players to build their best folders to tackle the competition.
What surprised me most about this collection is how seamlessly the developers transitioned the games from the dual screens of the Nintendo DS to single screen modern platforms. There were numerous times where I totally forgot the second screen still exists in the games as the collection defaults the second screen to a small square in the corner of the screen. However, you are able to change the size of the second screen or swap between the two screens at the push of a button, though the second screen doesn’t have much use throughout the games.
As for the games themselves, like their predecessors, the Star Force games are RPGs that follow a young boy and his blue companion. This time you control Geo Stellar and his partner an EM alien being known as Omega-Xis who combine into Mega Man to take on their foes throughout their adventures. The gameplay of these games is still similar to the Battle Network games as you traverse the real world as Geo and the EM World, similar to the Net in the previous games, as Mega Man. However, the EM World is basically just plastered on top of the existing real world map and, thus, loses some of the style and uniquness that the Net had for each different area in the previous games.
Then, there’s the actually gameplay which is the biggest difference between the two RPG series. The Star Force games still have you building up a folder of Battle Cards (not Battle Chips) to to take on the viruses and foes you encounter. Though, this time around, the battle system is way more streamlined with a bigger focus on action combat than the more tactical combat of Battle Network. Battles still take place on a separate battle grid, though Mega Man can only move horizontally in his row while enemies can move, depending on their movement abilities, on a bigger grid. This did make battles far easier than I expected as a fan of the Battle Network games. No fight felt challenging at all and I was just dominating most battles with even the tougher boss encounters a breeze. The collection also features a plethora of difficulty modifiers for players to adjust such as how much dame you do or take, the encounter rate for random enemies, and even a full heal after every battle. Again, with how easy the games already felt, these modifiers remove any of the minimal challenge that was present in the game already.
What I did really like about the Star Force games was the story and characters the games introduce. Watching Geo’s growth from the start of the first game to the culmination of the last games was great and gave him a lot more depth than Lan had in his six games. Then the side characters are all far more appealing and engaging than those from the Battle Network games with Geo’s circle of friends, especially Luna and Sonia, having much more of an impact on the story and Geo’s character overall. Plus, the updated character portraits give a lot more personality to the characters as they look more in line with their official character art than the more pixelated versions from the originals.
Overall, the Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection brings one of the Blue Bomber’s lesser played and followed series to more modern standards for people to enjoy. With seven games to play, there’s a lot of content for those to jump into despite the multiple versions having minor differences. The updates and quality of life features really make playing these games far easier than they were back when they first released. The Mega Man Star Force Legacy Collection is another great collection Capcom has put together for their most beloved franchises.
Score: 8 out of 10
Reviewed on PlayStation 5